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became the Reform Act 1832. Parliament proceeded to other reforms, including the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire and the restriction of child labour, but William IV had little to do with their passage.

Later years

For the remainder of his reign, William interfered actively in politics only once, in 1834; when he became the last Sovereign to choose a Prime Minister contrary to the will of Parliament. Two years after the passage of the Reform Act of 1832, the ministry had become unpopular and also lost the King's support due to its support for the reform of the Church of Ireland. In 1834, Lord Grey resigned; one of the Whigs in his cabinet, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, replaced him. The Melbourne administration, for the most part, included the same members as the Grey administration; though disliked by many in the country, it retained an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons. Its reforming ways, however, were obnoxious to the King.

In October 1834, the Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Charles Spencer, Viscount Althorp, inherited a peerage, thus removing him from the House of Commons to the Lords. Because of this, he was forced to relinquish his posts—traditionally, a member of the House of Lords could hold neither post. All agreed that this required a partial reconstruction of the Cabinet, but William IV claimed that the ministry had been weakened beyond repair. He used the removal of Lord Althorp—not from the Government, but from one House to the other—as the pretext for the dismissal of the entire ministry.

With Lord Melbourne gone, William IV chose to entrust power to a Tory, Sir Robert Peel. Since Peel was then in Italy, the Duke of Wellington was provisionally appointed Prime Minister. When Peel returned and assumed leadership of the ministry for himself, he saw the impossibility of governing because of the large Whig majority in the House of Commons. Consequently, the King dissolved Parliament and forced fresh elections. Although the Tories won more seats than the previous election, they were still in the minority. Peel remained in office for a few months, but resigned after a series of parliamentary defeats. Lord Melbourne was restored to the Prime Minister's office, remaining there for the rest of William's reign.

William IV died in 1837 in Windsor Castle, where he was buried. As he had no living legitimate issue, the Crown of the United Kingdom passed to his eighteen-year-old niece, HRH Princess Victoria of Kent. Under the Salic Law, a woman could not rule Hanover; thus, the Hanoverian Crown went to William IV's brother, HRH Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. William's death thus ended the personal union of Britain and Hanover, which had persisted since 1714. Although William IV had no legitimate children, and is, therefore, not the direct ancestor of the later monarchs of the United Kingdom, he has many descendants through his illegitimate family with Mrs Jordan, including the man elected as leader of the Conservative Party in 2005, David Cameron.

Legacy

William's reign was short, but eventful. The ascendancy of the House of Commons and the corresponding decline of the House of Lords was marked by the Reform Crisis, during which the threat of flooding the Upper House with peers was used effectively for the first time by a ministry. The weakening of the House of Lords continued during the nineteenth century, and culminated during the twentieth century with the passage of the Parliament Act 1911. The same threat which had been used during the Reform Crisis—the threat to flood the House of Lords by creating several new peers—was used to procure the passage of the Parliament Act.

The reduction in the influence of the Crown was clearly indicated by the events of William's reign, especially the dismissal of the Melbourne ministry. The crisis relating to Melbourne's dismissal also indicated the reduction in the King's influence with the people. During the reign of George III, the King could have dismissed one ministry, appointed another, dissolved Parliament, and expected the people to vote in favour of the new administration. Such was the result of a dissolution in 1784, after the dismissal of the Coalition Ministry; such was the result of a dissolution in 1807, after the dismissal of William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville. But when William IV dismissed the Melbourne ministry, the Tories under Sir Robert Peel were not able to win the ensuing elections. Thus, the King's ability to influence the opinion of the people, and therefore generally dictate national policy, had been reduced. None of William's successors has attempted to remove a ministry and appoint another against the wishes of Parliament.

Style and arms

William's official style while King was, "William the Fourth, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith".

His arms were:- Quarterly, I and IV Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland); overall an escutcheon tierced per pale and per chevron (for Hanover), I Gules two lions passant guardant Or (for Brunswick), II Or a semy of hearts Gules a lion rampant Azure (for L¸neburg), III Gules a horse courant Argent (for Westfalen), the whole inescutcheon surmounted by a crown.

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