William IV

“ His brother, William IV., who succeeded him, was not his equal in natural ability, but was more respectable in his character and more liberal in his views. With William IV. began the undisputed ascendency of the House of Commons in national affairs. Before his day, no prime minister could govern against the will of the sovereign. After George IV., as in France under Louis Philippe, "the king reigned, but did not govern." The chief of the ascendent political party was the real ruler.
When William IV. ascended the throne the Tories were still in power, and were hostile to reform. ”

“ What other dynasty in Western Europe does not envy William his six handsome, sturdy, and superbly healthy little sons? Seeing them with their shining, bright-eyed faces and ordinary well-worn clothes, one cannot but reflect upon the contrast afforded at Vienna, where the great rival house of Hapsburg is dying miserably out in pallid epileptics and vicious dullards.
These six fine boys, the oldest of whom is now in his tenth year, are reared in the Spartan traditions of the Hohenzollerns. Winter and summer they are up at six o’clock and into their cold tubs with merciless punctuality. ”

“ King William IV. is a true friend of the people, and is in the hearts and affections of his people. My prayer is that God may bless our great Father the King, and make his reign to be prosperous! Long live the King!
Friday 9th. — In the morning Brother Hannah breakfasted with us. At 10, a. m., Mr. W. M. Bunting sent his gig to drive me to Leeds. Mrs. B. accompanied me to the above place, where we took dinner at an Inn. ”

“ Unfortunately, this swift and unexpected shifting of history’s lime-light revealed young William in extremely repellent colours. Many circumstances, working together in the shadows behind the throne, had combined to put him into a temporary attitude toward his parents, which showed very badly under this sudden and fierce illumination. “Ho, ho! He is a bad son, then, is he?” we all said, and made up our minds to dislike him on the spot. ”

“ None save Duke William could bend Duke William's bow, and while these glowing accounts of him were written from a later standpoint, and his story might easily be read backward, as a fulfilment of prophecy, we can be sure, at least, that his power asserted itself in a marked way, and that he soon gained importance and mustered a respectable company of followers as the beginning of a brilliant and almost irresistible court and army. Even King Henry of France was jealous of his vassal's rising fame and popularity, and felt obliged to pay William a deference that his years did not merit. ”

“ Some historians who have preceded us, fall into what we consider the error of eulogising William as if he had been the author of all the good that occurred in his reign, when the fact is that a great deal was accomplished, not alone without his agency, but actually in spite of him. When he came, or rather when he was called to the throne, the nation had profited by experience, and had become equally sensible to the dangers of democratic excess and of absolute monarchy. ”

“ This King William that we speak about was a very wise man and very rich; more worshipped, and stronger than any of his foregangers were. He was mild to the good men that loved God, and beyond all metes stark to those who withsaid his will. On that same ground where God gave him that he should win England, he reared a noble minster and set monks there and well endowed it. ”

“ William, however, was not in a mood to be pleased. He told Philip, on taking leave of him, that he was losing the most powerful vassal that any lord sovereign ever had, by the course which he had decided to pursue. "I would have held the whole realm of England as a part of your dominions, acknowledging you as sovereign over all, if you had consented to render me your aid, but I will not do it since you refuse. I shall feel bound to repay only those who assist me." ”

“ In 1086 every landowner in England swore to be faithful to King William within and without England and to defend him against his enemies. The subject’s duty to the King was to any duty which the vassal might owe to any inferior lord. When the King was the embodiment of national unity and orderly government, this was the greatest of all steps in the direction of both. Never did William or any other man act more distinctly as an English statesman, never did any one act tell more directly towards the later making of England, than this memorable act of the Conqueror. ”

“ No monarch has more endeared himself to his subjects (p. 78) than William IV.; and the Duchess of Kent is grossly mistaken if she thinks to ingratiate herself with the people of this country by opposition to the will and disrespect to the power of the King. ”

“ William IV. cherished affectionate feelings towards his niece; unfortunately he took offence at the duchess of Kent for declining to let her child come and live at his court for several months in each year, and through the whole of his reign there was strife between the two; and Prince Leopold was no longer in England to act as peacemaker.
In the early hours of the 20th of June 1837, William IV. died. His thoughts had dwelt often on his niece, and he repeatedly said that he was sure she would be “a good woman and a good queen. ”

“ It was this feeling, probably, quite as much as any settled hostility to William's right to reign, that made his barons so eager to engage in insurrections and rebellions. There was, however, after all, a real and deep-seated opposition to William's right of succession, founded in the ideas of the day. They could not well endure that one of so humble and even ignominious birth, on the mother's side, should be the heir of so illustrious a line as the great dukes of Normandy. William's enemies were accustomed to designate him by opprobrious epithets, derived from the circumstances of his birth. ”

“ He holds himself with arrow-like straightness, bears his uniform or robes with proud grace, and draws his features into a kind of mask of imperial dignity and reserved wisdom and strength very impressive to the beholder. It is with what may be called this official countenance of William’s that the general public is chiefly familiar, for he assumes it in front of the photographer’s camera, just as he does on parade, at formal gatherings, and even in his carriage when he drives through the streets. ”

“ Emperor William, who in many things is so exceedingly reactionary, and so apparently assured that royalty is constructed of an entirely different clay than that used for ordinary folks, gave a manifestation of those democratic notions which constitute such a paradox to the remainder of his character by sending forth his three eldest boys each year during their holidays on a pedestrian tour through the length and breadth of his dominions, just as if they were the sons of artisans, and were compelled to learn a trade for a living. ”

“ In 1837 people did not do things by halves. De mortuis nil nisi bonum doubled its meaning from the fervour of the abuse and obloquy cast upon the subject of it during life. William IV. found even his Queen—to whom, by the way, though she was jostled on the edge of accession by Mrs. Jordan and others, he seems to have been devoted—satirized, lampooned, vilified, by press and tongues alike. No sooner is he himself dead than his demise becomes “mournful intelligence,” “melancholy event,” “affecting news,” “distressing circumstance of the death of our beloved monarch.” ”

“ Had William’s whole life been spent in the duties of a Norman duke, ruling his duchy wisely, defending it manfully, the world might never have known him for one of its foremost men, but his life on that narrower field would have been useful and honourable almost without a drawback. ”

“ As soon as the decease of his majesty was known, his next brother, William Henry, Duke of Clarence, was proclaimed by the title of William IV. The new monarch in a short time rendered himself very popular by the plainness of his habits and manners, and by the condescension, or rather the familiarity of his intercourse with his people—qualities which rendered him more popular by a comparison with the secluded life of his predecessors. ”

“ It is unfortunately only too true that, at all periods of history, even the most recent history of the most civilized countries, there are evils that legislation will not trouble itself to deal with until legislators have been made to know by some deeds of violence that if relief will not come, civil disturbance must come. The whole story of the reign of William the Fourth is the story of an age of reform, although no particular credit can be given to the monarch himself for that splendid fact. ”

“ With this exhibition of judicious restraint, which rises to the full measure of the vast responsibilities and anxious necessities of his position, our chronological record of William’s three-years’ reign may be fittingly brought to a close. The added narrative which is held in store for us by the future may be tempestuous and discoloured by fire and blood; far better, it may be a gentle story of increasing wisdom, of good deeds done and peace made a natural state instead of an emergency in the minds of men. ”

“ It was said that the royal ear lent itself with no marked repugnance to suggestions which might rid the sovereign of ministers, who, after all, were the ministers not of his choice, but of his necessity. But William IV., after two failures in a similar attempt, after his respective embarrassing interviews with Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne, on their return to office in 1832 and 1835, was resolved never to make another move unless it were a checkmate. The king, therefore, listened and smiled, and loved to talk to his favourites of his private feelings and secret hopes ”

“ At least the Holy Father no longer indulged illusions as to what the German Emperor was like—but in his mild, tranquil manner confided to certain members of his intimate household the pious fear that William was a conceited and headstrong young man, whose reign would end in disaster. ”

“ William's claims to the English throne. It is not to be supposed that, even in the warlike times of which we are writing, such a potentate as a duke of Normandy would invade a country like England, so large and powerful in comparison to his own, without some pretext. William's pretext was, that he himself was the legitimate successor to the English crown, and that the English king who possessed it at the time of his invasion was a usurper. In order that the reader may understand the nature and origin of this his claim, it is necessary to relate somewhat in full the story of the Lady Emma. ”

“ All the adventurous spirits of Christendom flocked to the holy banner, under which Duke William, the most renowned knight and sagest general of the age, promised to lead them to glory and wealth in the fair domains of England. His army was filled with the chivalry of Continental Europe, all eager to save their souls by fighting at the Pope's bidding, eager to signalize their valor in so great an enterprise, and eager also for the pay and the plunder which William liberally promised. ”

“ He was a staunch conservative, and during his life was supposed to be an insuperable obstacle to any threatened innovations. William IV once said in his presence, ‘When Goodall goes I'll make you [Keate] provost;’ to which he replied, ‘I could not think of “going” before your majesty.’ He kept his word, and died 25 March 1840. ”

“ Thus with practical completeness had the ancient dynasties of old Germany been subordinated to and absorbed by the ascendency of the Hohenzollerns, when young William II stepped upon the throne. Thus, too, with this passing glance at their abasement or annihilation, the way is cleared for us to study the young chief of this mighty and consolidated Empire, to examine his personality and his power, and, by tracing their growth during the first three years of his reign, to forecast their ultimate mark upon the history of his time. ”

“ The Regency of Bishop Odo and Earl William.—The rule of those whom King William left in England to govern in his name was not of a kind to win much love from the English people. William himself seems to have done all that he could to gain the good will of his new subjects, consistently with firmly establishing his own power. He could be harsh, and even cruel, when it served his purpose; but at no time does he seem to have been guilty of mere wanton oppression for oppression’s sake. He was always strict in punishing open wrong-doers of any kind, of whatever nation. ”

“ The point is that William required the personal presence of every man whose personal allegiance he thought worth having. Every man in the mixed assembly, mixed indeed in race and speech, the King’s own men and the men of other lords, took the oath and became the man of King William. On that day England became for ever a kingdom one and indivisible, which since that day no man has dreamed of parting asunder. ”

“ When King William of England wore his cynehelm in church and hall, King Eadgar of Scotland, first of his men in rank and honour, bore the sword of state before his lord. [639] Was that day of pride and pomp merely a day of pride and pomp, or were any of the great affairs of William’s kingdom and empire dealt with in the joint presence of the Monarch of Britain and his kingly vassal? One thing only we know; one act alone of that gathering is recorded. But that act is one which has no small fitness as the one act which we know that the Red King did in his new building. ”