William IV of The United Kingdom - Relationships and Marriage

Relationships and Marriage

From 1791, the Duke of Clarence lived for 20 years with an Irish actress, Dorothea Bland, better known by her stage name, Mrs. Jordan, the title "Mrs" being assumed at the start of her stage career to explain an inconvenient pregnancy and "Jordan" because she had "crossed the water" from Ireland to Britain.

William was part of the first generation to grow to maturity under the Royal Marriages Act 1772, which forbade descendants of George II from marrying unless they obtained the monarch's consent, or, if over the age of 25, giving twelve months' notice to the Privy Council. Several of George III's sons, including William, chose to cohabit with the women they loved, rather than seeking a wife. After all, the younger sons, including William, were not expected to figure in the succession, which was considered secure once the Prince of Wales married and had a daughter, Princess Charlotte.

William appeared to enjoy the domesticity of his life with Mrs. Jordan. The Duke remarked to a friend, "Mrs. Jordan is a very good creature, very domestic and careful of her children. To be sure she is absurd sometimes and has her humours. But there are such things more or less in all families." The couple, while living quietly, enjoyed entertaining, with Mrs. Jordan writing in late 1809: "We shall have a full and merry house this Christmas, 'tis what the dear Duke delights in." The King, generally somewhat of a prude, was accepting of his son's relationship with the actress (though recommending that he halve her allowance) and in 1797, created William Ranger of Bushy Park, which included a large residence, Bushy House, for William's growing family. William used Bushy as his principal residence until he became King. His London residence, Clarence House, was constructed to the designs of John Nash between 1825 and 1827.

The couple had ten illegitimate children, five sons and five daughters, nine of whom were named for William's siblings, and who were given the surname "FitzClarence". The affair lasted for twenty years before ending in 1811. Mrs. Jordan at least had no doubt as to the reason for the break-up: "Money, money, my good friend, has, I am convinced made HIM at this moment the most wretched of men," adding, "With all his excellent qualities, his domestic virtues, his love for his lovely children, what must he not at this moment suffer?" Mrs. Jordan was given a financial settlement of £4400 (equal to £243,400 today) per year and custody of the daughters, on condition she did not resume the stage. When she did take up her acting career again, to repay debts incurred by her son-in-law (the husband of one of Mrs. Jordan's daughters from a previous relationship), the Duke took custody of the daughters and stopped paying the £1500 (equal to £82,600 today) designated for their maintenance. With her career failing, she fled to France to escape her creditors, and died, impoverished, near Paris in 1816.

William had another illegitimate son, William, before he met Mrs. Jordan and whose mother is unknown, who drowned off Madagascar in HMS Blenheim in 1807. Caroline von Linsingen, whose father was a general in the Hanoverian infantry, claimed to have had a son, Heinrich, by William in around 1790 but William was not in Hanover at the time that she claims and the story is considered implausible.

Deeply in debt, the Duke made multiple attempts towards marrying a wealthy heiress, but his suits were unsuccessful. However, when the Duke's niece, Princess Charlotte, the second-in-line to the throne, died in childbirth in 1817, the King was left with twelve children, but no legitimate grandchildren. The race was on among the Royal Dukes to marry and produce an heir. William had great advantages in this race—his two older brothers were both childless and estranged from their wives (who were both probably beyond childbearing age) and William was the healthiest of the three. If he lived long enough, he would almost certainly become King, and have the opportunity to sire the next monarch. However, William's first choices to wed either met with the disapproval of the Prince Regent or turned him down. His younger brother, the Duke of Cambridge, was sent to Germany to scout out the available Protestant princesses; he came up with Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel, but her father declined the match. Two months later, the Duke of Cambridge married her himself. Eventually, a princess was found who was amicable, home-loving, and was willing to accept, even enthusiastically welcome, William's nine surviving children, several of whom had not yet reached adulthood. At Kew on 11 July 1818, William married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, the daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. At 25, Adelaide was half William's age.

The marriage, which lasted almost twenty years until William's death, was a happy one. The new Duchess took both William and his finances in hand. For their first year of marriage, the couple lived in economical fashion in Germany, and William's debts were soon on the way to being paid, especially since Parliament had voted him an increased allowance, which he reluctantly accepted after his requests to increase it further were refused. William is not known to have had mistresses after his marriage.

The couple had two short-lived daughters and Adelaide suffered three miscarriages. Despite this, false rumours that Adelaide was pregnant persisted into William's reign—he dismissed them as "damned stuff".