William IV of the United Kingdom William IV of the United Kingdom William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded his elder brother George IV, becoming the last king and penultimate monarch of Britain's House of Hanover. William served in the Royal Navy in his youth, spending time in North America and the Caribbean, and was later nicknamed the "Sailor King". In 1789, he was created Duke of Clarence and St
Coronation of the British monarch when the fourth recension was first used, having been compiled over several preceding decades. Although influenced by its French counterpart, the new "ordo" focussed on the balance between the monarch and his nobles and on the oath, neither of which concerned the absolutist French kings. One manuscript of this recension is the "Liber Regalis" at Westminster Abbey which has come to be regarded as the definitive version. Following the start of the reformation in England, the boy king Edward VI had been crowned in the first Protestant coronation in 1547, during which Archbishop Thomas Cranmer preached a sermon against idolatry