William IV and III (An Orange Dynasty)

William IV and III (Frederick William Henry; O.S. 14 April 1692 – 3 November 1755) was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 27 August 1719 to his death.

Born in London to the co-monarchs William III and Mary II, Fredrick William was brought up in England under the tutelage of Anglican ministers during the tumultuous years of the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. Being raised by Tories as requested by his mother, the future king developed a sense of authority and royal privilege his parents did not hold, leading to several confrontations with them in his teenage years over national policy and the rights of the crown.

After ascending to the monarchy in 1719, William began to exercise more control over Parliament and the direction of the national policies of his nations, his interventionist nature aggrieving Whig ministers who formed the opposition during his time as king. Despite being a war for the majority of his reign, fighting primarily in the Fifteen Years War and the War of French Succession, he was a lover of peace and commerce, a view he shared with his appointed Tory ministers in the English Parliament which often left him at odds with his eldest surviving son and future king, Edward VII and I. In 1740 at the height of the War of French Succession, William's cousin William, Duke of Gloucester led troops against the Jacobite pretender James Francis Edward Stuart during the uprising of 1740, routing the claimant in one of the last battles on British soil and diffusing the Jacobite threat.

For many years after his reign, history tended to view William as an increasingly authoritarian monarch who rapidly scaled back the reforms of his parents and sought to eliminate the rights granted to the majority of his subjects. Since then, however, scholars have begun to reassess his rule as one of necessary control during a period of adverse conflict, as well praising his promotion of commerce and mercantile relations.