WI: William IV Dies At Antwerp?

I was recently reading about the life of King William IV of England and was interested to find that he had a lucky escape at the 1813 Battle of Antwerp. How, in your opinion, might history have changed had he not dodged this particular bullet?
 
Significantly. "Silly Billy" arguably saved the British monarchy from either lurching towards absolutist tyranny or being overthrown in a revolution by behaving with complete constitutional propriety in the various crises surrounding the Great Reform Bill. He wasn't terribly bright but had the saving grace of realising that he wasn't terribly bright and acted accordingly - did everything by the book. A cleverer man would probably have aligned with one side or another and made political enemies. Victoria was already next in line to him at the time George IV died so we might have had a Regency crisis and/or the very dubious Sir John Conroy getting his hands on some political power.
Longer term? Well in 1914 one of his (illegitimate) descendants Brigadier Fitzclarence played a distinguished role with the British Expeditionary Force, and helped ensure that the German forces didn't take Paris. If the man who was in command with no Fitzclarence ITTL was either less brave or less competent the Germans might have won WWI in the West in 1914.
 
Of course, the PoD is before Victoria was born. If some butterfly causes her to be born male instead of female, then a great deal is changed.
 
Fair point, but Kent and Clarence weren't that close and unless Kent had married Queen Adelaide (was she a more desirable match?) instead of the Duchess of Kent (can't remember who she was before the marriage) I don't see how the death of his brother 17 odd years before would have had butterfly effects affecting Victoria. Adelaide was probably infertile as William IV had no problem at all creating children with Mrs Jordan. If Kent had married her instead then "Arise King Ernest". Um... now that would be interesting
 
Fair point, but Kent and Clarence weren't that close and unless Kent had married Queen Adelaide (was she a more desirable match?) instead of the Duchess of Kent (can't remember who she was before the marriage) I don't see how the death of his brother 17 odd years before would have had butterfly effects affecting Victoria. Adelaide was probably infertile as William IV had no problem at all creating children with Mrs Jordan. If Kent had married her instead then "Arise King Ernest". Um... now that would be interesting

Adelaide had six kids by Silly Billy, two daughters (Charlotte and Elizabeth), stillborn twin sons, another prematurely born stillborn son and a miscarriage.

But William was already considering marriage BEFORE his niece died.

During the 1790s William was considered as a match for Princess Sophia of Gloucester. After George IV and the duke of York became alienated from their wives, a match for him was proposed with Amalie Katharina of Baden (twin sister of the Queen of Bavaria), but was dropped when Franz I started eyeing her as potential wife no 3. Then he attempted to marry Auguste of Hesse-Kassel (OTL duchess of Cambridge) as well as a British heiress (can't remember her name, right now) before he landed on Adelaide.

As to fertility it is an often passed about rumor that Kent was sterile (after all, he'd lived with Madame de Saint-Laurent) almost as long as what Clarence and Mrs Jordan cohabited, but there were no FitzKents running around. Most likely, either Kent had a very low sperm count OR Mme de St-Laurent was barren.

Adelaide's dowry, OTOH resulted in the taxes in Meiningen being raised for 5years to meet the sum required. Whereas Viktoria of Coburg, dowager Princess of Leiningen, had very little to recommend her, save the fact that she was the sister of Prince Leopold (widower of Princess Charlotte), since Coburg had been in the French camp most of the Napoleonic Wars, she had few dynastic connections (her sister would've been Czarina if her husband hadn't driven her away, but her other siblings were married either to a Hungarian countess or a Czech noble, plus I think I read somewhere that Leopold had to supplement her dowry to marry Edward from his own income, in order to make it suitable).
 
I was recently reading about the life of King William IV of England and was interested to find that he had a lucky escape at the 1813 Battle of Antwerp. How, in your opinion, might history have changed had he not dodged this particular bullet?

There are numerous butterfly possibiilities. Princess Charlotte may not die in childbirth, and live to succeed her father George IV, and be succeeded by her child.

In which case Edward of Kent may not bother marrying or begetting an heir.

Or Charlotte dies, Edward marries, and the child is a boy.

Or Edward does not die in 1820, but 10 or 15 years later, and succeeds his brother, or fathers several children.

Or... Charlotte dies as OTL, Edward begets Victoria and dies OTL, George dies in 1830 as OTL, and Victoria succeeds to the throne aged 11. A second Regency occurs with various possible candidates.
 
I was recently reading about the life of King William IV of England and was interested to find that he had a lucky escape at the 1813 Battle of Antwerp. How, in your opinion, might history have changed had he not dodged this particular bullet?

No such Monarch existed in our time line.

The last King of England was William III after that the Acts of Union eliminated the Kingdom of England replacing it (and the Kingdom of Scotland) with the Kingdom of Great Britain. William IV ruled two Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland and then the next Act of Union turned that into the United Kingdom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs#Timeline_of_English_monarchs
 
No such Monarch existed in our time line.

The last King of England was William III after that the Acts of Union eliminated the Kingdom of England replacing it (and the Kingdom of Scotland) with the Kingdom of Great Britain. William IV ruled two Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland and then the next Act of Union turned that into the United Kingdom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs#Timeline_of_English_monarchs
Mea culpa- chalk that one up to a slip of the pen*?

(Or slip of the keyboard, if we're being precise?)
 
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