King George IV Biography

Christened George Augustus Frederick by his mother Charlotte and his father King George III, George IV served from 1820 to 1830 as ruler of the United Kingdom (and of Ireland, Scotland and Hanover). As the oldest son of the king, George was direct heir to the throne. He served as Prince Regent for the last nine years of his father’s life (1811-1820), and was married to Princess Caroline of Brunswick in 1795. (He’d secretly married Maria Fitzherbert, a Roman Catholic, in 1785, but the marriage was invalid under English law.) His marriage to Caroline didn’t go well, but after George’s failed attempt to divorce her, she died in 1821, not too long after he acceded to the throne. George IV wasn’t a very popular king — his mind wasn’t so much on helping his subjects as it was on rebuilding Buckingham Palace, constructing Brighton Pavilion and collecting great works of European art. George IV died in 1830 without an heir, and his younger brother became King William IV.