It was most unlooked-for that a king should ally with Whig politicians to seek parliamentary reform, but that was what William IV did when Earl Grey was trying to carry the Great Reform Bill in 1831. When Grey apologised for putting him in a hurry, the Sailor King exclaimed: ‘Never mind that. I am always at single anchor.’
Parliament was bedlam, Peel seemed ‘about to fall into a fit’, the Speaker had ‘a face equally red and quivering with rage’. The Lords had tabled a motion to stop the King dissolving parliament. To head them off from infringing his prerogative, William decided to prorogue it in person. When told by the Master of the Horse that the state coachman was absent, William cried: ‘Then I will go in
a hackney coach.’
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