King William IV (born 21 August 1765; ascended to thrones of the United Kingdom and Hanover 26th June 1830; died 20th June, 1837).
William did not live in Kensington Palace, did not have any legitimate living children, so none of his ten other children were able to take the throne, albeit the wife he acquired in later life did her best to care for them. The next in line to the throne was Edward, the Duke of Kent, William’s younger brother, but he predeceased William in 1820.
But living in Kensington Palace was the brother Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, described as a stout, coarse-looking man, of a free habit, plethoric, and subject to asthma. He was married to Lady Cecilia Gore, who had been made Duchess of Inverness by the Whigs. He had married previously, in 1793, Lady Augusta Murray; but that marriage had been dissolved on the plea of the duke not obtaining his father’s consent. He was always on bad terms with George IV. He was perhaps, the most popular of the sons of George III, had a magnificent library at Kensington, including one of the finest collection of Bibles in the world. His widow, the Duchess of Inverness, was allowed to occupy his apartments until her death, in 1873.
Although Prince Edward (Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George III) had spent little of his life in Kensington Palace, his daughter was born there, and after his death his widow was glad to be housed there. Edward’s niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a succession crisis in the United Kingdom which brought pressure on the Duke of Kent to marry and have children. In 1818, he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a German princess whose brother Leopold was the widower of Princess Charlotte.
The Duke of Kent died suddenly of pneumonia in January 1820, a few days before his father, King George III. The widowed Duchess had little cause to remain in the United Kingdom, not speaking the language and having a palace in her native home in Coburg, where she could live cheaply on the incomes of her deceased first husband. However, the British succession at this time was far from assured – of the three brothers superior to Edward in the line of succession, the new King, George IV, and the Duke of York were both estranged from their wives, both of the wives past child-bearing age, and the third, the Duke of Clarence (the future William IV) had yet to produce any surviving children through his marriage. The Duchess decided she would do better by gambling on her daughter’s accession than by living quietly in Coburg. After the death of Edward and his father, the young Princess Alexandrina Victoria was still only third in line for the throne. The Duchess of Kent was allowed a suite of rooms in the dilapidated Kensington Palace, along with several other impoverished nobles.