Gleaning Meaning/Historyland: Silly Billy

William IV was the English ruler who preceded Victoria, and the oldest individual to ascend that nation’s throne. I read that he earned his nickname due to his penchant for “rambling and intemperate remarks” and his “lack of a sense of proportion”. But otherwise he seems a generally pleasant, decent, honorable and capable old fellow. As monarch he seems to have been modest and industrious, and I read in Wikipedia that his reign saw several reforms. In the May issue of Harper’s, in a reprint of an essay from City Journal, Theodore Dalyrmple notes that it was only during his reign that something resembling the hallmark British modesty and restraint took hold. The point being that the British character can change, has changed before, and is changing again—in Dalrymple’s view, in an unrestrained, and unfortunate, new direction.