ABSTRACT
Dissolution was the personal act of a monarch; it was considered dishonourable for a Prime Minister to seek a dissolution unless there was a real prospect that he would increase his Commons majority at the election. Victoria’s immediate predecessor, William IV, became the last monarch to dismiss a ministry in 1834, though he shortly afterwards accepted that his preferred Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, could not maintain the confidence of the House and recalled Lord Melbourne. Bogdanor divides the reign into four phases. During the second period, from 1841 to 1868, the potential for royal influence was at its greatest, particularly in the era of coalition governments after 1846. From the early 1870s, political opinion increasingly stressed the importance of the mystical and ceremonial aspects of monarchy, proofs of the sovereign’s separateness from day-to-day politics and role as focus for popular patriotism.
