by Jeanne Williams

Created on: January 26, 2009

The story of Edward VI begins with the death of Anne Boleyn.

Henry VIII's second wife was beheadedostensibly for adultery but actually for having failed to produce the son and heir Henry longed for. Within two weeks of Anne's death, Henry married Jane Seymour. Unlike Anne and Katherine of Aragon, Jane gave birth to a healthy boy on October 12, 1537. She died shortly thereafter from puerperal fever.

During Henry's reign, Edward was closely guarded for fear that the Tudor heir might fall ill. However, he was not a sickly child. His days were spent mostly in the company of his tutors, learning Latin, Greek and theology. Young Edward was reported to be a brilliant scholar, his interest in theology becoming more intense (and more Protestant) over the years.

When Edward became king in 1547, his uncle Edward Seymour became the power behind the throne. Although Henry VIII's will had provided for a council of noblemen to oversee Edward's government until the boy reached his majority, Seymour quickly seized power, becoming Lord Protector. Edward himself remains a figure in the background during these years as older menfirst, his uncle Thomas Seymour and then John Dudley, Earl of Northumberlandsought to remove Edward Seymour from power. Edward Seymour had his brother beheaded for trying to kidnap the boy king. In turn, Edward Seymour was beheaded when Northumberland's coup succeeded.

Edward died of tuberculosis in 1553. The fifteen-year-old king's will set aside the provisions that Henry VIII had made for the succession. Instead of leaving the throne to his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth, Edward stipulated that his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, should become queen of England. Jane's reign only lasted nine days, however; Mary, and then Elizabeth, eventually followed their brother to the throne.

The question remains as to what kind of king Edward would have made had he lived to take power away from Northumberland. Some authors believe that he would have been the Protestant equivalent of his sister Mary. Just as "Bloody Mary" is infamous because of the number of Protestants who were burnt at the stake during her reign, Edward might have become as intolerant of his Catholic subjects. His surviving diaries certainly indicate that Edward's religious beliefs were the dominant factor in his life and that he was not particularly open-minded. Given that Edward died at such a young age, however, it is impossible to ever know precisely what his later reign would have been like.

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