Edward VI: The Lost Tudor King

'The most beautiful boy that ever was seen'

Edward VI's early life

Two thousand rounds of ammunition were shot off from the Tower of London to herald Edward’s birth. Wild celebrations broke out in cities and villages across the country. 

Described as ‘the most beautiful boy that ever was seen,’ the tiny Prince Edward was christened in a lavish ceremony in the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court on 15 October 1537. A huge octagonal platform was built for the font, allowing hundreds of guests a good view of the moment when the baby prince was anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. 

The christening was held at night and the long procession was guided by a series of torch bearers. Both of Edward’s half-sisters, the 4-year-old Princess Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth I) and the 21-year-old Princess Mary (the future Mary I), were in attendance. As they watched him being carried into the chapel under a rich canopy, they might have reflected that their new brother had ruined their chances of ever coming to the throne.  

After the ceremony, Edward was carried to the Queen’s apartments so that his parents could bless him. But poor Jane Seymour did not enjoy her triumph for long. She sickened just days later and died on 24 October, in the same bedchamber where she had given birth. 

A palace fit for a prince

Prince Edward at Hampton Court

Paranoid about the safety and wellbeing of his only son, Henry VIII ordered that Edward should remain at Hampton Court Palace. 

The young prince was appointed a luxurious suite of rooms in the north range of Chapel Court (now occupied by Historic Royal Palaces Curators and Retail staff). These were laid out in a similar manner to the King’s. 

A magnificent cradle of state took pride of place in the presence chamber, where privileged visitors could catch a glimpse of the precious infant. This was accessed via a processional stair and a heavily guarded watching chamber. 

Edward’s privy (private) chamber served as a day nursery, and he slept in the bedchamber or ‘rocking chamber’. A rare glimpse of the prince’s bedchamber at Hampton Court is provided by a reference to the making of ‘a frame of scaffold polls over the prince’s cradle to keep away the heat of the sun.’ Next door was a bathroom and garderobe, which still survives.

To complement the new Tudor kitchens, Henry VIII commissioned a privy (private) kitchen for his son at Hampton Court. This ensured that there was no contamination from the main kitchens that served the rest of the household. 

Once he had been weaned (taken off breast milk and given solid food), all the prince’s food would be tested by a servant before being given to him. 

Edward’s clothes were washed, brushed and tried on before being worn. Any new garments were to be washed, dried by the fire and anointed with perfume before they were deemed fit for him to wear.

Hygiene was paramount. The King ordered a new washhouse at the palace and ordered that the walls, floors and ceilings of Edward’s apartments should be washed down several times a day. Everything that might be handled by the prince had first to be washed. 

Only those of the rank of knight or above were permitted to attend the prince, and they must all be scrupulously clean before touching him, as well as free from sickness. They were not permitted to speak with persons suspected of having been in contact with the plague, or visit London during the summer when most outbreaks occurred. Any servant who fell ill was ordered to leave the household at once. Serving boys and dogs were specifically barred because they were clumsy and prone to infection.

Caring for an heir

The women who raised Prince Edward

The young Prince Edward would grow up never knowing his mother Jane Seymour, but he certainly did not lack female influence in his early years. In fact, Edward was raised ‘among the women’, as he recalled in his journal some years later. They were responsible for teaching the young prince the fundamentals of etiquette, as well as for catering to his every need.  

Edward thrived in the care of the women who surrounded him during his childhood. Far from being the weak and sickly boy that he is often portrayed as, he was healthy and robust. 

In August 1539, Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley paid a visit to the prince’s nursery and reported back to Cromwell that Edward ‘waxeth firm and stiff’. He could stand unaided and would probably be able to walk if his nursemaids would let him. 

Another visitor noted in October 1541 that Edward was ‘well fed’, ‘handsome’ and ‘remarkably tall for his age.’

'Mother Jack' and Sybil Penn

Among the women caring for Edward was his nurse, ‘Mother Jack’, and her successor, Sybil Penn. 

Sybil took over in October 1538, around the time the prince turned one. Edward adored her. There is a touching account of how she once presented him to some visiting dignitaries at court. The young prince was so overcome with shyness that he refused to look at them, but clung to his nurse and buried his face in her neck. 

She remained in post until 1544 when Edward turned six – the age at which Tudors deemed that a child was an ‘adult’ and no longer needed a nurse.

Lady Margaret Bryan

The most senior woman in Edward’s household was Lady Margaret Bryan. She boasted a wealth of experience in looking after royal infants because she had been ‘Lady Governess’ to both of the King’s daughters, Mary and Elizabeth.

Capable and efficient, Margaret had proved a stern mistress to the princesses, but she had something of a soft spot for their baby brother. 

Mary and Elizabeth

Edward’s elder half-sister Mary was a regular visitor to the nursery at Hampton Court. She had a strong maternal instinct and lavished affection on her motherless baby brother. She also gave him various gifts, including a tiny made-to-measure coat of crimson satin embroidered with gold and pearls and with sleeves of tinsel. 

Edward remained close to Mary throughout his childhood, before their relationship was soured by differing religious views. He ‘took special content’ in her company and once assured her that despite his infrequent letters: ‘I love you most.’ 

Edward was also fond of his younger half-sister Elizabeth, to whom he was much closer in age. They would later be educated together. Elizabeth had learned to sew by the age of six and she made a shirt of cambric or fine white linen for her brother. Upon trying out a new quill, she wrote ‘Edwardus’ across the page in her careful, childlike scrawl.

However, Edward’s affectionate relationships with his female attendants and half-sisters were in sharp contrast to the distant one he had with his father.

Prince Edward and Henry VIII

Edward saw little of Henry VIII as a child. A rare visit from the King to his infant son was recorded in May 1538, when Edward was around six months old. On this occasion, the King spent the day at Hampton Court with Edward, 'dallying with him in his arms a long space and so holding him in a window to the sight and great comfort of all the people.'

It was entirely typical for a King not to play a very hands-on role in the early years of his children’s upbringing. The same had been true of Henry’s own childhood, which had been dominated by his adored mother, Elizabeth of York. His father, Henry VII, had been a cold and rather distant figure at best, especially after Elizabeth of York’s untimely death.

But there was a key difference in the upbringings of Henry VIII and his heir. Henry had enjoyed the freedom of being merely the ‘spare’ until the untimely death of his elder brother when he was 10. In contrast, as the only son and heir of Henry VIII, Edward’s upbringing was much more strictly regimented.

And, as the little boy turned six years old, the King took his control of his son’s upbringing to a new level.

Edward’s life as a Tudor royal 'adult'

When he reached his sixth birthday, Edward’s life underwent a dramatic transformation. The Tudors considered this the age at which a child became an adult.

A king in miniature

Henry VIII ordered that his son’s apartments be remodelled so that they exactly mirrored his own. Flemish tapestries were added to Edward’s apartments, showing the same classical and Biblical scenes that the King favoured. 

The prince was also given a new wardrobe of clothes so that he could dress like his father. It seems Henry VIII hoped his son would grow up to be a king in his own image.

A new male-dominated household

The greatest change for Edward, though, was the sudden dismissal of all his female attendants, including his beloved nurse Sybil Penn. 

With no regard for the bonds that the young prince had forged with them, the King ordered that these women were immediately replaced by male servants, tutors and advisors. Only Edward’s half-sister Elizabeth was admitted into this male-dominated arena, as she was accorded the honour of sharing his lessons. The serious business of moulding Edward into a future king had begun.

The prince’s new household included Richard Cox, a man described as ‘the best schoolmaster of our time’, and fellow scholar John Cheke, who was appointed ‘for the better instruction of a Prince, and the diligent teaching of such children as be appointed to attend him.’ 

Cheke was greatly impressed with his new charge and claimed that Edward ‘has accomplished at this early period of his life more numerous and important objects, than others have been able to do when their age was more settled and matured’. This was no mere flattery. Edward was a precocious student who applied himself with a discipline beyond his years. 

But according to the Catholic exile Reginald Pole, Edward also displayed flashes of his father’s notoriously savage temper. He claimed that in a fit of rage, the young prince once tore a living falcon into four pieces in front of his tutors.

Creating a king: Edward’s education

Edward was given a strongly humanist education, which prioritised the study of Latin and Greek grammar and rhetoric, classical authors and scripture. Less important were the more traditional elements of a prince’s education, such as hunting, hawking and dancing.  

But as a former world-class sportsman, Henry VIII insisted that the physical aspects of Edward’s education should not be overlooked. He therefore ordered that his son (but not his younger daughter) should be given lessons in fencing, horseback riding, music, etiquette and other gentlemanly pursuits. 

Thomas Cranmer: Protestant tutor and father figure

Henry VIII also ensured that Edward received a religious education that reflected the new, reformed church that he had established. The King was supreme head of this church and one day, Edward would be too.

The new religion, which became known as Protestantism, emphasised the importance of personal faith and of the Bible. It was highly critical of the corruption and abuses of the Catholic church. 

The leading advocate for the new faith was Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. With an eye to the future, Cranmer was determined to inspire in the young prince a passion for the new faith. 

Cranmer was so successful in cultivating the Tudor heir that Edward soon came to look upon him as a fatherly figure. His letters to Cranmer reveal how close they had become. 

The archbishop called the prince ‘my dearest son in Christ’ and assured him: ‘My life is not to be called living unless you are in health and strength.’

The time has come: the new King Edward VI

Edward became King upon the death of his father in January 1547, and was crowned on 20 February 1547. 

As he was only nine years’ old, his father had appointed a regency council to rule collectively with ‘like and equal charge’. But within a week of Henry's death, the new King’s uncle, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, had seized control as Lord Protector. 

What was Edward VI like?

Though young, Edward VI had a maturity beyond his years. The Italian physician and astrologer Hieronymus Cardano described how the boy King ‘carried himself like an old man; and yet he was always affable and gentle, as became his age’. 

Cardano also wrote that Edward was ‘of stature somewhat below the middle height, pale-faced with grey eyes, a grave aspect, decorous and handsome’. 

The young King was not lacking in magnificence, however and numerous foreign dignitaries attested to his splendour. They included the French diplomat, François de Scépeaux, who visited Edward at Hampton Court in 1551 and was dazzled by his attire which was studded with diamonds, rubies, pearls, emeralds and sapphires.

A tyrant in the making?

Edward was the only Tudor monarch to leave behind a diary. Rather than betraying his personal fears, hopes and desires, it forms a rather staid account of the key events of his reign. 

From its pages, the young King emerges as rather cold, unfeeling and uncompromising – a dangerous blend of traits that might have hardened into tyranny if he had lived. 

Edward was not entirely lacking in positive qualities, though. He retained his father’s ‘fool’, Will Somer, and took great delight in music, theatre and gambling. He was a keen sportsman and kept various pets, including greyhounds and a monkey.

Edward VI’s influence on the new religion

Even though he was King in name only, the young Edward VI was not without influence, particularly in religion. Already fired with an evangelising zeal, he was determined to make his mark. He spent much of his short reign overseeing a series of radical reforms that would establish a strong Protestant doctrine in England.

Determined to establish uniformity of worship for all his subjects, with the help of his former mentor Archbishop Cranmer, Edward introduced a new Book of Common Prayer in January 1549. This was followed by an even more extreme version three years later. The latter provided a model for worship within the Church of England for the next four centuries. 

At the same time, Edward's council banned several old Catholic rituals, such as the use of rosaries, the casting of holy water and the undertaking of pilgrimage.

Even though the young King had been close to his Catholic half-sister Mary in his early childhood, he showed her no special favour when it came to religion. An entry in Edward’s journal for January 1552 records: ‘The Emperor’s ambassador moved me severally that my sister Mary might have mass, which, with no little reasoning with him, was denied him.’ 

If he had lived to maturity, there is little doubt that Edward would have persecuted any nonconformists with increasing severity. Even more so, perhaps, than his elder half-sister did when she took the throne, earning her the nickname ‘Bloody Mary’.

The younger of the King’s half-sisters had no such difficulties. Like Edward, Elizabeth had been raised a Protestant so was naturally favoured by her brother. This did not guarantee her safety, though. When she became embroiled in a sexual scandal with Edward’s uncle Thomas Seymour (brother of the Lord Protector), it led to a spell of imprisonment in the Tower of London. 

Eager to assure her young brother of her loyalty, the following year Elizabeth sent him her portrait.

'The King of the King'

The Duke of Somerset and Edward's political agency

While Edward was able to put his stamp on religious policies, his political authority was limited by his uncle, the Duke of Somerset. 

Although the council had decreed that the Lord Protector 'shall not do any act but with the advice and consent of the rest of the co-executors’ of Henry VIII’s will, Somerset was determined to exercise the full power of a regent. As one contemporary observed, he sought to make himself ‘the King of the King’. 

Somerset was ruthless in his quest for absolute authority. He didn’t flinch even to have his own brother, Thomas, put to death in March 1549. The charges against Thomas were shocking: he was accused of plotting to kidnap Edward, marry Elizabeth and make himself Lord Protector. 

In acting as King in all but name, Somerset courted some dangerous enemies, notably his erstwhile ally John Dudley, another member of Edward’s council. In October 1549, Dudley led a coup to oust his rival from office and Edward was persuaded to order the Lord Protector’s arrest and, later, execution. 

Although he had been close to his uncle, Edward afforded his demise no more than the following cursory mention in his diary.

'He cannot escape'

Edward VI falls ill

In April 1552, Edward recorded in his journal that he was ‘sick of the measles and smallpox’. Although the young King recovered, declaring that ‘we have shaken that quite away’, his constitution may have been fatally weakened. 

By the following March, Edward’s health had deteriorated to such an extent that on the advice of his doctors, he kept to his privy chamber. He showed no improvement in April, when the traditional Order of the Garter celebrations on St George’s Day had to be postponed. 

The royal doctors reported his symptoms with a mixture of alarm and confusion: ‘The matter he ejects from his mouth is sometimes coloured a greenish yellow and black, sometimes pink, like the colour of blood.’

The young King was moved to Greenwich in the hope that the cleaner air would speed his recovery. But on 12 May the Imperial ambassador reported that Edward was so ‘indisposed’ that ‘it is held for certain that he cannot escape.’ 

A bad omen? Edward names his successor

Exhausted by a hacking cough and high fever, Edward had also developed ulcers across his swollen body. Another report claimed that he had lost most of his hair and even his nails, and that his fingers and toes were becoming gangrenous. 

As his councillors struggled to contain the rumours that the King was dying, Edward was attended only by his most trusted privy chamber servants.

Despite his rapidly deteriorating condition, the King’s mind remained sharp. He was determined to prevent the accession of his elder half-sister Mary, aware that she would undo all religious reforms for which he and Cranmer had worked so hard. But he also proposed to disinherit his other half-sister, Elizabeth, on account of her bastardy. 

Edward’s plans for his successor ran contrary to the laws of inheritance, not to mention Henry VIII’s wishes. But Edward was under pressure from Dudley, who had his own family’s interests at heart. 

In late May 1553, the dying King signed a ‘Device’ for the succession, leaving his crown to Lady Jane Grey. Jane was granddaughter of Henry VIII’s sister Mary – and Dudley’s daughter-in-law.

'I am glad to die'

The slow death of Edward VI

By July 1553, Edward was unable to keep any food down and was so wracked by pain that he confided to an attendant: ‘I am glad to die.’ On the sixth of that month, between eight and nine o’clock at night, the 15-year-old prepared for the end. 

To his last breath, Edward tried to safeguard the Protestant religion. 

The dying King then whispered, ‘I am faint’ to one of his servants, who cradled him in his arms. The last words of this most devout of kings were: ‘Lord have mercy on me, and take my spirit.’ 

How did Edward VI die?

Edward VI died on 6 July 1553, aged 15, probably of a lung infection (tuberculosis). The measles that he caught earlier that year may have suppressed his natural immunity to it; he likely contracted it soon afterwards, with fatal results.

Who succeeded Edward VI?

Edward’s wishes for the succession were carried out, but only briefly: Jane Grey was Queen for just nine days before Mary rallied thousands of subjects to her cause. Soon the council turned its coat and declared for her. 

On 19 July 1553, Mary was proclaimed Queen amidst great rejoicing. The new Catholic Queen wasted no time in overturning all of Edward’s reforms. 

But Mary’s reign would be even shorter than her half-brother’s and she died in November 1558. Having left no child to succeed her, the throne passed to her half-sister. As queen, Elizabeth I would continue the work that Edward had begun and firmly establish Protestantism in England.