January 28: Edward VI

On this date in 1547 Edward VI, 9, succeeded Henry VIII as king of England. Here are 10 things you might not know about this boy king:

1. He was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, the long awaited male heir, on 12 October 1537. He was christened on 15 October, and his half sister Mary, then 21, was his godmother. His other half sister, Elizabeth, was just four at the time and was given the role of carrying the chrisom.
2. Less than two weeks after his birth, his mother died, presumably from childbirth complications.
3. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. He is said to have travelled in a procession to the Palace of Westminster the night before his coronation, through crowds of well wishers and street performers. Even at the age of nine, he was writing a chronicle, and many things we know about him come from this - about his coronation, he recorded that he particularly liked a Spanish tightrope walker who "tumbled and played many pretty toys" outside St Paul's Cathedral, and that after his coronation he presided over a banquet, and dined with his crown on his head.
4. History has tended to paint Edward as a weak and sickly child but more recently historians have challenged this view. Contemporary accounts describe him as "tall and merry", and despite a bout of "quartan fever", a type of malaria, at the age of four, and poor eyesight, he was generally healthy until his final illness.
5. Spoilt brat? Possibly. His father Henry described him as "this whole realm's most precious jewel", and he had every toy and human comfort he could want, including his own troupe of minstrels. Henry made sure security was tight around his son and that everything was kept scrupulously clean around him.
6. Edward appears to have been a highly intelligent boy. He studied geometry, learned to play the lute and virginals, and his hobby was collecting maps and globes.
7. Edward was very fond of his step-mother, Catherine Parr. Although he was later to bar them from succeeding him, he seemed to get on well with his sisters as a child, too. Elizabeth once made him a shirt, and he enjoyed Mary's company although he didn't like her taste for "foreign dances".
8. Edward was England's first monarch to be raised as a Protestant. He was interested in religion, and it was during his reign, rather than his father's, when a lot of the religious reforms took place including the abolition of clerical celibacy, the Mass and English as a compulsory language for services. The reforms were overseen by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose Book of Common Prayer is still used today.
9. King Edward never actually ruled in his own right because he never came of age. During his reign, the realm was governed by a Regency Council first led by his uncle Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and then by John Dudley, 1st Earl of Warwick, from 1551 Duke of Northumberland. However, Edward did attend the council's meetings.
10. He died at the age of fifteen. The cause of his death isn't certain, and the inevitable rumours that he was poisoned by Catholic supporters abounded. However, there is no evidence for any of the rumours. The contemporary accounts of his illness suggest he probably died of tuberculosis after his immune system had been suppressed by a previous illness. On his deathbed, he wrote and signed a document entitled "My devise for the succession" which passed over his sisters because they had been declared illegitimate, because Mary was a Catholic and because they were women. Instead he declared that the male heirs of his cousin Lady Jane Grey should inherit. When it became obvious Edward was going to die soon, the wording was altered to allow Lady Jane herself to inherit the throne. She reigned for a matter of days before Mary deposed her and had her executed. Edward's last words were, according to John Foxe, "I am faint; Lord have mercy upon me, and take my spirit". He was buried in the Henry VII Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey, in a grave which was unmarked until 1966 when Christ's Hospital school, which Edward founded, provided an inscribed stone.

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