Edward VI has long been remembered as the frail and tragic son of Henry VIII, a sickly boy king who died before he could truly rule. The reality was darker. Far from a weakling, Edward was a spoiled, vicious child who showed the same cruel streak as his father. His early death, grim as it was, may well have saved England from a ruler every bit as dangerous as Henry had been.
Edward’s birth was the greatest triumph of Henry VIII’s life. It had taken twenty-eight years, two daughters, and three wives before the king finally got the son he desperately wanted. A chronicler of the time described the infant as “the most beautiful boy that ever was seen. ” But the joy did not last.
Queen Jane Seymour, the mother who had given Henry his heir, fell gravely ill soon after the birth. She lingered for just over a week before dying. Edward never met his mother, and with a father who barely bothered to see him, any maternal influence was absent. Henry sent the boy away almost immediately, and apart from one brief visit when Edward was a year old, the king hardly saw his son for the first several years of his life.
There were moments when it seemed Edward might not survive at all. At age four, he caught quartan fever, a dangerous illness that could easily have killed him. England held its breath, knowing how dark Henry could turn if the son he had waited so long for slipped away. But Edward recovered.
Growing up largely out of his father’s sight, he became one of the most indulged children in English history. Henry called him “this whole realm’s most precious jewel” and made sure his attendants treated him accordingly. And when Edward turned six, the age at which tutors then considered a child to have become an adult, he finally moved in with his father. Whatever hopes Henry had for a normal relationship, the result was strange.
Henry had Edward’s rooms remodeled to mirror his own, and had the boy’s wardrobe replaced with smaller versions of the king’s clothing. Henry seemed to believe that if Edward lived in the same rooms and wore the same clothes, he would grow into the same man. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. Edward studied constantly, but he did so in spectacular style.
His schoolbooks were covered in gold and set with sapphires, rubies, and diamonds. His meals were eaten with jewel-encrusted cutlery, and his napkins were threaded with gold and silver. He took up manly pursuits like fencing and horseback riding, but he also developed darker hobbies. Among his toys was a sinister red box filled with the tools of sorcery.
Edward and his older sister Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth I, shared a strange obsession with magic and astrology and would cast spells together. Far more significant was Edward’s relationship with his eldest sister, Mary, the future Bloody Mary. As a young boy, Edward adored her, writing to her, “I love you the most. ” Mary was more than twenty years older than him, and with no mother and an absent father, she was the closest thing he had to a parent.
But just like his father, Edward’s moods could turn quickly, and before long, the affection between him and Mary soured into bitter enmity. Edward did have one extraordinary effect on his father. He was the only person who seemed able to soften Henry VIII into behaving like a decent human being. Henry had disinherited both his daughters and executed or divorced their mothers, but having a son had changed him.
In 1543, he gathered all three of his children for Christmas, an event his tutors considered entirely unheard of. Around the same time, Henry brokered a deal with Scotland for Edward to marry the infant Mary, Queen of Scots, who was barely seven months old. It was meant to be Henry’s masterstroke to bring Scotland under English control after centuries of conflict. But soon after that pleasant Christmas dinner, the Scots backed out of the marriage treaty.
Henry flew into a fury and sent Edward’s uncle, Edward Seymour, north to teach the Scots a lesson. His instructions were horrifying: put all to fire and sword, burn Edinburgh, and leave a perpetual memory of divine vengeance for their falsehood and disloyalty. Seymour carried out the order with brutal efficiency. Edward was also being groomed for his father’s religious revolution.
Henry had broken with Rome to get a divorce, and he made sure his son was thoroughly indoctrinated into the new Church of England. By the age of twelve, Edward was a complete religious fanatic, writing a treatise declaring the pope to be the very son of the devil, the Antichrist, and an abominable tyrant. When Henry died in 1547, the nine-year-old Edward became king. The people of England may have hoped for a calmer reign after the chaos of Henry’s, but they were to be disappointed.
As king, Edward’s fanaticism took center stage. He spent much of his reign rewriting English law to heavily oppress Catholics. But he could not rule alone. His advisers, men as power-hungry as his father, did most of the governing.
Chief among them was his uncle Edward Seymour, the same man who had ravaged Scotland. Seymour had long craved power, and within days of Henry’s death, he bribed his way to becoming Lord Protector. He intended to rule with an iron fist. The only obstacle was his own brother, Thomas Seymour.
While Edward Seymour bribed the court, Thomas went straight for the king, secretly giving the young Edward money and whispering that his brother wanted to make a beggar of him. But poisoning the king’s mind was only part of Thomas’s plan. He plotted to marry Princess Elizabeth, kidnap Edward, force him to abdicate, and make himself king through his new wife. It was a bold scheme, but on the night he tried to carry it out, everything went wrong.
Guards caught Thomas attempting to break into Edward’s chambers. When a dog noticed him and began barking, Thomas silenced the animal by shooting it. The gunfire alerted the guards, and Thomas was quickly arrested and sent to the Tower of London. His brother Edward Seymour showed no mercy whatsoever, having Thomas executed for treason without a flicker of hesitation.
For the next several years, Edward Seymour ran England into the ground while keeping the young king distracted. His arrogance and carelessness grew with his power. Finally, in 1549, his one-time ally John Dudley turned against him and convinced Edward that Seymour planned to usurp his throne. Seymour was executed for treason, and Dudley took over as Lord Protector.
Dudley was still a brutal tyrant, but at least he did not fail as catastrophically as Seymour had. He also found a potential bride for Edward, arranging a marriage treaty with France. But the deal came at a terrible price. After French forces defeated the English on the battlefield, Dudley was forced to sign one of the most humiliating peace treaties in English history.
He withdrew all English troops from French territory and Scotland, ending the conflict that had begun when the Scots broke the marriage contract years earlier. As part of the treaty, Edward was betrothed to Princess Elizabeth of Valois. It was a marriage that never came to be. By 1552, England was in chaos.
Edward’s advisers were too busy fighting among themselves to govern, and the country desperately needed a strong king to restore order. Edward could not be that king. In April 1552, he caught the measles. The disease ravaged his body, though after several agonizing weeks he recovered.
But the measles had crippled his immune system, leaving him vulnerable to whatever came next. In January 1553, he began coughing. A fever followed. By April he seemed to recover, and in May his doctors believed he was well again.
Then, within days, the cough returned with a vengeance. His body began wasting away, swelling painfully while ulcers opened across his skin. Though his body failed him, Edward’s mind remained sharp, and he had one final obsession: making sure his sisters never sat on the throne. He had once been close to Mary and Elizabeth, but as he grew older, he turned against them both.
In his final agonizing days, Edward worked to rip away their birthright. Henry VIII had decreed that Mary and Elizabeth would succeed Edward, in that order. But Edward, near death, signed a last-minute proclamation disinheriting both sisters and naming a distant relation, Lady Jane Grey, as his rightful successor. John Dudley was behind it all.
With Edward barely clinging to life, Dudley manipulated the ailing king and arranged for Lady Jane Grey, who happened to be his own daughter-in-law, to take the throne instead. On July 1, 1553, Edward made his final public appearance. Crowds gathered by his window to catch a glimpse of their dying king, and they were horrified by what they saw. The once vibrant boy had completely wasted away.
One day in early July, Edward pulled one of his terrified attendants close and whispered, “I am glad to die. ” Soon after, King Edward VI was gone. He was just fifteen years old. Given his sudden and violent decline, many refused to believe he had died of natural causes.
Some accused John Dudley of poison, while others blamed Catholics or even Edward’s own sister Mary. The most likely explanation was tuberculosis or a similar disease, but no one can say for certain. What mattered was that Edward was dead and, technically, Lady Jane Grey was queen. She did not last long.
Mary, Henry VIII’s own daughter, rallied thousands of supporters and convinced the Privy Council to abandon Jane, forever afterward known as the Nine Days’ Queen. Mary took the throne, had Jane and her husband thrown into the Tower on treason charges, and ordered Jane’s beheading in February 1554. John Dudley met an even swifter end. By the time he was dragged back to London for execution, the furious crowd could barely be held back, and he was dispatched quickly.
The truth about Edward VI was far darker than the image of a tragic, innocent boy. From the moment he tore a living falcon apart with his bare hands in a fit of rage to his fanatical persecution of Catholics, he had shown himself to be his father’s son in every way that mattered. When Henry VIII was asked during Jane Seymour’s labor whether to save the queen or the child, he reportedly answered with utter heartlessness: if both could not be saved, at least let the child live. That child grew up spoiled, vicious, and venomous.
England may have mourned him as a lost king, but in truth, the country dodged a bullet when he died so young.