Edward VI

Edward VI came to the English throne in 1547 at the age of nine, the only legitimate son of Henry VIII. He was born at Hampton Court in October 1537 to the king's third wife, Jane Seymour, who died less than two weeks after his birth. Carefully educated by humanist tutors, he was raised in the reformed religion and showed an early and serious commitment to Protestant doctrine.

Because of his youth, government rested with a regency council. Power was first held by his maternal uncle Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who governed as Lord Protector, and after Somerset's fall in 1549 by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who led the council as Lord President. Somerset's administration pursued war with Scotland in an effort to enforce the treaty marriage between Edward and the young Mary, Queen of Scots; despite victory at Pinkie in 1547, the policy failed when Mary was sent to France and betrothed to the heir of the French crown, binding the Scottish house of Stewart to the house of Valois instead.

The reign saw the decisive Protestant reshaping of the English church. The first Book of Common Prayer was issued in 1549 under Thomas Cranmer, followed by a more thoroughly reformed version in 1552, and Acts of Uniformity required their use. Religious change, together with agrarian grievances, contributed to the rebellions of 1549 in the West Country and in Norfolk under Robert Kett, both suppressed by force. Economic difficulties, including debasement of the coinage inherited from his father's wars, troubled the administration throughout.

Early in 1553 Edward fell gravely ill with a pulmonary disease from which he did not recover. Determined to prevent the accession of his Catholic half-sister Mary, he drafted a document known as the Devise for the Succession, setting aside both Mary and Elizabeth in favour of his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey, a great-granddaughter of Henry VII who had recently married Northumberland's son Guildford Dudley. Edward died at Greenwich on 6 July 1553, aged fifteen. Jane was proclaimed queen four days later, but support for her collapsed within nine days, and the crown passed to Mary I in accordance with the succession act of 1544.