Edward VI

Acceded at nine and reigned for six years under successive regents: first his uncle Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, then John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Despite his youth he was an intelligent, devout Protestant whose reign decisively cemented the English Reformation through the Book of Common Prayer and the Forty-Two Articles. Dying of tuberculosis at fifteen, he was persuaded to bequeath the crown to Lady Jane Grey rather than to his Catholic half-sister Mary — a settlement that lasted nine days.