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EDWARD VI (ENGLAND) (1537–1553; ruled 1547–1553)

EDWARD VI (ENGLAND) (1537–1553; ruled 1547–1553), king of England. Edward was nine years old when he inherited the English throne in 1547. Though troubled by factional politics and provincial rebellion, his brief reign did much to determine England's future history as a Protestant nation. Edward was born on 12 October 1537, the only child of Henry VIII (ruled 1509–1547) and his third queen, Jane Seymour (c. 1509–1537), who died twelve days later. Catholic propagandists claimed, probably falsely, that he was cut out of his mother's womb. Here was the male heir for whom his father had yearned, and bells rang all over England in celebration. Far from the sickly boy of popular memory, Edward was robust and merry, delighting in music and archery. He was tutored in Latin, Greek, and Scripture by the Cambridge humanists Richard Cox and John Cheke. But his upbringing was that of an aristocrat, not the Protestant saint of later legend. He studied French and geography and military engineering in company with other young nobles. From early 1547 he kept a chronicle of the political and military events of his reign, evidence of his academic ability and ordered thinking.

POLITICS AND RELIGION

Edward became king on 28 January 1547, on the death of his father. There was no regency; he ruled in person, at least in theory. But considerable power rested in the Privy Council, which swiftly contravened Henry VIII's wishes by electing Edward's maternal uncle, Edward Seymour (c. 1500–1552), to be lord protector during the king's minority. As duke of Somerset, Seymour effectively governed England until his downfall as the result of a coup in October 1549. Seymour's military priorities matched the young king's enthusiasm for fortifications and naval battles. In summer 1547 an army was sent into Scotland to enforce a marriage treaty between Edward and Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587); England won the Battle of Pinkie, but lost the war when Mary was conveyed to France to wed the dauphin, who became Francis II. In Edward's other kingdom of Ireland, garrisons were established in Leix and Offaly in an attempt to enforce English rule. Following Seymour's ejection from power, Edward's closest adviser was another soldier, John Dudley, duke of Northumberland and lord president of the council. By filling the privy chamber with his own adherents, Dudley achieved a powerful hold over the king, greater even than Seymour had enjoyed. A peace treaty in March 1550 restored Anglo-French relations, and in April 1551 Edward was elected to the French chivalric order of St. Michael, to his tremendous gratification. But the festivities could not conceal a growing crisis in the royal finances, aggravated by coinage debasement and embezzlement by crown officials.

Nothing is more controversial about Edward VI than the Protestant reforms carried forward in his name by Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury (1489–1556). In 1549 the Latin mass was replaced by matins, evensong, and Holy Communion in English. Confession was abandoned, purgatory denied, and chantries shut down. Priests were permitted to marry. The Catholic devotional world of the English parishes was fatally damaged as sacred images, wall paintings, and stained glass were defaced or destroyed; in their place came pulpits and preaching. Edward's own role in all this is not clear, but judging from a French treatise in which he denounced papal supremacy and from his avid patronage of sermons, he was a fervent Protestant. The alteration in religion sparked a major rebellion in Devon and Cornwall in summer 1549, which called for the restoration of the mass and traditional parish culture. The crown suppressed it with uncommon brutality by means of mercenaries. But Edward's reforms also laid the foundations for the 1559 church settlement of his sister Queen Elizabeth (ruled 1558–1603). The 1549 Book of Common Prayer, drawn up by Cranmer and authorized by the Act of Uniformity, has influenced centuries of English poetry and prose and remains the finest achievement of Edward's reign.

COURT AND KINGSHIP

Edward's youth was offset by the splendor of his court ceremonial. The king ranged between Whitehall, Greenwich, and Hampton Court, according to the season. He was a keen hunter and frequently played his part in masques and tilts. In 1552 Edward made a grand summer progress of England's southern counties. In the Chapel Royal, meanwhile, Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585) set the new English liturgy to music. Magnificence had strategic value, and foreign ambassadors were deeply impressed. Yet Edward also had a social conscience, pricked by the harvest failures and economic slump that afflicted his reign from 1549. Pressure on land provoked rural riots and, in July 1549, a popular uprising in East Anglia under Robert Kett. Though achievements lagged behind the rhetoric, Edward's concern for the commonwealth was a marked feature of his kingship. Enclosure commissions and grain surveys were supplemented by weekly church collections for the poor from 1552. Edward himself wrote a detailed memorandum to the council, advocating an English cloth "mart" to rival Antwerp. The king was drawing close to assuming independent rule of his dominions.

In February 1553 Edward caught a feverish cold that progressed into a pulmonary infection. Realizing that he was dying, he began his last great initiative, to deny the throne to his Catholic sister Mary. His "devise for the succession" declared his heir to be Jane Grey (1537–1554), the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary and a Protestant. John Dudley, whose son Guildford had recently married Jane, was a prime mover in this dubious scheme, but Edward also backed it with the last of his strength. When Edward died on 6 July 1553, Jane was duly proclaimed queen, although a pro-Mary uprising meant that she ruled for only nine days before being imprisoned and then executed for high treason.

Several outstanding portraits of Edward VI survive. The earliest, painted by Hans Holbein around 1538 (Mellon Collection, Washington, D.C.), portrays a sturdy and imperious young prince, sporting a scarlet hat; his golden rattle is held like a royal scepter. Surely the strangest is the 1546 painting by William Scrots, in which Edward appears in distorted perspective (anamorphosis) that is resolved only with the aid of a special viewing device. The Elizabethan picture known as King Edward VI and the Pope (c. 1570, National Portrait Gallery, London), in which the dying Henry VIII hands power to his son and the pope is crushed by "The Worde of the Lord," illustrates how Edward became a prized asset in Protestant propaganda after his death.

See also Church of England; Elizabeth I (England); England; Henry VIII (England); Mary I (England); Tudor Dynasty (England).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Source

Edward VI, King of England. Chronicle and Political Papers of King Edward VI. Edited by W. K. Jordan. Ithaca, N.Y., 1966.

Secondary Sources

Jordan, W. K. Edward VI: The Threshold of Power, The Dominance of the Duke of Northumberland. London, 1970.

——. Edward VI: The Young King, The Protectorship of the Duke of Somerset. London, 1968.

Loach, Jennifer. Edward VI. Edited by George Bernard and Penry Williams. New Haven and London, 1999.

MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation. London, 1999.

J. P. D. COOPER