Edward VI.

Edward VI., born at Hampton Court on 12th Oct. 1537, was Henry VIII.'s son by his third queen, Jane Seymour, who died twelve days after his birth. Till he came to six years he was brought up 'among the women;' then his instruction commenced 'in learning of tongues, the Scriptures, philosophy, and all liberal sciences.' Cheke and Ascham were among his preceptors. On 21st Jan. 1547 he succeeded Henry, when Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, his uncle, got himself made Protector. A novus homo, who from a country gentleman had risen to be ruler of England through his sister's queenship, Seymour allied himself with the reformed party against the nobles of the old régime, and sought by some high achievement to justify his rapid exaltation. During the first year of his protectorate he invaded Scotland, to enforce the marriage-contract between Edward and Mary, Queen of Scots. In the battle of Pinkie (10th Sept. 1547) the Scots were utterly defeated, and Scotland lay at the mercy of Seymour, now self-created Duke of Somerset; but his presence was needed at home. He returned to find that his brother, Lord Seymour, the admiral, had been caballing against him. Somerset had him attainted; and on 20th March 1549 he was sent to the block, the boy-king consenting coolly to his death. That summer witnessed two rebellions—of Catholics in Devon, and of agrarian malcontents, under Ket the tanner, at Norwich. Both were suppressed; but two months afterwards a more formidable adversary arose in the person of Ket's vanquisher, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who worked the Protector's downfall by insinuations against him of 'ambition, vain-glory, and self-enrichment' (such are the entries in Edward's Journal). Somerset was lodged in the Tower, pardoned, assailed anew, and this time beheaded (22d Jan. 1552), Dudley meanwhile being created Duke of Northumberland. The people regretted with good reason Somerset, for Dudley was both a worse and a weaker man. Indifferent in matters of religion (though he died a professed Catholic), he too let the Reformation take its course under Cranmer (q.v.) and Cranmer's more headstrong colleagues; his single aim was to secure the succession for his own family. With this view he married his fourth son, Lord Guildford Dudley, to Lady Jane Grey, daughter of that Duchess of Suffolk to whom by the will of her uncle, Henry VIII., the crown was to pass in default of issue by Edward, Mary, or Elizabeth. Northumberland now worked upon the dying boy to exclude his sisters and nominate Lady Jane as his successor. Edward consented; and a 'device,' thus settling the succession, was drawn up. The king lived only a few weeks after, dying at Greenwich on 6th July 1553, of poison it was rumoured, but more probably from the effect of quack nostrums on a consumptive frame. On 8th August he was buried in Westminster with Protestant rites, but mass of requiem was chanted in the Tower. A truer estimate of this 'English Josias'—shrewd, obdurate, cold, yet anxious for his subjects' well-being, a very Tudor—may be formed from his own Journal than from any of the contemporary panegyrics. It is given, with a very full memoir, in the Literary Remains of Edward VI., by J. G. Nichols (2 vols. Roxburghe Club, 1857).