The last illness of Edward VI
6th July 1553 Edward VI King of England and Ireland died at his palace of Greenwich in London he was just 15 years old. He was the third Monarch and last King of the Tudor Dynasty. He was the Son of King Henry VIII and his third Queen Jane Seymour and half brother to Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I.
Edward became king of England at the age of nine and reigned for only a little over six years. Because of the importance of having a male heir, his father took every precaution to preserve him from any contagion and especially from contact with anyone ill. There were detailed instructions to have the floors scrubbed twice daily, dirty dishes removed promptly, and food prepared carefully. In that respect, Edward served as model for Mark Twain’s story of The Prince and the Pauper. Except for an episode of fever at age four, Edward remained in good health until April 1552, when he had an acute illness with a rash, measles or smallpox or perhaps both coexisting. By the middle of 1552 he had fully recovered.
In January 1553 Edward became ill with fever, progressive weakness, and shortness of breath. He was troubled by a persistent cough productive of greenish-yellow and black blood-stained sputum. His legs swelled so severely that he had to lie on his back. He became increasingly worse and died in July 1553. At autopsy two large “putrefied ulcers” were found in his lungs. His physicians declared that he had died of consumption, which has been interpreted as tuberculosis, a diagnosis supported by the fact that he descended from a family of whom several members were probably so afflicted, including his grandfather Henry VII, his paternal uncle Prince Arthur, and also his half-brother, the Duke of Richmond. It has also been suggested that his previous illness, which may have been measles, had suppressed his natural immunity to disease, a fact well described in the medical literature. Other historians, however, have suggested that the initial illness was pneumonia and that from this he developed a lung abscess leading to septicemia and kidney failure.
When Edward ascended the throne due to his young age a Regency was created Although he was intellectually precocious (fluent in Greek and Latin, he kept a full journal of his reign), he was not, however, physically robust.
His short reign was dominated by nobles using the Regency to strengthen their own positions. The King’s Council, previously dominated by Henry, succumbed to existing factionalism. On Henry’s death, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford and soon to be Duke of Somerset, the new King’s eldest uncle, became Protector.
Seymour was an able soldier; he led a punitive expedition against the Scots, for their failure to fulfil their promise to betroth Mary, Queen of Scots to Edward, which led to Seymour’s victory at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547 – although he failed to follow this up with satisfactory peace terms.
During Edward’s reign, the Church of England became more explicitly Protestant – Edward himself was fiercely so. The Book of Common Prayer was introduced in 1549, aspects of Roman Catholic practices (including statues and stained glass) were eradicated and the marriage of clergy allowed. The imposition of the Prayer Book (which replaced Latin services with English) led to rebellions in Cornwall and Devon.
Despite his military ability, Seymour was too liberal to deal effectively with Kett’s rebellion against land enclosures in Norfolk. Seymour was left isolated in the Council and the Duke of Northumberland subsequently overthrew him in 1551. Seymour was executed in 1552, an event which was only briefly mentioned by Edward in his diary: ‘Today, the Duke of Somerset had his head cut off on Tower Hill.’
Northumberland took greater trouble to charm and influence Edward; his powerful position as Lord President of the Council was based on his personal ascendancy over the King. However, the young king was ailing. Northumberland hurriedly married his son Lord Guilford Dudley to Lady Jane Grey, one of Henry VIII’s great-nieces and a claimant to the throne.
Edward accepted Jane as his heir and, on his death from tuberculosis in 1553, Jane assumed the throne.
