Edward VI
Edward VI became king at nine and died at fifteen, and England became Protestant during his reign. Born at Hampton Court in October 1537, he was the son Henry VIII had broken with Rome to obtain; his mother Jane Seymour died of puerperal fever twelve days later. He was educated by reforming humanists including Richard Cox and John Cheke, learned Latin, Greek and French, kept a chronicle, and was a convinced evangelical by his early teens. He succeeded in January 1547 under a council, which his uncle Edward Seymour immediately converted into a protectorate for himself. The religious changes were rapid. Chantries were dissolved and their endowments taken, images and stained glass were destroyed, clergy were permitted to marry, and Thomas Cranmer produced the Book of Common Prayer in 1549 and a markedly more Protestant revision in 1552 — the foundation of Anglican liturgy and of a great deal of English prose. The prayer book provoked the Western Rising in Cornwall and Devon, and enclosure produced Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk, both in 1549. Somerset fell and was later executed; John Dudley took over. Edward contracted tuberculosis or a similar wasting illness in 1553. With his half-sister Mary certain to reverse everything, he drafted a Device for the Succession excluding both his sisters as illegitimate and settling the crown on Lady Jane Grey, Dudley's daughter-in-law. He died in July 1553. Jane reigned nine days, and Mary undid the settlement within a year. The prayer book he authorised survives, in revised form, as the basis of Anglican worship. He is the only English monarch to have been raised Protestant from birth.
- Lived: 1537 CE – 1553 CE
- Nationality: English
- Roles: king, head_of_state
