Historical
and Commemorative Medals
Collection of Benjamin Weiss
EDWARD VI DASSIER, Jean: England, 1731, Bronze, 41 mm Edward VI (1537-1553), King of England and Ireland
(1547-1553), was the only legitimate son of Henry VIII. His mother Jane
Seymour, Henry’s third wife, died 12 days after his birth. Henry had decreed
that during Edward’s minority the government was to be run by a council of
regency. In fact, he reigned under two regencies: Edward’s uncle, Edward
Seymour, Duke of Somerset (1547-1549), who wielded almost supreme power as
regent, and the Duke of Northumberland (1549-1553). A devout Protestant,
Edward endorsed Archbishop Thomas Cramer’s revision of the Book of Common
Prayer. Clever but frail, Edward died of tuberculosis at the age of sixteen
years after willing the crown to Northumberland’s daughter-in–law, Lady Jane
Gray, to exclude his catholic sister, Mary I (who, in fact, did succeed
him). He did not marry and had no issue. (Taken, in part, from Thompson)
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