How did Edward VI die? With no mode to video shoot evidence or photograph medical reports, it is a mystery how far we can trust the historical accounts of royal deaths. Son to one of the most notorious kings to date and the last male heir of the Tudors to sit on the Throne of England and Ireland, Edward VI had responsibilities his young shoulders succumbed to before they could learn to carry them. Born on the 12th of October 1537, in Hampton Court Palace to King Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour, as Prince of Wales, his birth was celebrated throughout the United Kingdom with prayers offered, hymns sung, and bonfires lit in thanks to God for the male heir that would save the kingdom from falling into the hands of their enemies, but the boy would not live very long, only to die at a tender age of 15.
After his birth, Edward was a healthy child. Historian records say that the boy was sturdy and tall for his age. His mother, Jane, would not stay with him long. Though she seemed to recover, the Queen died of postnatal complications. The country and the King grieved, and the celebrations were dampened by the news of her death. Though he was known for his cruelty towards his wives and Church, to Henry Edward became the apple of his eye, being lavished with toys and minstrels alike. The boy was said to have been blessed with superior intelligence by historian C. E. Challis as he learned geometry, monetary prowess, the religious scriptures, Greek, Latin and even wrote a treatise on the Pope as Antichrist and mastered the lute and virginals by the age of 11. The future of the Crown Prince looked promising until his brief encounter with measles in 1552, everything started to go downhill.
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What Led To The Death Of Edward VI?
Recent historians like Tracy Borman admit that Edward VI was not a sickly child as many previous historians had led on. The young prince had a healthy childhood except once when he contracted the quartan fever, otherwise called malaria, at the age of 4, which threatened his life and caused poor eyesight, but he recovered soon. The King passed on while the boy was still young in 1547. The prince was coronated King at nine though Edward Seymour, his uncle, ruled as King Regent till the underaged King could come of age.
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King Henry had his son constantly monitored, with his room sanitized more than twice a day to prevent any contagion from coming in contact with his son, but ironically Edward VI, after a mild spell of measles, was infected with tuberculosis and within a few months died. Many think the boy was poisoned by the Catholics. Some blame his father for making the boy weak by not letting him get exposure and keeping his son indoors in highly sanitized environments all the time in fear of his death. While others speculate a viral strain of tuberculosis was dominant in the royal bloodline since Henry Brandon, his cousin, and Henry Fitzroy, his half-brother, both died under similar conditions. Kyra Kramer, an anthropologist, mentioned in her book “Edward VI: History in a nutshell series” that the child might have had atypical cystic fibrosis. Whatever it might have been, during the autopsy, his doctors had found two large “putrefied ulcers”, caused due to consumption after the measles left his immune system weak.
The Aftermath Of The Passing Of The Last Tudor King Of England
During his final days, Edward VI was persuaded by his uncle to name Lady Jane Grey, his first cousin as the Queen in the event of his death, afraid that if Mary, his half-sister, was to become the ruler of England, she would resuscitate Catholicism. Regardless, after his passing on the 6th of July, 1553, Mary, popularly known as Bloody Mary, took the kingdom from Jane, earning Jane the name of “Nine Days’ Queen”. The tyranny of the Catholic Queen knew no end as she waged war against the Protestant Church, although after a brief period of five years, her sister, Elizabeth, took over to become Queen.
Thus, though having ruled for only six years and died young, Edward VI’s life was pivotal to shaping the history of Mankind, giving rise to the first Queen of the United Kingdom, albeit bloody, and the golden age of peace through the rule of Queen Elizabeth I.
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