THE ARTICULATE PUPPET?: EDWARD VI AND NORTHUMBERLAND’S REGIME RECONSIDERED
(The following essay, presented at the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, 27 October 2007,
is an extract from my chapter on Edward VI from the forthcoming volume I am also editing, Woe to
Thee O Land! The Royal Minorities of Medieval and Early Modern England).
On 31 January 1547, nine year old Edward VI entered the city of London as king of England, three
days after the death of his father, Henry VIII, ushering in what turned out to be the sixth and last
English royal minority. The dead king’s will, empowered by statute, and reflective of positive historical
precedent, prescribed a conciliar regime for Edward’s minority. However, the will’s executors
unanimously created Edward’s uterine uncle, Edward Seymour, the soon to be duke of Somerset, as
Lord Protector of both king and kingdom. In this position, Somerset guided the destiny of the reign as
a powerful de jure regent. Somerset, however, lacked the basic social skills to maintain his position of
vice-regal authority (it was more complicated than this, but I needed to dispose of Somerset quickly!).
Following his disastrous handling of the 1549 summer revolts, a cabal of privy councilors led by John
Dudley, earl of Warwick, removed Somerset from office. Once the protectorate was abolished (13
October 1549), Edward’s minority government returned to the conciliar regime outlined in Henry VIII’s
will, and remained that way for the rest of the reign.
Dudley, whom Edward created duke of Northumberland late in 1551, soon emerged as a de facto
regent. Northumberland’s ascendancy coincided with the onset of Edward’s adolescence, as it
witnessed the young king’s integration into the further working processes of kingship.
Northumberland is traditionally much maligned; engineering Somerset’s trial and execution (Jan.
1552), and expediting the king’s desire to disinherit Mary and Elizabeth, Edward’s half-sisters and
statutory heirs. Later twentieth century studies have sought to rehabilitate his career, demonstrating
Northumberland’s ability to cope with the wide ranging and chronic administrative problems of Edward’
s minority government. Unlike Somerset, Northumberland was much better able to successfully
exploit Edward’s gradual assumption of his royal prerogative as the legitimizing agent of his own de
facto regency.
Northumberland certainly appeared much more concerned about Edward’s personal well-being and
happiness than Somerset, and cautiously allowed him the opportunity to engage in the martial
activities that had been denied him under Somerset’s tenure as royal guardian. Indeed,
Northumberland wrapped himself around every aspect of Edward’s life; controlling the household
appointments, most importantly the privy chamber. Northumberland realized that the surest path to
control over Edward’s minority government was the king’s good will, exercised through the legitimate
auspices of the Privy Council, which he dominated as lord president. Northumberland’s consolidation
of power in early 1550 followed what Dale Hoak considered “the fiercest struggle for the powers of the
crown since the Wars of the Roses” as he moved unequivocally “left” towards a radical Calvinist
Reformation. For the remainder of the minority, Northumberland continuously weeded and
replenished both privy chamber and the Privy Council with his own trusted colleagues, including
Somerset’s former secretary William Cecil, creating the illusion that the council was governing
corporately according to the terms of Henry VIII’ will. During the years 1151 and 1552,
Northumberland also attempted to create the perception that Edward was beginning to rule in his own
right.
The relationship between Edward’s sophisticated literary remains and the workings of
Northumberland’s government has always proved an inexact science. Nevertheless, Stephen Alford
has suggested that Edward experienced a gradual and piecemeal integration into the functions of his
government under Northumberland’s ascendancy. This constituted a significant qualification to Dale
Hoak’s persuasive interpretation that Edward had little influence upon the policies formulated and
implemented by Northumberland’s regime, itself a major revision of W.K. Jordan’s interpretation of the
teenaged Edward as on “the threshold of power.”
By the fall of 1551, when Edward VI was fourteen, he began to take possession of certain aspects
of his royal prerogative. By this time, he had already mastered every other aspect of kingship;
appearing in public, receiving ambassadors and other distinguished foreign guests, and exhibiting a
kingly persona that kept his emotions definitely in check. Edward’s state of the art Renaissance
Humanist education, which rendered him the best educated English monarch ever, continued for the
remainder of his reign. He was, undeniably, a prodigy; his knowledge of English geography was
unparalleled, and his grasp of the religious, economic, and political issues his government was
concerned with was exceptional. Given this, by the spring of 1551, Edward was well prepared to
begin the process of learning the substantive work of a chief executive. Under the tutelage of William
Petre and William Cecil, council secretaries, and William Thomas, council clerk, Edward produced a
significant body of administrative memoranda.
This body of work was created simultaneously with the actual working of the Privy Council. Dale
Hoak has viewed the Privy Council and the “counsel for the [e]state,” which, starting in March 1552,
sat weekly with Edward to debate important affairs, as separate entities, one reflecting the substantive
work of government, the other, “conferences staged for the king’s benefit . . . .” Alford has offered an
alternative interpretation; viewing the “counsel for the estate” as an outgrowth of Edward’s own efforts
to streamline the efficiency of the privy council, “for the quicker, better and more orderlie dispatch of
causes,” and to make the council aware of Edward’s own administrative and fiscal priorities. It seems
reasonable to assume that the members of the Privy Council and the other men called to the “counsel
for the estate,” were experiencing a dress rehearsal for what council meetings might be like when
Edward achieved his majority, as they became acquainted with Edward’s rather long laundry lists of
matters he considered important.
As W.K. Jordan has suggested, Northumberland recognized the inevitability of Edward’s
achievement of his majority, which, had he not died, could have occurred much sooner than his
eighteenth birthday, as was the case with the fifteenth century minority king Henry VI. While we know
from hindsight that Edward died in July 1553, Northumberland and Edward’s councilors did not;
contemporaries recognized that Edward’s political apprenticeship was a serious step towards his full
majority rule. Indeed, in the last two years of his life, Edward received a state of the art education in
political theory and practice. If knowledge is power, Edward was a highly informed “insider” within his
own minority government, with more command over what policies his government was pursuing at the
age of fifteen than most of his adult predecessors upon their accessions
By the fall of 1552, when he turned fifteen, Edward had developed a rather sophisticated
conception of his role as king. His view of the nature of kingship was constantly evolving, but
reflected the highest human achievements as recounted in his thoroughly humanist educational
regimen; charity, maintenance of religious and social hierarchies, education, religious conformity,
defence, and domestic and foreign commerce and trade. The evolution of Edward’s theories
concerning the nature of his kingship reached a critical threshold in October 1552, when he
composed in his own rough hand in English a list, titled “a summary of matters to be concluded,” just
after he returned from his “coming out” summer progress designed to present the king to his subjects
as a quasi-majority king. The “summary” revealed Edward as writing and thinking at the same time,
which is characteristic of many of Edward’s treatises, including his political chronicle. In several
places in this document, Edward crossed out the word “my” in front of passages such as “bringing in
the remnant of my debts” and substituted “the,” while six lines down, Edward crossed out “my” in front
of “defense.” What these corrections seem to indicate is Edward’s greater understanding of his
relationship to both the estate and the office of kingship, as he conceptualized the corporate nature of
Tudor kingship.”
As Edward reached these conclusions, Northumberland continued to maintain the impression that
Edward was an integral part of government, betraying to Cecil his impatience with Edward’s progress,
writing that, “I am glad that the king, on the council’s advice, cut his superfluous progress, whereby
the council may better attend to his affairs . . . . Like his half-sister Elizabeth, Edward VI inherited the
Tudor genes for grasping economics that had by-passed Henry VIII. His “summary” paid much
attention to matters of economy and commerce, of calling in his debts, and the credit of his regime.
He was also concerned with education and religion.
While Edward was decidedly serious about his religious beliefs and his royal supremacy, recent
historiography has emphasized his more secular interests; a number of scholars have focused
attention on Edward’s delight in the martial aspects of kingship. As Edward may have fully realized
the political advantages of a widely advertised kingly religiosity, he also grasped that successful
performances of pseudo- military exploits displaying kingly leadership also buttressed his developing
royal authority. Edward’s court hosted numerous tournaments and mock battles, which Edward
himself participated in, few to his personal advantage, quite unlike his father, who ruled the lists well
into his thirties. Yet Edward made the effort, perhaps in possession of the historical knowledge that
both Richard II and Henry VI, minority kings who ultimately lost their thrones, never developed the
military dimensions of successful kingship.
Edward also enjoyed sophisticated forms of entertainment, especially at Christmas time. The
Christmas celebrations of 1551/52 featured a gentleman described as “master of the king’s pastimes,”
and “lord of misrule,” one George Ferrers, appointed to entertain the court, and creating what was, by
all accounts, a particularly festive and decidedly entertaining Christmas court. Edward was an active
participant in the final two Christmas court revels of his reign, and clearly enjoyed the theatrical side
of kingship. It has been frequently been explained that the 1551/52 celebrations were
Northumberland’s means of diverting Edward prior to Somerset’s execution (23 Jan. 1552). However,
writing to Thomas Cawarden, master of the revels on 24 Nov, 1551, Northumberland indicated it was
“the Kinges majesties plesser ys for his highness better recreation the tym of thies hollydayes to have
a lord of misrule.” If the motivation was Northumberland’s, the plan worked admirably, as Ferrers
returned as “lord of misrule” next year also.
It was entirely possible, however, that Northumberland simply expedited the wishes of the king.
Sydney Anglo pondered the incongruity of Ferrers, a previously close adherent of Somerset’s, as
“lord of misrule” at the very moment Northumberland was supposedly bent on Somerset’s
destruction. Edward, however, was already acquainted with Ferrers, a lawyer, soldier, poet, and
historian, to whom he had previously presented an autographed copy of a history of Somerset’s 1547
Scottish invasion. The answer may very well have been that it was Edward’s idea to appoint Ferrers,
which Northumberland’s constantly advertised sense of obedience and duty towards the king did not
challenge.
Northumberland’s sense of obedience towards his king can also explain his support of the radical
Protestantism that the government enshrined into statutory form in the third session of Edward’s first
parliament (Jan- April 1552), with a second Act of Uniformity, and a second Prayer Book penned by
Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. Dale Hoak has argued that Northumberland’s beliefs,
as a loyal and obedient subject, demanded that he follow those of his supreme head. Once Mary’s
accession was an accomplished fact, he immediately switched back to the old religion. Under Edward,
of course, Northumberland followed the religious predilections of his supreme head, who took his
supremacy every bit as seriously as his father did. While Northumberland claimed to have followed
Protestant beliefs back to the 1530s, it is worth remembering that he never openly challenged any of
his supreme heads, from Henry VIII to Mary I.
During the final two years of his reign, in his work with William Cecil and William Thomas, Edward
was well informed about the complexity of problems Northumberland’s government faced. This leads
us to a chicken or egg scenario, one that can never be resolved. On the one hand, was Edward
force-fed policy initiatives, so he could walk into council and announce these policy initiatives as his
own? This was the interpretation fashioned by A.F. Pollard a century ago, based on a French
manuscript, and updated by Dale Hoak, which described Edward as “well-informed of current affairs,
but persuaded . . . of the wisdom of decisions taken, as if these were recommendations the king
himself should propose to council.”
But if Edward was not yet fully integrated into the policy making of the Privy Council, or able to get
his government to support his own favored parliamentary bills, other aspects of Edward’s minority
kingship reflect a more expansive grasp of his royal prerogative. By the end of 1552, in a number of
letters from Northumberland to Cecil are numerous references to wishing to defer to the king’s will, as
if Edward’s assent was not necessarily assured. In an apparent row over a property exchange with
princess Elizabeth, Northumberland commented, “I must appeal to the king and you whether I ever
sued for it.” In a postscript to the same letter, Northumberland also wrote, “it is time the king’s
pleasure were known for the speaker of the house, that he might have secret warning as usual, the
better to prepare for his preposition.” Later in January 1553, Northumberland wrote Cecil again with
obvious concern for his standing with the king:
I perceive by your letter that the king has been moved concerning
the bishop of London . . . if he [Edward] knew my care for the south
as for other parts, and the hearts of us all in care for his surety and that
of all his dominions, he would soon know whose care was the greatest.
Perhaps at the beginning of his ascendancy, Northumberland was able to monitor and control
Edward, but by the fall of 1552, as W.K. Jordan has argued, Edward had begun to develop a mind
and a will of his own. There is no evidence to suggest Northumberland did anything to impede this
process. Half a century ago, F.G. Emmison argued that Edward had played a crucial role in drafting
memoranda relating to the reorganization of the Privy Council’s work in January 1553, the result of
which, had it been implemented, was to place much more direct power in the king’s hands. Edward
also closely monitored in his chronicle, over the course of 1552, the progress made by the Revenue
Commission appointed in December 1551 for the “calling in of my debts.” Edward was, in fact, more
than a little obsessed with fiscal solvency, a predilection echoed by both of his sisters
Edward’s grants of patronage also indicate a new phase of his kingship. Beginning about Oct.
1551, grants reflecting Edward’s personal wishes begin to appear in the Acts of the Privy Council. Not
surprisingly, both Richard II and Henry VI had already begun to do exactly the same thing at that age.
Small grants in the king’s direct gift, generally starting around age 14 for child monarchs, was often
the primary means of a king’s first use of his royal prerogative, and Edward VI probably took as much
personal pleasure in authorizing his initial grants as did Richard II and Henry VI. Even Edward V, early
in his brief reign, made a grant that was expedited by the authority of protector Gloucester, possibly
as a means for Gloucester to build up political capital with his probably antagonistic nephew.
What was probably most pleasing to Edward VI was the knowledge that he now personally
possessed the authority to wield his prerogative apart from the Privy Council. This was accomplished
in a stinging letter to Lord Chancellor Rich in November 1551, who had hesitated to authenticate a
letter lacking the requisite conciliar signatures. Edward informed Rich, “you are not ignorant that the
number of councilors does not make our authority.” The Privy Council itself followed up with a letter
of its own to Rich, commanding him to treat the king’s signature as sufficient warrant, “as was
accustomed in the kinges majesties tyme last deceased.” Northumberland and the council’s
recognition of Edward’s increased personal prerogative constituted a significant signpost on Edward’s
road to his full majority.
Now in command of at least one aspect of his prerogative, Edward’s initial grants were initially
modest; £10 to Richard Coxe, Aug. 1551, 100 marks for Barnaby Fitzpatrick’s apparel, and the same
amount for Polydore Vergil, “in way of the kinges majesties rewarde,” both in November 1551.” Later
on, grants became more lavish; for Henry Sidney a £21 annuity, while the perennial favorite
Fitzpatrick gained a £150 one, both in February 1553. The question of whether Edward’s grants of
land were the permanent acts of a majority king was seemingly resolved during Elizabeth’s reign with
the ruling on the “Case of the Duchy of Lancaster” (1561), which employed the theory of the king’s
two bodies to rule that Edward, even as a minor, fully embodied the “corporation sole” of the “body
politic” of kingship, to make permanent grants of patronage under his own authority.
Edward’s patronage directed towards his subjects at large was meant to be permanent. The
England of today boasts of approximately a dozen Edward VI grammar schools, established in the
final years of the reign, most of which simply breathed new life into schools previously attached to
chantries, which had been dissolved in Edward’s first parliament. Augmentations commissioners
such as Walter Mildmay preserved portions of this royal bounty for educational re-endowment, a
policy that Edward himself greatly favored in his final years. Several letters from the Privy Council in
June 1552 were directed towards this purpose; one to the court of augmentations asking for
certification of recently erected schools, and others to various locations appointing individual boys to
various schools. Nearly a year later, John Day, the future printer of John Foxe, was authorized to
publish a “cathechisme” in English, a move directly related to Edward’s continuing concern with
education and religious conformity.
The relationship between the exhortations of Edward’s favored clerics, such as Nicholas Ridley,
bishop of London, and Edward’s own thoughts on the utility of education and the necessity of public
charity, dove-tailed in a striking fashion in March 1553. Grafton wrote that following Ridley’s sermon,
which chastised the wealthy for their lack of charity, Edward requested an immediate interview with the
startled bishop, indicating his desire to hand over certain properties in his gift to the city of London,
resulting in the establishment of hospitals (Christ’s, St. Thomas’s, Bridewell) and the Savoy,
reconstituted as a “lodging for vagabonds, loiterers, and strumpets.” The entire episode, during
which Edward may have been aware of the onset of his own fatal illness, was in fact a sophisticated
display of good old fashioned Tudor royal theatre; images of this scene of a beneficent young king,
surrounded by grateful city officials and other notables, was reproduced continuously through the
early modern period in Britain. It should also be remembered that neither Northumberland nor the
Privy Council had any hand in these gifts, nor did they reap any political capital, which accrued
entirely to the king alone. In some elements of his kingship, Edward’s majority reign had in fact
already begun by the time his fatal illness set in during the spring of 1553.
(The following essay, presented at the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, 27 October 2007,
is an extract from my chapter on Edward VI from the forthcoming volume I am also editing, Woe to
Thee O Land! The Royal Minorities of Medieval and Early Modern England).
On 31 January 1547, nine year old Edward VI entered the city of London as king of England, three
days after the death of his father, Henry VIII, ushering in what turned out to be the sixth and last
English royal minority. The dead king’s will, empowered by statute, and reflective of positive historical
precedent, prescribed a conciliar regime for Edward’s minority. However, the will’s executors
unanimously created Edward’s uterine uncle, Edward Seymour, the soon to be duke of Somerset, as
Lord Protector of both king and kingdom. In this position, Somerset guided the destiny of the reign as
a powerful de jure regent. Somerset, however, lacked the basic social skills to maintain his position of
vice-regal authority (it was more complicated than this, but I needed to dispose of Somerset quickly!).
Following his disastrous handling of the 1549 summer revolts, a cabal of privy councilors led by John
Dudley, earl of Warwick, removed Somerset from office. Once the protectorate was abolished (13
October 1549), Edward’s minority government returned to the conciliar regime outlined in Henry VIII’s
will, and remained that way for the rest of the reign.
Dudley, whom Edward created duke of Northumberland late in 1551, soon emerged as a de facto
regent. Northumberland’s ascendancy coincided with the onset of Edward’s adolescence, as it
witnessed the young king’s integration into the further working processes of kingship.
Northumberland is traditionally much maligned; engineering Somerset’s trial and execution (Jan.
1552), and expediting the king’s desire to disinherit Mary and Elizabeth, Edward’s half-sisters and
statutory heirs. Later twentieth century studies have sought to rehabilitate his career, demonstrating
Northumberland’s ability to cope with the wide ranging and chronic administrative problems of Edward’
s minority government. Unlike Somerset, Northumberland was much better able to successfully
exploit Edward’s gradual assumption of his royal prerogative as the legitimizing agent of his own de
facto regency.
Northumberland certainly appeared much more concerned about Edward’s personal well-being and
happiness than Somerset, and cautiously allowed him the opportunity to engage in the martial
activities that had been denied him under Somerset’s tenure as royal guardian. Indeed,
Northumberland wrapped himself around every aspect of Edward’s life; controlling the household
appointments, most importantly the privy chamber. Northumberland realized that the surest path to
control over Edward’s minority government was the king’s good will, exercised through the legitimate
auspices of the Privy Council, which he dominated as lord president. Northumberland’s consolidation
of power in early 1550 followed what Dale Hoak considered “the fiercest struggle for the powers of the
crown since the Wars of the Roses” as he moved unequivocally “left” towards a radical Calvinist
Reformation. For the remainder of the minority, Northumberland continuously weeded and
replenished both privy chamber and the Privy Council with his own trusted colleagues, including
Somerset’s former secretary William Cecil, creating the illusion that the council was governing
corporately according to the terms of Henry VIII’ will. During the years 1151 and 1552,
Northumberland also attempted to create the perception that Edward was beginning to rule in his own
right.
The relationship between Edward’s sophisticated literary remains and the workings of
Northumberland’s government has always proved an inexact science. Nevertheless, Stephen Alford
has suggested that Edward experienced a gradual and piecemeal integration into the functions of his
government under Northumberland’s ascendancy. This constituted a significant qualification to Dale
Hoak’s persuasive interpretation that Edward had little influence upon the policies formulated and
implemented by Northumberland’s regime, itself a major revision of W.K. Jordan’s interpretation of the
teenaged Edward as on “the threshold of power.”
By the fall of 1551, when Edward VI was fourteen, he began to take possession of certain aspects
of his royal prerogative. By this time, he had already mastered every other aspect of kingship;
appearing in public, receiving ambassadors and other distinguished foreign guests, and exhibiting a
kingly persona that kept his emotions definitely in check. Edward’s state of the art Renaissance
Humanist education, which rendered him the best educated English monarch ever, continued for the
remainder of his reign. He was, undeniably, a prodigy; his knowledge of English geography was
unparalleled, and his grasp of the religious, economic, and political issues his government was
concerned with was exceptional. Given this, by the spring of 1551, Edward was well prepared to
begin the process of learning the substantive work of a chief executive. Under the tutelage of William
Petre and William Cecil, council secretaries, and William Thomas, council clerk, Edward produced a
significant body of administrative memoranda.
This body of work was created simultaneously with the actual working of the Privy Council. Dale
Hoak has viewed the Privy Council and the “counsel for the [e]state,” which, starting in March 1552,
sat weekly with Edward to debate important affairs, as separate entities, one reflecting the substantive
work of government, the other, “conferences staged for the king’s benefit . . . .” Alford has offered an
alternative interpretation; viewing the “counsel for the estate” as an outgrowth of Edward’s own efforts
to streamline the efficiency of the privy council, “for the quicker, better and more orderlie dispatch of
causes,” and to make the council aware of Edward’s own administrative and fiscal priorities. It seems
reasonable to assume that the members of the Privy Council and the other men called to the “counsel
for the estate,” were experiencing a dress rehearsal for what council meetings might be like when
Edward achieved his majority, as they became acquainted with Edward’s rather long laundry lists of
matters he considered important.
As W.K. Jordan has suggested, Northumberland recognized the inevitability of Edward’s
achievement of his majority, which, had he not died, could have occurred much sooner than his
eighteenth birthday, as was the case with the fifteenth century minority king Henry VI. While we know
from hindsight that Edward died in July 1553, Northumberland and Edward’s councilors did not;
contemporaries recognized that Edward’s political apprenticeship was a serious step towards his full
majority rule. Indeed, in the last two years of his life, Edward received a state of the art education in
political theory and practice. If knowledge is power, Edward was a highly informed “insider” within his
own minority government, with more command over what policies his government was pursuing at the
age of fifteen than most of his adult predecessors upon their accessions
By the fall of 1552, when he turned fifteen, Edward had developed a rather sophisticated
conception of his role as king. His view of the nature of kingship was constantly evolving, but
reflected the highest human achievements as recounted in his thoroughly humanist educational
regimen; charity, maintenance of religious and social hierarchies, education, religious conformity,
defence, and domestic and foreign commerce and trade. The evolution of Edward’s theories
concerning the nature of his kingship reached a critical threshold in October 1552, when he
composed in his own rough hand in English a list, titled “a summary of matters to be concluded,” just
after he returned from his “coming out” summer progress designed to present the king to his subjects
as a quasi-majority king. The “summary” revealed Edward as writing and thinking at the same time,
which is characteristic of many of Edward’s treatises, including his political chronicle. In several
places in this document, Edward crossed out the word “my” in front of passages such as “bringing in
the remnant of my debts” and substituted “the,” while six lines down, Edward crossed out “my” in front
of “defense.” What these corrections seem to indicate is Edward’s greater understanding of his
relationship to both the estate and the office of kingship, as he conceptualized the corporate nature of
Tudor kingship.”
As Edward reached these conclusions, Northumberland continued to maintain the impression that
Edward was an integral part of government, betraying to Cecil his impatience with Edward’s progress,
writing that, “I am glad that the king, on the council’s advice, cut his superfluous progress, whereby
the council may better attend to his affairs . . . . Like his half-sister Elizabeth, Edward VI inherited the
Tudor genes for grasping economics that had by-passed Henry VIII. His “summary” paid much
attention to matters of economy and commerce, of calling in his debts, and the credit of his regime.
He was also concerned with education and religion.
While Edward was decidedly serious about his religious beliefs and his royal supremacy, recent
historiography has emphasized his more secular interests; a number of scholars have focused
attention on Edward’s delight in the martial aspects of kingship. As Edward may have fully realized
the political advantages of a widely advertised kingly religiosity, he also grasped that successful
performances of pseudo- military exploits displaying kingly leadership also buttressed his developing
royal authority. Edward’s court hosted numerous tournaments and mock battles, which Edward
himself participated in, few to his personal advantage, quite unlike his father, who ruled the lists well
into his thirties. Yet Edward made the effort, perhaps in possession of the historical knowledge that
both Richard II and Henry VI, minority kings who ultimately lost their thrones, never developed the
military dimensions of successful kingship.
Edward also enjoyed sophisticated forms of entertainment, especially at Christmas time. The
Christmas celebrations of 1551/52 featured a gentleman described as “master of the king’s pastimes,”
and “lord of misrule,” one George Ferrers, appointed to entertain the court, and creating what was, by
all accounts, a particularly festive and decidedly entertaining Christmas court. Edward was an active
participant in the final two Christmas court revels of his reign, and clearly enjoyed the theatrical side
of kingship. It has been frequently been explained that the 1551/52 celebrations were
Northumberland’s means of diverting Edward prior to Somerset’s execution (23 Jan. 1552). However,
writing to Thomas Cawarden, master of the revels on 24 Nov, 1551, Northumberland indicated it was
“the Kinges majesties plesser ys for his highness better recreation the tym of thies hollydayes to have
a lord of misrule.” If the motivation was Northumberland’s, the plan worked admirably, as Ferrers
returned as “lord of misrule” next year also.
It was entirely possible, however, that Northumberland simply expedited the wishes of the king.
Sydney Anglo pondered the incongruity of Ferrers, a previously close adherent of Somerset’s, as
“lord of misrule” at the very moment Northumberland was supposedly bent on Somerset’s
destruction. Edward, however, was already acquainted with Ferrers, a lawyer, soldier, poet, and
historian, to whom he had previously presented an autographed copy of a history of Somerset’s 1547
Scottish invasion. The answer may very well have been that it was Edward’s idea to appoint Ferrers,
which Northumberland’s constantly advertised sense of obedience and duty towards the king did not
challenge.
Northumberland’s sense of obedience towards his king can also explain his support of the radical
Protestantism that the government enshrined into statutory form in the third session of Edward’s first
parliament (Jan- April 1552), with a second Act of Uniformity, and a second Prayer Book penned by
Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. Dale Hoak has argued that Northumberland’s beliefs,
as a loyal and obedient subject, demanded that he follow those of his supreme head. Once Mary’s
accession was an accomplished fact, he immediately switched back to the old religion. Under Edward,
of course, Northumberland followed the religious predilections of his supreme head, who took his
supremacy every bit as seriously as his father did. While Northumberland claimed to have followed
Protestant beliefs back to the 1530s, it is worth remembering that he never openly challenged any of
his supreme heads, from Henry VIII to Mary I.
During the final two years of his reign, in his work with William Cecil and William Thomas, Edward
was well informed about the complexity of problems Northumberland’s government faced. This leads
us to a chicken or egg scenario, one that can never be resolved. On the one hand, was Edward
force-fed policy initiatives, so he could walk into council and announce these policy initiatives as his
own? This was the interpretation fashioned by A.F. Pollard a century ago, based on a French
manuscript, and updated by Dale Hoak, which described Edward as “well-informed of current affairs,
but persuaded . . . of the wisdom of decisions taken, as if these were recommendations the king
himself should propose to council.”
But if Edward was not yet fully integrated into the policy making of the Privy Council, or able to get
his government to support his own favored parliamentary bills, other aspects of Edward’s minority
kingship reflect a more expansive grasp of his royal prerogative. By the end of 1552, in a number of
letters from Northumberland to Cecil are numerous references to wishing to defer to the king’s will, as
if Edward’s assent was not necessarily assured. In an apparent row over a property exchange with
princess Elizabeth, Northumberland commented, “I must appeal to the king and you whether I ever
sued for it.” In a postscript to the same letter, Northumberland also wrote, “it is time the king’s
pleasure were known for the speaker of the house, that he might have secret warning as usual, the
better to prepare for his preposition.” Later in January 1553, Northumberland wrote Cecil again with
obvious concern for his standing with the king:
I perceive by your letter that the king has been moved concerning
the bishop of London . . . if he [Edward] knew my care for the south
as for other parts, and the hearts of us all in care for his surety and that
of all his dominions, he would soon know whose care was the greatest.
Perhaps at the beginning of his ascendancy, Northumberland was able to monitor and control
Edward, but by the fall of 1552, as W.K. Jordan has argued, Edward had begun to develop a mind
and a will of his own. There is no evidence to suggest Northumberland did anything to impede this
process. Half a century ago, F.G. Emmison argued that Edward had played a crucial role in drafting
memoranda relating to the reorganization of the Privy Council’s work in January 1553, the result of
which, had it been implemented, was to place much more direct power in the king’s hands. Edward
also closely monitored in his chronicle, over the course of 1552, the progress made by the Revenue
Commission appointed in December 1551 for the “calling in of my debts.” Edward was, in fact, more
than a little obsessed with fiscal solvency, a predilection echoed by both of his sisters
Edward’s grants of patronage also indicate a new phase of his kingship. Beginning about Oct.
1551, grants reflecting Edward’s personal wishes begin to appear in the Acts of the Privy Council. Not
surprisingly, both Richard II and Henry VI had already begun to do exactly the same thing at that age.
Small grants in the king’s direct gift, generally starting around age 14 for child monarchs, was often
the primary means of a king’s first use of his royal prerogative, and Edward VI probably took as much
personal pleasure in authorizing his initial grants as did Richard II and Henry VI. Even Edward V, early
in his brief reign, made a grant that was expedited by the authority of protector Gloucester, possibly
as a means for Gloucester to build up political capital with his probably antagonistic nephew.
What was probably most pleasing to Edward VI was the knowledge that he now personally
possessed the authority to wield his prerogative apart from the Privy Council. This was accomplished
in a stinging letter to Lord Chancellor Rich in November 1551, who had hesitated to authenticate a
letter lacking the requisite conciliar signatures. Edward informed Rich, “you are not ignorant that the
number of councilors does not make our authority.” The Privy Council itself followed up with a letter
of its own to Rich, commanding him to treat the king’s signature as sufficient warrant, “as was
accustomed in the kinges majesties tyme last deceased.” Northumberland and the council’s
recognition of Edward’s increased personal prerogative constituted a significant signpost on Edward’s
road to his full majority.
Now in command of at least one aspect of his prerogative, Edward’s initial grants were initially
modest; £10 to Richard Coxe, Aug. 1551, 100 marks for Barnaby Fitzpatrick’s apparel, and the same
amount for Polydore Vergil, “in way of the kinges majesties rewarde,” both in November 1551.” Later
on, grants became more lavish; for Henry Sidney a £21 annuity, while the perennial favorite
Fitzpatrick gained a £150 one, both in February 1553. The question of whether Edward’s grants of
land were the permanent acts of a majority king was seemingly resolved during Elizabeth’s reign with
the ruling on the “Case of the Duchy of Lancaster” (1561), which employed the theory of the king’s
two bodies to rule that Edward, even as a minor, fully embodied the “corporation sole” of the “body
politic” of kingship, to make permanent grants of patronage under his own authority.
Edward’s patronage directed towards his subjects at large was meant to be permanent. The
England of today boasts of approximately a dozen Edward VI grammar schools, established in the
final years of the reign, most of which simply breathed new life into schools previously attached to
chantries, which had been dissolved in Edward’s first parliament. Augmentations commissioners
such as Walter Mildmay preserved portions of this royal bounty for educational re-endowment, a
policy that Edward himself greatly favored in his final years. Several letters from the Privy Council in
June 1552 were directed towards this purpose; one to the court of augmentations asking for
certification of recently erected schools, and others to various locations appointing individual boys to
various schools. Nearly a year later, John Day, the future printer of John Foxe, was authorized to
publish a “cathechisme” in English, a move directly related to Edward’s continuing concern with
education and religious conformity.
The relationship between the exhortations of Edward’s favored clerics, such as Nicholas Ridley,
bishop of London, and Edward’s own thoughts on the utility of education and the necessity of public
charity, dove-tailed in a striking fashion in March 1553. Grafton wrote that following Ridley’s sermon,
which chastised the wealthy for their lack of charity, Edward requested an immediate interview with the
startled bishop, indicating his desire to hand over certain properties in his gift to the city of London,
resulting in the establishment of hospitals (Christ’s, St. Thomas’s, Bridewell) and the Savoy,
reconstituted as a “lodging for vagabonds, loiterers, and strumpets.” The entire episode, during
which Edward may have been aware of the onset of his own fatal illness, was in fact a sophisticated
display of good old fashioned Tudor royal theatre; images of this scene of a beneficent young king,
surrounded by grateful city officials and other notables, was reproduced continuously through the
early modern period in Britain. It should also be remembered that neither Northumberland nor the
Privy Council had any hand in these gifts, nor did they reap any political capital, which accrued
entirely to the king alone. In some elements of his kingship, Edward’s majority reign had in fact
already begun by the time his fatal illness set in during the spring of 1553.
| William Cecil |
| John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland |
| King Edward VI of England |
| Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London |
| "The habit of King Edward VI worn in England in 1550": A fine engraving from A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Antient and Modern . . . by Thomas Jeffries (London: 1757), courtesy of Carole Levin |