The Death of Edward VI

The Death of Edward VI

King Edward fell ill in April 1552, of a combination of measles and smallpox. Later in the year he began to exhibit signs of tuberculosis, or consumption as it was known at the time. By June it was obvious that the King was unlikely to survive.

It is now known that the measles virus supresses host immunity to tuberculosis. The unscrupulous Northumberland, fearing for his own political survival under Edward’s successor, the fanatically Catholic Mary, influenced the impressionable young King to disinherit both his sisters in favour of his cousin Lady Jane Grey.

Lady Jane was the grand-daughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister, Mary and was conveniently married to Northumberland’s son, Guildford Dudley.

To allow time for his plans to progress, the Protector dismissed Edward’s doctors and installed a female to administer to the dying king.

Her ‘restringents’ brought on a temporary improvement but probably slowly poisoned him through the levels of arsenic they contained. Edward’s sufferings reached a pitch where they became intolerable, he was heard to whisper to his tutor “I am glad to die.” His legs and arms swelled and his skin darkened, while his fingers and toes became gangrenous, he also lost his hair and nails.

On July 6th, 1553, during the close atmosphere of a violent thunderstorm, which rumour said was the spectre of Henry VIII, stamping his feet in characteristic fury and venting his wrath at the extinction of his dynasty, King Edward VI died in agony, crying out with pathos “I am faint, Lord, have mercy upon me, take my spirit. “