EDWARD VI., son of Henry VIII. by his wife Jane Seymour, was b. at Hampton Court, 12th Oct., 1537. The events which happened during his brief reign were of great importance, but they were of course brought about by others, E. being too young (he was not sixteen when he died) to exercise any personal influence on the statesmen or the tendencies of his age. On the death of Henry in 1547, Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford, became protector of the kingdom. He was attached to the principles of the reformation, and during his rule, great strides were made towards the establishment of Protestantism in England. The images were removed from the churches; refractory Roman Catholic bishops were imprisoned; the laity were allowed the cup i at the cere mony of the Lord's supper; all ecclesiastical processes were ordered to run in the king's name; Henry's famous six articles (known as the Bloody Statute) were repealed; a service-book, compiled by Cranmer and Ridley, assisted by eleven other divine:. was drawn up, and ordered to be used, and is known as the First Prayer-Book of Eduard' VI. (see COMMON PRAYER Boos); and the celibacy of the clergy ceased to be obliga tory. In war, Seymour showed himself to be a brave general. During the first year of his protectorate, lie invaded Scotland, on account of the refusal of the Scottish govern ment to fulfill the contract into which it had entered with Henry VIII., by which it was agreed that Mary queen of Scots should marry Edward. The battle of Pinkie followed, on the 10th Sept., 1547, in which the Scots were completely beaten; and Seymour, now duke of Somerset, might have inflicted most serious damage on the whole country if his presence had not been required at home. He returned to find that his brother, lord Seymour, had been caballing against him. Somerset had him arrested, tried, and con demned for treason, and on the 20th of Mar., 1549, he was beheaded on Tower Hill.
In the summer of the same year the protector quelled an insurrection of the populace headed by one Kett, a tanner; but in the course of a few months, a more dangerous adversary appeared in the person of John Dudley, earl of Warwick, whose party, by dint of insinuations against Somerset, excited the nation against him, and at last com pelled the king to sign his deposition. On the 14th of Oct., Somerset was placed in the Tower; and on the 1st of Dec., 1551, lie was tried before the house of lords for treason, condemned, and executed, 22d of Jan., 1552. The people regretted, with good reason, his death, for Dudley was both a worse and a weaker man than himself. Before Somer set's execution, Dudley had been created duke of Northumberland. He was himself (judging from his dying declaration) a Catholic, but he certainly took no means to re-es tablish the old religion. Ills great aim was to secure the succession to the throne of England for his family. With this view, he married his son, lord Guildford Dudley, lady Jane Grey, (laughter of the duchess of Suffolk, to whom, by the will of Henry VIII., fell the crown, in default of issue by Edward, Mary, or 'Elizabeth. Northum berland now worked upon the weak and dying Edward to exclude Mary and Elizabeth, and nominate lady Jane Grey as his successor. E. at last consented, and a document settling the succession on this lady was drawn up in June, 1552. The king lived only a few weeks after, dying on the 6th of July. Subsequent events entirely frustrated Northumberland's design. King E., during his short reign, founded a great number of grammar-schools, which still exist, and are known as king Edward's schools.