Accession and Coronation of Edward VI

Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547 and was succeeded by his only legitimate son, the nine-year-old Edward VI. Government passed into the hands of a regency council dominated initially by Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, while the court managed the announcement of the king’s death, the transfer of authority and the public presentation of the child monarch.

Edward was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 20 February 1547. The shortened ceremony acknowledged his age while affirming dynastic continuity and royal supremacy. His accession opened a reign marked by rapid Protestant reform, factional competition and debate over how power should be exercised during a royal minority.

Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper begins immediately before Henry VIII’s death and imagines Edward exchanging places with the impoverished Tom Canty, allowing each boy to encounter the social order from the other’s position.