EDWARD VI, king of England. — Born 2 Oct 1537, died 6 July 1553. Son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, he ascended the throne at nine years of age in 1547. In the first two years of his reign power was in the hands of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, whom the council of regency appointed Lord Protector. With the approval of the young king—frail in health but precocious and endowed with the particular Tudor bent for studies—Somerset promoted the further penetration of Protestantism in the country, even in its most fanatical form of opposition to idolatry, that is, the veneration of sacred images and the Mass, urged especially by the supporters of Calvinism and notably by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury.
When Somerset was removed—his policy of dominance over Scotland having elsewhere met with no success and having been victoriously opposed by the French—the council concluded peace with France (1550); yet the religious policy of the former continued more harshly under John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, later Duke of Northumberland. During Edward’s reign there appeared the two editions of the *Book of Common Prayer* (1549 and 1552) and the preparation of a new Calvinist order of service.