u/Purple-Charge6445

That summer evening, between 8 and 9 p.m., Edward VI was finally relieved of the illness that had tortured him for months. Legend has it that immediately after he breathed his last, a storm not seen in decades engulfed London, uprooting trees, crushing church spires, and sweeping houses away. It was seen as a bad omen. And to many people close to the King, his death indeed brought devastation.

Edward’s last months are normally associated with his Devise for Succession, an ill-thought decision with disastrous consequences for Lady Jane Grey. 

But the Devise was far from the only thing that kept him busy. In fact, his last months were a time of unusually high activity.

On March 1, he opened his last Parliament. A few important administrative reforms were on the agenda — for example, the Reform of the Revenue Courts, later confirmed by Mary I. And in May, he sent Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor on a voyage to discover the Northeastern Passage to China and the Indies. They never reached Asia. But with the help of Edward’s diplomatic letter, Chancellor convinced Tsar Ivan the Terrible to start a lucrative trade between England and Russia. 

Besides, until his last days, Edward VI continued signing grammar school foundations. For example, in June, he was presented with the charter for Christ’s Hospital in London. He studied the document for a minute, then took a quill and filled in the gap, allotting to the orphanage 4,000 pounds a year, pressed his seal against it, looked up at his Privy Council and said: “Lord, I yield Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast given me life thus long, to finish this work to the glory of Thy name.” Only two weeks before Edward passed, the school in Stratford-upon-Avon received the royal charter. 18 years later, it gave education to William Shakespeare.

The news of the king’s demise soon reached Europe. Jean Calvin, after hearing of Edward's death, said: 

>“Certain messengers confirmed that England had been deprived of an incomparable treasure of which it was unworthy. Indeed, I consider that, by the death of one youth, the whole nation had been bereaved of the best of fathers.”

Because he died so young, this last Tudor King’s figure was soon idealised in the popular imagination. 

For decades after Edward’s death, rumours circulated that he was in fact alive and would come back to rule over his people. As late as 1587, a smith from Essex, William Francis, kept saying that King Edward had been “carried in a red mantle into Germany in a ship called “The Harry”. He wouldn’t stop until someone said it could get him into trouble. As the biographer W.K. Jordan put it, “Not yet sixteen when he died, Edward had won the place not only in history, but in the imagination and folklore of his people.” 

In his last will, Edward VI left no instructions as to his tomb. In stark contrast to his father, an impressive memorial was never of interest to him. 

Instead, his legacy lives on in the schools and social care institutions he founded across England. I think it's beautiful justice that five centuries later, most of Henry VIII's luxurious palaces, the ones he spent a fortune on, have turned to dust, while his son’s investment in England's welfare was expanded by successors and still provides tangible help to his subjects today. It seems that Bishop John Hooper was right when he said about Edward VI,

>“He died young, but lived long. For life is an action.”

During Edward VI’s reign, England saw an uptick in the opening of social welfare institutions.

I thought showing these on a map would be helpful. I found a map of England of the 1550s and plotted on it the grammar schools, hospitals, etc. that Edward VI founded or refounded. Dropping the full list in the comments. I did my best to plot them as accurately as possible, but because I’m not British, please go easy on me!

Some authors, e.g. the Victorian Arthur Leach, have argued that all the "King Edward's schools" were nothing more than a rebranding of the medieval chantry schools which Edward himself dissolved. This is not true. First, many schools opened during Edward’s reign had never existed before. Second, many of those that were refounded had been closed not by the Chantries Act of 1547, but by Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s.

The main goal of these foundations was to give the lower classes a chance at a better life. Quite groundbreakingly for the 16th century, many schools were explicitly urged to prioritise the children of poor men over those of the rich. Christ's Hospital in London, perhaps the most famous of them, was founded as an orphanage in November 1552 and accepted almost 400 kids, all of whom received free tuition, clothing, and meals. A third of these children were girls.

For those of you in the UK, do you live near one of these schools, or perhaps you even attended one? Let me know!

In May 1553, three English ships set out on an insanely dangerous voyage. To bypass the Spanish and Portuguese monopolies and find new trade partners, they were searching for a Northeast Passage to China (Cathay) and the Indies through the vast, uncharted lands and waters of Muscovy. 

King Edward VI, dying of tuberculosis at Greenwich, wrote a diplomatic letter, in four languages, urging rulers of unknown lands to protect English merchants and allow them to trade there freely. 

Eventually, it worked. In February 1554, Sir Richard Chancellor reached Moscow and delivered his late King’s letter to none other than Tsar Ivan IV “the Terrible.” Ivan was delighted, and England started a profitable trade with Russia, which literally helped build the royal navy under Elizabeth I. (I wrote more about it in this post.)

I wanted to share the letter because, apart from being a great historical document, I think it gives some insight into Edward’s character. Even knowing his own days were numbered, he was doing everything in his power to secure a prosperous future for his kingdom, even if he personally wouldn’t live to see it.

---
 
The Letter of King Edward VI to the Kings and Princes of the Northeast (May 14, 1553, Greenwich Palace) (excerpt)

>" … For the God of heaven and earth, greatly providing for mankind, intended that not all things should be found in one region, to the end that one nation should have need of another…For the establishing and furthering of which universal friendship, certain men of our Realm, moved hereunto by the said desire, have instituted and taken upon them a voyage by sea into far countries, to the intent that between our people and theirs, a way may be opened to bring in and carry out merchandise; desiring us to further their enterprise.

>We, assenting to their petition, have licensed the right valiant and worthy Sir Hugh Willoughby... to go to countries to them heretofore unknown, as well to seek such things as we lack, as also to carry unto them from our regions such things as they lack. 

>We therefore desire you kings and princes, and all others who have any power on earth, to permit these our servants free passage through your regions and dominions: for they shall not touch anything of yours without your consent. 

>Show yourselves toward them as you would wish that we and our subjects should show ourselves toward your servants... By doing this, we promise you…that we will with like humanity receive your servants, if at any time they shall come to our kingdoms.

>Written in London, which is the chief city of our kingdom, in the month of May, the fourteenth day of the month, and seventh year of our reign."

Source: R. Hakluyt, “The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation”

That Edward VI left the state finances in absolute ruin and his sisters had to “clean the mess” after him is one of the most persistent Tudor myths that I see here and there. I think it’s time to address it.

Here is what Edward and his government actually achieved in just six years:

	Jan. 1547	July 1553 (end of reign)
External debt	ca. £100,000	More than halved, nearing zero
Monetary policy	Debasement since 1542	Debasement stopped. New, high-quality coinage introduced in March 1552
Sterling value on Antwerp exchange market	Collapsing	Fully restored
Treasury	Almost empty	Inflow of more than £100,000
Revenue courts	Five separate, inefficient courts draining money from treasury	Reform designed and statutes passed (March 1553) empowering the monarch to merge/discharge courts

Now let’s see how that turnaround happened, and we’ll start by painting the picture at Henry VIII’s death. 

—

Henry VIII couldn’t have left his son a country in a worse condition. England was at war and nearly bankrupt. It was so bad that at the end of 1546, the Treasurer of First Fruits didn’t even prepare a yearly declaration because there was no money to report. On top of an empty treasury, Henry left behind ca. £100,000 of external debt in Flanders, which had to be repaid at an interest rate of 14%.

No wonder Edward’s government was mostly in a deep crisis. 

Often, there was no cash at all in revenue courts. And they weren’t exactly handling it right at first, because the Lord Protector, Duke of Somerset, insisted on the disastrous practice of debasement despite criticism in the Council (mostly to fund the wars with Scotland and France). As a result, sterling lost a lot of its value domestically and on the Antwerp exchange, reaching its lowest in June 1551. 

Commoners had it worse. Food was becoming less and less affordable by the day. One of the many reasons for that, besides weak coinage, population growth, enclosures and the general depreciation of money in 16-century Europe, were poor harvests. It all troubled the court. As Jordan writes, “no Tudor Government was quite as sensitive to the dangers and hardships occasioned by spiraling victual prices as the Edwardian.” 

But sensitive though they were, they made many mistakes: banning food exports, imposing a price threshold for grain, which only made things worse as grain was being withheld from the market, and ramping up imports from abroad. Proclamation after proclamation, nothing seemed to work, and prices kept growing.

So as you see, the first years of Edward’s reign were indeed abysmal in that sense.

But most historians overlook what happened after.

—

In 1551-52, the tide turned.

1. Coinage restoration: In April 1551, the King and the Council seemed to realise that debasement would only take them so far. Instead, they declared that coinage must be restored to a purer standard.

 

This took almost a year to implement, though. But after a last and worst debasement to raise quick cash and lots of confusion among the people, new, high-quality coinage was finally issued in March 1552. The bullion value of silver coins was set to the 1527 standard, ‘well calculated to suit the country’s needs’, and the money in circulation ‘greatly reduced’. 

All that caused sharp deflation — a painful but necessary shock to the market. It didn’t produce an instant miracle. Only years later, in 1560, Elizabeth I completed the reform by removing all old debased coins from circulation — something Edward and Northumberland didn’t dare to do. However, the first and most crucial step was made.

1. Repaying royal debt: At the same time, the Council sought to get rid of royal liabilities. Of course, peace with France and the sale of Boulogne helped a bit, as they were now able to save on expensive garrisons and ammunition.

 

More controversially, the sale of crown and former chantry lands ramped up in 1552-53. All with the hope to relieve the King from his (or, better said, his father's) debts.

… But it was all a drop in the ocean. Because in autumn 1551, the Crown’s debt still stood at £241K. That was 5x the Crown’s normal revenues, and more than half of it was owed to Antwerp bankers. 

To Edward VI personally, these debts were like anathema. With the same rigour that marked his grandfather Henry VII, the 14-year-old King worked closely with the Council, especially Cecil, on a solution.

And they found one. In 1551, they hired a talented young man — a certain Sir Thomas Gresham. As time would show…that was one of their best decisions.

You probably know Gresham as the founder of the Royal Exchange in 1565. But long before that, he did a miracle as Edward VI’s financial agent in Antwerp in 1551-53. A dozen trips between London and Flanders, some currency manipulation here and there, and the results speak for themselves:

• In early 1552, the external debt stood at £123K;
• By the end of 1552, it dropped to £45K — meaning, it was slashed by almost three times. 
• Even if you compare it to the £100K of debt left by Henry VIII, it still more than halved.

 

It was a triumph. At last, the King could breathe freely! 

Edward generously rewarded the man for his services. Shortly before his death, handing to Gresham a charter for even more lands, he said, "You shall know that you have served a king!"

But aside from ad hoc measures, long-lasting reforms were needed — and that included changes in the government itself. Edward VI knew this very well. He had already designed a reform of the Council for leaner governance; and by this point in time - as foreign ambassadors acknowledged - he wielded enough power to make the Council listen.

*** The reform of the Revenue courts ***

I know Mary I is often credited with the idea of merging different courts which helped reduce government spend. 

That’s a bit unfair. Mary’s Parliament lent the final paperwork, yes, but the plan, legislative approval and political will came entirely from her brother’s reign, and as Elton argues, “the Queen can claim no credit for it.”

I said before that Edward VI was a bit obsessed with fixing the treasury balance. In 1552, he appointed a Revenue Commission to see all the ways how the balance could be restored. The commission’s work bore fruit. By the end of 1552, they not only called in £16K of debts to the Crown, but also came up with a “Next Steps” plan. One of the recommendations was to fuse five separate courts into one, which would make administration more efficient and save £18K on salaries. 

The King agreed with the findings. In his “Memorandum for the Council” from October 1552 — even before the Commission presented its conclusions — he insisted on

>“Bringing the Augmentation Court into the Exchequer, and likewise the Court of First Fruits and Tenths, and saving all those fees that may be spared.” 

And his will was heard:

>“The Council … moved quickly to lend its approval to the commission’s report. In March 1553, statutes vested in the King power to merge all the revenue courts by letters patent and to dissolve those then existing.”

So, as we see, the reform was already with the Parliament in March 1553. Sadly, for Edward, it was too late. 

He was by now visibly sick, and the Council focused on the succession abandoning other projects. One more plan they didn’t have time to finalise was raising royal customs revenues from trade — another recommendation of the 1552 Revenue Commission, and an exact blueprint for the Book of Rates adopted by Mary. To sum up, Edward’s early death is the single reason these reforms only received their final approval under his sister.

*** So… Did Edward VI really destroy English finances and leave the country bankrupt just like his father? ***

The short answer is: no.

As Jordan summarised:

>"By the time of Edward's death the external debt was being liquidated, sterling commanded a substantial premium in the Antwerp market, and the balance of payments had been completely restored with a reverse flow of more than £100,000 to England."

I hope that’s enough evidence to counter the myth of a “financial disaster” that Edward left to his heirs. It’s true that not all problems were resolved, but some were, and a  course to resolving others was charted. Despite his youth, historians admit that Edward personally “had much to do with the restoration of the coinage and the stabilisation of exchange”. I think he needs to get more credit for that.

Sources:

• F. Dietz, English public finance, 1485-1641 
• Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government
• W.K. Jordan, Edward VI: the threshold of power 
• C.W.C. Oman, The Tudors and the Currency, 1526-1560

We talk a lot about Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries and how it affected the country, but rarely of what happened after.

Because the evolution of welfare in Tudor England took decades, let’s focus today on the reign of Edward VI, who took very decisive steps towards a new system. Since there’s so much to say, I’m splitting this into 2 parts. TL;DR at the end!

*** Background: the result of Henry’s policies ***

..If you read The Prince and the Pauper, you might remember Twain’s message that Edward VI was well aware of his people’s woes and eagerly acted to relieve them. The many “King Edward Schools” standing today seem to back this up.

At the same time, some scholars, like the Victorian Arthur Leach, go as far as to claim that Edward VI in fact destroyed a functioning welfare system in England, and all of the “King Edward schools” were mere rebranding of what had existed before. 

Where is the truth?.. Let’s try to break it down.

The secularisation of education had begun under Henry VIII, guided by two Thomases: Wolsey, and Cromwell. Across Europe, Humanism and Reformation were driving the process. But while Luther and Melanchthon were designing brand new educational and poor relief frameworks for a Protestant Germany, Henry VIII’s regime did destroy the old monastic system, but… didn’t build a new one to replace it. 

While Wolsey did found the Cardinal College and promoted humanist principles at schools, he “was not concerned with furthering learning among laymen so much as to counteract the effect of growing literacy, and [his policy] was to animate the Counter-Reformation.” (J. Simon) Cromwell had far-reaching plans to bring education under state control, but ran out of time. 

As a result, by the end of Henry’s reign,

>There had been a wholesale transference of rights over schools to the crown, [...] But no concerted programme for refounding schools, and those established were connected with an ecclesiastical foundation in the traditional way.

Then in 1547, Henry dies. This is where we see some real transformation. 

*** Uprooting the old system ***

Edward’s reign started with another dissolution — this time, of chantries. That had already been on Henry VIII’s mind to fund his wars, but Parliament turned down the project. 

In December 1547, after a lot of debate, the Chantries Act passed. Chantries were less of a social safety net than monasteries, but still managed a number of schools and hospitals. (Though, as W.K. Jordan points out, only a few hospitals fulfilled their original function by that time, and the number of schools is hard to estimate, as Leach admits.)

To make up for their loss, the Chantries Act foresaw allocation of lands for school foundations. The King would appoint commissioners. The priests of former chantries would receive pensions. Each county would get at least two schools, and each school, a good master with a decent salary. It was all well thought-out on paper. 

In reality… It didn’t work as intended. Very few schools received endowments, pensions were abysmally low. In 1548, many chantry lands were sold to finance Somerset’s war in Scotland, just like in Henry’s time.

Promises mostly unfulfilled, many were disappointed: from preachers like Latimer and Ridley to royal tutors like Roger Ascham. At last, in February 1550, they were heard. After the fall of the Lord Protector, war with France and Scotland was over, and the new government finally prioritised domestic policies. The Court of Augmentations received the power to erect grammar schools, and many petitions from cities were answered. 

*** Wave of foundation ***

Between 1550 and 1553, schools were (re)founded in 29 counties. What strikes me most is the genuine, if naive, attempt by Edward’s government to promote better social equality. 

Look at the royal charters. The statute for Bury school (1550) commanded that:

>“Poor men’s children be admitted before others and taught without partiality as soundly as the richest.” 

The statute of King’s Lynn school: 

>“Let rich and poor have the same consideration. Let it be exhibited in teaching and everything else without distinction.” 

The same went for universities, where the monarchy encouraged a more socially just governance: “In the election of fellows and scholars, the sons of poor persons, being apt and of good abilities, are to be preferred to the sons of rich and powerful persons.” This well aligns with Edward’s own writings. In them, his commitment to a fairer society where laws applied to all "without the respect of persons” is obvious.

Healthcare wasn’t neglected either. In 1552, two institutions opened to provide free medical care: the refounded medieval St Thomas and the wholly new Christ’s Hospital. This latter was to give shelter, medical care, and education to the orphans of London. A generation later, it became a grammar school. 

How were these institutions funded? Some, like Sherborne, Bury St Edmunds, or Christ’s Hospital, received rents from former chantries and endowments of lands or royal palaces. Others, like the school in Southampton, were financed by generous local benefactors or city councils. Many were a mix. Some provided free tuition, others charged a fee. It was not an ideal setup, as not all families would send their kids to a school, even a free one, but still a big step forward.

*** Philanthropic boom ***

Speaking of private benefactors. Charity was a central element of Edward’s reign, especially in 1550-53, under the Duke of Northumberland. In today’s currency, charitable donations in 1550-53 reached an incredible £33.7 million (ca. $45.8 million), with 51% intended for sick care and 18% for education. Not a single decade of the Elizabethan Golden age was that generous. In fact, this amount of charitable giving would not be equaled until James VI and I. And what strikes even more — and that amidst very radical Protestant reforms — is the clearly secular character of the Edwardian charity, with only < 5% meant for religious purposes.

On top of private donations, in six years between 1547 and 1553, the Crown assigned £19.6 million ($26.5 million) for charitable purposes, although we can’t be sure how much of that was “new money” and how much was reallocation of former chantry rents.

How about the King’s personal charity? Edward VI donated quite a lot from his own wealth, limited though it was (especially under the Lord Protector). In 1547 alone, he gave out £112K for the care of the deserving poor, for example, to help parents whose child had gone missing. As he grew up, he took notes on the sermons of Ridley’s and Latimer’s, which criticised the injustices in England and sought a private audience with them, asking how he personally could do more.

*** Blueprint for Elizabethan laws ***

More importantly, the very framework of charity changed. Compared to medieval almsgiving, private, irregular, and a bit haphazard, charity now set out to become systematic and regulated.

While Elizabeth’s Poor Relief Act of 1601 is well-known, it was actually based on the less known resolution of London Council of 1547. For the first time in England, Londoners had to pay taxes to support poor relief in the city. Norwich followed with a compulsory tax in 1549.

Another policy Elizabeth ihnerited from her brother was to distinguish between “deserving” poor, who genuinely needed help, and the “professional beggars”, who had to be punished. To do that, cities had to draw up a census of inhabitants. 

(It’s important to remember that this distinction between “deserving” and “undeserving” poor was very much in line with the humanist (not just Protestant) thinking in Europe at the time. One advocate of it was the Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives. And of course, Martin Luther adhered to this principle when designing poor relief plans for Germany.)

TL;DR: In Edward VI’s reign, the State finally replaced the Church as the guarantor of welfare. Inspired by European humanist and reformist thinking, the monarchy, cities, and private benefactors together drove a surge in charitable giving unmatched until the 17th century, founding new and refounding closed schools, hospitals, and shelters to give children and adults a new chance at life. Although the setup wasn’t ideal and funds limited, we can say that the policies under Edward VI created a blueprint for Elizabeth’s Poor Laws of 1601, and as such, for the modern welfare system.

Sources: 

• J. Simon, Education and Society in Tudor England
• W.K. Jordan: Edward VI: the threshold of power, Philanthropy in England, and The charities of London, 1480-1660

Bojnice Castle was first mentioned in 1113. Originally made of wood, it was rebuilt in stone by the 1300s and remained with the Poznań family until Hungarian nobleman Máté III Csák seized it. Over the centuries, the castle belonged to many noble families and monarchs, including the famous King Mátyás Hunyadi (Matthias Corvinus) who is said to have sat musing under a linden tree next to the castle walls (the 700-year-old tree is still going strong).

The last noble owner was a wealthy Hungarian count János Pálffy. At the end of the 19th century, he rebuilt Bojnice into what it is today: a romantic castle inspired by the French Gothic castles of the Loire Valley, the papal palace in Avignon, Tyrolean Gothic castles, and Italian Renaissance.

The place is just beautiful inside as it is outside, but you can only visit with a guided tour (English-speaking tours available) for 16 EUR. Due to it charming beauty, Bojnice has served as setting for so many films. Plus, stunning caves underneath. All in all, heartily recommended!