In his desperate quest for an heir, King Henry VIII divorced one wife and beheaded another. The birth of Prince Edward on October 12, 1537, ended his father's twenty-seven-year wait. Nine years later, Edward was on the throne, a boy-king of a nation in religious limbo and in a court where manipulation, treachery, and plotting were rife.
Chris Skidmore describes how, in the six years of Edward's reign, court intrigue, deceit, and treason very nearly plunged the country into civil war while the stability that the Tudors had sought to achieve came close to being torn apart. Even today, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I are considered the two dominant figures of the Tudor period. But Edward's reign is equally important. It was one of dramatic change and tumult whose impact is still felt today—certainly in terms of his religious reformation, which not only exceeded Henry's ambitions but has endured for over four centuries since Edward's death in 1553.