Description

A child signed death warrants. A teenager ordered executions. A 15-year-old died screaming while his body rotted from the inside.

Edward VI became King of England at 9 years old. By 15, he was dead—leaving behind over 10,000 corpses and a religious reformation built on blood and fire.

History remembers his sister Mary as "Bloody Mary." But Edward's six-year reign produced a body count that dwarfs hers. He watched heretics burn without flinching. He signed his own uncle's death warrant at age 11. He refused mercy for a woman begging for her life—because she disagreed with him about communion.

He was a child. He was a monster. He was possibly murdered.

And his ghost still haunts Greenwich Palace—coughing, gasping, reliving his agonizing death for 470 years.

In this episode of the Bloody Royals series, Lee dives deep into the dark history of Tudor England's forgotten terror: the boy king whose Protestant vision for England was written in Catholic blood.

We cover:

• The cursed birth that killed his mother Jane Seymour
• His isolated, indoctrinated childhood under Henry VIII's paranoid watch
• The Prayer Book Rebellion: 5,500+ dead
• Kett's Rebellion: 3,000+ massacred (Edward's journal entry: "Good.")
• The executions he personally ordered—including two of his own uncles
• His horrific death: hair falling out, nails detaching, body suppurating while still alive
• The mysterious unnamed woman who appeared in his final months with "healing drinks"
• Was Edward VI murdered? The conspiracy theories examined
• The hauntings, omens, and high strangeness surrounding his life and death

Was he evil? Or a victim of isolation, indoctrination, and absolute power given to a child?

The answer might be both.

🕯️ Come Curious. Stay Strange.

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CREDITS:

Host: Lee

Co-Hosts: Josh & Jen

Audio/Video Editor: Jeremy

SOURCES:

Primary Sources:

• The Chronicle and Political Papers of King Edward VI (W.K. Jordan, ed., 1966)
• Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth (J.G. Nichols, ed., 1857)
• State Papers, Domestic Series, Edward VI (The National Archives, Kew)

Secondary Sources:

• Skidmore, Chris. Edward VI: The Lost King of England (2007)
• Loades, David. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland (1996)
• MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation (1999)
• Alford, Stephen. Kingship and Politics in the Reign of Edward VI (2002)
• Beer, Barrett L. Rebellion and Riot: Popular Disorder in England during the Reign of Edward VI (1982)

Medical & Death Analysis:

• Loach, Jennifer. Edward VI (Yale English Monarchs, 1999)
• Holmes, Frederick. "The Death of Young King Edward VI" in The New England Journal of Medicine (2001)

Paranormal & Folklore:

• Hallam, Elizabeth. Royal Ghosts (1987)
• Westwood, Jennifer & Simpson, Jacqueline. The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England's Legends (2005)
• Brooks, J.A. Ghosts of London (1991)

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