Not Becoming of A Christian Princess

It is - and was - not a secret that Princess Mary and Prince Edward did not see eye to eye on religious matters but as it turns out, the siblings had different views on royal behaviour.

Prince Edward wrote to Catherine Parr, asking her to keep the Princess Mary from dancing foreign and exotic dances. In his own words Mary should "attend no longer to foreign dances and merriments which do not become a most Christian Princess." You can almost imagine Mary's indignation towards being reproved by her younger brother on her behaviour.
Despite personal pride, Mary may also have found a sort of comfort in the foreign dances since her mother had brought many Spanish and "Moorish" dances to the English court when she arrived to marry Arthur, Prince of Wales.

Book Theme: Edward VI

Edward VI was the Tudor-king that people forgot - he died before he could make any real change or have anything permanently established for history to remember him alongside his father Henry VIII and grand-father Henry VII. But he has emerged from history and several books have been written on this little boy who became a King too soon.

Edward VI - The Lost King of England by Chris Skidmore

The Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch

The British Josiah: Edward VI, the most godly King of England by N.A. Woychuk

England's Boy King: the Diary of Edward VI by Edward Tudor

Diary of a Boy King

Edward VI had been brought up as Henry VIII's greatest pride and joy, the heir to the Tudor-dynasty. With such a formal upbringing it is no wonder that the boy developed a different relationship to the official state affairs.
The document to the right is from Edward VI's journal and describes his becoming King of England - in third-person narrative.

In the journal Edward VI states that he was with his sister Elizabeth when they were told about their father's death by Edward's uncle, Lord Edward Seymour, while they were staying at Elizabeth's Enfield residence on January 30th 1547. Edward writes that the death of Henry VIII caused great grief in London but the young King reveals nothing of his own feelings - something he never really did.

The new Tudor-king goes on to describe how the officers that formerly served his father, broke their staffs of office and threw them into Henry VIII's grave during his funeral. It is likely that Edward did not attend his father's funeral himself since he was now King and Kings never attended funerals - Henry VIII had not attended the funeral of his sister Margaret - because it was treason to imagine the King's death.

When you consider the strange reservation in Edward's personality it seems plausible that he started writing the diary at the request of one his tutors. The diary starts of telling about Edward's childhood till 1547 and the years from 1547 to 1549 is a more like a chronicle of past events where Edward is mentioned in third person. It is not until the end of the diary that it actually becomes more like a diary that describes day-to-day events.