This is the Tudors Dynasty podcast.

And now, a brief history with Christine Morgan.

Hi, I'm with Christine Morgan.

Hi, I'm historian Christine Morgan, and welcome to a brief history.

On this episode, we continue with the final part of Henry the 8th's reign and take a look at the way the city of London evolved, religiously, economically,

and in matters of caring for children and the poor

during the reign of Edward the 6th. Though Edward's reign is short, the city forges ahead at full

steam. All stories are taken from the book London in the time of tutors by Sir Walter Besant.

In the last year of Henry's reign, 1546, he bestowed an endowment of 500 marks a year

on the city poor houses on condition that the city itself raised just as much.

He also gave the city only a few days before his death, the hospital of St. Bartholomew,

to be called the House of the Poor, the House of the Greyfriars, and the House or Hospital

of Bethlehem. Henry died on the 28th of January, 1547, at his palace of Whitehall.

The death of Henry left the city in a condition of the greatest confusion and disorder.

The streets were full of returned soldiers and of idle vagabonds who follow the army.

In holes and corners there were lurking, unfrocked friars, and people turned out of their work in the religious houses.

There were no hospitals for the sick, none for the blind, none for the insane.

If these were the fruits of the king's supremacy, then men whispered to each other, it were better to return to the old superstitions.

The city presents few points of interest during the reign of Edward V. which do not belong to the national history. The progress of the Reformation is the subject

which, more especially, belongs to and interests the world in

this young king's short reign. There can be no doubt whatever that just as in the reign of

Richard II, the city was saturated with lawlerdry, so in the last years of Henry VIII. It was

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