What If Edward VI Had Backed Down? The Deathbed Decision That Changed England

Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors

Heather Teysko

History

4.6 • 624 Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2026

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Edward VI gets overlooked. He's usually just the boy between Henry and the interesting women. But here's what people miss: Edward didn't just die and leave a mess. He made choices. Theologically driven, politically sophisticated choices. From his deathbed. At fifteen. This week's What If looks at the Devise for Succession, the document Edward drafted in his own hand that bypassed both his sisters and put Lady Jane Grey directly in line for the throne. We look at the pressure campaign he ran on his terrified council, and then ask: what if he'd backed down? Spoiler: the cruel irony is that his plan failed completely and the thing he was trying to protect probably survived because of that failure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:42.2	So I got a comment recently asking me to do a what if video about Edward the 6th surviving.
0:50.1	What if he just didn't die at age 15? What if he'd live to rule alone, consolidated the Protestant Reformation, changed everything.
0:59.3	And I love that idea.
1:00.5	I really do.
1:01.7	But here's my problem with it.
1:03.1	I like my what if scenarios to have a decision point.
1:07.4	A moment where a real human being with real agency actually chose something, and I want to
1:14.0	look at what happens if they had chosen differently. Like more modern, Hitler chose to start the
1:20.7	blitz over London, which gave the RAF time to rearm and, you know, probably cost him the war.
1:25.9	That's a what-if that I can get my teeth into
1:28.1	because there's one person, one moment, there's a road not taken. Like we've done Catherine of
	...

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