Dimensions
129 x 186 x 16mm
England's last boy king, Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII (his 'precious jewel'), became king at the age of nine and died wholly unexpectedly at the age of fifteen.
All around him loomed powerful men who hoped to use the child to further their own ends, but who were also playing a long game - assuming that Edward would become as commanding a figure as his father. Stephen Alford's wonderful book gives full play to the murky, sinister nature of Edward's reign, but is also a poignant account of an intelligent, ambitious boy learning to enjoy his growing power and come out of the shadows of the great aristocrats around him.
As Alford shows, Edward could have led his country in a quite different direction to the catastrophic one caused by his death.
