Someone decided to make Edward a weak child in their book because it worked with their storyline. Others, instead of bothering with the facts, perpetuated the myth. It made for a good read; a young, sickly boy who became king, but died before his time. Plus he was the son of a very notorious king. People fell for it.  Authors made big money off the story.

DuchessofBrittany said:

Christopher Skidmore wrote a good biography on Edward VI entitled Edward VI: the Lost King of England.” I read this book a couple of years ago, so I cannot recall clearly Skidmore's arguments and theories. But, he does a great job of exploring Edward's short life and reign.

I've been thinking of reading that, I've never read a biography solely on Edward before.  Would you recommend it or are there better ones out there?

I believe Edward was 9 years and 3 months old when he became king.  He died of Pulmonary Tuberculosis and it seemed to run in the Tudor family. His aunt, Princess Mary, wife of Charles Brandon died of this diease.  Henry's son with Bessie Blount, the Duke of Richmond died of this diease. The poisonous remedies that were being administered to the king Edward took affect prior to his actual death.  His skin became discolored and his body began to swell well out of proportion.  This was followed by his hair and finger nails falling out.  It was rumored, and during the vast research for my book I found this rumor and would love to hear feed back from all of you, however, the rumor states that Edwards decaying body lay within the royal bedchamber, was in fact replaced by a murdered youth looking much like that of king Edward. Edward's body was then buried somewhere on the grounds of Greenwich Palace. This was all done by John Dudley to buy time in order to get Lady Jane Grey on the throne of England. As long as visitors to the kings bedchamber believed him to be asleep and not dead, he had the time he needed to accomplish this.  Consequkently the body buried at Westminster Abbey could be that of the imposter. I think the only way to put away this rumor would be to preform a DNA test on the body that is at Westminster Abbey…..?? Also a DNA test would put to rest whether Edward suffered from this diease throughout his childhood.  What say all of you…..??

IF they could get a DNA sample of Edward, they could compare his DNA to that of his maternal grandparents.  That would give a close enough approximation to determine if the body in the grave is, indeed, Edward or that of a murdered imposter–especially if they could do mitochondrial DNA analysis which is passed matrilineally (mother–>offspring).  It's a shaky and difficult technique, but if bodies are fairly well preserved then possible.  That way, the only royal body that would require exhumation would be Edward himself.  Clearly his mother's body and both uncle's bodies are off limits (since I'm sure no one could ID E. Seymour and T. Seymour from all the other bones strewn about St. Peter ad Vincula…).

Interesting that so many people died of TB.  But it makes sense.  I mean, the primary means of transmission of TB is coughing.  People in the Court were around each other a lot and it would have been extremely easy for one person to transmit TB to someone else.  In a lot of countries, TB is still a leading cause of death because some people have so little access to antibiotics or are unable to pay for the medication to complete a full round of antibiotics and kill of the bacteria.  Which has, unwittingly, created some nasty forms of TB–but that's a different story. 

We've discussed this here in some other thread not too terribly long ago, and I thought the prevailing opinion was that Dudley was way too busy to also secretly bury Edward and murder an imposter to be officially buried later as Edward. And why do it anyway? It would be no harder to conceal a coffin in Edward's chambers than a smelly, decaying, but still live King. They could always say the coffin was brought up ahead of time. Bodies decayed rapidly and were sealed in a lead coffin until they could be buried. No one was going to rip the coffin open to see if it had died earlier or later than first reported. No CSIs then!

Ha, great minds think alike, Anyanka, with the rant about CSIs.