Edward VI of England

Born 12 October 1537, Edward was Henry VIII's only surviving son, by Jane Seymour, and the first English monarch raised Protestant. Crowned 20 February 1547 at age nine, he never ruled alone: a regency council governed, first under his uncle Edward Seymour, then John Dudley. His reign saw economic trouble, social unrest erupting into rebellion in 1549, and a costly Scottish war that ended in withdrawal. But Edward cared most about religion - under him, England became recognisably Protestant for the first time, abolishing clerical celibacy and the Latin Mass, imposing English services and a Protestant communion. At fifteen, terminally ill, he tried to secure the future by naming his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey as heir, bypassing his Catholic half-sister Mary. He died 6 July 1553. Mary took the throne nine days later, reversed everything, and then Elizabeth reversed it back.