Kingship and politics in the reign of Edward VI

Fig. 4 The contents page of the first edition of A tragoedie or Dialoge of the unjuste usurped primacie of the Bishop of Rome (1549) showing the ninth dialogue between 'Kyng Edward the vi. and the lorde Protector'. The later variant had 'Kyng Edwarde the .vi. and the Counseil'.

Fig. 8 The families of Herbert, Parr, Talbot, and Throckmorton.

Fig. 3 The families of Seymour, Stanhope, and Page.

Fig. 5 The representation of the imperial arms in A Copye of a Letter contayning certayne newes, and the Articles or requestes of the Devonshyre & Cornyshe rebelles, printed by John Day and William Seres in 1549. Day borrowed the block from the king's printer Richard Grafton, who had used it in 1547 in James Henrisoun's Exhortation to the Scotts. The block appears to predate the break from Rome (it features Catherine of Aragon's symbol of the pomegranate), and it may have encouraged Day to produce his own, more sophisticated representation of Edward's imperial kingship in 1549.

Fig. 1 The frontispiece to Thomas Cranmer's Catechism (1548), showing Edward enthroned, handing the Bible to his bishops. The text above the woodcut reads 'The Kyng ought to be feared as the roaryng of a Lyon, who so provoketh him unto anger, offendeth against his owne soule' (Proverbs 20:2). And below it: 'Let not the booke of this law depart out of your mouthes. But recorde there in daye and nyghte, that you maye do accordynge to all that is wrytten therin' (Joshua 1:8; Deuteronomy 17:19).

Fig. 10 Richard Grafton's idealized representation of Edward taking counsel, from the title-page of The union of the two noble and illustre famelies of Lancastre & Yorke (1548) by Edward Hall. This is not a representation of the king attending a meeting of the institutional Privy Council. Although the image dates from the earliest years of Edward's reign it may offer an insight into the physical dimensions of the 'counsel for the estate' after 1552 (see pp. 162–6).

Fig. 9 The families of Denny, Gates, Mildmay, and Walsingham.

Fig.7 The families of Cecil, Cheke, and Cooke.

Fig. 6 John Day's and William Seres' imperial colophon of 1549 with the verse from 1 Peter 2:17. Day and Seres inserted this single sheet into their editions of the Bible. The '.E..R.' of 'Edwardus Rex' conveniently suited the initials of his sister Elizabeth, so in 1563 Day voided '1549' and 'Vivat Rex' and reproduced the woodcut in John Foxe's first English edition of Acts and Monuments.

Fig. 2 The title-page of An Homelye to be read in the tyme of pestylence by Bishop John Hooper, printed in Worcester by John Oswen in 1553. The verse is 1 Peter 2:17.