What is an heir?

It’s basically just someone that the king can pass the throne down to.

King Henry needed to have a son so that when he died, his son would be king and it would stay in his family.

Why did he need a son? He already had daughters

Back then you couldn’t pass the throne onto girl, you had to have a son and pass it on to them.

Edward VI – born 1537, reigned 1547-53

Edward was born and christened at Hampton Court Palace. He was the eagerly-awaited son of Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour. Henry is said to have wept with joy as he held his infant son, then wept again a few days later when the queen died from post-birth complications. As a little boy Edward was spoiled and indulged, he even had his own fighting bears.

Edward was extremely well educated by a set of forward-thinking Cambridge scholars, who instilled in the prince a desire for religious reform. Even before he was 10, Edward was fairly fluent in Latin, Greek and French.

Edward was crowned aged 9 although his uncle, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, acted as the young King’s governor and lord protector of the realm until he was deposed in 1550.

Edward’s reign saw the foundations laid for one of the great transformations of English society, the English Reformation, but the King did not live to see the successful realisation of many of his religious plans. Falling ill in 1552, probably with tuberculosis, he finally succumbed on 6 July 1553, aged only 15.