But, for the most part, the crowd cheered, and shouted, "God save the king!" and not one was there who found it in his heart to wish young Edward Tudor ill.
The papist ceremony which had always before accompanied the coronation of English kings was now for the first time dispensed with.

With joy the people heard good old Archbishop Cranmer urge the new king to see God truly worshipped, according to the doctrines of the Reformed religion; and with joy they heard the boy declare before them all his intention to rule his country according to the rules of God's Word and the Protestant faith.
Still, as we have said, many in the midst of their joy sighed as they looked at the frail boy, and wondered how so young a head would bear up amid all the perils and dangers of kingship; and well they might pity him.
The reign of Edward the Sixth is chiefly a history of the acts of his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, the Protector, and of the dissensions which embittered the government of that nobleman, leading finally to his death on the scaffold.

Of Edward himself we do not hear much.

We have occasional glimpses of him at his studies, under tutors chosen and superintended by Cranmer; but he does not seem to have taken much part-- how could a boy of his age be expected to do so ?--in the active duty of governing.
We know that such acts as the removal of popish restrictions from the clergy and people, the publication of the Book of Common Prayer, and the discouragement of all idolatrous and superstitious practices, had his hearty sympathy.

In these and in such-like useful measures he interested himself, but as for the troubles and commotions of his reign, he had nothing to do with them.
His nobles, on the other hand, were by no means so passive.