Monday, October 27, 2008

Question from TudorRose - Story of Edward Tudor in a red cloak

Edward Tudor seen in red cloak. --
Has anyone else heard of this story?


1 comment:

PhD Historian said...

Yes, I have seen stories of people claiming to have seen Edward VI after his death. They did not claim to be seeing a ghost, but were instead claiming that Edward had not died in July 1553 and that he was still alive in hiding. I do not have any specific names of those people at hand, unfortunately.

Such posthumous sightings were fairly common for monarchs and princes, almost always male, who died young. Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel famously impersonated Edward V in the 1480s and 1490s, well after that Edward was certainly dead. In other countries and other times, people claimed to have seen or to actually be the deceased Peter III of Russia (in the late 1700s) and Louis-Charles of France (son of Louis XVI). Such posthumous sightings and impersonations were usually an attempt to challenge a new and unpopular regime. In the case of Edward VI of England, sightings of him were a reaction to Mary and her pro-Catholic, anti-Protestant policies ... a kind of wishful attempt to restore the past.