Edward VI of England half-sister Mary would jeopardise the English Reformation, and Edward's Council and officers had many reasons to fear it. Edward himself opposed Mary's succession, not only on religious grounds but also on those of legitimacy and male inheritance, which also applied to Elizabeth. He composed a draft document, headed "My devise for the succession", in which he undertook to change the succession, most probably inspired by his father Henry VIII's precedent. He passed over the claims of his half-sisters and, at last, settled the Crown on his first cousin once removed, the 16-year-old Lady Jane Grey, who on 25 May 1553
The King Edward VI School, Morpeth as the "Father of English Botany", a native of Morpeth, and is believed to have attended the grammar school before attending Cambridge and later to have returned to be its headmaster. Morpeth Grammar School was the plaintiff in a lawsuit of the longest duration in English legal history. The case started in 1710 and concerned the recovery of lands granted to the school by Edward VI and later leased to the Thornton family. The case was reopened in 1833, advanced in 1847, and determined in 1870. By the 1960s the school was known as King Edward VI Grammar School. The