There were several heirs to the English throne that inherited while still a minor. Before Edward VI there was Henry III, Richard II, and Edward V. Edward VI did not have much power at all for the most of his reign, and this was a common phenomenon. In England, a guardian was appointed either by the previous monarch, or by a council of advisers to the new king. In the case of Edward VI, his father Henry VIII tried to establish a council of 16 advisers to serve as Edward's guardians and joint rulers. However, after Henry VIII's death, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and the maternal uncle to Edward VI was able to seize power by political maneuvers at court, and through his personal influence over Edward. Somerset, with Edwards written consent, was appointed to the position of Lord Protector, enabling him to rule in Edward's name. Seymour was the major mover of all Royal policy from 1547 to 1549. Edward was present in body and signature, but for the most part everything action was taken with the approval of Somerset (Loach, Edward VI; Bush, Government Policy of Protector Somerset; ODNB Online, "Edward Seymour", by Barrett L. Beer).

After Somerset's fall in the aftermath of the 1549 rebellions, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland took control as Lord President of the Privy Council in February of 1550 (ODNB, "John Dudley" by David Loades). Northumberland was able to rule over Edward for the first two years, but began to lose control of Edward as the young king aged. While Edward could not or did not wield the power of a king in his majority, some scholars argue that Edward VI pushed the English church towards a 'further reformation' during the last two years of his life (Mainly W. K. Jordan, Edward VI: The Threshold of Power). Other scholars disagree that Edward was able to influence the church without the consent or encouragement of Northumberland, but either way, Edward was beginning to gain a voice in politics by 1552-1553 (MacCulloch, The Boy King; Beer, Northumberland: The Political Career of John Dudley).

At the end of Edward's premature life, he certainly had much more political say than when he was nine. The most significant political act that he undertook was an attempted control of the passage of the crown to his cousin Lady Jane Gray. Henry VIII had stipulated in his will that should Edward VI die without issue, that the crown should pass to Princess Mary. At this time, Mary was popular within England as a Catholic, and she was older and more politically experienced than the sixteen year old Jane Gray. Jane Gray was raised by protestants, and was known to be sympathetic to Protestantism, which was why the protestant Edward attempted to grant her the crown (Edwards, Mary I: England's Catholic Queen; Tittler and Battley, "The Local Community and the Crown in 1553..." Historical Research, (Nov. 1984) pp. 131-139; Ives, Lady Jane Gray). Lady Jane's brief tenure as monarch failed, but the fact that Edward tried to alter the succession as his father had done is evidence that he was no longer the relatively powerless nine year old, controlled by his uncle.