Writing this book has convinced me of three things. The first is that there is so much still to discover about the reign of Edward VI. The second is that any account of the Edwardian polity has to be written as the history of the men and women who shaped and bound together this tightly knit political community. And the third is that the culture of politics in Edward's reign – the nature of his kingship in theory and in practice and the outlooks and assumptions of the men around the king – is both reconstructable and centrally important for our understanding of 1547–53. People and ideas matter, but reconciling the two – showing how Edwardians were influenced by, and how they themselves influenced, the culture of the reign – is an obligation that the writer of a book like this cannot avoid for too long. How can we be sure, just to use one example, that court sermons did indeed shape expectations of Edward's kingship? Or, to take another, prove that Edwardians responded positively to the iconography of godly royal supremacy? This chapter tries to answer questions like these, but it does so from outside the reign of Edward. It moves beyond 1553.

This is a conclusion and an introduction: a conclusion to a book that has tried to explore the nature of the Edwardian polity, but also an introduction to a political world and culture shaped by the legacy of 1547–53.