She was taken by bed fever.(Weir 346).
Once Edward had been born, Elizabeth faded into the background, everyday receiving less and less attention. As they were growing up, Edward and Elizabeth were very close. They spent all of their spare time together. The only time that the two of them were apart, was when it came to schooling. As the daughter of a King, Elizabeth had many responsibilities. Starting in 1544, Elizabeth was tutored by the great scholar, Roger Ascham. Her tutoring lasted until she was 15 years old in 1549. Under his guidance, Elizabeth studied Greek and Roman classics, read history and theology, and learned both classical and modern languages. (www.luminarium.org/renlit/aschbio.htm).
On January 31, 1547, Henry VIII died. In his Will, he first gave the Crown to his son Edward and his heirs, then to his daughter Mary and her heirs, then to his daughter Elizabeth and her heirs, and then to Lady Jane Grey and her heirs. Jane Grey was the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary.(Erickson 59) At the age of fourteen, Edward became King Edward VI. He reigned for only a short time. When it looked inevitable the teenage King Edward would die, without an heir of his own, the struggle for the crown began. In July of 1553, King Edward died of consumption. Reports of the young King's declining health provoked those who did not want the crown to fall to the Catholic Mary. (Starkey 62) It was during this time, the Duke of Northcumberland, conceived of a way he could keep himself in power. His son, Guilford Dudley married Lady Jane Grey, who was a descendant of Henry VIII's sister Mary, and was therefore also an heir to the throne. Northcumberland then proposed that Edward VI should make a Will in which he left the crown to Lady Jane, excluding Mary and Elizabeth on the grounds that they were illegitimate. Northcumberland then asked Edwards's Privy Councellors to sign a document supporting the Will, and pointed out to the Protestant bishops that this would prevent the Catholic Mary from becoming Queen and overthrowing the Protestant religious settlement.