On this day in history, fourteen-year-old King Edward VI fell ill. His journal entry for 2nd April 1552 reads “I fell sike of the mesels [measles] and the small pokkes [smallpox]”, but he doesn’t mention it again in the entries for that month and he was still able to write entries.

In a letter to his friend Barnaby Fitzpatrick written on 3 May 1552, Edward mentions his recent illness:

“We have a little been troubled with the smallpox, which hath letted us to write hitherto; but now we have shaken that quite away.”