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Edward’s journey plays an important part in polishing his personality, defining him as a king. As if the author prepares him for the throne of England.
The young prince has to pass all the hardships in order to feel the injustice of those difficult times himself and then, to receive the ultimate right of being a ruler. When Edward hears the old lawyer’s story in prison, his eyes burn with passion and says:
“None believe in me—neither wilt thou. But no matter—within the compass of a month thou shalt be free; and more, the laws that have dishonoured thee, and shamed the English name, shall be swept from the statute books. The world is made wrong; kings should go to school to their own laws, at times, and so learn mercy.”
While writing this novel, Mark Twain confessed to his friend William Dean Howell in a letter, where he gave a real statement upon the purpose of writing the book :
"My idea is to afford a realizing sense of the exceeding severity of the laws of that day by inflicting some of their penalties upon the King himself and allowing him a chance to see the rest of them applied to others. All of this is to account for certain mildness which distinguished Edward VI's reign from those that preceded and followed it."
The innate value of man has nothing to do with wealth or social status.
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