Mary's exclusion from the succession

Mary’s exclusion from the succession turns a dynastic dispute into a lived condition of diminished status and constrained choice. Thomas Cromwell tells her that Parliament can make the exclusion lawful, while she appeals to a law above Parliament and maintains that her parents’ marriage was valid. Around them, the succession is being secured through legislation and an oath, but the future remains unsettled: Anne Boleyn is pregnant, the king’s other possible heirs are considered, and Mary herself remains a politically consequential presence.

Identity and Background

Mary is the daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. Her status changes from Princess of Wales and heir presumptive to a young woman excluded from the succession and addressed as Lady Mary. She rejects that diminished title. When Cromwell meets her, she recalls that she was once married into France, and describes repeated proposed marriage arrangements involving France and the Emperor. These negotiations make her marriage prospects part of the same dynastic politics that have weakened her position as an heir.

The background to the dispute is a succession crisis shaped by the king’s desire for a son and the uncertain survival of children. Cardinal Wolsey recalls the infant prince who lived for fifty-two days, another son who died within an hour, Mary’s birth in 1516, a later male miscarriage, and a daughter who lived only a few days. Henry’s confidence that his marriage to Katherine should have produced more surviving children becomes part of his case for rejecting the marriage; he tells Eustace Chapuys that the loss of children was divine punishment. The consequences fall especially on Mary: her legitimacy and place in the line become matters of law and policy rather than settled family status.

Legal and Political Exclusion

Cromwell distinguishes Mary’s conception in good faith from the validity of her parents’ marriage. He tells her that her parents believed they were married, but that this does not prove the marriage was good. Mary rejects the distinction, insisting that the marriage was valid. When she asks how her exclusion can be lawful, Cromwell answers that it is lawful if Parliament makes it so. She counters that God’s law stands above Parliament and invokes Bishop Fisher as an authority; Cromwell says he finds Parliament’s will clearer than Fisher’s interpretation of God’s purposes.

The government’s response is not confined to a declaration about Mary’s status. Cromwell describes an oath intended to bind men across every borough and village, as well as women with significant property, to uphold the succession of Anne’s unborn child. He treats legislation as an instrument that must work beyond the court: its words must be believed and its penalties enforced across England. The oath’s reach shows how Mary’s exclusion is to be made effective through local compliance, extending a royal succession settlement into communities far removed from the immediate dynastic conflict.

Mary and Cromwell

When Cromwell encounters Mary, she is living in reduced circumstances, by an almost dead fire, and says that the man who brings wood will not call her princess. She is reluctant to accept help that would require her to concede the new order. Cromwell offers to send Dr Butts, whom she remembers from her court at Ludlow, to attend to her health; he also proposes arranging for her to eat a substantial breakfast in her own room. The offer makes care possible through a practical workaround, but does not restore her title or political standing.

Cromwell urges Mary to greet Anne respectfully as her father’s wife, making clear that he expects an outward display rather than friendship. If Mary complies, he says, Henry may take her back to court and restore the comfort and company she lacks. He warns that Anne may have less reason to conciliate her once the child is born. Mary believes Anne fears that she could marry and produce sons who might threaten Anne’s own children. She will not call Anne queen, and describes her instead as her father’s concubine. Her refusal is both an expression of conviction and a political risk; Cromwell counsels accommodation as a means of survival, not as agreement about legitimacy.

Mary also confronts the personal meaning of Cromwell’s allegiance. Reginald Pole, her cousin, has called him Satan, and Mary asks whether she herself is a bastard. Cromwell answers that she is not, while maintaining that her parents’ belief in their marriage does not settle its validity. He advises her to keep quiet about what has been discussed and promises immediate practical assistance, but cannot secure permission for her to see her mother. Mary says that her father loves her and blames Anne for the separation. She remains certain that she will outlast those who oppose her title.

Unsettled Succession and Narrative Significance

Mary’s exclusion does not make her politically irrelevant. In a private conversation with Gregory, Cromwell asks what would happen if Henry died the next day. The possibilities include the king’s unborn child, Anne as regent, an infant daughter already in the royal household, and Henry Fitzroy. Cromwell points to Mary as a Tudor who is better placed than those alternatives. The exchange reveals the distinction between a succession fixed by Parliament and the question of who might command power in practice if the king died before the expected heir was born or grown.

The pregnancy that underwrites Anne’s children’s succession remains precarious. At Midsummer, women carry clean linen into the queen’s rooms and fires are lit there; the maids and midwives give differing accounts of the child’s sex. Henry privately blames Katherine and believes her womb unable to bear a son, but the passage leaves the pregnancy’s outcome uncertain. The oath may attempt to secure a future child in law, yet it cannot remove the physical and political uncertainty on which the settlement depends.

Mary’s situation therefore holds together two conflicting kinds of authority. Parliament can alter her legal place, and Cromwell can explain the political force of that decision; Mary answers with conscience, inherited identity, and a claim to divine law. Her enforced title and isolation show the human cost of a succession settlement, while the continuing uncertainty around Anne’s pregnancy ensures that exclusion is not the same as erasure. Mary waits, and the people planning the future must reckon with her still being there.