Mary I of England - Adulthood

Adulthood

In 1536, Queen Anne fell from the king's favour and was beheaded. Elizabeth, like Mary, was downgraded to the status of Lady and removed from the line of succession. Within two weeks of Anne's execution, Henry married Jane Seymour. Jane urged her husband to make peace with Mary. Henry insisted that Mary recognise him as head of the Church of England, repudiate papal authority, acknowledge that the marriage between her parents was unlawful, and accept her own illegitimacy. She attempted to reconcile with him by submitting to his authority as far as "God and my conscience" permitted, but she was eventually bullied into signing a document agreeing to all of Henry's demands. Reconciled with her father, Mary resumed her place at court. Henry granted her a household (which included the reinstatement of Mary's favourite Susan Clarencieux). Her privy purse expenses for this period show that Hatfield House, the Palace of Beaulieu (also called Newhall), Richmond and Hunsdon were among her principal places of residence, as well as Henry's palaces at Greenwich, Westminster and Hampton Court. Her expenses included fine clothes and gambling at cards, one of her favourite pastimes. Rebels in the North of England, including Lord Hussey, Mary's former chamberlain, campaigned against Henry's religious reforms, and one of their demands was that Mary be made legitimate. The rebellion, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, was ruthlessly suppressed. Along with other rebels, Hussey was executed, but there was no suggestion that Mary was directly involved. The following year, 1537, Jane died after giving birth to a son, Edward. Mary was made godmother to her half-brother Edward and acted as chief mourner at the queen's funeral.

Mary was courted by Duke Philip of Bavaria from late 1539, but Philip was Lutheran and his suit for her hand was unsuccessful. Over 1539, the king's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, negotiated a potential alliance with the Duchy of Cleves. Suggestions that Mary marry the Duke of Cleves, who was the same age, came to nothing, but a match between Henry and the Duke's sister Anne was agreed. When the king saw Anne for the first time in late December 1539, a week before the scheduled wedding, he did not find her attractive but was unable, for diplomatic reasons and in the absence of a suitable pretext, to cancel the marriage. Cromwell fell from favour and was arrested for treason in June 1540; one of the unlikely charges against him was that he had plotted to marry Mary himself. Anne consented to the annulment of the marriage, which had not been consummated, and Cromwell was beheaded.

In 1541, Henry had the Countess of Salisbury, Mary's old governess and godmother, executed on the pretext of a Catholic plot, in which her son (Reginald Pole) was implicated. Her executioner was "a wretched and blundering youth" who "literally hacked her head and shoulders to pieces". In 1542, following the execution of Henry's fifth wife, Catherine Howard, the unmarried Henry invited Mary to attend the royal Christmas festivities. At court, while her father was between marriages and without a consort, Mary acted as hostess. In 1543, Henry married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, who was able to bring the family closer together. Henry returned Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession, through the Act of Succession 1544, placing them after Edward. However, both remained legally illegitimate.

In 1547, Henry died and Edward succeeded as Edward VI. Mary inherited estates in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, and was granted Hunsdon and Beaulieu as her own. Since Edward was still a child, rule passed to a regency council dominated by Protestants, who attempted to establish their faith throughout the country. For example, the Act of Uniformity 1549 prescribed Protestant rites for church services, such as the use of Thomas Cranmer's new Book of Common Prayer. Mary remained faithful to Roman Catholicism, and defiantly celebrated the traditional mass in her own chapel. She appealed to her cousin Charles V to apply diplomatic pressure demanding that she be able to practice her religion.

For most of Edward's reign, Mary remained on her own estates, and rarely attended court. A plan between May and July 1550 to smuggle her out of England to the safety of the European mainland came to nothing. Religious differences between Mary and Edward continued. When Mary was in her thirties, she attended a reunion with Edward and Elizabeth for Christmas 1550, where 13-year-old Edward embarrassed Mary, and reduced both her and himself to tears in front of the court, by publicly reproving her for ignoring his laws regarding worship. Mary repeatedly refused Edward's demands that she abandon Catholicism, and Edward repeatedly refused to drop his demands.