#and omitted the ones that would cast doubt on the savior role and suggest complicity in acts of questionable morality

[fideidefenswhore]

Was Cromwell as direct in the involvement of persuading Mary to sign the statutes as in The Mirror and the Light?

I don't think he visited her in person beforehand, or at least there's no record of that (there is, however, Chapuys' report of "the Chancellor and Cromwell visited certain ladies at their houses, who, with others, were called before the Council and compelled to swear to the statutes"...this is interesting, because had they not sworn them already? personally this is something I've always wondered about, Mary and her mother were both pressurized to swear these Oaths, but the text of their preambles was that they should be put to 'men' fourteen and above, other sources say 'every subject', which would've included Mary but not her mother), but I think it was...a fictional portrayal weaving in details of accuracy, if that makes sense? Like, do we know Cromwell himself wrote that letter and she just signed it, no, but I'd assume that piece came from Chapuys' account that "the Princess, being informed from various quarters how matters stood, signed the document without reading it" (some historians have cast doubt on this account, asw, that this was merely Chapuys laying the groundwork of the papal absolution he was seeking for her actions, ie, she swore to something she hadn't even read, so it wasn't valid, etc).

As for direct involvement, I think so, it was his second attempt, actually, according to the same source, just his first attempt under a different Queen:

Cromwell was not ashamed, in talking with one of my men, to tell him [...]; that henceforth we should communicate more freely together, and that nothing remained but. to get the Princess to obey the will of the King, her father, in which he was assured I could aid more effectually than anybody else, and that by so doing I should not only gratify the King but do a very good office for the Princess, who on complying with the King’s will would be better treated than ever. The Concubine, according to what the Princess sent to tell me, threw the first bait to her, and caused her to be told by her aunt, the gouvernante of the said Princess, that if she would lay aside her obstinacy and obey her lather, she would be the best friend to her in the world and be like another mother, and would obtain for her anything she could ask, and that if she wished to come to Court she would be exempted from holding the tail of her gown, “et si la meneroit tousjours a son cause” (?); and the said gouvernante does not cease with hot tears to implore the said Princess to consider these matters; to which the Princess has made no other reply than that there was no daughter in the world who would be more obedient to her father in what she could do saving her honor and conscience.

Another thing missed:

The chief servant of the Princess, who knows all her secrets, was kept two days in Cromwell's house; and during six or seven days they were in council at Court from morning to evening.

This calls into question the sympathetic portrayal of Cromwell's actions in this story; and lends credence to Chapuys' claim (I mean, it's also corroborated in the reports of the interrogation directly from Henry's council, so there's that) that all was pointed towards Mary's arrest (who else was 'kept' in Cromwell's house, shortly before this...? Mark Smeaton.)

The flaw of TMATL is that Cromwell is Deus ex machina of his own story. He is all things, to all people. It is quite possible, as portrayed, that he is the one that persuaded Chapuys to change his advice to Mary, it is quite possible that he promised something false in order to gain this "win" for Henry (that half-truth, that Elizabeth would be disinherited and Mary would be made heir to the throne, once again, as soon as she acquiesced), and convince her by proxy, but the relevant scene takes words verbatim from Chapuys' own account. Thus it makes Cromwell the author of everything:

On this I wrote to her very fully, telling her, among other things, that she must make up her mind if the King persisted in his obstinacy, or she found evidence that her life was in danger, either by maltreatment or otherwise, to consent to her father's wish, assuring her that such was your advice, and that, to save her life, on which depended the peace of the realm and the redress of the great disorders which prevail here, she must do everything and dissemble for some time, especially as the protestations made and the cruel violence shown her preserved her rights inviolate and likewise her conscience, seeing that nothing was required expressly against God or the articles of the Faith, and God regarded more the intention than the act; and that now she had more occasion to do thus than during the life of the Concubine, as it was proposed to deprive the Bastard and make her heiress, and I felt assured that if she came to court she would by her wisdom set her father again in the right road, to which the intercession of your Majesty through the reconciliation and establishment of amity would conduce.