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[fideidefenswhore]

So I follow Claire Ridgway's Anne Boleyn Files and she has a few interesting alternative videos on what would have happened if Anne Boleyn had given birth to a son and not been executed. I am curious what you think may have happened to Mary had Anne given birth to a son that was acknowledged by everyone as Prince of Wales. Would she have been restored to the Succession or not?

It's hard to say perhaps Henry would have made Mary legitimate again but I can't see him doing that without putting Elizabeth and her new brother's legitimacy in danger. Maybe he would have married her off elsewhere?

Claire thinks the 1553 Crisis probably would have been avoided had Anne's son inherited the throne. I tend to agree with her son on the throne even if that son were to die young the Crown would still pass to Elizabeth. The Lady Jane Grey Coup would have been avoided.

Well, Mary's counsel from the Emperor's representative was to acknowledge Anne as Queen once/if she had a son. She did ultimately follow his counsel in the summer of 1536 when it came to acknowledging the religious supremacy, the legal invalidity of her parents' marriage and her own bastardy (and renouncing any claim to the throne thereby), so one could plausibly assume she would've done the same here. Many Marians insist she would never have done so; I myself don't find that scenario plausible, unless she was already on the other side of England at the point of her continued stance, in one of Charles V's realms and under his protection (as much as France had pushed for her to wed one of their princes, they're unlikely to have risked alienating HVIII by keeping her under theirs [tbf, they did harbor Reginald Pole, but that was years later in a much-changed religious and political landscape/circumstances], as for Scotland, James V had outright refused Chapuys' proposal on the grounds it would alienate HVIII, his close neighbour, and besides, had already acknowledged AB as Queen and Elizabeth as Princess, along with his mother).

I am curious what you think may have happened to Mary had Anne given birth to a son that was acknowledged by everyone as Prince of Wales. Would she have been restored to the Succession or not?

No to the 2nd, and what's been argued in this genre goes even further and more specifically, that had AB had a son in 1533, Mary would not have been disinherited or had her title reduced at all, because there would have been 'no need'. However, the prevalence of this theory underlines a fundamental misunderstanding of English precedent when it came to inheritance and HVIII's own beliefs, which wouldn't have changed but rather been vindicated, had his prince been born in 1533:

"[...] to appreciate Henry’s viewpoint it is first necessary to clarify the nature of his quest. This was certainly not simply to wed Anne Boleyn. Most scholars have concurred with the emphasis given by Elton and Scarisbrick that, whatever the roots of Henry’s ‘Great Matter’, he became unquestionably ‘convinced in his conscience that his marriage to Catherine had been a great sin’ and that his lack of sons was a punishment for this transgression. This reasoning also means that we must take seriously Henry’s worries about a future renewal of civil war, which might best be averted by the birth of a healthy and clearly legitimate baby boy. In earlier marriage negotiations with France and the Empire he had insisted that Mary was heir presumptive; he now argued that she would be barred by illegitimacy. This contention puzzled continental contemporaries because elsewhere in western Europe those children born to couples who in good faith (like Katherine and Henry in 1509) believed themselves validly married were treated as legitimate. Nevertheless, Henry was right. After a period of some uncertainty, by the late fourteenth century England had opted out of the bona fides principle, just as it had famously done in the Statute of Merton from that of legitimation per subsequens matrimonium.

While it is true that the English royal succession was not rigidly constrained by the law of property, nevertheless, as Sir John Baker notes, ‘succession problems were usually debated in legal terms and in accordance with the common law canons of inheritance’. A successful challenge to his marriage would thus automatically bastardise Mary and leave Henry with no direct heir."

- Katherine of Aragon & The Veil, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol 66. © Cambridge University Press

What Mary does seem to have been offered in late 1533, was the retaining of her own household, its complete staff, etc, in exchange her acknowledgement of Elizabeth as Princess, her stepmother as Queen, her parents' marriage is invalid, her own title as invalid by extension:

Throughout these years, the king had showed a genuine personal affection for Mary, even if his support for her as his successor was minimal at times. Initially, therefore, he hoped to persuade her to accept the Boleyn marriage despite its inevitable implication of her own disinheritance. Henry determined that the strongest incentive he could offer to secure her acquiescence was the continuation of her household on nearly the same scale it enjoyed prior to Elizabeth's birth. A checkeroll listing of all Mary's household officers and department heads as well as her senior staff carries the date of October 1533, a month after Elizabeth's birth. The list provides a snapshot of Mary's household on the eve before she was to experience considerable loss in status as a result of the imminent reduction of her household. Indeed, the list initially presents something of a puzzle. The king had already announced plans to reduce Mary's household shortly after Elizabeth's birth in September. Yet the list contains exalted names apparently indicating that in October 1533 that Mary's household was still of sufficient status to attract the service and residency of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury and Lady Margaret Douglas (Henry VIII's niece). Did the October list represent a description of Mary's household as it actually existed, or was it instead a fantasy household offered to Mary, via the checkeroll, as an inducement to accept her own disinheritance? There is not enough evidence for a definitive answer. Given the positive comment by the Milanese envoy around this time that Mary's household was appropriate to her (then) status as heir to the throne combined with the rarity of household lists taking the form of fantasy literature and the tradition of compiling such lists for accounting during October, this study proceeds on the assumption that the October list of 1533 was an accurate depiction of Mary's household. Jeri L. McIntosh. From Heads of Household to Heads of State: The Preaccession Households of Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, 1516–1558.

So while McIntosh admits there's 'not enough evidence for a definitive answer', I find her theory highly plausible, as it seems to fit the timeline of events (specifically, late 1533 to early 1534) and adheres to the scholarly understanding of HVIII's character, temperament, and personality of the early 1530s.

There's sense to this offer, as obviously the Duke of Richmond had his own household, but unlike her brother, Mary had been acknowledged as Princess her entire life. So, 'the arrogant presumption of that title' (HVIII's words) is very...things that make you go hmmm.

So it was at his discretion to legitimate her by statute (as Caesaropapism goes, an equivalent to the Pope declaring children of similar dissolved marriages legitimate in good faith, he could have done this), but I don't believe he ever would have. There's some fuzziness here, because this was apparently offered to COA via Campeggio by HVIII circa 1529 and refused (and she seems to have tried to grasp at this previous offer much later, like in 1533), so he must have been willing at some point (unless this was merely an attempted feint of deceit). What seems most plausible is that it was on offer genuinely, but as he further studied the religious and legal scholarship/precedent on the matter and argued for the legitimacy of his beliefs and views in the years to come, he must have come to believe Mary's illegitimacy would inevitably follow the dissolution of her parents' marital union.

It's hard to say perhaps Henry would have made Mary legitimate again but I can't see him doing that without putting Elizabeth and her new brother's legitimacy in danger. Maybe he would have married her off elsewhere?

At most, he might have invested her in some titles by dint of marriage negotiations, this making her more appealing to prospective royal/noble parents wishing to marry their sons (I've seen Duchess of York suggested, which I don't find likely from HVIII, former Duke of York, in particular...it was a title for second sons....I could see some new creation however, maybe Marchioness/Marquess of Exeter, as I believe Gertrude Courtenay lost that title after being attainted, and obviously her husband's was rather more permanently lost).

There was arguably equal danger to marrying her abroad to a prince (the potential to invade) and marrying her in England (proximity eased the possibility for any future coup). However, such qualms could be eased via marriage treaties, and in fact, we know of the marital negotiations for Mary that took place in the late 1530s and throughout the 1540s, that an immoveable caveat HVIII tended to add was that Mary and a future spouse would renounce any claim to the throne of England, in writing (as this was often the appeal for the other party, most, with the exception of the Duke of Bavaria, which was closed for other reasons, ended in stalemate). Tl; dr I'm not really sure her prospects for marriage would've been much better off in any counterfactual where her first stepmother both remained Queen, and had a prince (which is one of the greatest ironies of the, alternately named, Aragonese/ Marian / White Rose faction of 1536...they schemed for the reinstatement and better circumstances of their Princess, which never really eventuated in any significant way [at least, arguably not in much greater luxury or attendance at court than she might've enjoyed in her acceptance of Anne as Queen], as she remained in that joint household with Elizabeth for several years, etc.)

Claire thinks the 1553 Crisis probably would have been avoided had Anne's son inherited the throne. I tend to agree with her son on the throne even if that son were to die young the Crown would still pass to Elizabeth. The Lady Jane Grey Coup would have been avoided.

Well, that's to assume Mary wouldn't have fought for the throne. She never fought for this against her half-brother by another stepmother, but she did signficantly defy him, and she never left England as she planned to do during his reign...which leaves us with a rather open question of how she would have survived once he assumed complete power in his majority and dissolved his regency council. We can never really know counterfactuals, and this one feels way too nebulous to even make any attempt of sketch, tbh. How many supporters would any Boleyn-Tudor prince have had? Elizabeth had a significant party by the time Mary took the throne, and they certainly made enough moves in her favor to unsettle and frighten the regime. Certainly, I cannot envision a Boleyn-Tudor prince revising the succesion to make Jane Grey his heir and disinherting his own sister, especially as Elizabeth would, in this scenario, be considered legitimate more universally (within England, at least).