#henry is essentially already buying off qualms with property of dissolved religious houses

[fideidefenswhore]

do you think henry would've put mary and elizabeth back in the succession anyways or was it a "just in case" thing when he only had one son? see i'm wondering why he didn't do it sooner, in the 1538-9ish time, to get them married. I just find it weird why he was never clear what their rights were when asked, to make them good brides, until right at the end, when that's why it was so hard to get matches. it feels like he was expecting to have a few more boys and was waiting it out, or getting some distance between him and their moms until he calmed down.

He didn't prioritize them sort of feels like the obvious answer...? Like, iirc, he was attempting to secure his ardently hoped for match with Christina of Denmark by pairing off his children in some sort of tiered alliance but he wasn't legitimating (wrong word, because that's not technically what he did in the Third Succession Act either, but ykwim) his daughters or even just Mary (which probably would have appeased Charles V to some degree, but he wasn't going to do anything that would acknowledge papal authority, which is why this match was never made in the end...they said they needed a papal dispensation to absolve the affinity btwn Henry and Christina via his marriage to Catherine and Henry said they didn't because it was annulled by the Church of England and btw, demanded they acknowledge its authority to annul the union) to do so.

So, the timing of the Succession Act would suggest your second theory. Henry had probably hoped for son(s) from Jane, Anne of Cleves, then KH. The years in between the execution of the last and his marriage to Parr is something of a historical lacuna, but even in a state where he has no expectation of any other sons, given that he's a self-made widower (self-made, twice over...disgusting), he doesn't establish any role for his daughters in the future succession.

After he's been married to Parr for nine months (I mean, it's gross to think of him checking off boxes on a calendar but...yk...nine months exactly is a hell of a coincidence), he gets Parliament to authorize a new succession settlement. He does this before he leaves for the war in France, which made the matter more immediately pressing.

I don't think any amount of time would ever make Henry associate his daughters with their mothers any less, tbh. But if we want to give Henry the benefit of the doubt, maybe this conditional (quasi-)legitimation was not effected for several years because he went back and forth on the decision, took and considered counsel on how, if he wanted to do this, he should bring it about, on what terms, was it a politically viable option, would it have support in Parliament, etc.

Because let's think about Henry as a person for a moment: it's his way or the highway, and he had a very narrow view of the what the succession should be, and what God's will was for his succession. Once the Rubicon was crossed in 1536, there was nothing that could ever have happened that was going to make him (quasi-)legitimate one daughter and not the other (again). To legitimate Mary alone would be to acknowledge the Pope's judgement of 1534 (not to mention to accede to the demand of the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536), to legitimate Elizabeth alone would completely tarnish the Church of England (one could argue this was tarnished already by reversal, because the same authority that vindicated her parents' marriage also annulled the same, but...Henry would not see it that way); both tantamount to admissions of grave sin that no amount of repentance could diminish, both with the potential to reflect poorly on his authority and judgement, and that potential would not have been acceptable to him, he could never have accepted either to be questioned when he considered it his duty to preserve the sanctity of both.

There were more nobles that would have supported Mary's claim bona fides, but several of these people were destroyed in the Exeter conspiracy. Most that had vehemently defended Elizabeth's were dead, but Henry would have had negative associations with both, although few, if any, of either group would have supported the claim of either above that of a son by marriage.

Although it is rather ironic that by dint of circumstance, and for all his convictions, Henry essentially, eventually admitted, seven years after the deaths of both their mothers, that Mary and Elizabeth were both bona fides (enough so to inherit the crown, at any rate); just by different jurisdictions (Papal versus Anglican).