The Confession of the Lady Mary Tudor

Lady Mary played by Sarah Bolger in “Tudors” season 3. In this scene she is forced to sign the dreaded act which she says will haunt her to the end of her days.

On the 22^nd of June 1536 the King’s eldest daughter, the Lady Mary Tudor, signed the document titled “The Confession of Me the Lady Mary” in which she accepted that she was never the trueborn daughter of Henry VIII of England but a product of incest born out of the unlawful union of her mother, Katherine of Aragon and her father the King. The Confession was signed twelve days after she had explicitly said no to her father’s ministers who had done the impossible and bullied her to get to accept. It was Chapuys and Cromwell who finally convinced her by telling her that if she didn’t sign then she would be deemed a traitor and tried as such. To her father, blood ties didn’t matter when the security of the realm was at stake. The articles of the confession go as follows:

1. First, I confess and acknowledge the King’s Majesty to be my sovereign lord and King, in the Imperial Crown of his realm of England, and do submit myself to His Highness, and to all and singular laws and statues of this realm, as becometh a true and faithful subject to do.
2. I do recognize and accept and take and repute and acknowledge the King’s Highness to be Supreme Head in Earth under Christ of the Church of England and do utterly refuse the Bishop of Rome’s pretended authority, power and jurisdiction within this realm heretofore usurped.
3. I do freely, frankly recognize and acknowledge that the marriage, heretofore had between His Majesty and my mother (the late Princess Dowager) was by God’s law and Man’s law, incestuous and unlawful.

Signed Mary Tudor

The Confession would haunt Mary for the rest of her life. In signing it, she felt that she was not only betraying what she believed in, but her mother who never wavered in her faith and stopped calling herself Queen and fought for her daughter’s right to be her father’s heir. No doubt, Mary was doing this for survival and the two men must have made a point that she would do more good to her cause alive than dead, especially Chapuys who had grown very close to the young woman.

Lady Mary and her father Henry VIII at her re-introduction at court.

Following her surrender, she was welcomed back in court. Those who believed they had beaten the former princess would soon be disappointed. If anything, it reshaped her character making her prouder, more resilient and optimistic about her future.

Sources:

• The Myth of Bloody Mary by Linda Porter
• Inside the Tudor Court by Lauren Mackay
• Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen by Anna Whitelock