On this day in history, 8th June 1536, exactly three weeks after the execution of Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII, the sixth Parliament of Henry’s reign met. It went on to pass the Second Act of Succession, removing the king’s daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the line of succession and declaring them bastards. This left the king with no legitimate children or heirs, just three illegitimate children: Mary, Henry Fitzroy and Elizabeth.
Also, on this very same day, twenty-year-old Mary, Henry VIII’s eldest child, wrote to her estranged father in an attempt to be reconciled with him and to come back to court. She obviously thought that now her stepmother was out of the way, all would be well. However, her treatment was to get worse.
