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Henry's worries about the succession did not prevent his being an indulgent and often boastful father.

These were violent, volatile times which a Queen could not easily control, and in these circumstances, Henry VIII became convinced that only a male heir could hope to succeed him smoothly and preserve and pass on the Tudor crown. Thirty years, however, were not enough to calm the great upheavals caused by that catastrophic civil conflict, and until well into the reign of Mary's father, members of the previous Plantagenet dynasty still survived to pose a threat to the Tudors' throne. In 1516, the year Mary was born, thirty years had passed since the end of the Wars of the Roses and the final victory won at Bosworth by her grandfather, the first Tudor King, Henry VII. Henry VIII's love for Mary, and for Anne Boleyn Mary, the only surviving child of the second Tudor King Henry VIII and his wife Catherine of Aragon, was the heir to a throne held mainly by that ever-tenuous right, the right of conquest. How could such love turn to such hate in so short a time? How could such shining promise for a glorious reign produce such a legacy of loathing? The answer begins with the juxtaposition of two unfortunate factors.