Towards the close of the following year, Wriothesley, the privy-councillor, was sent to inform her that her father desired her to receive Duke Philip of Bavaria as a suitor. But Mary declined because she did not desire to marry at all, and would on no account ally herself to a Protestant.
A.D. 1539. The day after Anne of Cleves made her public entry into England, Henry appointed Philip Knight of the Garter on account of his defence of Vienna against the Turks, and he was the first Protestant who ever received that honor. Before he returned to Germany he presented Mary with a diamond cross, and expressed his intention of coming to claim her as his bride. She was spared the hardship of a struggle in opposing him because Henry's ill treatment of Anne of Cleves prevented the return of the brave German, who lived and died a bachelor.
A.D. 1540. In 1540 Mary was very ill at her brother's residence; the cause of it was probably the dreadful events that took place in England during that and the following year; for it was then that all her early friends, including Dr. Fetherstone and the Countess of Salisbury, were so shamefully butchered. It must be remembered that these were people whose lives were in every respect honorable and virtuous, but they were firmly attached to Queen Katherine and opposed to Henry in religious matters, and that was the head and front of their offending.
A.D. 1543. In 1543 Mary was present at the marriage of her father with Katherine Parr, and accompanied the royal couple when they made their summer trip through several counties in England. But she was seized with an attack of her former illness, when she was sent to Ashbridge, where, with her brother and sister, she spent the autumn. While there she worked a chain as a New-year's gift for her father, and it had to be so large for that corpulent personage that the materials for it cost twenty pounds.
By the close of the year a delightful change took place in her life; she was restored to her rightful succession after Edward VI. by an act of parliament, and took up her residence at court.
A.D. 1547. Having made friends with her father once more, she continued in favor till the end of his life, and when he was dying he said to her: "I know well, my daughter, that fortune has been most adverse to you, that I have caused you infinite sorrow, and that I have not given you in marriage as I intended to do; this was, however, according to the will of God, or to the unhappy state of my affairs, or to your own ill-luck; but I pray you to take it all in good part, and promise me to be a kind and loving mother to your brother, whom I shall leave a little helpless child."
In his will he bequeathed to her the sum of ten thousand pounds towards her marriage portion, and an income of three thousand pounds a year so long as she remained unmarried.
He requested that his son should be brought up in the Catholic faith, which was a serious impediment to the Protestant church in England, and proved the cause of a great deal of strife among his subjects.
Before parliament met, after King Henry's death, the Protestant protector, Somerset, had, with Cranmer's assistance, taken decided steps for the establishment of the Reformed faith, and Bishop Gardiner was locked up in the Fleet Prison. Mary was very anxious that her brother should be brought up a Catholic, and had a long controversy in writing with Somerset on that subject. It seems strange that her pen should have done any work for the Protestant church when she always opposed it, yet so it was, and her name appeared in the preface of the Gospel of St. John as translator.
A.D. 1548. Though Mary seldom attended her brother's court, she spent the following Christmas with him, and at that time they were on the most affectionate terms. She visited him again at St. James' Palace in 1548, and had a regular suite of reception rooms for her own use, where she entertained a number of friends in the most sumptuous style.