[[A.D. 1537.]] She was not admitted to her father's presence until 1537, when, strange to say, although her tastes were refined, and her life a busy one, her journal contained items of high play at cards, and a fondness for betting and gambling, which was one of the vices of Henry's court, he himself being one of the greatest gamblers that ever wore a crown. [[A.D. 1538]] The year 1538 was filled with horrors on account of the serious insurrections of the Catholics, who in every case of disturbance demanded that the Princess Mary should be restored to her royal rank. This certainly placed her in a dangerous position, and it is rather surprising that she did not have her head chopped off in consequence, for the most dreadful executions took place; people were burnt alive or butchered in cold blood, and members of some of the noblest families in England perished on the scaffold. The aged Countess of Salisbury, Mary's beloved friend, was locked up in the Tower, and all her property taken from her. She was not spared sufficient means to purchase warm clothing to shelter her infirm limbs, and the Marchioness of Exeter, with her little son, shared the same fate, though the boy was too young to have committed any offence. {022}The chief crime of these ladies was their friendship for Reginald Pole, who was accused of supporting the claims of Katherine of Arragon, Mary's mother. The existence of the young princess was rendered miserable by the wretched fate of those she loved, yet she was powerless to render them the slightest assistance. 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.