It is quite possible that the next few years were the happiest that Elizabeth ever knew. She was four years older than Edward, and she had been so carefully trained by Lady Margaret that King Henry was glad that she should be the playmate of the sweet-tempered little fellow who was his only son and heir. Lady Margaret was troubled because Edward's best coat was "only tinsel" instead of cloth of gold, and because he had "never a good jewel to set on his cap;" but this was nothing to the little prince so long as he had his sister. Lady Margaret wrote to the king that she wished he could have seen the prince, for "the minstrels played, and his Grace danced and played so wantonly that he could not stand still." Elizabeth taught him to speak, and for his sake she even conquered her dislike to the "prick of the needle," for when his second birthday came and the rich nobles of the kingdom sent him jewels and all sorts of beautiful things made of gold and silver, she gave him a tiny cambric shirt, every stitch of which had been made by the little fingers of his six-year-old sister. Mary sent him a cloak of crimson satin. The sleeves were of tinsel. It was heavily embroidered with gold thread and with pansies made of pearls. It was about this time that King Henry sent an officer of high rank expressly to bestow the royal blessing upon the two princesses. On his return he reported to the king the grateful message that Mary had sent. "And how found you her Grace, the Lady Elizabeth?" asked King Henry. "Truly, your Majesty," replied the chancellor, "were the Lady Elizabeth not the offspring of your illustrious Highness, I could in no way account for her charm of manner and of speech. 'I humbly thank his most excellent Majesty,' she said, 'that he has graciously deigned to think upon me, who am verily his loving child and his true and faithful subject.'" "She is but six years old," mused Henry. "Were those her words?" "I would gladly have had pen and paper," answered the chancellor, "that no one of them should have been lost, but I give the message as it has remained in my memory. She asked after your Majesty's welfare with as great a gravity as she had been forty years old." More than one trouble came to the older princess. Soon after the king had sent his blessing to the two sisters, a councilor came to Mary with a message of quite another character. "It is his Majesty's pleasure," said he, "that your Grace should receive the Duke Philip of Germany as a suitor for your hand." This German duke was a Protestant, and Mary was a firm Roman Catholic, but she dared not refuse to obey the king's bidding. "I would gladly remain single," said she, "but I am bound to obey his Majesty. I would, too, that the duke were of my own faith, but in so weighty a matter I can do naught save to commit myself to my merciful father and most sovereign lord, knowing that his goodness and wisdom will provide for me far better than I could make provision for myself."