[Footnote 243: The whole account is to be found in Gairdner’s _Calendar of State Papers of the year 1540_.] [Footnote 244: _Cranmer’s Works_, p. 401.] [Footnote 245: Wallop and Carne to Henry VIII., State Papers, viii., 376 and 387, Record Office.] [Footnote 246: Cotton MS. Vesp. F. xiii., art. 223, fol. 202. Printed in _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, vol. ii., p. 320.] [Footnote 247: _Correspondance Politique_, p. 258.] [Footnote 248: Gayangos, _Cal._, vol. vi., pt. ii., p. 16.] [Footnote 249: Gayangos, _Cal._, vol. vi., pt. ii., p. 190.] [Footnote 250: Cotton MS. Vesp. F. iii., art. 35, fol. 29.] [Footnote 251: State Papers, Henry VIII., box CC., i., Record Office.] CHAPTER VIII. THE KING’S SISTER. 1547-1553. At the time of her father’s death, Mary was thirty-one years old. Her youth had passed away amid storms such as few women are called upon to weather, and they had left their traces on her character no less than on the brilliant beauty for which she had been famed throughout Europe. The slightly _mutine_ expression, which we notice in Holbein’s fascinating portrait, had changed into a thoughtful, self-contained and rather sad look. She had acquired a thorough knowledge of the world, of men’s foibles, ambitions, passions and intrigues, and thus came well-equipped and undismayed into the new struggle that awaited her with her brother’s Privy Council. In spite of her many friends (for her popularity had increased rather than diminished) she was necessarily somewhat isolated in her exalted position, and her enemies were powerful. By the terms of her father’s will she was now the first lady in the land, being placed in the line of succession, as was her right, immediately after Edward, in default of male heirs of his body. Projects were formed for her marriage with the Duke of Ferrara, with the King of Poland, with Albert Marquis of Brandenburg, and with Don Loys of Portugal, who was again put forward as a suitable husband, but the Council were not more eager to send her out of the country than Henry had been.