Queen Mary was at the palace in 1553, and there received the news of the rebellion headed by Wyatt, which caused her to hasten to London, where her prompt action saved the situation. She returned to Richmond in triumph, and summoned her council to meet her there to discuss the arrangements for her marriage with Philip II. of Spain, on which she was determined in spite of the opposition of her subjects. Her happiest days were spent in the old palace on the green before she realised how vain were her hopes of winning her husband's affections and becoming the mother of an heir to the throne; but after her husband's return to Spain she took a dislike to Richmond. When the Princess Elizabeth was suspected of a plot against her sister's life she was sent from her prison in the Tower to Richmond Palace under the care of the stern Sir Henry Bedingfield, and she was so much pleased with her new place of confinement that she begged to be allowed to remain there. It was whilst she was at Richmond that she was offered a free pardon if she would renounce her claim to the throne and marry the Duke of Suffolk, but she firmly refused, and was therefore removed to Woodstock, where she was kept in close confinement, only escaping condemnation to death by pretending that she had been {237} converted to Roman Catholicism. Later, when Mary's fears of her sister's disloyalty were allayed, and her beloved Philip was once more with her, a grand entertainment was given at Richmond, at which Elizabeth was present, and in the summer of 1558 the queen paid her last visit to the palace, contracting there, it was said, the chill which caused her death, though, as a matter of fact, she had long been in a critical condition of health.