Mary was courted by Philipp, Duke of Bavaria, from late 1539, but he was Lutheran and his suit for her hand was unsuccessful. Over 1539, the king’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, negotiated a potential alliance with the Duchy of Cleves.
Suggestions that Mary marry Wilhelm I, Duke of Cleves, who was the same age, came to nothing, but a match between King Henry VIII and the Duke’s sister Anne was agreed. When the king saw Anne for the first time in late December 1539, a week before the scheduled wedding, he found her unattractive but was unable, for diplomatic reasons and without a suitable pretext, to cancel the marriage.
Cromwell fell from favour and was arrested for treason in June 1540; one of the unlikely charges against him was that he had plotted to marry Mary himself. Anne consented to the annulment of the marriage, which had not been consummated…
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