On 20 December the English court was stirred up by the news that Mary was seriously ill with smallpox. Having received this news, Queen Henrietta Maria arrived at the bedside of her dying daughter and made a last attempt to convert her to Catholicism, but Mary refused. The Queen managed to insist that her French doctor take over the treatment of the princess, which, as many contemporaries believed, was fatal for Mary, since the doctor was an ardent supporter of bloodletting. On 24 December, Mary signed her will and died on the same day. At her own request, she was buried in Westminster Abbey next to her brother Henry, Duke of Gloucester, who also died of smallpox in September 1660.