The mother of Charles V. was plunged into the deepest melancholy by the treatment to which she was subjected. Her days were a constant succession of sorrows. Her passage through life was from one suffering to another. All her desire was to get out of that horrible prison; and in striving to attain this object she displayed much good sense, earnestness, and perseverance. She begged the marquis of Denia to allow her to quit Tordesillas, at least for a time. She wished to go to Valladolid. She alleged as a reason the bad air she breathed and the acute sufferings it caused her. Her health required a change of air, and she must at least undertake a journey. Her deep feeling moved her barbarous jailer himself. For a moment pity touched that heart of stone. 'Her language is so touching,' wrote Denia to the emperor, 'that it becomes difficult for the marchioness and myself to withstand her appeals. It is impossible for me to let any one go near her, for not a man in the world could resist her persuasion. Her complaints awaken in me deep compassion, and her utterances might move stones.'[209] This is not how Denia would have written to Charles if he had been speaking of a mad woman. Moreover he requested him to destroy his letters. At times she remained silent; and we know that the grief which does not utter itself is only the more fatal to the sufferer. At other times her distress broke forth. One day (April, 1525) she contrived to find access to the corridor and filled it with her sighs and moanings, shedding the while floods of tears. Denia gave orders immediately that she should be taken into her narrow chamber, so that she might not be heard.[210] At the same time he wrote to Charles V.: 'I have always thought that in her highness's state of indisposition, nothing would do her more good than the rack; and after this that some _good_ and loyal servant of your majesty should speak to her. It is necessary to see whether she will not _make any progress_ in the things which your majesty desires.' By these things he means confession, the mass, and other Roman rites. In 1530, despairing of seeing the queen confess, 'I can not believe,' he wrote, 'that so fortunate a thing can happen. However, I will use all needful endeavors.' The officers of Charles V., and the monks who had incessantly labored for the conversion of Joanna to Romanism, multiplied their efforts as her death approached. She withstood their pressing entreaties to receive the rites, the symbols of the papacy, and people heard the cries which she uttered while they put her to torture. She would have neither confession nor extreme unction. [Sidenote: DEATH OF JOANNA.]