thing most honourable for myself and most profitable for the salvation of my soul. I have never had the intention of changing my religion for any earthly kingdom, or grandeur, or good whatever, nor of denying Jesus Christ or His name, nor will I now. You may feel well assured that I shall die in this entire faith and with my good will, and as happy in doing so as I was ever for anything that has come to me in my life. I pray God to have mercy on the poor Catholics of this kingdom, who are persecuted and oppressed for their religion. The only thing I regret is, that it has not pleased God to give me before I die the grace to see them, able to live in full liberty of conscience in the faith of their parents, in the Catholic Church, and serving God as they desire to do. I am not ignorant that for long certain persons have been plotting against me; and to speak plainly, I know well it has been done at the instance of one who professes to be my enemy. But I have spoken sufficiently of this before the Commissioners." After this trying ordeal, Mary’s first thought was to send letters of final greeting to her dearest friends. She wrote to the Archbishop of Glasgow, then in Paris; to Pope Sixtus V., to Barnard De Mendoça, Spanish Ambassador at Paris; and to the Duke of Guise. In the course of her letter to the Archbishop, referring to the proposal that she should accept the services of the Anglican divines, she writes:-- "As to their bishops, I praise God that without their aid I know well enough my offences against God and His Church, and that I do not approve their errors, nor wish to communicate with them in any way. But if it pleased them to permit me to have a Catholic priest, I said I would accept that very willingly, and even demanded it in the name of Jesus Christ, in order to dispose my conscience, and to participate in the Holy Sacraments, on leaving this world. They answered me that, do what I would, I should not be either saint or martyr, as I was to die for the murder of their queen and for wishing to dispossess her. I replied that I was not so presumptuous as to aspire to these two honours; but that although they had power over my body by divine permission, not by justice, as I am a sovereign queen, as I have always protested, still they had not power over my soul, nor could they prevent me from hoping that, through the mercy of God, who died for me, he will accept from me my blood and my life which I offer to Him for the maintenance of His Church outside of which I should never desire to rule any worldly kingdom." Her letter to the Pope is lengthy, but as no one interested in her history would be satisfied with an abbreviated form of so interesting a document, I shall give it in full. "Jesus Maria,