"Holy Father,--As it has pleased God by His divine providence so to ordain, that in His Church, under His Son, Jesus Christ crucified, all those who should believe in Him and be baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, should recognize one universal and Catholic Church as Mother, whose commandments together with the ten of the law we should keep under pain of damnation, it is requisite that each one who aspires to eternal life should fix his eyes upon her. I, therefore, who am born of kings and relatives all baptized in her, as I myself also was, and what is more, from my infancy, unworthy as I am, have been called to the royal dignity, anointed and consecrated by the authority and by the ministers of the Church, under whose wing and in whose bosom I have been nourished and brought up, and by her instructed in the obedience due by all Christians to him whom she, guided by the Holy Spirit, has elected according to the ancient order and decrees of the primitive Church, to the holy Apostolic See as our head upon earth, to whom Jesus Christ in His last will has given power (speaking to St. Peter of her foundation on a living rock) of binding and loosing poor sinners from the chains of Satan, absolving us by himself or by his ministers for this purpose appointed, of all crimes or sins committed or perpetrated by us, we being repentant, as far as in us lies, making satisfaction for them after having confessed them according to the ordinance of the Church. I call my Saviour Jesus Christ to be my witness, the Blessed Trinity, the glorious Virgin Mary, all the Angels and Archangels, St. Peter, the pastor, my special intercessor and advocate, St. Paul, Apostle of the Gentiles, St. Andrew and all the holy apostles, St. George and in general all the Saints of Paradise,--that I have always lived in this faith, which is that of the universal Catholic Church, Apostolic and Roman, in which being regenerated, I have always had the intention of doing my duty to the holy Apostolic See. Of this, to my great regret, I have not been able to render due testimony to your Holiness, on account both of my detention in this captivity and of my long illness; but now that it has pleased God, my Holy Father, to permit for my sins and those of this unfortunate island, that I (the only one remaining of the blood of England and Scotland who makes profession of this faith) should, after twenty years of captivity, shut up in a narrow prison and at last condemned to die by the heretical States and Assembly of this country, as it has been to-day signified to me by the mouth of Lord Buckhurst, Amias Paulet my keeper, one Drew Drury, knight, and a secretary named Beale, in the name of their Queen, commanding me to prepare to receive death, offering me one of their bishops and a dean for my consolation (a priest that I had, having been taken from me long before by them, and held by them I know not where); I have thought it to be my first duty to