feet of your Holiness, which I humbly kiss. "You shall have the true account of the manner of my last taking, and all the proceedings against me, and by me, to the end that, hearing the truth, the calumnies which the enemies of the Church wish to lay upon me may be refuted by you and the truth known, and to this effect I have sent to you this bearer, requesting your holy blessing for the end, and saying to you for the last time _à Dieu_. Whom I pray in His grace to preserve your person for long, for the good of His Church and your sorrowful flock, especially that of this island, which I leave very much astray, without the mercy of God and without your paternal care. "Fotheringay, 23rd November, 1586." She adds a postscript and signs herself, "Of your Holiness the very humble and devoted daughter MARIE, Queen of Scotland, Dowager of France." Her letter to Mendoça is written in a freer and clearer style, and is, I think, a truer picture of her thoughts, as they spontaneously form in her mind, than that to the Pope. LETTER TO DON BERNARD DE MENDOÇA. "My very dear Friend,--As I have always known you to be zealous in God’s cause, and interested in my welfare and deliverance from captivity, I have likewise also always made you a sharer in all my intentions for the same cause, begging you to signify them to the king, Monsieur my good brother, for which at present, according to the little leisure I have, I have wished to send you this last adieu, being resolved to receive the death-stroke which was announced to me last Saturday. "I know not when or in what manner, but at least you can feel assured and praise God for me that, by His grace, I had the courage to receive this very unjust sentence of the heretics with contentment for the honour which I esteem it to be to me to shed my blood at the demand of the enemies of His Church; whilst they honour me so much as to say that theirs cannot exist if I live; and the other point they affirm to be that their Queen cannot reign in security, for the same reason. In both these ’conditions’ I, without contradicting them, accepted the honour they were so anxious to confer upon me, as very zealous in the Catholic religion, for which I had publicly offered my life; and as to the other matter, although I had made no attempt or taken any action to remove her who was in the place, still as they reproached me with what is my right, and is so considered by all Catholics, as they say, I did not wish to contradict them, leaving it to them to judge. But they, becoming angry in consequence of this, told me that, do what I would, I should not die for religion, but for having wished to have their Queen murdered, which I denied to them as being very false, as I never attempted anything of the kind, but left it to God and the Church to settle everything for this island regarding religion and what depends upon it.