unavoidable, the Queen might be taken to the monastery of St. Paul at Moralejo, near Arevalo. If she refused to go, she must be taken by force; but with as much respect as possible, and with every precaution against her endeavouring to stay in the open on the way. If she wanted the corpse of Philip to go with her, a dummy coffin might be made up and carried, whilst the real one with the body remained behind at Tordesillas. The plague passed away, and the move was not made; and so things passed with Joan as before. Squalid and unhappy, she resisted as obstinately as ever the pressure put upon her to attend mass, though more than once she was violently desirous of going over in Holy Week, or other anniversaries, to the convent church of St Clara, and on several occasions had her clothes washed in preparation for the great event; which Denia himself was inclined to allow, under strict guard, as people in the town were tattling about her being kept a prisoner. Great efforts were made by Juan de Avila, the chaplain, to bring Joan to a better frame of mind about religion; and in June 1519 he writes a curious letter to the King, beseeching him to do his duty by his mother; ‘especially for the salvation of her soul.’ Perhaps in answer to this Charles ordered Denia to insist that the Queen should hear mass. She had wished it to be said at the end of a corridor, instead of in a special room adjoining her own, as Denia desired, and, at last, rather than she should not hear it at all, she was allowed to have her way; and an altar and chapel were screened off by black velvet hangings at the end of the corridor. She went through the service with great devotion until the _evangelium_ and the _pax_ were brought to her, when she refused them, but motioned that they should be administered to her daughter.