It is to be regretted that Mary’s letter to her father on this occasion has been lost, but to Cromwell she wrote as follows:— “MY LORD, “After my most hearty commendations, I do in semblable manner thank you for your gentle and friendly letters. How I have proceeded, touching the counsel of the same for the matter declared by Mr. Wriothesley, because both by his relation and by my letters, to the King’s Majesty you shall perceive, I shall not trouble you with my vain words in writing: only this I will add, that howsoever I am in this kind of thing affected, his Highness in this, and all other things during my life shall find me his most humble and obedient daughter, subject and servant; and so I beseech you ever to say and answer for me. I shall not, God willing, disapprove your saying in the same, while the breath shall be in my body; as knows our Lord, who send you health. “From Hertford Castle, the 17th of December, late at night. I beseech your lordship to pardon me that I write not this letter of mine own hand. I was something weary with the writing of the other letter, and upon trust of your goodness, I caused one of my men in this to supply the place of a secretary. “Your assured loving friend during my life, “MARYE.”[236] Henry’s sole object in this negotiation appears to have been to hoodwink the Emperor into a belief that he was again throwing himself on the side of the German Princes, and to secure this, he allowed matters to go further towards a conclusion than he had ever before suffered them to go. With a great pretence of secrecy, he took care that the French and Imperial ambassadors should know all about the affair. Marillac wrote on the 27th December, to say that the news he communicated to Montmorency on the 24th was confirmed “touching the marriage of the lady Mary with the Duke of Bavaria, who three or four days ago, _as secretly as he could_, went to visit her in a house of the Abbot of Westminster, in the gardens of the Abbey, a mile from this town, whither she had been brought. After having kissed her, which is an argument either of marriage or of near relationship, seeing that since the death of the late marquis, no lord of this kingdom has dared to go so far, the said Duke had a long conversation with her, partly in German, through an interpretator, and partly in Latin, of which she is not ignorant. Finally, they mutually declared, the said lord his resolution, taken with this King, to have her for wife, ‘_pourveu que sa personne luy feust agréable_,’ and the said lady her willingness to obey her father. He cannot say when the marriage will come off, but some think in fifteen or twenty days; others that the weddings of father and daughter will be on the same day, that is, as soon as the lady, who is at Calais arrives. She is only detained by the wind, which