by Him, and His mercy did not encourage me, following His commandment to come to Him, bearing my burden in order to be relieved by Him of it like the prodigal son, and, what is more, offering my blood willingly at the foot of His cross for the unwearied and faithful zeal which I bear to His Church; without the restoration of which I desire never to live in this unhappy world. And further, Holy Father, having left myself no goods in this world, I supplicate your Holiness to obtain from the very Christian King that my dowry should be charged with the payment of my debts, and the wages of my poor desolate servants, and with an annual obit for my soul and those of all our brothers departed in this just quarrel, having had no other private intention, as my poor servants, present at this my affliction, will testify to you; as likewise, how I have willingly offered my life in their heretical Assembly to maintain my Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, and to bring back those of this island who have ignorantly gone astray (to wit, themselves); protesting that in this case I would willingly deprive myself of all the title and dignity of a queen, and do all honour and service to theirs, if she would cease to persecute the Catholics; as I protest that that is the end at which I have aimed since I have been in this country, and I have no ambition nor desire to reign, nor to dispossess any other for my own personal advantage, as by illness and by long afflictions I am so weakened that I have no longer any desire to trouble myself in this world except with the service of His Church, and to gain the souls of this island to God; in testimony of which, at my end, I do not wish to falter in preferring the public salvation to the personal interests of flesh and blood, which cause me to pray you,--with a mortal regret for the perdition of my poor child, after having tried by all means to regain him,--to be a true father to him, as St. John the Evangelist was to the youth whom he withdrew from the company of robbers; to take, in short, all the authority over him that I can give you to constrain him, and if it please you to call upon the Catholic King to assist you in what touches temporal matters, and especially that you two may together try to ally him in marriage. And if God, for my sins, permit that he should remain obstinate, I knowing no Christian prince in these times who works so much for the faith, or who has so many means to aid him in the bringing back of this island, as the Catholic King, to whom I am much indebted and obliged, being the only one who aided me with his money and advice in my needs, I, subject to your good pleasure, leave him all that I can have of