The malignant planet that governed at my birth, so influenc’d all the faculties of my soul, that I was the most outragious and barbarous princess till that time mounted the _English_ throne; and as it is no extraordinary thing to continue in the same temper, in a country inhabited only with tyrants, and the butchers of their subjects, so you ought not to be surprised, if I am not now dispossessed of it. I had not long troubled the world before my mother [17] was divorced, and I myself declared incapable of succeeding _Henry_ VIII. _Anne Boleyn_ was then brought to the royal bed; and what was worse, with her was introduced a religion so conformable to the laws of God, that it never suited with my inclinations. The proud rival of _Catherine_, was afterwards sacrific’d to the inconstancy of her voluptuous husband; but that insipid religion, to my grief, was not confounded with her; for the young and simple _Edward_ countenanced it during his reign. But then came my turn, and you know, sovereign pontiff, with what pride and malice I mounted the throne; the means I used to destroy that cursed heretical doctrine; the pleasure I took in shedding my subjects blood; what magnificence and splendor I gave to the mass; how barbarously I treated that innocent and beautiful princess _Jane Gray_; with what severity I used my sister _Elizabeth_, and also the immoderate joy that seized my precious soul, when I married a prince who had, as well as I, the good quality of being cruel to the highest degree, is not unknown to you. Notwithstanding what I said in the beginning of my letter, you may, perhaps, think my sentiments now altered: but I assure you the contrary, and that I cannot behold with patience your present insensibility and mildness. Is it possible you can suffer a religion, destitute of all ornaments, that has nothing but truth and simplicity to recommend it, to get the advantage of your _Rome_, which reigns in blood and purple, subsists by falshood and idolatry, and sets up and pulls down kings? how can you endure it? what a horrid shame and weakness is this? are there no more _Ravillacs_? is there neither powder nor daggers, in the arsenal of the Jesuits? have they forgot how to build wheels, gibbets, and scaffolds? or is your malice, envy, hatred, and fury, seized with a lethargy? ’s death! holy father, I am distracted when I think that nothing succeeds in _England_, where I took so much pains, and practised so much cruelty to establish Popery, and root out the doctrine of the apostles; and where your pious emissaries following my zeal, had invented most admirable machines to sacrifice, with _James_ I. all the enemies of your Anti-christian Holiness. Do you sleep? and must _France_ only brandish the glorious flambeau of persecution? Consider, I pray, that I employ the best of my time in imprecations against the deserters from your church; that I so inflamed my blood in those transports, that it threw me into a dropsy,