Whilst Ballard waited in Paris the reply of Mendoza, the latter received important letters from Mary Stuart, who at last had been able, by Morgan’s contrivance, to reopen correspondence with the outer world, little dreaming, poor soul, that the facilities provided were only a trap of her enemies. This was the first time she had communicated with Mendoza since his arrival in Paris a year before, and William Paget, the brother of Charles, was her messenger. He was to make certain proposals to him for Philip’s aid to “our designs”; but by far the most important part of the message came afterwards. The continued heresy of her son James had, she said, well-nigh broken her heart, and in order to secure the triumph of the Church “I will cede and make over by will to the King your master my right to the succession of the English Crown, and ask him to take me in future entirely under his protection, and also the affairs of this country. For the discharge of my own conscience I could not hope to place them in the hands of a Prince more zealous in our Catholic faith or more capable in all respects of re-establishing it in this country.... I am obliged in this matter to prefer the public welfare of the Church to the aggrandisement of my posterity.” Thus Mary finally embraced the Jesuit view which looked forward to a Spanish sovereignty over England to the detriment of her son and Scotland, and in opposition to many of her friends and adherents in England and France.[270] To the King of Spain this renunciation of her son by Mary was of profound significance. His own English descent had never been lost sight of, but here his claim was rendered legitimate apart from his ancestry; and Mendoza, though when he received Mary’s letter he had just been couched for cataract and was temporarily blind, caused a reply to be written to the Queen warmly commending her saintly resolution. She saw, he said, how evil her son was disposed, and the French had done little enough for her, whereas Philip had always befriended her. “Moreover,” he wrote to Philip, “failing the Queen of Scots and her son, your Majesty is the direct legitimate heir to the Crown of England. Cecil, the Lord Treasurer, was in the habit of saying that the Duchy of Lancaster had been unlawfully usurped from your Majesty.”[271] No wonder that Philip replied to this in what was for him an unusually effusive strain: “She [Mary Stuart] has greatly risen in my estimation in consequence of what she says, and has much increased the devotion I have always felt for her interests, not so much because of what she says in my favour, though I am very grateful for that also, as because she postpones her love for her son, which might be expected to lead her astray, for the service of our Lord, the good of Christendom, and the salvation of England. Tell her all this from me, and assure her that if she perseveres in the good path she has chosen I hope that God will bless her by placing her in possession of her own.