respect, my sentence has been declared to me, to be executed
to-morrow, like a criminal, at eight o'clock in the morning. I have not
the leisure to give you a full account of what has occurred; but if it
please you to believe my doctor and these others my distressed servants,
you will hear the truth, and that, thanks to God, I despise death,
which I protest I receive innocent of every crime, even if I were their
subject, which I never was. But my faith in the Catholic religion and my
claims to the crown of England are the real causes for my condemnation,
and yet they will not allow me to say that it is for religion I die, for
my religion kills theirs; and that is so true, that they have taken my
chaplain from me, who, although a prisoner in the same castle, may
not come either to console me, or to give me the holy sacrament of the
eucharist; but, on the contrary, they have made me urgent entreaties to
receive the consolations of their minister whom they have brought for
this purpose. He who will bring you this letter, and the rest of my
servants, who are your subjects for the most part, will bear you witness
of the way in which I shall have performed my last act. Now it remains
to me to implore you, as a most Christian king, as my brother-in-law, as
my ancient ally, and one who has so often done me the honour to protest
your friendship for me, to give proof of this friendship, in your virtue
and your charity, by helping me in that of which I cannot without you
discharge my conscience--that is to say, in rewarding my good distressed
servants, by giving them their dues; then, in having prayers made to God
for a queen who has been called most Christian, and who dies a Catholic
and deprived of all her goods. As to my son, I commend him to you as
much as he shall deserve, for I cannot answer for him; but as to my
servants, I commend them with clasped hands. I have taken the liberty of
sending you two rare stones good for the health, hoping that yours may
be perfect during a long life; you will receive them as coming from your
very affectionate sister-in-law, at the point of death and giving proof
of her, good disposition towards you.

"I shall commend my servants to you in a memorandum, and will order you,
for the good of my soul, for whose salvation it will be employed, to pay
me a portion of what you owe me, if it please you, and I conjure you for
the honour of Jesus, to whom I shall pray to-morrow at my death,
that you le