but could
not remove it. Philip was more anxious than ever about the marriage of
Elizabeth; and as Mary could not overcome her unwillingness to
sanction by act of her own Elizabeth's pretensions, Philip wrote her
cruel letters, and set his confessor to lecture her upon her duties as
a wife.[528] These letters she chiefly spent her time in answering,
shut up almost alone, trusting no one but Pole, and seeing no one but
her women. If she was compelled to appear in public, she had lost her
power of self-control; she would burst into fits of violent and
uncontrollable passion; she believed every one about her to be a spy
in the interest of the Lords. So disastrously miserable were all the
consequences of her marriage, that it was said, the pope, who had
{p.244} granted the dispensation for the contraction of it, had
better grant another for its dissolution.[529] Unfortunately there was
one direction open in which her frenzy could have uncontrolled scope.

[Footnote 528: Among the surviving memorials of
Mary, none is more affecting than a rough copy of
an answer to one of these epistles, which is
preserved in the Cotton Library. It is painfully
scrawled, and covered with erasures and
corrections, in which may be traced the dread in
which she stood of offending Philip. _Demander
license de votre Haultesse_, is crossed through and
altered into _Supplier tres humblement_. Where she
had described herself as _obeissante_, she enlarged
the word into _tres obeissante_; and the tone
throughout is most piteous. She entreats the king
to appoint some person or persons to talk with her
about the marriage. She says that the conscience
which she has about it she has had for twenty-four
years; that is to say, since Elizabeth's birth.
Nevertheless, she will agree to Philip's wish, if
the realm will agree. She is ready to discuss it;
but she complains, so far as she dares complain, of
the confessor. The priests trouble her, she says.
"Alfonsez especialement me proposoit questions si
obscures que mon simple entendement ne les pouvo