ed a sudden summons from the
queen, and was conducted by torch-light to the royal apartments.

Mary received her in her chamber, to which she had now confined herself
in expectation of that joyful event which was destined never to arrive.
The princess on entering kneeled down, and protested herself a true and
loyal subject, adding, that she did not doubt that her majesty would one
day find her to be such, whatever different report had gone of her. The
queen expressed at first some dissatisfaction at her still persisting so
strongly in her assertions of innocence, thinking that she might take
occasion to inveigh against her imprisonment as the act of injustice and
oppression which in truth it was; but on her sister's replying in a
submissive manner, that it was her business to bear what the queen was
pleased to inflict and that she should make no complaints, she appears
to have been appeased. Fox's account however is, that they parted with
few comfortable words of the queen in English, but what she said in
Spanish was not known: that it was thought that king Philip was there
behind a cloth, and not seen, and that he showed himself "a very friend"
in this business. From other accounts we learn, that Elizabeth scrupled
not the attempt to ingratiate herself with Mary at this interview by
requesting that her majesty would be pleased to send her some catholic
tractates for confirmation of her faith and to counteract the doctrines
which she had imbibed from the works of the reformers. Mary showed
herself somewhat distrustful of her professions on this point, but
dismissed her at length with tokens of kindness. She put upon her
finger, as a pledge of amity, a ring worth seven hundred
crowns;--mentioned that sir Thomas Pope was again appointed to reside
with her, and observing that he was already well known to her sister
commended him as a person whose prudence, humanity, and other estimable
qualities, were calculated to render her new situation perfectly
agreeable.

To what place the princess was first conveyed from this audience does
not appear, but it must have been to one of the royal seats in the
neighbourhood of London, to several of which she was successively
removed during some time; after which she was permitted to establish
herself permanently at the palace of Hatfield in Hertfordshire.

From this auspicious interview the termination of her prisoner-state may
be dated. Henceforth she was released from the formidable