Part 1 — Mary I. of England to the Pope.

Most Holy Father,

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, which hurried me to the grave. My husband, who was too much of my temper to love me, was very little concerned: In short, that filthy disease stifled me, a certain presage of the continual thirst I now suffer. But I once more beseech you, most holy father, to re-inforce your squadrons, to join them with the Most Christian King’s, and, with your holy benediction, give them strict orders to grant no quarters to the disciples of St. Paul. You will infinitely oblige by it both me and Lucifer, who is now as zealous a Romanist as your eldest son, and who, like him, would not willingly suffer any but good Papists, the friends and pensioners of Versailles, those sworn enemies of liberty and property, in his dominions. I am so ill-natur’d, that my husband Philip is as cautious of embracing me, as he was in the other world; but that’s no misfortune either to Earth or Hell, for we could produce nothing but a monster between us, which would be the terror of mankind, and horror of devils.