us -, and doth your Grace think it convenient it should remain so r—God forbid ; what regret and sorrow our late master had the time lie saw he must depart, for that he knew the religion was not established, as he purposed to have done, I and others can be witness and testify; and what he would have done further in it, if he had lived, a great many know7, and also I can testify; and doth your Grace, who is learned, and should know God's word, esteem true religion, and the knowledge of the Scriptures to be new-fangledness and fantasies, for the Lord's sake, turn the leaf, and look the other while upon the other side, I mean with another judgment, which must pass by an humble spirit, through the peace of the living God, who, of his infinito goodness and mercy, grants unto your Grace plenty thereof, to the satisfying of your conscience, and your most noble heart's continual desire." The Christmas of 1547 Mary passed at. court, in the company of her half brother and sister. At the conclusion of the festival she retired to her manor of Kenning-hall, where she remained till the autumn of 1548, when she paid a lengthened visit to the young King, at his London palace of St. James's. Whilst residing at St. James's; she invited her friends to a magnificent entertainment. Lord Thomas Seymour — who a few weeks afterwards was hurried to the block without trial or jury, and who died Elizabeth's lover and Mary's friend —was one of the guests; and the Protector suspected that should his brother's scheme of marrying Elizabeth fail, he would offer his hand to Mary; a suspicion not without some little foundation ; for, independent of Seymour's personal attentions to Mary, at her St. James's levee, he, in a letter addressed to her, on the seventeenth of the subsequent December, says, "After ray humble communications to your grace, with most hearty thanks for the great cheer I had with you at your grace's late being here. It may please you to understand that I have sent your grace this bearer, Walter Earle, to bring to your remembrance such lessons as I think you have forgotten, because, at my late being at St. James's, I never saw a pair of virginals stirring in the whole house;* wishing 1 had some other thing that might be more acceptable to your grace, whom, from this present, I commit to the good governance of God." Although Mary took every possible caution to avoid being in any way implicated in the fearful insurrection of 1548-9, the Protector suspected her loyalty, and upon information, real or feigned, that her servants were encouraging the rebels in Devonshire, addressed to her a lengthy expostulation on the seventeenth of J uly. Three days afterwards, she, in the subjoined letter, pronounced the charge against her servants unfounded ; declared that she would be loth to keep about her any rebellious subjects; and expresses a belief that the changes introduced by the young King's advisers, rather than her own adherence to the Catholic faith, were the real cause of the uprising. "MY LOUD, " I have received letters from you and others of the King's majesty's council, dated the seventeenth of this present, and delivered unto me the twentieth, of the same, whereby I perceive ye be informed that certain of my servants should be the chief stirrers, procurers, and doers in these commotions ; which commotions (I assure you) no less offend mc than they do you and the rest of the council ; and you write also that a priest and chaplain of mine at Sampford Courtenay, in Devonshire, should be a doer there, of which report I do not a little marvel, for, to my knowledge, I have not one chaplain in those parts; and concerning Pooly, my servant, which was sometime a receiver, I am able to answer that he remainetb continually in my house, and was never doer amongst the commons, nor came in their company. It is true that I have another servant of that name dwelling in Suffolk, * It would appear by this that musical instruments were then banished from the court of Edward the Sixth.