(now being no hope which I perceived by her letters), except I saw some short amendment, Ì could not hear it. She said that her soul was God's, and that she would neither change her faith, nor dissemble her opinion. It was said, I constrained not her faith, but willed her not as a King to rule, but as a subject to obey, and that her example might lead to much inconvenience." This conference took place on tho eighteenth of March, 1551, and, on the following day, the imperial ambassador, in the Emperor's name, threatened England with war, if Edward violated his promise not to interfere with Mary's domestic altar and worship. This unexpected menace alarmed the council. An immense quantity of English merchandize, stores, and ammunition were then in Flanders. To gain time for the removal of this wealth, the ambassador was told that the King would send an answer by a messenger of bis own ; and, on the twenty-second of March, Dr. Wotton was dispatched, observes the King, in his journal, " to deny the whole matter, and persuade the Emperor in it ; the privy council thinking, by his going, to win some time for a preparation of a mart, convenience of powder, harness, &c, and for the security of the realm." Meanwhile the council and the bishops told the King that, to avert the evils of war, he must, for the present, overlook his sister's heterodoxy ; to convinco him, the Bishops of Canterbury, of London, and of Rochester maintained that, " though to give licence to sin was sin, yet to suffer and wink at it for a time might be borne, so all haste possible were used" — a questionable doctrine, and to which the youthful King subsubmitted with reluctance—" lamenting with tears the blind infatuation of his sister, whose obstinacy he could not convince by argument, nor was suffered to restrain by due course of law." !Neither the King nor the council being inclined to wink at the obnoxious nonconformity an instant beyond the period enforced by necessity, in May, Francis Mallet, Mary's head chaplain, and a di vine esteemed by Katherine Fair for his erudition, sincerity, and quiet, retiring disposition, was seized, and sent to severe confinement in the Tower. Mary wrote several letters, demanding his liberation, but the council answered by directing her to conform to the law. She, however, persisted in having the Catholic service performed in her chapel, which so excited the privy council against her, that, on the fourteenth of August, they sent for Robert Rochester, her comptroller, Mr. Walgravc, and Sir Francis Englcfield, her two principal officers, and, with many alarming threats, commanded them to return to their mistress, who then resided at Copt Hall, near Waltham Abbey, in Essex, and inform lier that they were ordered and empowered, by royal authority, to prevent the performance of Catholic worship in her house, and afterwards to call her remaining chaplains before them, forbid them from saying mass, and order them to prevent any one of the household from presuming to hear mass, or any other forbidden rites. They went so directed ; but such was their regard, such their respect for their mistress, that rather than incur her severe displeasure, they neglected to execute the chief part of their commission, and returned to the council, bringing with them the following letter from Mary to the King :— "My duty most humbly remembered unto your Majesty. " It may please the same to be advertised that I have, by my servants, received your most honourable letter, the contents whereof do not a little trouble mo ; and so much the more, for that any of my servants should move or attempt me in matters touching my soul, which I think flic meanest subject within your realm could evil boar at their servants' hand, having, for my part, utterly refused heretofore to talk with them in such matters, and of all other persons least regarded them, therein to whom I have declared what I think, as she which trusted that your Majesty would have suffered me, your poor humble sister and beadswoman, to have used the accustomed mass, which the King, your fa