Series 1 > Papal negotiations with Mary Queen of Scots during her reign in Scotland, 1561-1567

90 PAPAL NEGOTIATIONS WITH MARY [12 JAN.
What nobler than to protect and defend the cause of God
against him, to pluck up and cast out the heresies which, by
means of his emissaries, he has disseminated ? Surely if he, who
has brought back even one who is straying to the way of
salvation, will receive so great a reward from the Lord, what
rewards may not you reckon upon, as prepared for you in
heaven, who with all zeal and diligence provide for the salva¬
tion of so many people? The boundless and inexhaustible
goodness of God is wont not only to reward most abundantly
in the next life the pious deeds of His servants, but even in
this to repay them amply with temporal prosperity.
While we applaud your other good deeds, we very strongly
approve of this, that, as we have heard, you have resolved to
send the bishops of your kingdom with your ambassador to the
Council. If they have not yet gone, we exhort your Highness
and entreat you to send them as soon as possible. By this
time, so great a number of bishops has met at Trent, and so
many others, now on their way, are soon, please God, to arrive,
that the time is now ripe to take in hand the holy and salutary
work for the sake of which the Council has been called together
to God’s praise and glory.
It remains that your Highness should count upon receiving
from our good will all that a dear daughter can expect from
a most kind father. We have ever loved you and been prone
to praise you, but now that we have learned what praiseworthy
things you have done since your return to your kingdom, such
has been the increase of our old affection, such our growing
interest in your fortunes, that we fancy neither could ever
grow greater. May our merciful and Almighty God, my
dearest daughter in Christ, who has gifted you with so pious a
mind, deign to preserve and increase it, and to grant you, after
a long and happy rule over a temporal and earthly kingdom,
to come to the enjoyment of the glory and beatitude of that
kingdom which is heavenly and eternal.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, under the seal of the Fisher¬
man, on the 12th day of January 1562, the third of our
Pontificate.