Katherine of Aragon

My most dear lord, king and husband,

The hour of my death now drawing on, the tender love I

owe you forceth me, my case being such, to commend myself

to you, and to put you in remembrance with a few words

of the health and safeguard of your soul which you ought

to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the

care and pampering of your body, for the which you have

cast me into many calamities and yourself into many

troubles. For my part, I pardon you everything, and I

wish to devoutly pray God that He will pardon you also.

For the rest, I commend unto you our daughter Mary,

beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I have

heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of

my maids, to give them marriage portions, which is not

much, they being but three. For all my other servants

I solicit the wages due them, and a year more, lest

they be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that

mine eyes desire you above all things.

Katharine the Quene.