CHAPTER XVI
THE LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND
THE opening of the year 1690 brought Catherine fresh hopes.
When this arrives you will have already received my letter, in which I told you what great joy was caused me by the news that you had a son born to you. May God permit other children to be added to this, and He thus be served! May all the joys which I desire for you come to you and your crown.
Your last, of the 14th of November, left me anxious, since you complained of a cold. I hope to God it has passed off! What news I can give you of myself is very short. There is no happiness for me here, and there can be no health, and as the years increase they make every ill more painful. They say that the Queen of Castile is to come here. I have appointed an officer of mine, in case she is some days here, to go to her and make my compliments, as she is your sister-in-law. I do not give the news from this place in this letter, that I may not be a newsmonger, and because I do not know it. What I am able to tell I am sure you will not like to hear, since it is only the continued outcries that I hear all the time at my door to the effect that the people wish to burn the Pope and the Conclave. They have not wished to go further, but I see nothing to hinder it, just as it is certain that I see
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