The Lords having resolved to commence proceedings by a preliminary secret inquiry, the Queen protested against such a course, but no reply was made to her protest. With the exception of appearing to return answers to the addresses forwarded to her from various parts of the country, she withdrew, as much as possible, from all publicity. Her personal friends, however, were busier than she required in drawing up projects for her which she could not sanction. One of these busy advocates thought that she might fittingly compromise the matter by gaining the restoration of her name in the Liturgy, being crowned, holding one drawing-room, yearly, at Kensington Palace, and having her permanent residence at Hampton Court, with 55,000_l._ a year to uphold her dignity. The terms were not illiberal; but if the Queen rejected them, it was, probably, because she knew they would never be offered. Her own remark upon them is said to have been, that she did not want a victory without a battle, but a victory after showing that she had deserved it. She was the more eager for battle from the fact that the contents of the green bag were by no means unknown to her. At least, it has been asserted that she had long held duplicates of some of the evidence, if not of the report made by the Milan commissioners, and she was satisfied she could rebut both. She possessed one, and it was her solitary, advantage in this case. The ministers, if not in so many words, yet by their proceedings, had stigmatised her as utterly infamous, and yet they had considered it not beneath them to desire to enter into negotiations with one whom they considered guilty of all the implied infamy. The Queen’s rejection of the proposals to compound ‘the stupendous felony’ raised up for her many a friend in circles where she had been looked upon, if not as guilty, yet, at best, as open to very grave suspicion.