Meanwhile in a letter to Mary (after October 16)[290] Lesley first, as in his confession, says that he has conferred with Lethington ‘great part of a night.’ Lethington had ridden out with Norfolk, on October 16, and learned from him that Elizabeth aimed at delay, and at driving Moray to do his very worst. When they had produced ‘all they can against you,’ Elizabeth would hold Mary prisoner, till she could ‘show you favour.’ Norfolk therefore now advised Mary to feign submission to Elizabeth, who would probably be more kind in two or three months.[291] If so, Lethington’s words had not yet their full effect, or Norfolk dissembled. If we are to believe Sir James Melville, who was at York, Norfolk also conferred with Moray himself, who consulted Lethington and Sir James; but not the other Commissioners, his allies. His friends advised him to listen to Norfolk. We have Moray’s own account of the transaction. In October, 1569, when Norfolk was under the suspicion of Elizabeth, Moray wrote to her with his version of the affair.[292] ‘When first in York I was moved to sue familiar conference with the Duke as a mean to procure us expedition.’ He found the Duke ‘careful to have her schame coverit, hir honour repairit, schew(ed) hir interest to the title of the crown of England.... It was convenient she had “ma” (more) children,’ who would be friends of Moray, and so on. The guileless Regent dreamed ‘of nothing less than that Norfolk had in any way pretended to the said marriage.’ But _now_ (1569) Moray sees that Norfolk’s idea was to make him seem the originator of the marriage. Meanwhile Robert Melville was still (he says) negotiating between Mary and Moray, on the basis of Mary’s abdication and receipt of a large pension from Scotland. Melville rode to London to act for Mary on October 25.[293] But, before that date, on October 16, Elizabeth wrote to Norfolk as to the demands of Moray made on October 11, and under the influence of what she had now learned from her Commissioners as to the Casket Letters, and, perhaps, of suspicions of Norfolk. Practically, she removed the Conference to London, ordering Norfolk so to manage that Mary should think her restoration was to be arranged.[294] Mary weakly consented to the change of _venue_ (October 22). She sent Lesley and Herries to represent her in London.