Thus it appears that Norfolk prevented Mary from pursuing her compromise (which Lethington was favouring in his own interest) and from abdicating, leaving the Letters unproduced. Lethington had shaken his faith in the authenticity of the Casket Letters. That Mary should have acquiesced in a compromise demonstrates that she dreaded Moray’s accusations. That, at a word from Norfolk, she reconsidered and altered her plan, proves that she could, in her opinion, outface her accusers, and indicates that Norfolk now distrusted the genuine character of the Letters. She knew, if not by the copies of her Letters which Lethington did (or did not) send her, at least by Lesley’s report of that which Lethington showed the English Commissioners, what her enemies could do. She would carry the war into Africa, accuse her accusers, and, in a dramatic scene in Westminster Hall, before the Peers and the foreign Ambassadors, would rout her enemies. That, if accused, she would not be allowed to be present, and to reply, did not occur to her. Such injustice was previously unknown. That she would be submitting to a judge, or judges, she could overlook, or would, later, protest that she had never done. According to Nau, she had made the same offer to defend herself (as we have seen) to Moray, before the Scots Parliament of December, 1567. Mary’s plan was magnificent. Sussex himself, writing from York, on October 22, saw the force of her tactics.[296] He speaks, as well he might, of ‘the inconstancy and subtleness of the people with whom we deal.’ Mary must be found guilty, or the matter must be huddled up ‘with a show of saving her honour.’ ‘The first, I think, will hardly be attempted, for two causes: the one for that if her adverse party accuse her of the murder by producing of her letters, she will deny them, and accuse the most of them of manifest consent to the murder, _hardly to be denied_; so as, upon the trial on both sides, _her proofs will judicially fall out best_, as it is thought.’ The other reason for not finding Mary guilty was that, if little James died, the Hamiltons were next heirs. This would not suit Moray, he (like Norfolk) would now wish for more children of Mary’s, to keep the Hamiltons out, but, if she were now defamed, there would be a difficulty as to their succession to the crown. So Sussex believed (rightly) that a compromise was intended, for which Lethington, as he says, had been working at York, while Robert Melville was also engaged. Sussex then states the compromise in the same terms as Robert Melville did, adding that Moray would probably hand his proofs over to Mary, and clear her by a Parliamentary decree. The Hamiltons had other ideas. ‘You will find Lethington wholly bent to composition.’ A general routing out of evidence did not suit Lethington.