On the 24th, Moray having complained that he and his company were slandered by Mary’s Commissioners, Lesley and Herries answered ‘that they had special command sent to them from the Queen their Mistress, to lay the said crime to their charge,’ and would accuse them. They were appointed to do this on Christmas Day, but only put in an argumentative answer to Moray’s ‘Eik.’ But on January 11, when Elizabeth had absolved both Moray and Mary (a ludicrous conclusion) and was allowing Moray and his company to go home, Cecil said that Moray wished to know whether Herries and Lesley would openly accuse him and his friends, or not. They declared that Mary had bidden them make the charge, and that they had done so, _on the condition_ that Mary first received copies of the Casket documents. As soon as Mary received these, they would name, accuse, and prove the case, against the guilty. They themselves, as private persons, had only hearsay evidence, and would accuse no man. Moray and his party offered to go to Bolton, and be accused. But Mary (as her Commissioners at last understood) would not play her card, her evidence in black and white, till she saw the hand of her adversaries, as was fair, and she was never allowed to see the Casket documents.[330] Mary’s Commissioners appear to have blundered as usual. They gave an impression, first that they would accuse unconditionally, next that they sneaked out of the challenge.[331] But, in fact, Mary had definitely made the delivery to her of the Casket Letters, originals or even copies, and her own presence to plead her own cause, the necessary preliminary conditions of producing her own charges and proofs. Mary’s attitude as regards the Casket Papers is now, I think, intelligible. There was a moment, as we have seen, during the intrigues at York, when she consented to resign her crown, and let the matter be hushed up. From that position she receded, at Norfolk’s desire. The Letters were produced by her adversaries, at Westminster and at Hampton Court. She then occupied at once her last line of defence, as she had originally planned it. If allowed to see the documents put in against her, and to confront her accusers, she would produce evidence in black and white, which would so damage her opponents that her denial of the Letters would be accepted by the foreign ambassadors and the peers of England. ‘Her proofs will judicially fall out best as is thought,’ Sussex wrote, and he may have known what ‘her proofs’ were.