We know that the Lords, in December of the same year, publicly and in Parliament, and with strange logic, declared that the ground of their rising and imprisonment of Mary was her guilt as revealed in letters written by her hand, though these were not discovered when the Lords imprisoned Mary. Now Lethington, in his dispatch to Cecil, carried by Melville the day of the Casket finding, says that the bearer, Mr. Robert Melville, ‘can report to you at length the ground of the Lords’ so just and honourable cause.’ Presently that ‘ground’ was declared to be the evidence of the Casket Letters. Melville then would verbally report this new ‘ground’ to Cecil and Elizabeth. He was dispatched at that very date for no other reason. The Lords were Melville’s employers, but his heart was sore for Mary. Elizabeth, on June 30, tells Mary (Throckmorton carried her letter) that ‘your own faithful servant, Robert Melville, used much earnest speech on your behalf.’[388] What Elizabeth knew about Lethington’s bad behaviour as to the Letters, and spoke of to de Silva, she must have heard from Robert Melville. She did not, as far as we are aware, mention her knowledge of the subject till de Silva introduced it on July 21, but only from Melville could she learn whatever she did learn about Lethington. Throckmorton, her envoy to Scotland, did not mention the Letters till July 25, four days after Elizabeth spoke to de Silva. ‘Jhone a Forret,’ whom the Lords sent through London on July 8 to bring Moray, was not exactly the man to blame Lethington and discredit the Letters: for he was probably John Wood, later a chief enemy of Mary. Suspicions of Lethington, later, were not confined to Elizabeth alone. In Mary’s instructions to her Commissioners (Sept. 9, 1568) she says, ‘There are divers in Scotland, both men and women, that can counterfeit my handwriting, and write the like manner of writing which I use [the ‘Roman’ or Italic] as well as myself, _and principally such as are in company with themselves_,’[389] as Lethington then was. Lesley stated the matter thus: ‘There are sundry can counterfeit her handwriting, who have been brought up in her company, of whom there are some assisting themselves’ (the Lords) ‘as well of other nations as of Scots, as I doubt not both your highness’ (Elizabeth) ‘and divers others of your Highness’s Court, has seen sundry letters sent here from Scotland, which would not be known from her own handwriting.’[390] All this is vague, and Mary’s reference to _women_, Lesley’s reference to those ‘brought up in her company,’ glance, alas! at the Queen’s Maries. Mary Livingstone, wedded to John Sempil, was not on the best terms with Queen Mary about certain jewels. Mary Fleming was Lethington’s wife. Mary Beaton’s aunts were at open feud with the Queen. A lady, unnamed, was selected as the forger by the author of ‘L’Innocence de la Royne d’Escosse’ (1572).