To return to Lethington. In 1615, Camden, writing, as it were, under the eye of James VI. and I., declared that Lethington ‘had privately hinted to the Commissioners at York, that he had counterfeited Mary’s hand frequently.’[391] There is nothing incredible, _a priori_, in the story. Between October 11, 1568 (when Norfolk, having been _privately_ shown the Letters, was blabbing, even to his servant Bannister, his horror of Letter II.), and October 16, when Lethington rode out with Norfolk, and the scheme for his marrying Mary struck deep root, something may have been said. Lethington may have told Norfolk that perhaps the Letters were forged, that he himself, for amusement, had imitated Mary’s hand. As a fact, the secretaries of two of the foremost of contemporary statesmen did write to the innumerable bores who beset well-known persons, in hands hardly to be distinguished from those of their chiefs. Norfolk, as Laing says, did acknowledge, at his trial, that Lethington ‘moved him to consider the Queen as not guilty of the crimes objected.’ Lethington appears to have succeeded; possibly by aid of the obvious argument that, if _he_ could imitate Mary’s hand for pastime, others might do it for evil motives. Nay, we practically know, and have shown, that Lethington did succeed in making Norfolk, to whom, five days before, he had offered the Letters as proofs of Mary’s guilt, believe that she had not written them. For, as we have seen, whereas Mary at this time was making a compromise with Moray, Norfolk persuaded her to abandon that course. Thus Lethington, on October 11, 1568, made Norfolk believe in the Letters; on October 16, he made him disbelieve or doubt. We are not to suppose Lethington so foolish as to confess that he was himself the forger. Even if Lethington did tell Norfolk that he had often imitated Mary’s hand, he could not have meant to accuse himself in this case. His son, in 1620, asked Camden for his authority, and we know not that Camden ever replied. He never altered his statement, which meant no more than that, by the argument of his own powers of imitating Mary’s handwriting, Lethington kept urging the Duke of Norfolk to doubt her guilt.[392] Lethington’s illustration of the ease with which Mary’s writing could be imitated is rather, if he used it, a proof that he did _not_ hold the pen which may have tampered with the Casket Letters. Our reasons for suspecting him of engaging, though not as penman, in the scheme are: 1. Elizabeth’s early suspicion of Lethington, and the probability that Robert Melville, who had just parted from Lethington, inspired that suspicion. 2. The probability, derived from Randolph’s letter, already cited, that Lethington had access to the Casket before June 21, 1567, but after Mary’s capture at Carberry.