Exactly what this man arranged in Flanders before proceeding to Scotland is not known, but when he arrived, in August, at Leith, Randolph, the English agent in Edinburgh, knew enough to suspect him. “His errand I yet know not,” he wrote to Cecil, “and would I knew what might be said to such ‘gestes’ who come for little good.”[163] Whatever message Yaxley brought it was a welcome one to Mary and her husband, Darnley particularly “rejoicing and imparting all his affairs to him.” Yaxley is represented by the English agent as imposing upon Darnley and his “yong company,” by his boastful talk, “as a fit man to send abroad, as he knew so well the Courts of Spain and England, besides his acquaintance in Flanders and at Brussels, that he doubted not to accomplish any commission. So he is to pass secretly to the Duchess of Aerschot [Mary’s aunt], who shall procure him audience of the Regent, to whom he shall declare that this Queen ... will commit herself, her husband, and her country to his [King Philip’s] protection, and, seeing the Queen of England disposed to marry the French King, the rather to maintain her [Mary’s] estate she and her husband will remit all her titles to England to the King of Spain’s judgment; and if the Duchess of Parma thought meet he is to pass with these offers to Spain.... He [Yaxley] told his secret friends the names of many noblemen and gentlemen of good power in England ready to follow the King of Spain’s directions for the alteration of religion.”[164]