Sir James Melvil, a Scotsman brought up in France, was directed to go to London in the autumn of 1564, to watch his mistress’s interests. To him Elizabeth again suggested a marriage between Dudley and “her good sister”; and in reply to his remark that Mary thought that a conference between English and Scottish statesmen should discuss the question first, at which conference the Earl of Bedford and Lord Robert could represent England, Elizabeth told Melvil that he seemed to make a small account of Lord Robert. He should, she said, see him made a far greater Earl than Bedford before he left court. When Dudley was on his knees, shortly afterwards, receiving the investiture of his Earldom, the Queen tickled his neck, and asked Melvil what he thought of him. Melvil gave a courtly answer, whereupon the Queen retorted that he liked that “long lad” (Darnley) better. Melvil scoffed at such an idea, but his main object in coming to England was to intrigue for the “long lad’s” permission to go to Scotland. A few days after this, Leicester took Melvil in his barge from Hampton Court to London, and on the way asked him what Mary thought of the marriage with him, which Randolph had proposed to her. Melvil answered coldly, as his mistress had instructed him to do. “Then he began to purge himself of so proud a pretence as to marry so great a Queen, declaring he did not esteem himself worthy to wipe her shoes; declaring that the invention of that proposition of marriage proceeded from Mr. Cecil, his secret enemy. For if I, says he, should have appeared desirous of that marriage, I should have offended both the Queens and lost their favour.”[205]