ider the whole subject of the marriage. Elizabeth said that
she perceived that Mary did not think much of this proposed match.
She said, however, that Dudley stood extremely high in _her_ regard,
that she was going to make him an earl, and that she should marry him
herself were it not that she was fully resolved to live and die a
single woman. She said she wished very much to have Dudley become
Mary's husband both on account of her attachment to him, and also on
account of his attachment to her, which she was sure would prevent
his allowing her, that is, Elizabeth, to have any trouble out of
Mary's claim to her crown as long as she lived.

Elizabeth also asked Melville to wait in Westminster until the day
appointed for making Dudley an earl. This was done, a short time
afterward, with great ceremony. Lord Darnley, then a very tall and
slender youth of about nineteen, was present on the occasion. His
father and mother had been banished from Scotland, on account of some
political offenses, twenty years before, and he had thus himself been
brought up in England. As he was a near relative of the queen, and a
sort of heir-presumptive to the crown, he had a high position at the
court, and his office was, on this occasion, to bear the sword of
honor before the queen. Dudley kneeled before Elizabeth while she put
upon him the badges of his new dignity. Afterward she asked Melville
what he thought of him. Melville was polite enough to speak warmly in
his favor. "And yet," said the queen, "I suppose you prefer yonder
_long_ lad," pointing to Darnley. She knew something of Mary's
half-formed design of making Darnley her husband. Melville, who did
not wish her to suppose that Mary had any serious intention of
choosing Darnley, said that "no woman of spirit would choose such a
person as he was, for he was handsome, beardless, and lady-faced; in
fact, he looked more like a woman than a man."

Melville was not very honest in this, for he had secret instructions
at this very time to apply to Lady Lennox, Darnley's mother, to send
her son into Scotland, in order that Mary might see him, and be
assisted to decide the question of becoming his wife, by ascertaining
how she was going to like him personally. Queen Elizabeth, in the
mean time, pressed upon Melville the importance of Mary's deciding
soon in favor of the marriage with Leicester. As to declaring in
favor of Mary's right to inherit the crown after her, she said the
question was