In 1561, Elder told one of the servants of the Earl of Lennox that he had shown Darnley's juvenile handwriting to Mary, Queen of Scots. The servant, possibly Thomas Bishop, was distrustful of him and thought he had the wit to be a spy, "he haitht wytt to playe the aspye where he listitht." He joined Lord Darnley and his wife Mary, Queen of Scots in August 1565, travelling from Flanders, according to a letter of the Earl of BedfordJoseph Stevenson, Selections from Unpublished Manuscripts (Maitland Club, 1837), pp. 101-2, 129.
