oduced. The clergy refused to christen or bury during his captivity.
Parliament met (March 12, 1543), and still there was silence as to the
nature of the accusations against Beaton; and by March 22 George Douglas
himself released the Cardinal (of course for a consideration) and carried
him to his own strong castle of St Andrews.

Parliament permitted the reading but forbade the discussion of the Bible
in English. Arran was posing as a kind of Protestant. Ambassadors were
sent to Henry to negotiate a marriage between his son Edward and the baby
Queen; but Scotland would not give up a fortress, would never resign her
independence, would not place Mary in Henry's hands, would never submit
to any but a native ruler.

The airy castle of Henry's hopes fell into dust, built as it was on the
oaths of traitors. Love of such a religion as Henry professed, retaining
the Mass and making free use of the stake and the gibbet, was not, even
to Protestants, so attractive as to make them run the English course and
submit to the English Lord Paramount. Some time was needed to make
Scots, whatever their religious opinions, lick the English rod. But the
scale was soon to turn; for every reforming sermon was apt to produce the
harrying of religious houses, and every punishment of the robbers was
persecution intolerable against which men sought English protection.

Henry VIII. now turned to Arran for support. To Arran he offered the
hand of his daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, who should later marry the
heir of the Hamiltons. But by mid-April Arran was under the influence of
his bastard brother, the Abbot of Paisley (later Archbishop Hamilton).
The Earl of Lennox, a Stuart, and Keeper of Dumbarton Castle, arrived
from France. He was hostile to Arran; for, if Arran were illegitimate,
Lennox was next heir to the crown after Mary: he was thus, for the
moment, the ally of Beaton against Arran. George Douglas visited Henry,
and returned with his terms--Mary to be handed over to England at the age
of ten, and to marry Prince Edward at twelve; Arran (by a prior
arrangement) was to receive Scotland north of Forth, an auxiliary English
army, and the hand of Elizabeth for his son. To the English contingent
Arran preferred 5000 pounds in ready money--that was his price.

Sadleyr, Henry's envoy, saw Mary of Guise, and saw her little daughter
unclothed; he admired the child, but could not disentangle the cross-webs
of intrigue. The nationa