l party--the Catholic party--was strongest,
because least disunited. When the Scottish ambassadors who went to Henry
in spring returned (July 21), the national party seized Mary and carried
her to Stirling, where they offered Arran a meeting, and (he said) the
child queen's hand for his son. But Arran's own partisans, Glencairn and
Cassilis, told Sadleyr that he fabled freely. Representatives of both
parties accepted Henry's terms, but delayed the ratification. Henry
insisted that it should be ratified by August 24, but on August 16 he
seized six Scottish merchant ships. Though the Treaty was ratified on
August 25, Arran was compelled to insist on compensation for the ships,
but on August 28 he proclaimed Beaton a traitor. In the beginning of
September Arran favoured the wrecking of the Franciscan monastery in
Edinburgh; and at Dundee the mob, moved by sermons from the celebrated
martyr George Wishart, did sack the houses of the Franciscans and the
Dominicans; Beaton's Abbey of Arbroath and the Abbey of Lindores were
also plundered. Clearly it was believed that Beaton was down, and that
church-pillage was authorised by Arran. Yet on September 3 Arran joined
hands with Beaton! The Cardinal, by threatening to disprove Arran's
legitimacy and ruin his hopes of the crown, or in some other way, had
dominated the waverer, while Henry (August 29) was mobilising an army of
20,000 men for the invasion of Scotland. On September 9 Mary was crowned
at Stirling. But Beaton could not hold both Arran and his rival Lennox,
who committed an act of disgraceful treachery. With Glencairn he seized
large supplies of money and stores sent by France to Dumbarton Castle. In
1544 he fled to England and to the protection of Henry, and married
Margaret, daughter of Angus and Margaret Tudor, widow of James IV. He
became the father of Darnley, Mary's husband in later years, and the
fortunes of Scotland were fatally involved in the feud between the Lennox
Stewarts and the House of Hamilton.

Meanwhile (November 1543) Arran and Beaton together broke and persecuted
the abbey robbers of Perthshire and Angus, making "martyrs" and
incurring, on Beaton's part, fatal feuds with Leslies, Greys, Learmonths,
and Kirkcaldys. Parliament (December 11) declared the treaty with
England void; the party of the Douglases, equally suspected by Henry and
by Beaton, was crushed, and George Douglas was held a hostage, still
betraying his country in letters t