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 national 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