On May 17 Lennox and Glencairn sold themselves to Henry; for ample
rewards they were to secure the teaching of God's word "as the mere and
only foundation whence proceeds all truth and honour"! Arran defeated
Glencairn when he attempted his godly task, and Lennox was driven back
into England.

In June Mary of Guise fell into the hands of nobles led by Angus, while
the Fife, Perthshire, and Angus lairds, lately Beaton's deadly foes, came
into the Cardinal's party. With him and Arran, in November, were banded
the Protestants who were to be his murderers, while the Douglases, in
December, were cleared by Parliament of all their offences, and Henry
offered 3000 crowns for their "trapping." Angus, in February 1545,
protested that he loved Henry "best of all men," and would make Lennox
Governor of Scotland, while Wharton, for Henry, was trying to kidnap
Angus. Enraged by the English desecration of his ancestors' graves at
Melrose Abbey, Angus united with Arran, Norman Leslie, and Buccleuch to
annihilate an English force at Ancrum Moor, where Henry's men lost 800
slain and 2000 prisoners. The loyalty of Angus to his country was now,
by innocents like Arran, thought assured. The plot for Beaton's murder
was in 1545 negotiated between Henry and Cassilis, backed by George
Douglas; and Crichton of Brunston, as before, was engaged, a godly laird
in Lothian. In August the Douglases boast that, as Henry's friends, they
have frustrated an invasion of England with a large French contingent,
which they pretended to lead, while they secured its failure. Meanwhile,
after forty years, Donald Dubh, and all the great western chiefs, none of
whom could write, renewed the alliance of 1463 with England, calling
themselves "auld enemies of Scotland." Their religious predilections,
however, were not Protestant. They promised to destroy or reduce half of
Scotland, and hailed Lennox as Governor, as in Angus's offer to Henry in
spring 1545. Lennox did make an attempt against Dumbarton in November