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 to England. Martyrs were burned in Perth and Dundee, which merely infuriated the populace. In April 1544, while Henry was giving the most cruel orders to his army of invasion, one Wishart visited him with offers, which were accepted, for the murder of the Cardinal. {94} Early in May the English army under Hertford took Leith, "raised a jolly fire," says Hertford, in Edinburgh; he burned the towns on his line of march, and retired. 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 with Donald Dubh. They failed, and Donald died, without legitimate issue, at Drogheda.