Henry, however, did not yet feel himself secure, and he wanted to have the young queen in his own hands and some others with her. He had no confidence in Scotland, knowing how easily she might tack about: and he was afraid of the cardinal’s cleverness. Consequently, on January 9 he wrote to viscount Lisle, then lord warden of the military frontiers of England. ‘It is essential,’ said he, ‘to get the child, the person of the cardinal, and of such as be chief lettes of our purpose, and also of the chief holds and fortresses into our hands.’[274] Henry’s fears were not without foundation. At the moment of James’s death everyone foreboded a war with the powerful King of England. But the Scottish lords whom Henry had set at liberty arrived on January 24. They were accompanied by the earl of Angus and his brother, Sir George Douglas, who had long endured the life of exiles in England. These lords hastened to fulfil the commission of Henry VIII. On their admission to the council, of which the regent was president, they laid before it the proposal of marriage between the heirs of the two crowns. The earl of Arran and the great majority of the members of the council appeared to be favorable to it; but the cardinal, supported by the queen-mother, strenuously opposed it. In their judgment nothing was more dangerous for Scotland, nothing could be more offensive to France and to Rome. Now Mary of Guise and Beatoun were the representatives of these powers. The more chance there seemed to be of the adoption of the proposal by the council, the more Beatoun struggled and the more vehement the resistance he offered to it. He incessantly interrupted the debate: he put questions to other members: he thus hindered them from speaking and made the taking of votes altogether impossible.[275] The majority of the council revolted against conduct so unparliamentary, which did not allow them the free exercise of their right. The other members, and especially the Scots who were just come from England, were indignant. The latter conceived a bold design which did not occur to anyone else. They would turn the cardinal’s insolence to account in getting him wholly set aside. It was proposed that Beatoun should be excluded from the assembly and confined in an apartment of the palace until the votes had been collected. This plan was at once voted and carried out.[276] What a blow for this proud priest! He, primate, cardinal, legate of Rome, the most important personage of the realm, as he thought, to find himself excluded from the council and treated as a prisoner! He was not even to regain his liberty very soon. Never, perhaps, had any assembly struck so unlooked for a blow. The Scottish lords had arrived January 24, and the discussion and exclusion of the cardinal certainly took place on the 25th or 26th. The prelate was removed to the prison at Dalkeith.[277] The earls of Huntley, Murray, and Bothwell demanded his liberation and offered themselves as his