The plot failed, at Amboise, in March 1560.
In Scotland, as in France, devices about a prince of the native blood suggested themselves.

The Regent, being of the house of Guise, was a foreigner, like her brothers in France.

The "native princes" were Chatelherault and his eldest son, Arran.

The leaders, soon after Lord James and Argyll formally joined the zealous brethren, saw that without foreign aid their enterprise was desperate.

Their levies must break up and go home to work; the Regent's nucleus of French troops could not be ousted from the sea fortress of Dunbar, and would in all probability be joined by the army promised by Henri II.