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.