George Buchanan, who was unsympathetic to Mary, suggested that in November 1561, she exploited young Arran's real affection for her by spreading a rumour that he planned to abduct her from Holyrood Palace to his residence, Kinneil House, to justify strengthening the royal bodyguard. Though James' father disputed the rumour, and Thomas Randolph's findings confirm Buchanan's view, physical security was tightened at Holyrood. On 17 January 1562 Arran rode from Kinneil to Linlithgow Palace to meet with Mary, Queen of Scots, and discuss how he and his father might be remunerated for their services. The queen's half-brother, James Stewart, now Earl of Mar, married Agnes Keith on 8 February 1562. Arran escorted Mary to the feasts on Shrove Tuesday at Holyrood Palace, but became ill before the triumphs or masques on the following days. A few days later it was said that Arran had criticised Mary, and Randolph offered his opinion to the Duke that Arran had a high opinion of his own achievements, but a tendency to fail to reciprocate well-wishers, and ought to have thanked those who favoured his suite of marriage to Elizabeth. Randolph found this flaw in his behaviour "strange". Arran now wondered if he had been better off in France serving in the Royal Guard, and spent eight days in bed in Edinburgh, tormented in his imaginations. Arran had a mistress in Edinburgh, Alison Craik, who stayed in the house of a merchant Cuthbert Ramsay on the High Street. Bothwell, John Stewart, Commendator of Coldingham, and the Marquis of Elbeuf, broke into the house to annoy Arran. They were wearing masks. Long twilight The strain of all this activity caused a mental breakdown. At Easter 1562, his father confined him to his bedchamber at Kinneil House. Arran escaped using a rope made from his bedsheets, and made his way across the Forth to Hallyards Castle and then to Falkland Palace. He accused his enemy the Earl of Bothwell of conspiring to abduct Queen Mary, and spoke strangely of witches and devils, and "fearing that all men round about came to kill him". He said that Margaret Erskine, mother of the queen's half-brother Lord James Stewart was a witch. He was judged insane and confined for the rest of his life. George Buchanan, who thought the abduction plot was real and Arran a hero, said Arran was imprisoned first at St Andrews Castle, then at Edinburgh