Renfrew, Air, Galloway, Wigton, and Dumfries, that part of Scotland where
fanaticism had long fermented, and the most rigid notions prevailed. The
crusade was preached by Gillespie; his efforts were successfully seconded
by the other ministers, and in a short time four regiments of horse,
amounting almost to five thousand men, were raised under Strachan, Kerr,
and two other colonels. The real design now began to unfold itself. First,
the officers refused to serve under Leslie; and the parliament consented to
exempt them from his authority. Next, they hinted doubts of the

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 158-163.]

[Footnote 2: Baillie, ii. 353.]

lawfulness of the war in which they were engaged; and Cromwell, in whose
army Strachan had fought at Preston, immediately[a] opened a correspondence
with him.[1] Then came the accident of "the start," which embittered and
emboldened the zeal of the fanatics; and in a long remonstrance, subscribed
by ministers and elders, by officers and soldiers, and presented[b] in
their name to Charles and the committee of estates, they pronounced[c] the
treaty with the king unlawful and sinful, disowned his interest in the
quarrel with the enemy, and charged the leading men in the nation with the
guilt of the war, which they had provoked by their intention of invading
England. The intemperate tone and disloyal tendency of this paper, whilst
it provoked irritation and alarm at Perth, induced Cromwell to advance with
his army from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and Hamilton. But the western forces
(so they were called) withdrew to Dumfries, where a meeting was held with
Wariston, and a new draught of the remonstrance, in language still more
energetic and vituperative, was adopted. On the return[d] of Cromwell to
the capital, his negotiation with the officers was resumed, while Argyle
and his friends laboured on the opposite side to mollify the obstinacy of