ought 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
the fanatics. But reasoning was found useless; the parliament condemned[e]
the remonstrance as a scandalous and seditious libel; and, since Strachan
had resigned[f] his commission, ordered Montgomery with three new regiments
to take the command of the whole force. Kerr, however, before his arrival,
had led[g] the western levy to attack Lambert in his

[Footnote 1: Baillie, ii. 350-352. Strachan was willing to give assurance
not to molest England in the king's quarrel. Cromwell insisted that Charles
should be banished by act of parliament, or imprisoned for life.--Ib. 352.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Oct. 4.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Oct. 17.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Oct. 22.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Oct. 30.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. Nov. 25.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1650. Nov. 28.]
[Sidenote g: A.D. 1650. Dec. 1.]

quarters at Hamilton; he was taken prisoner, designedly if we may believe
report, and his whole army was dispersed. Soon afterwards Strachan, with
sixty troopers, passed over to Lambert, and the associated counties, left
without defence, submitted to the enemy. Still the framers and advocates of
the remonstrance, though they knew that it had been condemned by the state
and the kirk, though they had no longer an army to draw the sword in
its support, adhered pertinaciously to it