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When, therefore, the news of the disaster at Preston reached Scotland, the "Anti-Engagers" rose everywhere against the Government of the existing Committee of Estates, assailed it with reproaches and execrations, and prepared to call it to account. Lanark, who had been left as the chief of the Government after the capture of his brother, endeavoured for a while to hold his ground.
Meanwhile, the zealous Covenanting peasantry of the western shires, nicknamed Whigs or Whigamores, having obeyed the summons of Argyle, Loudoun, and the Earls of Eglinton and Cassilis, and marched eastward to assist their brethren round Edinburgh, the forces of the Anti-Engagers had swelled into an army of more than 6,000 men, the command of which was assumed by old Leslie, Earl of Leven, with David Leslie under him.
Declarations embodying these views were published by the Commission; the pulpits rang with denunciations of the Engagement; petitions against it from Provincial Synods and Presbyteries of the Kirk were poured in upon Parliament; had the entire population been polled, the PROTESTERS or ANTI-ENGAGERS would have been found in the majority.
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