In a short time his attention was withdrawn to a more important controversy, which ultimately spread the flames of religious discord throughout the nation. There had all along existed a number of Scots who approved of the execution of the late king, and condemned even the nominal authority given to his son. Of these men, formidable by their talents, still more formidable by their fanaticism, the leaders were Wariston, the clerk register in the parliament, and Gillespie and Guthrie, two ministers in the kirk. In parliament the party, though too weak to control, was sufficiently strong to embarrass, and occasionally to influence, the proceedings; in the kirk it formed indeed the minority, but a minority too bold and too numerous to be rashly irritated or incautiously despised.[2] After the defeat at Dunbar, permission was cheerfully granted by the committee of estates for a levy of troops in the associated counties of 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.]