PARLIAMENT AND THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY RECONCILED: PRESBYTERIANIZING OF LONDON AND LANCASHIRE.
Not the less, while the two Houses had thus been watching the King at
Newcastle and corresponding with him, had they been acting as the real
Government of England without him.
The King's flight to the Scots having, as we have seen, turned the balance once more in favour of Presbyterianism, the combined Erastians and Independents had not been able to keep Parliament steady to that mood of sharp mastership over the Assembly and the London Divines in which we left it in the months of March and April (antè, pp. 407-411). It had been necessary to make a compromise in that question of "The Power of the Keys" on which the Parliament and the Assembly had been so angrily at variance. The compromise was complete in June. On the 3rd of that month the two Houses agreed on an Ordinance modifying, in a somewhat complicated fashion, their previous device of Parliamentary Commissioners to assist and control the Congregational Elderships. Instead of the contemplated sets of Commissioners in each ecclesiastical Province, there was now to be one vast general Commission for all England, consisting of about 180 Lords and Commoners named (Cromwell, Vane, and everybody else of any note among them); which Commissioners, or any nine of them, should be a Court for judging of non-specified offences, after and in conjunction with the Congregational Elderships, with right of reference in certain cases to Justices of the Peace, and with the reserve of a final appeal from excommunicated persons to Parliament itself. It does not very well appear why this arrangement, as Erastian in principle as that which it superseded, should have pleased the London Presbyterians better. Perhaps it was made palatable by an accompanying increase of the list of scandalous offences for which the Elderships were to be entitled to suspend or excommunicate without interference by the Commissioners. At all events, when Parliament again required the London ministers and congregations by a new Ordinance (June 9) to proceed in the work which had been interrupted, and elect Elders in all the parishes of the province of London, there was no reluctance. At a meeting at Sion College, June 19, the London ministers, the Assembly Presbyterians in their counsels, agreed to proceed. They contented themselves with a paper of Considerations and Cautions, explaining that the Parliamentary Rule for Presbyterianism was not yet in all points satisfactory to their consciences. [Footnote: Commons Journals, June 3 and 9, 1646; Baillie, II. 377; Neal's Puritans (ed. 1795) III. 106.]
Nothing now hindered the establishment of Presbytery in London; and, actually, through the months of July and August 1646, while the King was making his solitary personal stand for Episcopacy at Newcastle, the Presbyterian machinery was coming into operation in the capital. "Matters here," writes Baillie, July 14, "look better upon it, blessed be God, than sometimes they have. On Sunday, in all congregations of the city, the Elders are to be chosen. So the next week church-sessions in every paroch; and twelve Presbyteries within the City, and a Provincial Synod, are to be set up, and quickly, without any impediment that we apprehend. The like is to be done over all the land." On the 13th of August Baillie was able to report that the Elders had been elected in almost all the parishes, and approved by the Triers; and he adds, "We expect classical meetings speedily." These "classical meetings," or meetings of the twelve London Presbyteries and the two Presbyteries of the Inns of Court, were somewhat later affairs, and the crowning exultation of the first meeting of the Provincial Synod of London did not come for some months; but from August 1646 the city of London was ecclesiastically a Scotland condensed.—Though there was, and continued to be, a general Presbyterian stir throughout England, only in Lancashire was the example of London followed in effective practice. The division of that shire into classes or Presbyteries was already under consideration, with the names of the persons fit to be lay-elders in each Presbytery. There were to be nine Presbyteries. Manchester parish, Oldham parish, and four other parishes, were to form the first; Rochdale parish came into the second; Preston parish into the seventh; Liverpool did not figure by name as a distinct Lancashire parish at all, but it had one minister, Mr. John Fogg, and he was put into the fifth Presbytery. The names of all the Lancashire ministers thus classified, and of the Lancashire gentlemen, yeomen, and tradesmen, to the number of some hundreds, thought fit to be lay-elders in the different Presbyterial districts, may be read yet in the Commons Journals. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 378 and 388; Neal, III. 307-310 (List of classes or Presbyteries of London). The division of Lancashire into Presbyteries is given in the Commons Journals, Sept. 15,1646. See also Halley's "Lancashire: its Puritanism and Nonconformity" (1869), Vol. I. pp. 432 et seq., where there are many details concerning the first introduction of the Presbyterial system into Lancashire. According to Dr. Halley, the system was set up more rigidly in Lancashire than in London itself, chiefly in consequence of the activity and energy of Richard Heyricke, or Herrick, M.A., warden of the Collegiate Church, Manchester. He was one of the Divines of the Westminster Assembly (see Vol. II. p. 510); but he had returned to Lancashire, prefering Presbyterian leadership in that county to second rank in London.]
The compromise in the matter of "The Power of the Keys" having been accepted, with such practical consequences, the Assembly might consider the long and laborious business of The Frame of Church Government out of its hands, and laid on the shelf of finished work beside the New Directory of Worship concluded and passed eighteen months before. It was free, therefore, to turn to the other great pieces of business for which it had been originally called: viz. The Confession of Faith and The Catechisms. Notwithstanding interruptions, good progress had already been made in both. Incidentally, too, the Assembly had concluded a work which might be regarded as an appendage to their Directory. They had discussed, revised, and finally approved Mr. Rous's Metrical Version of the Psalms, referred to them by Parliament for criticism as long ago as Nov. 1643. Their revised copy of the Version for the purposes of public worship had been in the hands of the Commons since Nov. 1645; the Commons had ratified the same, with a few amendments, April 15, 1646; and it only wanted the concurrence of the Lords to add this "Revised Rous's Psalter" (which Rous meanwhile had printed) to the credit of the Assembly, as a third piece of their finished work. The Lords were too busy, or had hesitations in favour of a rival Version by a Mr. William Barton, so that their concurrence was withheld; but that was not the fault of the Assembly. Rous's Psalter, therefore, as well as the Directory and the Frame of Government being done with, what was to hinder them longer from the Confession and Catechisms? Only one impediment— those dreadful jus divinum interrogatories which the Parliament, by Selden's mischief, had hung round their necks! Here also a little management sufficed. "I have put some of my good friends, leading men in the House of Commons," says Baillie, July 14, "to move the Assembly to lay aside our Questions for a time, and labour that which is most necessar and all are crying for, the perfecting of the Confession of Faith and Catechise." The order thus meritoriously procured by Baillie passed the Commons July 22. The Assembly, in terms of this order, were to lay aside other business, and apply themselves to the Confession of Faith and Catechisms. And so at this point the Assembly had come to an end of one period of its history and entered on a second. As if to mark this epoch in its duration, the Prolocutor, Dr. Twisse, had just died. He died July 19, 1646, and there is a record of the fact in the Commons Journals for that same July 22 on which the Assembly was ordered to change the nature of its labours. Mr. Herle was appointed his successor. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 378-9; Commons Journals, July 22, 1646; and Mr. David Laing's Notices of Metrical Versions of the Psalms in Appendix to Baillie, Vol. III. pp. 537-540.]
DEATH OF ALEXANDER HENDERSON.
There was a death about this time more important than that of Dr. Twisse:—The health of Henderson had for some time been causing anxiety to his friends in London; and, when he left them, early in May, on his difficult mission to Newcastle, they had followed him in their thoughts with some foreboding. Actually, from the middle of May to the end of July, these two strangely-contrasted persons—the wise, modest, and massive Henderson, the chief of the Scottish Presbyterian clergy, and the sombre, narrow, and punctilious Charles I., the beaten sovereign of three Kingdoms—were much together at Newcastle, engaged in an encounter of wits and courtesies. Charles had seen a good deal of Henderson before (at Berwick in 1639, in Edinburgh during the royal visit to Scotland in 1641, and more recently during the Uxbridge Treaty of Feb. 1644-5), and had always singled him out as not only the most able, but also the most likeable, man of his perverse tribe. He had therefore received him graciously on his coming to Newcastle; and, though there arrived subsequently from Scotland three other Presbyterian ministers, Mr. Robert Blair, Mr. Robert Douglas, and Mr. Andrew Cant, all commissioned by the General Assembly to work upon his Majesty's conscience, it was still with Henderson that he preferred to converse. The main subject of their conversations was, of course, the question between Presbytery and Episcopacy. Could the King lawfully do what was required of him? Could he lawfully now, on any mere plea of State-necessity, give up that Church of England in the principles of which he had been educated, which he had sworn at his coronation to maintain, and which he still believed in his conscience to be the true and divinely-appointed form of a Church? If Mr. Henderson could prove to his Majesty even now that Episcopacy was not of divine appointment, then the plea of State-necessity might avail, and his Majesty might see his way more clearly! It was on this point that the repeated conversations of the King and Henderson at Newcastle did undoubtedly turn. Nay, there was more than mere conversation: there was an elaborate discussion in writing. The King, it is said, would fain have had a little council of Anglican Divines called to assist him; but, as that could not be, he was willing to adopt Henderson's suggestion of a paper debate between themselves. Accordingly, there is yet extant, in the Reliquiæ Sacræ Carolinæ or Printed Works of Charles I., what purports to be the actual series of Letters exchanged between the King and Henderson. The King opens the correspondence on the 29th of May; Henderson answers June 3; the King's second letter is dated June 6; Henderson's reply does not come till June 17; the King's third letter is dated June 22; Henderson replies July 2; and two short letters of the King, being the fourth and fifth on his side, are both dated July 16. There the correspondence ends, Henderson having, it is believed, thought it fit that his Majesty should have the last word. In the King's letters, as they are printed, one observes a stately politeness to Henderson throughout, with very considerable reasoning power, and sometimes a really smart phrase; in Henderson's what strikes one is the studied respectfulness and delicacy of the manner, combined with grave decision in the matter.—The controversy, whether in speech or in writing, was unreal on the King's part, and for the purpose of procrastination only; and Henderson, while painfully engaging in it, had known this but too well. His heart was already heavy with approaching death. He had been ill when he came to Newcastle; and in July, when he is said to have let the King have the last word in the written correspondence, he was hardly able to go about. His friends in London, hearing this, were greatly concerned. "It is part of my prayer to God." Baillie writes to him affectionately on the 4th of August, "to restore you to health, and continue your service a time: we never had so much need of you as now." In the same letter, referring to the King's obstinacy, and to the grief on that account which he believes to be preying on Henderson, he implores him to take courage, shake off "melancholious thoughts," and "digest what cannot be gotten amended." But Baillie knew what was coming. "Mr. Henderson is dying, most of heartbreak, at Newcastle," he wrote, three days later, to Spang in Holland. No! it was not to be at Newcastle. "Give me back one hour of Scotland: let me see it ere I die." Some such wish was in Henderson's mind, and they managed to convey him by sea to Edinburgh. He arrived there on the 1lth of August, and was taken either to his own house, in which he had not been for three years, or to some other that was more convenient. He rallied a little, so as to be able to dine with one friend and talk cheerfully, but never again left his room. There his brother- ministers of the city, and such others as were privileged, gathered round him, and took his hands; and the rest of the city lay around, making inquiries; and prayers went up for him in all the churches. On the 19th of August, eight days after his return, he died, aged sixty-three years, and there began a mourning in the Scottish Israel over the loss of their greatest man. They buried him in the old churchyard of Greyfriars, where his grave and tombstone are yet to be seen. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 381- 387; Burnet's Memoirs of the Hamiltons (ed. 1852), 356-7; Wodrow's Correspondence (Wodrow Society), III. 33, 34; Life of Mr. Robert Blair, by Row (Wodrow Society), 185-188; and "Reliquiæ Sacræ Carolinæ: or, The works of that great Monarch and glorious Martyr King Charles the I." (Hague edition of 1651), where the Letters are given in full. There is a fair abstract of them in Neal's Puritans (ed. 1795), III. 311-324. The death of Henderson at so critical a moment, and so closely after his conferences with the King at Newcastle, made a deep impression at the time, and became an incident of even mythical value to the Royalists. Hardly was the breath out of his body when there began to run about a lying rumour to the effect that he had died of remorse, acknowledging that the King had convinced him, and confessing his repentance of all he had said or done against that wisest and best of monarchs. Baillie, in London, was indignant. "The false reports which went here of Mr. Henderson," he wrote to Spang in Holland, Oct. 2, 1646, or less than six weeks after Henderson's death, "are, I see, come also to your hand. Believe me (for I have it under his own hand a little before his death) that he was utterly displeased with the King's ways, and over the longer the more; and whoever say otherwise, I know they speak false. That man died as he lived, in great modesty, piety, and faith." But the lie could not be extinguished; it circulated among the Royalists; and within two years it was turned into cash or credit by some scoundrel Scot in England, who forged and published a document entitled The Declaration of Mr. Alexander Henderson, principall Minister of the Word of God at Edinburgh, and chief Commissioner from the Kirk of Scotland to the Parliament and Synod of England, made upon his death-bed. This forgery was immediately denounced by the General Assembly of the Scottish Church in a solemn Declaration set forth by them Aug. 7, 1648, stating particulars of Henderson's last days, and vindicating his memory. Nevertheless the fiction was too convenient to be given up: it lasted; was embalmed by Clarendon in his History (605); and still leaves its odour in wretched compilations.—The genuineness of the series of Letters on Episcopacy between the King and Henderson, first printed in 1649, immediately after Charles's death, and included since then in all editions of Charles's works, does not seem to have been questioned by contemporaries on either side, or by subsequent Presbyterian critics. In the year 1826, however, the eminent and acute Godwin, in an elaborate note in his History of the Commonwealth (II. 179-185), did challenge the genuineness of the correspondence. He was inclined to the opinion that there had been no interchange of written Papers between the King and Henderson at all, but only "discourses and conferences," and that the whole thing was a Royalist forgery of 1649, contemporary with the Eikon Basilike, and for the same purpose. In venturing on so bold an opinion, Godwin, besides undervaluing other evidence to the contrary, seems to have dismissed too easily Burnet's information, in his Lives of the Hamiltons in 1673, as to the manner in which the Letters were written and kept. No less eminent a man than Sir Robert Moray, one of the founders of the Royal Society, and its first President, and of whom Burnet elsewhere says, "He was the wisest and worthiest man of his age, and was as another father to me," had told Burnet, "a few days before his much-lamented death" (June 1673), that he had been the amanuensis employed in the correspondence. Being with the King at Newcastle in 1646, then only as Mr. Robert Moray, it had fallen to him, as a person much in his Majesty's confidence, to receive each letter of the King's as it was written in his own royal hand, and make the copy of it which was to be given to Henderson, and also, Henderson's hand being none of the most legible, to transcribe Henderson's replies for the King's easier perusal; and with his Majesty's permission he had "kept Mr. Henderson's papers and the copies of the King's." After all, however, Godwin's sceptical inquiry leaves a shrewd somewhat behind it. For, granted that a written correspondence did take place, "the question remains," as Godwin asserts, "whether the papers now to be found in King Charles's works are the very papers that were so exchanged at Newcastle. The suspicion here suggested tells, in my mind, more against the King's letters as we now have them than against Henderson's. The King's letters, we may be sure, would be pretty carefully edited in 1649; and what may have been the amount and kind of editing thought allowable?">[
The last of Baillie's letters to Henderson, dated Aug. 13, 1646, contains a curious passage, "Ormond's Pacification with the Irish," writes Baillie, "is very unseasonable; the placing of Hopes (a professed Atheist, as they speak) about the Prince as his teacher is ill taken." The Hopes here mentioned is no other than THOMAS HOBBES, then just appointed tutor to the Prince of Wales in Paris. As the letter must have reached Edinburgh after Henderson was dead, he was not troubled with this additional piece of bad news before he left the world. Doubtless, however, he had heard of Hobbes, and formed some imagination of that dreadful person and his opinions. Hobbes indeed was now in his fifty- eighth year, or not much younger than the dying Henderson himself. But he was of slower constitution, and had begun his real work late in life, as if with a presentiment that he had plenty of time before him, and did not need to be in a hurry. He was to outlive Henderson thirty-three years.