ALEXANDER HENDERSON: since 1639 one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and since 1640 Rector of the University of Edinburgh (annually re-elected). ætat. 60.—As Henderson has appeared again and again in this History, I have only to add here that my researches have more and more convinced me that he was, all in all, one of the ablest and best men of his age in Britain, and the greatest, the wisest, and most liberal, of the Scottish Presbyterians. They had all to consult him; in every strait and conflict he had to be appealed to, and came in at the last as the man of supereminent composure, comprehensiveness, and breadth of brow. Although the Scottish Presbyterian rule was that no churchman should have authority in State affair's, it had to be practically waived in his case: he was a Cabinet Minister without office. The tradition in Scotland is perfectly just which recollects him as the second founder of the Reformed Church in that part of the island, its greatest man after Knox. Such is the tradition; and yet you may look in Encyclopædias and such-like works of reference published of late years in Scotland, and not find Henderson's name. The less wonder that he has never received justice in general British History! I undertake, however, that any free-minded English historian, investigating the course of even specially English History from 1638 to 1646, will dig up the Scottish Henderson for himself and see reason to admire him.—Henderson, it will be remembered, had been in London, on the Anglo-Scottish business, before. But his stay then had been for but seven months (Nov. 1640-June 1641). Now, as Scottish Commissioner to the Westminster Assembly, he was to remain in England for the best part of three years (Aug. 1643—Aug. 1646). It was the easier for him to give this service to English Parliamentarianism because he was an unmarried man. His Edinburgh congregation and Edinburgh University had to endure his absence as well as they could. Letters between Edinburgh and London could go and come by sea in ten or twelve days.
GEORGE GILLESPIE: one of the ministers of Edinburgh (formerly minister of the parish of Wemyss in Fifeshire): ætat. 3l.—He had flashed into notice in Scotland in 1637, when he was only four-and-twenty years of ago. He was then but tutor in the household of the Earl of Cassilis; but he had written "A Dispute against the English—Popish Ceremonies obtruded upon the Church of Scotland;" and the publication of this treatise, happening opportunely in the crisis of the Scottish revolt against Laud's novelties, attracted immediate attention to him, and caused him to be regarded as one of the young hopes of Scottish Presbyterianism. Hence his appointment to the parish of Wemyss (1638); and hence his previous mission to London, in company with Henderson, Baillie, and Blair (1640-41). Returning from that mission, he had been translated from Wemyss to Edinburgh; but hardly had he settled in Edinburgh when he was again sent off to London on this new business. His wife and family joined him in London. He took a very active part in the business of the Assembly. He died in 1648, soon after his return to Scotland, aged only 35, leaving various writings besides his first one. Among these were Notes of the Proceedings of the Assembly, chiefly during 1644. They were first published from the MSS. in 1846.
ROBERT BAILLIE: Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow (formerly minister of Kilwinning in Ayrshire): ætat. 4l.—Baillie also had been on the former Scottish Commission to London; and it way sorely against his will that he was appointed on this second one. He followed Henderson and Gillespie in November 1643, leaving his wife and family in Glasgow. He also remained fully three years in London, attending the Assembly punctually, but not speaking much. Fortunately, however, he kept up his habit of jotting down in his note-books and his correspondence all he saw and heard, Baillie's Letters and Journals (first properly edited by Mr. David Laing in 1842) are among the most graphic books of contemporary memoir to be found in any language. His faculty of narration in his pithy native Scotch is nothing short of genius. Whenever we have an account from Baillie of anything he saw or was present at, it is worth all other accounts put together for accuracy and vividness. So in his account of Stratford's trial; and so in his account of his first impressions of the Westminster Assembly.
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD: one of the ministers of St. Andrews, and also Professor of Divinity in the University there (formerly minister of Anwoth, Kirkcudbright): ætat. 43.—Of him, as of the others, we have had to take note before. Much of his celebrity in Scottish ecclesiastical history and in the history of Scottish theology had yet to be acquired; but for sixteen years he had been known as one of the most fervid spirits and most popular preachers in all Scotland. In what mood he accepted his commission to the Westminster Assembly may be judged from a private letter of his from St. Andrews, Oct. 20, 1643. "My heart beareth me witness," he there says, "and the Lord who is greater knoweth, my faith was never prouder than to be a common rough barrowman in Anwoth, and that I could not look at the honour of being ane mason to lay the foundations for many generations, and to build the waste places of Sion in another kingdom, or to have ane hand in the carved work in the cedar and almug trees in that new Temple." He went to London along with Baillie in November 1643, his wife and family either accompanying him or following him. He also remained in London three years or more, burying two of his children there. He was a much more frequent speaker in the Assembly than Baillie.
LAY COMMISSIONERS.
JOHN, LORD MAITLAND (eldest son of the Earl of Lauderdale), ætat. 27.—This young nobleman, who had a long and strange career before him, was now one of the most zealous of the Scottish Covenanters, and was selected by the Scottish Kirk, as one of the lay-elders to be sent to the Westminster Assembly, on account of his great ability and learning. He accompanied Henderson and Gillespie, and took his place in the Assembly in August 1645; and, from his first arrival in London, he was much courted by the Parliamentary leaders. Baillie and the rest were proud of their young noble. This was hardly, however, on account of his personal appearance; for he was a large-bodied young fellow, red-haired, of boisterous demeanour, and with a tongue too big for his mouth, so that he spluttered and frothed when he spoke. Ah! could the Scots but have foreseen, could the young fellow himself but have foreseen, what years would bring about!
SIR ARCHIBALD JOHNSTONE OF WARRISTON, Knt.: one of the Judges of the Scottish Court of Session (hence by courtesy "Lord Warriston"'): ætat. circ. 35.—He had been, as we know, a leader among the Scottish Covenanters since 1637, and his knighthood and judgeship, conferred on him by the King in Edinburgh in 1641, had been the reluctant recognition of his activity during the four preceding years.—Beside Henderson and Argyle there is no man of the Scottish Presbyterians of that time more worthy of mark than Warriston. He had prodigious powers of work, requiring but three hours of sleep out of the twenty-four: and he was mutually crafty and long-headed, always ready with lawyer-like expedients. Bishop Burnet, who was his nephew, adds, "He went into very high notions of lengthened devotions, in which he continued many hours a day: he would often pray in his family two hours at a time, and had an unexhausted copiousness that way. What thought soever struck his fancy during these effusions, he looked on it as an answer of prayer, and was wholly determined by it." Such descriptions, and even parts of his own correspondence, might picture him as a kind of fanatical Machiavelli; but he seems to have been much liked and trusted by all who knew him. Baillie, for instance, addresses him familiarly and heartily as "Archibald" in his more private letters. He had much of his career still before him.—His judgeship and other business in Edinburgh prevented him from going to London along with the other Commissioners; but he took his place in the Westminster Assembly Feb. 1, 1643-4, and was for some time afterwards in England.
[Besides Lord Maitland and Lord Warriston, there were admitted into the Westminster Assembly from time to time other Scottish lay-commissioners, either to make up for the absence of the Earl of Cassilis originally appointed, or for other reasons. Thus in September 1643, when Henderson, Gillespie, and Lord Maitland took their places, ROBERT MALDRUM, a confidential agent of the Scots in London, was admitted along with them; and the EARL OF LOUDOUN, LORD BALMERINO and even ARGYLE himself, sat in the Assembly at various times subsequently.]
Every respect was paid to the Scottish Commissioners in London. They had Worcester House in the City assigned, or rather re-assigned, them for a residence, with St. Antholin's church again made over to them for their preachings; [Footnote: Memoir of Baillie, by David Laing, in Baillie's Letters and Journals, p. li. In Cunningham's "London," and else where, Worcester House in the Strand, on the site of the present Beaufort Buildings, afterwards Lord Clarendon's house is mad the residence of the Scottish Commissioners; but Mr. Laing points out that it was Worcester House or Worcester Place in the City, which had been the mansion of John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester.] and they had a special bench of honour in the Assembly. And from that bench, day after day, week after week, month after month, they laboured to direct the Assembly, and, to a great extent, did direct it. For, as the mainly Presbyterian character and composition of the Assembly at its first meeting had been the result of the influence of Scottish example and of continued Scottish action in England for a year or two, so it was to Henderson's Covenant, and to the presence of the Scottish Commissioners in London, that the Assembly, while yet in its infancy, was indebted (if it was a debt) for a new impulse or twist in the strict Presbyterian direction. English Presbyterianism might be willing, but it was vague and uninformed; whereas here, in the Scottish Commissioners, were men who knew all about Presbyterianism, had every detail of it at their fingers' ends, had studied it nearly all their lives, and had worked it practically for five years. What a boon to England to be able to borrow for a year or two such a group of Scottish instructors! It was as if a crowd of Volunteers, right-minded and willing to learn, had secured a few highly-recommended regulars to be their drill-sergeants.