under pain of treason. Acting on the constitutional principle that the king's right to convene did not interfere with the church's independent right to hold assemblies, they sat till 20 December, deposed all the Scottish bishops, excommunicated a number of them, repealed all acts favouring episcopacy, and reconstituted the Scottish Kirk on thorough Presbyterian principles. During the sitting of this Assembly it was carried by a majority of seventy-five votes that Henderson should be transferred to Edinburgh. He had been at Leuchars for about twenty-three years and was extremely reluctant to leave it. While Scotland and England were preparing for the First Bishops' War, Henderson drew up two papers, entitled respectively The Remonstrance of the Nobility and Instructions for Defensive Arms. The first of these documents he published himself; the second was published against his wish by John Corbet, a deposed minister. The text was written in haste in 1639 and is reported to have been lifted from a work by Johannes Althusius to provide justification for bearing arms. The First Bishops' War did not last long. At the Pacification of Birks the king virtually granted all the demands of the Scots. In the negotiations for peace Henderson was one of the Scottish commissioners, and made a very favourable impression on the king. At the memorable General Assembly which met at Glasgow the same year, 21 November 1638, the first that had been held for a long period, Mr. Henderson, now the acknowledged leader of the clergy, was unanimously chosen moderator. And in that difficult and trying situation, he conducted himself with a resolution and prudence, and at the same time with a forbearance and moderation, befitting the occasion. After the deposition and excommunication of the bishops, and the formal abolition of Episcopacy, Mr. Henderson terminated the proceedings with an eloquent and impressive address to the members of the Assembly, concluding with these striking words: — "We have now cast down the walls of Jericho; let him that re-buildeth them beware of the curse of Hiel the Bethelite!" Before the rising of the Assembly two supplications were given in, the one containing a call to Mr. Henderson from St. Andrews, and the other from Edinburgh. Being much attached to his own parish of Leuchars, of which he had been minister for eighteen years, he expressed his unwillingness to remove from it, pleading that he was now too old a plant