rebels. Instead of dispersing, the leaders of the popular party, after some farther ineffectual petitions to the king, resolved to appeal to the people, and the result was the renewal of the National Covenant of 1580 and 1581, with only some slight changes adapted to the circumstances of the times. It was prepared by Mr. Henderson, assisted by Archibald Johnston, afterwards of Warriston, an advocate in whom, we are told, the suppliants chiefly confided, and was sworn and subscribed in the Greyfriars' church of Edinburgh, on 28 February 1638, by thousands of the nobility, gentry, ministers of the gospel, burgesses, and others. Mr. Henderson addressed the vast multitude assembled with great fervour and eloquence, aud the enthusiasm of the people knew no bounds. He was subsequently sent with several noblemen, and Messrs. Cant and Dickson, to Aberdeen, to prevail on the inhabitants of that city to take the Covenant, and, after urging upon them the strongest arguments in favour of the document, no less than 500 persons subscribed it, many of them being of the highest respectability. Mainly through Henderson's influence the National League and Covenant was signed, 21 February 1638, and he was Moderator of the Assembly which met at Glasgow, 21 November of the same year. On 1 March 1638 the public signing of the National Covenant began in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh. Henderson was mainly responsible for the final form of this document, which consisted of the king's confession drawn up in 1581 by John Craig a recital of the acts of parliament against superstitious and papistical rites an elaborate oath to maintain the true reformed religion. Owing to the skill shown on this occasion he seems to have been applied to when any manifesto of unusual ability was required. In July of the same year he proceeded to the north to debate on the Covenant with the famous Aberdeen doctors but he was not well received. Robert Baillie wrote: "The Voyd church was made fast, and the keys kept by the magistrate". Henderson's next public opportunity was in the famous Assembly which met in Glasgow on 21 November 1638. He was chosen moderator by acclamation, being, as Baillie says, incomparable the ablest man of us all for all things. James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, was the king's commissioner; and when the Assembly insisted on proceeding with the trial of the bishops, he formally dissolved the meeting