" All the citizenship, all the respectability of London,"
says Professor Masson, " was resolutely Presbyterian,
and of the 120 parish ministers of the city surrounding



PURITANISM UNDER CHARLES I. 215

the Assembly, only three, so far as could be ascer-
tained, were not of strict Presbyterian principles."

It was not till the 14th September, when the
Solemn League and Covenant was being signed, that
the Scottish Commissioners — Alexander Henderson,
Samuel Rutherford, George Gillespie, Robert Baillie,
Sir Archibald Johnstone, Lord Maitland, the Earl
of Cassilis — arrived, and later the Earl of Argyll.
The Assembly thus called together has left its
mark, deep and permanent, not only on these islands,
but on the American Continent, the British Colonies,
and all the world over ; and, as Masson suggests, to j
Britons to-day its history ought to be more interesting.
