imposed by the king upon the
church; which occasioned him and some others to give in several
petitions and complaints to the council, both craving some mitigation
therein, and shewing the sinfulness thereof, for which and some other
considerations and overtures for relief, (mostly compiled by Mr.
Henderson) they were by order of proclamation charged, within
twenty-four hours, to leave the town of Edinburgh under the pain of
rebellion.

Again in the year 1638, when the national confession or covenant was
agreed upon and sworn unto by almost all ranks in the land, the marquis
of Hamilton being sent by the king to suppress the covenanters, who
having held several conferences with him to little or no purpose, at
last, he told them that the book of canons and liturgy should be
discharged, on condition they should yield up their covenants, which
proposition did not only displease them, but also made them more
vigilant to support and vindicate that solemn deed. Whereupon Mr.
Henderson was again set to work, and in a short time savoured the public
with sufficient grounds and reasons why they could not recede from any
part of that covenant.

Some time after this, the table (so called) which was erected at
Edinburgh for carrying on the reformation, being sorry that the town and
shire of Aberdeen, (excited by the persuasion of their doctors) stood
out and opposed the covenant and work of reformation, sent some earls
with Messrs. Henderson, Dickson and Cant, to deal with them once more,
and to see if they could reclaim that town and country.----But upon
their arrival there, they could have no access to preach in any church;
whereupon the three ministers resolved to preach in the earl of
Marshal's close and hall as the weather favoured them. Accordingly they
preached by turns, Mr. Dickson preached in the morning to a very
numerous multitude, at noon Mr. Cant preached, and Mr. Henderson
preached at night to no less an auditory than in the morning; and all of
them pressed and produced arguments for subscribing the covenant; which
had such effect upon the people, that, after public worship was over,
about 500 persons subscribed the covenant, at one table there, of whom
severals were people of the best quality in that place.[61]

And here one thing was very observable, that while Mr. Henderson
preached, the crowd being very great, there were several mockers, and
among the rest, one John Logie a student threw clods at the
commission