"The period which followed the Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England contains the opening of that contest between Presbytery and Episcopacy, which occupies so much of our history, and some of its most interesting episodes took place between 1618-1646, the years which comprise the active public life of him who is the subject of the following pages.

For this reason the life and career of Alexander Henderson must always possess the greatest interest to any student of Scottish history... The virtues of the great are apt to be overestimated after they are dead and gone, but there is not one word of exaggeration in the eulogy which Baillie delivered to the General Assembly in 1647,... 'That glorious soul of blessed memory, who now is crowned with the reward of all his labours for God and for us, I wish his remembrance may be fragrant among us, so long as free and pure Assemblies remain in this land, which we hope shall be to the coming of the Lord.

You know he spent his strength, and wore out his days, he breathed out his life in the service of God and of his Church. This binds it on our back, as we would not prove ungrateful, to pay him his due. If the thoughts of others be conformed to my inmost sense, in duty and reason, he ought to be accounted by us and posterity the fairest ornament, after John Knox, of incomparable memory, that we the Church of Scotland did enjoy'" (pp. 5, 158).

Henderson had a major hand in the writing of and international subscription to the Solemn League and Covenant. He was also one of the Scottish commissioners to the Westminster Assembly.