Assembly, they fought man fully, inch by inch, and there were various
reasons why the majority, instead of overwhelming them by a conclusive
vote or two, allowed them to struggle on. For one thing, though Baillie
thought there was a "woful longsomeness" in the slow English forms of
debating at such a time, it was felt by the English members that, in so
important a business as the settling of a new constitution for the
National Church, hurry would be unbecoming. But, besides this, the
Assembly was not a body legislating in its own right. It had been called
only to advise the Parliament; and, though its deliberations were with
closed doors, was not all that it did from day to day pretty well known,
not only in Parliament, but in London and throughout the country? Might
not the little knot of Independents fighting within the Assembly
represent an amount of opinion out of doors too large to be trifled with?
[Footnote: In Lightfoot's Notes of the Assembly and Gillespie's similar
Notes, the proceedings which I have endeavoured to summarize in this
paragraph and the two preceding may be traced in detail--Lightfoot's
Notes traversing, with great minuteness, the whole of the time under
notice; and Gillespie's beginning at Feb. 2, 1643-4. Prefixed to
Gillespie's Notes, as edited by Meek in 1846, there is, however, a very
useful set of official minutes of the proceedings from Oct. 17, 1643,
onwards, by the Scribes of the Assembly; which may be compared with
Lightfoot's more extensive jottings. There are excellent and luminous
notices of the Assembly's proceedings during most of the time indicated
in Baillie, II. 106-174. Neal is very confused in his account of the
Assembly, and does not seem to have studied its proceedings well. In
Hetherington's _History of the Westminster Assembly_ there is a
fairish popular account, compiled from Lightfoot and Gillespie, but
charged with the author's strong personal Presbyterianism. The
traditional part of the story of Gillespie's fight with Selden (which had
come down, I believe, through the careful Scottish Church antiquary,