It was a notable gathering—one of the most notable in the whole history of the Commonwealth. The statesmen present were the most eminent on the active list of the moment. There was Henry Lawrence, the Lord President, with four of his civilian colleagues on the Council, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Sir Charles Wolseley, Lisle the regicide, and Francis Rous. Close by was Walter Strickland, the diplomatist, who had represented the Commonwealth at the Hague, and had shared with Oliver St. John the honours and mortifications of the famous mission of 1651. In the same inner circle were John Lambert, “the army’s darling,” and one of the most brilliant of Cromwell’s veterans, and William Sydenham, one of the founders of the Protectorate. The law was represented by Sir John Glynne, Chief Justice of the Upper Bench, and William Steele, Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Lord Chief Justice St. John had also been invited, but he astutely stayed away. Those who knew St. John must have regarded his absence as ominous. On behalf of the mercantile community there appeared Alderman Dethick, the Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Cressett of the Charterhouse, Alderman Riccards, and Sheriff Thompson. These men were official nonentities, for the real representatives of Commerce were Sir Christopher Pack, the late Lord Mayor and the leading mercantile authority in the country, William Kiffen, the wealthy merchant-parson, and the regicide Owen Rowe, now deputy-governor of the Bermuda Company. It was, however, on the religious side that the Conference was strongest. Sixteen theologians and divines, the flower of Puritan piety and learning, responded to Cromwell’s invitation. There was Dr. Cudworth, Regius Professor of Hebrew, the philosophic opponent of atheism, whose “Intellectual System” is an English classic. There, too, were Dr. Owen, most famous of Independent divines and most fearless of the champions of religious liberty, and John Caryll, the great Puritan Bible commentator. Oxford University sent Dr. Goodwin, President of Magdalen College, and Henry Wilkinson, Canon of Christ Church. Cambridge appeared in the person of the learned Dr. Whitchcote, Provost of King’s. Among the preachers were William Bridge of Yarmouth; Daniel Dyke, one of Cromwell’s chaplains in ordinary; Henry Jessey, the Baptist Judeophil and friend of Menasseh; Thomas Manton, mildest and most genial of Presbyterians, “the prelate of the Commonwealth,” as Wood calls him; Dr. Newcomen, one of the authors of “Smectymnuus”; Philip Nye, the sturdy Independent and champion of toleration; Anthony Tuckney, one of the most prominent divines of the Westminster Assembly, and three lesser lights, William Benn of Dorchester, Walter Craddock of All Hallows the Great, London, and Samuel Fairclough. John Carter, the vehement enemy of Presbyterianism and monarchy, could not attend, for he was on his deathbed at Norwich when the invitation reached him.[99]