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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] John Pym Biography PYM, JOHN (1584-1643). An English parliamentary leader, born at Brymore in Somersetshire. In 1599 he entered what is now Pembroke College, Oxford, but did not graduate, and in 1602 entered the Middle Temple, though he was never admitted to the bar. There is some doubt whether Pym sat in the Parliament of 1614, but in any case he was not prominent until the Parliament of 1621. He was a Puritan, and his first speeches in Parliament were directed against the Catholics, not so much, however, on account of their religion as on account of their politics. He became so obnoxious to the court that he was imprisoned for three months in his home in London. In the first three parliaments of Charles I he was the leader in the impeachment of Montagu and Manwaring, two clergymen who had attacked Calvinistic doctrines and treated the Parliament with scant respect, and he was prominent in the impeachment of Buckingham. He was also prominent in the agitation which preceded the Petition of Right (q.v.). Nothing is heard of him in the intervals between parliaments. During the 11 years of Charles's personal government he was intimately connected with various schemes for the settlement of the Connecticut valley. In 1640, on the meeting of the Short Parliament, Pym became its real leader, though no formal leadership was recognized in those days, and his influence over the Puritan party continued undiminished until his death. He opened the Short Parliament with a speech two hours in length, setting forth the grievances of the nation, and persuaded the Parliament to postpone the supplies until these grievances were redressed. On the opening of the Long Parliament, which met likewise in 1640, Pym was resolved to proceed to extremities. He introduced and conducted the impeachment of Strafford for high treason in attempting to subvert the constitution, but he resisted in vain the dropping of the impeachment and the introduction of the bill of attainder, though it was due to his efforts that, notwithstanding the bill of attainder, Strafford was heard in his own defense. The Triennial Act (q.v.) was largely his measure. The adherence of the Bishops to the cause of Charles I led to the demand for their abolition, and Pym supported the "Root and Branch" bill which was introduced for this purpose, though it was not his intention to introduce Presbyterianism. He naturally took a prominent part in drawing up and passing the Grand Remonstrance (q.v.) in 1641, and he even proposed at this time to hold the King in check by making his ministers responsible to Parliament. On the unsatisfactory outcome of the campaigns in 1642, Pym favored and carried out, though reluctantly, the union with the Scots, with the unwelcome condition of the acceptance of the Covenant and the introduction of a Presbyterian form of Church government. Even before the meeting of the Long Parliament Pym may have had communication with the Scots, and he was the leader of the five members whom Charles on Jan. 4, 1642, attempted in vain to arrest in person on the floor of the House of Commons on the charge of treasonable conspiracy. Consult: John Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth of England (5 vols., London, 1841-44) Goldwin Smith, Three English Statesmen (new ed., London, 1868): S. R. Gardiner, The Great Civil War (4 vols., ib., 1893); I. A. Taylor, Revolutionary Types (ib., 1904). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 397. |