John Pym
1584–1643
"King Pym"; the chief parliamentary architect of the Long Parliament’s drive against Charles I.
Biography
Of Broadgates Hall Oxford (where Charles I would later try to take refuge) and the Middle Temple. Pym was the principal parliamentary tactician of the long Parliament's first three years — manager of Strafford's impeachment, drafter of the Grand Remonstrance (1641), one of the Five Members Charles I tried to arrest on 4 January 1642 in the act that triggered the king's flight from London. Contemporaries called him 'King Pym' for the closeness of his management of the Commons. He engineered the parliamentary ordinance that created the Westminster Assembly (June 1643), and he negotiated the Solemn League and Covenant with the Scots that brought their army into the war. He died of bowel cancer on 8 December 1643, five months after the Assembly opened — buried in Westminster Abbey; disinterred and dumped in a common pit at the Restoration.
Principal works
- Speeches (collected later)
Lay Assessor — House of Commons
Parliament seated lay assessors alongside the divines to represent its interest and keep it informed of the Assembly's progress. The ordinance of 1643 named thirty members of the House of Commons as assessors; they could take part in debate but were not among the voting divines, and their attendance was often occasional as the war and parliamentary business pressed on them.