John Pym: Somerset’s great Parliamentarian

Even though his time as an MP was relatively short, John Pym was instrumental in shaping the revolutionary constitutional events of 17^th century England.

Pym was born in Brymore, Cannington, near Bridgwater, on 20 May 1584. The Brymore estate had been held by the Pym family since the 13^th century, and they had extended their holdings across north-west Somerset and beyond, often through advantageous marriages. His father, Alexander, had been elected as MP for Taunton in November 1584, but it is thought that he was not able to take his seat before he died in early January 1585.

Pym was educated at Oxford and the Middle Temple, though it appears he neither gained a degree nor was called to the Bar. He then held various public offices relating to estate management, as well as running his own family estates.

Some of this work involved dealings with Calne in Wiltshire, which probably accounts for him being elected for that constituency in the 1621 Parliament. Parliaments then were held intermittently and for relatively brief periods, usually when the monarch needed revenue for wars. In his first Parliament (the first for 7 years), Pym was self-effacing, as he noted in his maiden speech on 21 February: “it is at all times a burthen to my modesty to speak in this honourable assembly.”

Despite declaring his loyalty to King James I in this speech, James saw him as a growing parliamentary foe, and when several other MPs were imprisoned in December, Pym was put under house arrest for several months.

Pym represented Tavistock in Devon for the remaining Parliaments of his life, following an abortive attempt at Chippenham in 1624. By the 1626 Parliament he had become a recognised leader in the Commons, especially in the impeachment of Charles’ minister, the Duke of Buckingham. Matters came to a head during the Parliament of 1628-9, with the Petition of Right against Charles, and conflicts over religion, with Pym again at the forefront. When Charles dissolved Parliament in March 1629, it would not meet again for 11 years, during which time Pym was an active investor in a scheme for West Indies colonisation.

When a new Parliament met in 1640, following threats of an Anglo-Scottish war, Pym was one of its more experienced MPs. This ‘Short Parliament’ only lasted 3 weeks, as the King’s demand for money was countered by MPs who preferred to debate their complaints against the Crown. Pym made a major speech on 17 April which set out in devastating detail the Commons’ grievances. With another impasse between Parliament and King, dissolution quickly followed.

As the Scottish crisis grew, Charles called a new Parliament in November. This ‘Long Parliament’ was one of the most important ever, as the constitutional conflict swiftly led to the Civil War. Pym, as the political leader of the parliamentary factions opposing the King, tried to hold the balance between the Puritans and non-Puritans, and was known as ‘King Pym’. His hard election campaigning around England ironically may have helped his home county of Somerset to emerge as a rare bastion of Royalist electoral success.

Pym led the impeachment (and eventual execution) of the King’s chief adviser, the Earl of Strafford, a clear sign of Parliament’s growing independence and power. The King’s desperate ploy in January 1642, personally entering the Commons Chamber to try to arrest 5 MPs, including Pym, was a huge blunder which made war inevitable. For the remaining two years of his life, Parliament operated free of Royal control, with Pym effectively its leader as it prepared for war, and the early battles of the Civil War took place.

He died, possibly of cancer, at Derby House, Westminster on 8 December 1643. Had he survived, how he would have influenced the huge upheavals of the Civil War, Cromwellian Commonwealth and Restoration remains one of the greatest ‘What Ifs’ of British history.