The surviving contemporary accounts by John Moore and Ralph Verney make it possible to reconstruct Pym’s remarks on the morning of 3rd May, 1641 to a certain extent. He appears to have begun by commenting on the King’s action in taking notice of proceedings in the House of Lords before the Bill of Attainder against the Earl of Strafford had been passed: the House of Commons had voted that Strafford was guilty of treason but Charles’s premature remarks had been a breach of Parliament’s privileges. If, after the Bill had been approved by the Lords, the King was not satisfied, then he should be better informed – presumably by one or other House or by both. Pym did not believe that the King intended to subvert the laws or to bring in an Irish army but Charles had been advised that he was free from the rules of government. The King needed to have good Councillors and to understand that he must maintain the laws. It was the design of the Papiststo overthrow the kingdom, a design that should be resisted by disarming them (notwithstanding the Parliamentary privileges of recusant peers) and by sending commissioners into the counties for the same purpose. The House of Commons, Pym urged, should declare its members’ allegiance to the King’s person and his legal prerogatives and bind themselves to maintaining the subject’s liberties. Arrangements should also be made to pay their own and the Scots’ armies and to redress the grievances of the north of England where both forces were located. These sources suggest that Pym’s speech combined constitutional and political demands on the King, proposals for tackling the menace posed by Catholics and for a collective declaration supporting the person and lawful prerogatives of the King alongside the maintenance of the liberties of the subject. But neither Moore nor Verney indicated that Pym had advocated a Protestation to be taken by individual M.P.s or anyone else: nor had he put forward a scheme to form an association to defend the constitutional aims he had outlined or suggested a committee to draft the declaration he apparently had in mind.
Of course, there are two other, later accounts of Pym’s remarks by men present in the House of Commons on 3rd May. Edward Hyde in the History of the Rebellion that he subsequently composed argued that Pym had proposed “for the better evidence of their union and unanimity (which would be the greatest discouragement to all who wished ill to them) that some protestation might be entered into by the members of both Houses for the defence of their privileges, and the performance of their duties to God and the King, which they were obliged to as good Christians and good subjects; and that a committee might be appointed speedily to withdraw and prepare such a protestation.” But the attribution of the proposal for a protestation to Pym is not supported by the accounts of Moore and Verney – it came later in the debate from another member – and the initiative for a drafting committee to prepare a document and an association for the defence of the King and the Church followed later too. Hyde’s account of Pym’s speech is suspect.
This reservation is equally true of John Rushworth’s account. He indicated that Pym had spoken about conspiracies against Parliament and the peace of the nation, of the threats that the English army might be used against Parliament and of Strafford escaping from the Tower of London, of invasion from France and the involvement in these plots of prominent courtiers. It would be necessary to stop the ports and to ask the King to forbid the departure of any of his or the Queen’s or the Prince of Wales’s servants without the advice of Parliament. The overlap between this account and those made by Moore and Verney is so small that it is highly unlikely that Rushworth’s report refers to a speech made by Pym on 3rd May, 1641.
It is even more difficult to reach conclusions about the arguments made by members after Pym had spoken. John Moore recorded only the most succinct of notes on the remarks made by eighteen M.P.s while Ralph Verney noted very briefly the comments of five of these men. Edward Bagshaw and Sir John Colepeper both called for firm action and a conference with the House of Lords: Bagshaw evidently held that England could not be safe while Strafford lived. Colepeper wanted the remonstrance on the safety of the kingdom that the Commons had ordered to be drafted in April and the “petitions of rights” to be read so that the House could test the affection of the King and thereby ensure that the Commons had performed the service for which members had been sent to Westminster before any dissolution of Parliament. In so far as it is possible to tell, Pym’s speech was followed by proposals for a conference with the House of Lords and a reading of a remonstrance on the state of the kingdom supplemented by the Petition of Right. Of an oath or protestation or association to be taken and subscribed by individual members, nothing had yet been heard.
After Colepeper had spoken, Henry Marten made his contribution. Acccording to John Moore, Marten suggested having “a committee chosen to draw up some heads, and to have an association amongst us for the defence of King and Church.” The Commons could, in Verney’s account of Marten’s remarks, “Unite ourselves for the pure worship of God, the defence of the king and his subjects, in all there legall rights.” Exactly who Marten meant by “us” is not entirely clear but his terminology appears, prima facie, to rule out any knowledge on his part of a preparatory draft of the document he was seeking to have prepared: the threat from Popery and the resolution of the problems arising from the presence of two armies in northern England about which Pym had been concerned were apparently passed over.
The debate in the House of Commons had widened since Pym’s initial remarks: he had advocated a range of practical measures and a declaration of Parliament to maintain the King’s legal prerogatives and the subject’s liberties. Colepeper had proposed a remonstrance on the state of the kingdom and Marten an association for the defence of the sovereign, the Church and the rights of the subject. Inadequate though the sources are, subsequent speakers appear to have framed their remarks in support of one or other of these proposals. Sir John Wray and Sir Robert Harley supported Marten’s scheme while Sir Robert Pye and Sir Henry Vane, senior, both royal officials favoured the remonstrance according to John Moore. William Strode, on the other hand, had more to say on the ill counsel the King had taken and the danger that the House might be dismissed: he wanted to see the (English) army satisfied and for Parliament to declare its loyalty to the King and the defence of the Church and commonwealth. This was much more in line with Pym’s initial observations. George Peard, however, wanted to swear the oath of association taken in 1584[?], a proposal that was supported by Sir Alexander Carew. The subsequent speakers were generally in favour of such an oath: Northcote and Stapleton, Cromwell, Gerard and Clotworthy can be placed in this category. Sir Thomas Barrington, indeed, called for a protestation. The one exception was Sidney Godolphin who, according to Moore, opposed the idea of an association as divisive but who, in Verney’s account, thought the House not yet ready for the appointment of such a committee. Either way, Denzil Holles ended the discussion by arguing that entering an association would demonstrate members’ unity and commit them to help one another in the defence of the kingdom. With that, the Commons moved to the appointment of the necessary committee.
The remit of this committee is given in slightly different ways by the Commons’ Journal and by John Moore. Its twelve members were instructed, according to the Journal, to go into the inner Court of Wards “to prepare a declaration of the unanimous consent and resolution of this House for the defense of the religion established [,] of the King’s person and the liberty of the subject, be it by oath or any other way or in such manner as they shall think fit.” Moore gives first place to the defence of the King’s person before that of established religion. It appears from D’Ewes’s notes that the Solicitor General, Oliver St John, and John Selden were also proposed as members of this committee “but the one was excused by his friends and the other was distasted by the greater part of the House so [the] question [was] put whether any more should be added and ruled not. Few Ayes and many Noes.” Much later, Edward Hyde observed that those “who were apprehensive enough of the ill designs of those who advanced this, and of the ill consequence of such voluntary protestations, thought fit rather to watch the matter and words, then to oppose the thing itself, which it was evident it was of no purpose to do: and therefore they were well contented with the naming of such persons for the committee who were not like to submit to any unlawful or inconvenient obligation.” Given the date of this comment, it is impossible to be certain that Hyde had his facts right but it does constitute a hint that the members nominated to this committee were not necessarily all of one mind.
Is there any evidence to suggest that Hyde was correct? Perhaps there is. One member, at least, was definitely not part of the inner circle off the leadership of the Long Parliament: that member was Henry Marten, the first advocate of an association, who, as C.M.Williams pointed out in 1954, had no alliance with or patronage from powerful groups or men in the Long Parliament. Dudley North’s account in 1670 argued that Marten had acted independently of the grandees who thought the move was premature. Furthermore, if D’Ewes was right in recording that Maynard left the House of Commons at about 11 a.m. and returned about 2 p.m. with the first draft off the Protestation, it had taken almost three hours of deliberation to produce a document of just under 180 words. This lends weight to the suspicion that no draft had been prepared on the previous day and suggests prolonged discussion, perhaps disagreements too, on the contents of the Protestation.
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