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compelling threat: a plot by the papists to alter both. This case had been made by Rous in the Short Parliament but was now taken up with vigour by Pym. The agents of this plot were evil counsellors, corrupt clergy that ‘finds a better doctrine in papists to serve their turns better than that of our church’, and those who were not particularly concerned about popery and, through their inaction, allowed it to flourish. Part of his appeal was his ability to meld the miscellaneous grievances being expressed into a single problem, with a clear diagnosis and a suggested remedy: he consistently argued, and at times convinced many other members, that the problems of popery and arbitrary government were bound together by a single popish plot.28

For much of the first session of the Long Parliament, however, Pym was a significant but not quite dominant figure, and was not the manager of business that his later reputation as ‘King Pym’ suggests. His views were compelling, but not universally held. Colepeper’s speech, for example, bears many similarities with Pym’s: they could more or less agree on all the symptoms that were in need of attention, but their diagnosis of the cause was different. Pym saw a fundamental corruption, caused by a malign and identifiable agent, whereas Colepeper saw examples of misgovernment. As the symptoms were alleviated over the coming months it became clearer that men like Colepeper were working to a different, and less demanding, agenda from men like Pym. In the early months of the parliament, in fact, much of Pym’s energy was engaged in liaising between the two Houses, seeking to establish a coalition in difficult circumstances.29

Hindsight leads historians to emphasize the role of the Commons, but in Tudor and Stuart parliaments the Lords often took the lead. They did not initiate supply bills (taxation), but networks of patronage and connection often meant that business in Parliament was dominated by peers. Clarendon thought that it was Pym’s patron in the Lords, the 4th Earl of Bedford, who really could have brokered this settlement. A Calvinist who favoured bishops and disliked sects, someone who distrusted this king but did not like the stronger arguments for restraint on the monarchy, Bedford represented a kind of par position that might have been the basis for settlement. He was undoubtedly a respected figure in both Houses: when he died, in early May 1641, the Commons adjourned all committees in order to allow members to attend his funeral – no-one else was honoured in this way by the early Stuart parliaments. But his views were not shared by the majority in the Lords, many of whom were more wary than Bedford about the direction of secular and religious redress.30

The Privy Council showed some interest in achieving a settlement through a change of counsel, by bringing in prominent men from among the twelve peers who had petitioned for a parliament the previous August. Bedford was a key figure here, and there is evidence that the plan for settlement favoured by him and Pym made some headway between January and March 1641. Their settlement required the removal of Strafford, Laud and others associated with the policies of the 1630s. They also sought a number of ‘bridge appointments’ intended to surround the monarch with more reliable advisers. Naturally enough, Bedford and Pym were in the frame here, as Treasurer and Chancellor of the Exchequer respectively. They wanted permanent, parliamentary additions to the revenue in order to compensate the crown for the loss of ship money and other prerogative revenues. That had constitutional implications, of course, in shifting the balance of royal revenue towards sources granted by Parliament. Beyond that they do not seem to have wanted to go: their own authority as counsellors, of course, depended on the preservation of a reasonable freedom of action for the monarch. A third important element of the projected settlement was the regulation of episcopacy, along lines proposed by James Ussher, the Calvinist archbishop of the Church of Ireland, a scheme