Family and Education

b. c.1615, 2nd s. of John Pym^† of Brymore and Holborn, Mdx. by Anne, da. of John Hooke of Bramshott, Hants. educ. St. Catherine’s, Camb. 1632; L. Inn 1635, called 1644. m. lic. 24 Feb. 1663, ‘aged 35’, Katherine, da. of Sir Gilbert Gerard, 1st Bt. of Flambards, Mdx., 1s. 1da. suc. bro. 1661; kntd. 14 Feb. 1663; cr. Bt. 14 July 1663.2

Offices Held

Capt. of dgns. (parliamentary) 1642-5; commr. for militia, Som. and Westminster, Mar. 1660, sewers Som. and Westminster Aug. 1660, assessment, Som. 1661-9.3

Commr. for plantations Dec. 1660-70.

Biography

Pym came from a Somerset family which had resided on their small estate with complete lack of distinction from the reign of Edward I until his father became a minor Exchequer official and the famous opposition leader of the early Stuart Parliaments. Pym seems to have been of a more sociable and active temper than his elder brother, and perhaps more discreet in sowing his wild oats, though both served in the parliamentary army during the Civil War. After Pride’s Purge, he went to the West Indies, and acted as one of the commissioners for the surrender of Barbados by Lord Willoughby of Parham to the Commonwealth fleet in 1652. There is no evidence that he practised as a barrister on his return to England; probably his West Indian interests provided a sufficient income for a bachelor. Pym remained a member of Willoughby’s presbyterian-royalist circle; in November 1659 he and his friend Robert Harley I transmitted an offer from Henry Cromwell to use his interest in Ireland on behalf of the King. He was pardoned shortly before the Restoration.4

Pym was elected to the Convention both at Bossiney, presumably on the interest of Lord Robartes, and at Minehead, but chose to sit for the latter with his niece’s husband, Francis Luttrell I. Marked as a friend by Lord Wharton, he was named to only three committees, but was probably fairly constant in attendance, living as he did close at hand ‘at the next house to the north door of the Abbey’. He was appointed to the committee of elections and privileges when the Convention met, and on 3 July 1660 he was added to the committee considering the moneys due to Willoughby among others. He was in his place when the House met after the adjournment, though without any great hope, as he wrote, of a satisfactory religious settlement. He was named to the committee for the militia bill. He supported two west-country Puritans, Thomas Bampfield and Sir John Northcote in resisting the restoration of the dukedom of Norfolk.5

In 1661 Pym’s seat at Minehead was required for his Cavalier kinsman Sir Hugh Wyndham, and he does not appear to have stood elsewhere. After succeeding to the Brymore estate he married the sister of his colleague at Bossiney in 1660, understating his age on the marriage licence by at least a decade, and was created a baronet. He apparently remained a Presbyterian and was never appointed to the commission of the peace. His will, dated 8 Mar. 1671, was proved on the following 8 Jan. His only son, the last of the family, was killed in a tavern brawl in 1688, and Brymore passed to his daughter and her husband, Sir Thomas Hales.6

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / Irene Cassidy

Notes

• 1. Did not sit after Pride’s Purge 6 Dec. 1648, readmitted 21 Feb. 1660.
• 2. Genealogical Magazine, ii. 363-4; St. Margaret Westminster (Harl. Soc. Reg. lxiv) 194.
• 3. P. Young, Edgehill, 306; E. F. Eliott-Drake, Fam. and Heirs of Drake, i. 334; C181/7/38.
• 4. Collinson, Som. i. 233; Keeler, Long Parl. 317-18; Genealogical Magazine, ii. 477; Eliott-Drake, i. 334, 392; Mordaunt Letter Bk. (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, lxix), 96; Cal. Cl. SP, iv. 602.
• 5. BL Loan 29/85, Pym to Harley, 9 Nov. 1660; HMC 5th Rep. 196.
• 6. London Mar. Lic. ed. Foster, 1104; PCC 6 Eure.