On 12 Dec. Charles offered to assent to the Impressment Bill if the question of his right to levy the militia was left open, but his interference only served to irritate the lords, and his appointment of Sir Thomas Lunsford [q. v.] to the lieutenancy of the Tower on 23 Dec., and his rejection of the remonstrance on the same day, threw both houses into opposition. So convinced was Pym that a catastrophe was impending that on the 28th, the day after the bishops had been mobbed in Palace Yard, he refused to throw blame on the disturbers of the peace. ‘God forbid,’ he said, ‘the House of Commons should proceed in any way to dishearten people to obtain their just desires in such a way’ (Dover's ‘Notes,’ Clarendon MS. 1, f. 603). Charles, on his side, surrounded himself with an armed force, and on 30 Dec., the day after that on which the bishops had protested that in their absence all proceedings in the House of Lords would be null and void, Pym moved that the city trained bands should be summoned to guard parliament against an intended act of violence. On the same day he moved the impeachment of the bishops who had signed the protest. His object was probably to secure the absence of the bishops from parliament, in order to get rid of their votes in the House of Lords.
So heated was the feeling on both sides that the only question was whether the king or the majority under Pym's guidance should be the first to deliver the attack. Charles, as usual, hesitated. On 1 Jan. 1642 he sent for Pym, offering him the chancellorship of the exchequer. It is unknown whether Pym rejected the offer or Charles repented. At all events, Culpepper was appointed on the same day, with Falkland as secretary of state. By neglecting to take the advice of his new ministers, Charles justified Pym in his refusal to be made a stalking-horse for a policy he detested, if, as is likely enough, it was Pym who refused office. There is reason to believe that Pym and his confidants meditated an impeachment of the queen as a counter-stroke, and that it was on this that Charles, urged on by his wife, instructed Attorney-general Herbert on the 2nd to impeach Pym, Hampden, Holles, Hesilrige, and Strode in the commons, and Mandeville (Lord Kimbolton in his own right) in the lords. These six were accordingly impeached on the 3rd. They were charged with complicity in the Scottish invasion, as well as with an attempt to weaken the king's government and to substitute an arbitrary power in its place. In order to procure evidence, Charles directed that the studies of Pym and others should be sealed up. The lords took offence, and ordered that the seals should be broken. As no measures were taken for placing the accused members in confinement, Charles, on 4 Jan., came to the House of Commons, followed by a crowd of his adherents in arms, to effect their arrest in person. Warned in time, the members made their escape, and took refuge in the city. The city took up their cause, and on 11 Jan. escorted them back to Westminster, the king having left on the preceding evening to avoid witnessing their triumph. It was especially Pym's triumph, for it was by him that the opposition to Charles had been organised. For some time the royalists had in mockery styled him ‘King Pym.’ His power at this time was in reality far greater than that of Charles himself.
After this there was little to be done except to fight out the question of sovereignty either by diplomacy or by war. For some time the dispute turned on the command of the militia. It was the only way in which the supremacy of parliament could at that time be asserted, and Pym did not doubt that the supremacy of parliament meant especially the supremacy of the commons. Finding the lords lukewarm, Pym told them, on 25 Jan., that he would be sorry ‘that the story of this present parliament should tell posterity that in so great a danger and extremity the House of Commons should be enforced to save the kingdom alone, and that the house of peers should have no part in the honour of the preservation of it.’ In all the wordy war with the king Pym took his full share, but he kept his eye on the probability almost amounting to certainty that the quarrel would not be settled by words alone. On 4 July he was one of the ten members of the House of Commons appointed, together with five peers, to form a committee of safety, which was a rudimentary government acting in the interests of parliament. When, on 22 Aug., Charles erected his standard at Nottingham, this committee had to stand forward as an organiser of military action.
Determined as Pym was to bring the king to submission, he did his best to avoid the appearance of angry excitement. On 27 Aug. he successfully resisted an attempt to forbid Culpepper from delivering to the house a message which he brought from Charles. He was at the same time well aware of the necessity of broadening the basis on which the action of parliament rested, and on 20 Oct., when Charles's advance towards London was known, he proposed ‘that a committee might be appointed to draw a new covenant or association which all
