Five Members
The Five Members—John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, Sir Arthur Haselrig, and William Strode—were leading figures in the House of Commons during the Long Parliament who spearheaded opposition to King Charles I's absolutist tendencies and religious policies.[1][2] On 4 January 1642, Charles, fearing their influence amid reports of an alleged army plot against him, personally entered the Commons chamber with armed guards to arrest them for high treason.[3][4] The members, tipped off in advance, had fled to safety before the king's arrival, rendering the arrest attempt a public humiliation that breached long-standing parliamentary privilege against executive interference in legislative proceedings.[5][6] Speaker William Lenthall famously defied Charles's demand to identify the fugitives, declaring his duty to the Commons over the Crown, an act symbolizing Parliament's assertion of independence.[5] This incident, occurring against the backdrop of the Grand Remonstrance and Irish Rebellion, shattered any remaining trust between king and Parliament, prompting Charles to withdraw from London and sparking a scramble for military control that ignited the First English Civil War later that year.[3][6] The event underscored the irreconcilable clash over sovereignty, with Charles viewing the members as traitors subverting royal authority and Parliament regarding the incursion as tyrannical overreach.[7]Historical Context
Long Parliament and Escalating Tensions
The Long Parliament assembled on 3 November 1640, summoned by King Charles I amid financial strain from the Second Bishops' War against Scotland's Covenanters, who had advanced into northern England after defeating royal forces at the Battle of Newburn on 28 August 1640.[6] Unlike the Short Parliament of April-May 1640, which had demanded reforms before granting subsidies and was swiftly dissolved, the Long Parliament—comprising around 400 members, many critical of Charles's Personal Rule (1629-1640)—refused immediate funding until addressing perceived abuses of royal prerogative.[8] It promptly impeached key royal officials, including John Finch, Speaker of the previous parliament, and moved to curtail extralegal taxation like ship money, declared illegal by a parliamentary resolution on 17 December 1640.[6] Early legislative successes amplified parliamentary authority: the Triennial Act, passed on 15 February 1641, required parliaments to convene at least every three years and restricted the king's power to prorogue or dissolve sessions without consent; meanwhile, courts such as the Star Chamber and Court of High Commission were abolished by statute on 5 July 1641, eliminating instruments of arbitrary justice and ecclesiastical control decried for suppressing Puritan dissent.[6] The execution of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford—Charles's principal advisor—followed his attainder by Parliament on 10 May 1641 and beheading on 12 May, despite a royal pardon attempt, marking a direct challenge to monarchical mercy and fueling Charles's resentment toward parliamentary overreach.[8] Religious divisions intensified as Parliament rooted out perceived popery, with the Root and Branch Petition of December 1640 calling for abolition of episcopacy, though compromise efforts faltered amid Charles's defense of the established church. Tensions peaked with the Grand Remonstrance, drafted by John Pym and presented on 22 November 1641 after passing the Commons by 11 votes (158-148) on 22 November, enumerating 204 grievances against Charles's rule, including alleged Catholic influences at court and failures in foreign policy.[8] Charles's rejection of the document, coupled with the Irish Rebellion erupting on 23 October 1641—where Catholic insurgents killed thousands of Protestant settlers, prompting rumors of parliamentary complicity or Scottish alliances—eroded trust further.[6] Militia control became a flashpoint: Parliament's Militia Ordinance of 7 December 1641 sought to appoint its own officers, bypassing royal authority under the 1181 Assize of Arms tradition, while Charles's failed attempt to arrest the Earl of Bristol on 7 January 1642 for criticizing Pym foreshadowed direct confrontation.[8] These events crystallized accusations that parliamentary leaders, including the Five Members—John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, Arthur Haselrig, and William Strode—had engaged in treasonous negotiations with Scottish Covenanters during the 1640-1641 crises, ostensibly to undermine the king's sovereignty.[6]Accusations of Treason and Evidence
King Charles I formally accused the five members—John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, Arthur Haslerig, and William Strode—along with Lord Kimbolton of the House of Lords, of high treason through seven articles presented to the House of Lords on 3 January 1642. The primary charges encompassed endeavors to "subvert the ancient and fundamental laws and government" of the kingdom, attempts to usurp or transfer royal authority to themselves or popular assemblies, procurement of a "remediless" invasion by Scottish forces in 1640–1641, and conspiracies to raise armies and levy war against the king's person and authority. [9] Additional allegations involved maintaining seditious correspondences with foreign powers and domestic factions to undermine royal prerogative, including efforts to control the militia and navy independently of the crown. The king's purported evidence derived from royalist intelligence operations, including examinations under oath of informants such as the printer Henry Walker and intercepted letters suggesting coordination with Presbyterian Scots over military support against the crown during the Bishops' Wars.[7] Specific claims pointed to the accused's roles in promoting the Grand Remonstrance of November 1641, which Charles interpreted as a blueprint for abrogating monarchical powers, and their advocacy for parliamentary control of armed forces amid ongoing Irish Rebellion unrest.[3] Testimonies alleged direct incitements to Scottish commissioners for renewed invasion unless the king yielded to parliamentary demands, framing these actions as constructive treason under 25 Edward III statutes defining levying war or adhering to enemies as capital offenses. Parliamentary records indicate the Commons reviewed the articles on 3 January but dismissed them as violations of privilege, refusing extradition without judicial process and asserting that no peer-reviewed evidence warranted arrest absent impeachment proceedings.[10] Historians note the accusations rested on circumstantial intelligence rather than irrefutable documents or confessions, with the five members' documented opposition—such as Hampden's resistance to ship money and Pym's orchestration of Strafford's impeachment—providing contextual motive but not conclusive proof of overt treasonous acts.[7] No trials ensued, as the failed arrest attempt on 4 January escalated confrontations, rendering further evidentiary scrutiny moot.[10]Broader Constitutional Disputes
The attempted arrest of the Five Members on 4 January 1642 exemplified longstanding constitutional tensions between King Charles I's assertion of absolute royal prerogative and Parliament's insistence on shared governance, rooted in disputes over taxation, military authority, and religious policy. These conflicts intensified after Charles's recall of the Long Parliament in November 1640, following the financial strains of the Bishops' Wars (1639–1640) against Scotland, where he had governed without parliamentary consent for eleven years during the Personal Rule (1629–1640).[6][11] A core financial grievance was the levying of ship money, an extraordinary tax originally for coastal defense but extended inland by Charles from 1634 to 1637 without parliamentary approval, generating opposition exemplified by John Hampden's legal challenge in 1637–1638, where judges ruled 7–5 in favor of the king's prerogative. The Long Parliament retroactively declared ship money illegal in 1641, alongside other prerogative levies, underscoring Parliament's rejection of non-parliamentary taxation as a violation of Magna Carta principles requiring consent for extraordinary revenue.[11][6] Military control emerged as the immediate flashpoint, particularly after the Irish Rebellion of October 1641, when Parliament sought to secure the militia through the Militia Ordinance of 1642, passed without royal assent to appoint commanders like the Earl of Essex and prevent Charles from using forces against domestic opponents. Charles viewed this as an unconstitutional encroachment on his command as head of the armed forces, prompting accusations of treason against the Five Members for allegedly conspiring with foreign powers and plotting his overthrow, though these claims lacked substantiated evidence beyond royal assertions.[11][6] Religious divisions compounded these issues, with Charles's endorsement of Arminian high-church practices, such as the 1633 Book of Sports permitting Sunday recreations, alienating Puritans who saw them as popish innovations, while his failed imposition of a new prayer book in Scotland in 1637 ignited the Bishops' Wars and eroded his fiscal and political capital. The Grand Remonstrance of November 1641, passed by Parliament 11 votes to 148, cataloged 204 grievances including demands for parliamentary oversight of royal counselors and religious reforms, framing the king's policies as tyrannical and justifying resistance, which Charles denounced as seditious.[6][11] These disputes crystallized the fundamental question of sovereignty: whether the king held divine, unaccountable authority or if Parliament possessed coequal rights to legislate, tax, and advise, a debate unresolved until armed conflict erupted in August 1642. The incident breached parliamentary privilege by the king's armed entry into the House of Commons, invoking precedents like the 1629 arrest of MPs but escalating to a perceived assault on legislative independence.[6][11]Profiles of the Five Members
Key Roles and Political Stances
John Pym served as the de facto leader of the House of Commons during the early sessions of the Long Parliament, orchestrating the opposition's legislative agenda against Charles I's personal rule from 1629 to 1640, including the impeachment of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, on May 10, 1641, and the promotion of the Grand Remonstrance on November 22, 1641, which cataloged royal abuses and asserted parliamentary oversight of church and state appointments.[12] Pym's political stance emphasized Puritan religious reforms, restrictions on royal prerogative in taxation and military affairs, and alliances with Scottish Covenanters to counter perceived absolutist tendencies, positioning him as a chief architect of parliamentary sovereignty claims.[13] John Hampden, elected MP for Buckinghamshire in the Long Parliament, gained prominence through his 1637 refusal to pay the ship money levy imposed by Charles I without parliamentary consent, a case that tested and highlighted the illegality of non-parliamentary taxation under common law precedents.[14] His stance focused on constitutional limits to royal fiscal powers, rejecting forced loans and arbitrary levies as violations of Magna Carta principles, while supporting broader Puritan critiques of Arminian church policies and episcopal authority.[8] Denzil Holles, MP for Dorchester, played a key role in the Commons' early confrontations, including the January 1641 protestation affirming Protestant doctrine and parliamentary privileges, and was among the initial managers of Strafford's impeachment proceedings.[15] Initially aligned with radical reformers, Holles's stance evolved toward Presbyterian constitutionalism, advocating a negotiated settlement with the king to preserve monarchy under a reformed church structure, later leading the "peace party" faction against independent sectarians during the civil wars.[16] Sir Arthur Haselrig, representing Leicestershire, was a vocal critic of Charles I's eleven years' tyranny, imprisoned in 1628 for protesting the forced loan and re-emerging in the Long Parliament to champion bills abolishing prerogative courts like the Court of Star Chamber in 1641.[17] His political views inclined toward republicanism, opposing episcopacy and royal control over the militia, and favoring a commonwealth model that prioritized elected assemblies over hereditary authority, as evidenced by his later resistance to the Protectorate.[16][18] William Strode, MP for Ilchester, actively pursued Puritan objectives by moving to impeach Archbishop William Laud on December 28, 1640, for innovations in worship deemed popish, and supporting the Root and Branch Petition of May 1641 to eliminate bishops from the House of Lords.[8] Strode's stance embodied staunch anti-Catholicism and advocacy for parliamentary supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, viewing the king's religious policies as threats to Protestant orthodoxy and individual conscience.[19]Connections to Radical Factions
The Five Members—John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, Arthur Haselrig, and William Strode—formed the core of what contemporaries and historians have termed "Pym's Junto," an influential parliamentary grouping in the Long Parliament (1640–1642) that drove opposition to Charles I's Personal Rule through demands for religious reform and constitutional restraints on the monarchy.[20] This alliance, while not uniformly extremist, aligned with Puritan networks advocating the Root and Branch Petition of 1641, which sought the total abolition of the episcopal church structure perceived as Laudian and absolutist.[21] Their collective push for the Grand Remonstrance in November 1641, passed by a slim margin of 11 votes on 22 November, encapsulated these aims by indicting royal advisors and calling for parliamentary oversight of ministerial appointments, positioning the group as agitators for systemic change amid fears of popery and arbitrary rule.[20] John Pym, as the Junto's de facto leader, maintained ties to Puritan nobles like Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, and William Fiennes, Viscount Saye and Sele, who supported colonial ventures such as the Providence Island Company (founded 1630) as outlets for nonconformist settlers fleeing ecclesiastical conformity.[22] Pym's negotiations with Scottish Covenanters, formalized in the Solemn League and Covenant discussions by late 1643, reflected a strategic alignment with presbyterian radicals north of the border, whom Charles I accused of fomenting invasion plots against England.[20] Hampden, a cousin of Oliver Cromwell and resistor of the ship money levy in 1637, shared these Puritan affiliations, collaborating closely with Saye and Sele on committees addressing recusancy and Arminian innovations, while his friendship with the imprisoned radical John Eliot underscored commitments to parliamentary privilege over prerogative.[22] Haselrig exemplified the Junto's more outspoken Puritan edge, vocally supporting the Root and Branch Bill and associating with independents like Lord Brooke, whose A Discourse Opening the Nature of that Episcopacie (1642) critiqued hierarchical church governance.[21] Holles, a presbyterian with ties to the Dorset Puritan minister John White, contributed to early anti-Spanish and anti-Laudian agitation but leaned moderate, later clashing with independents over army influence.[15][23] Strode, from a Devon Puritan lineage that backed radical rectors like Samuel Hieron, amplified calls for purging "scandalous ministers" and aligned with the Junto's defense committees, embodying the faction's fusion of religious zeal and anti-royal militancy.[24] These connections, while rooted in shared opposition to perceived tyranny, fueled royalist claims of treasonous radicalism, as evidenced by Charles's 3 January 1642 proclamation charging them with inciting "open rebellion."[25]The Attempted Arrest
Charles I's Preparation and Entry
![Attempted arrest of the Five Members by Charles West Cope][float-right] King Charles I, facing mounting opposition in the Long Parliament, resolved to arrest five prominent Members—John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, Arthur Haselrig, and William Strode—on charges of high treason related to their leadership in passing the Grand Remonstrance and alleged communications with Scottish Covenanters.[26][3] The decision stemmed from accusations that these Members had undermined royal authority, including their roles in the impeachment and execution of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, and purported plots to impeach Queen Henrietta Maria.[26] Advised by members of the Privy Council and bishops who urged action against parliamentary radicals, Charles moved to impeach Pym and his associates, viewing their activities as seditious.[26][3] On the morning of 4 January 1642, Charles assembled approximately 500 armed soldiers, primarily from the royal guards, at Whitehall Palace as part of the preparations to enforce the arrests.[26] Displaying evident anxiety, he paced before leading the force in a march to the Palace of Westminster around 3 p.m., intending to seize the Members during a session of the House of Commons.[26] About 400 soldiers remained outside to secure the perimeter, while 80 to 100 accompanied the king into the Commons lobby.[26] Upon arrival, Charles I, flanked by his sons Prince Charles and the Duke of York, entered the House of Commons chamber without seeking formal permission, a breach of parliamentary privilege unprecedented since the reign of Edward II.[27][5] He addressed Speaker William Lenthall, requesting the use of the speaker's chair, and demanded the surrender of the five Members, declaring his intent to proceed against them for treason.[26][3] Lenthall refused to comply, asserting that he possessed "neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak" save as the House directed, protecting parliamentary autonomy.[26][5] Discovering the targeted Members had fled—forewarned by scouts and escaping by barge along the Thames—Charles remarked, "I see the birds have flown," before withdrawing amid tense silence from the assembled MPs.[26][3]Confrontation in the House of Commons
On 4 January 1642, King Charles I entered the chamber of the House of Commons accompanied by approximately 400 armed soldiers, intent on arresting five prominent members accused of high treason: John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, Sir Arthur Haselrig, and William Strode.[3] The King had been advised that these individuals were plotting against him, including allegations of communicating with Scottish Covenanters and Irish rebels, though the evidence presented in prior impeachment proceedings had been contested by Parliament.[27] The five members, forewarned of the King's approach through messengers from sympathetic City officials, had already fled the chamber prior to Charles's arrival, escaping by boat along the River Thames to safe houses in London.[3] Upon entering, Charles demanded their immediate surrender from Speaker William Lenthall, who knelt before the King but refused to comply, stating: "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here."[5] This response asserted the Speaker's duty to the House over personal allegiance to the monarch, marking a pivotal defense of parliamentary privilege.[5] Charles, surveying the empty seats, remarked, "I see the birds have flown," acknowledging the failure of the arrests, and urged the remaining members to secure the fugitives' papers and persons.[28] No physical violence erupted within the chamber, but the intrusion by armed forces into the Commons—unprecedented since the reign of Elizabeth I—shocked the assembled members and underscored the escalating breach between Crown and Parliament.[3] The King withdrew without achieving his objective, leaving the House to deliberate amid heightened tensions.[27]