Pym
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Pym. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
pim, John (1584-1643), an English Puritan. He was a native of Somersetshire, and was educated at Oxford. He entered Parliament in 1621. He pressed the impeachment of the Duke of Buckingham, and when the Parliament of 1640 met he was one of the leading spirits. He was one of the committee that impeached Strafford. Charles I tried to win him over, it is said, by an offer of the lord chancellorship, but in vain. Pym was one of five members of the House of Commons whom Charles endeavored to arrest by force. He died before the arrest and execution of Charles. His remains were laid at rest in Westminster Abbey . Six of his fellow members carried his body. Both houses followed in procession. Pym was for twenty years the leader of the House, and is by some writers regarded as the founder of party government in Parliament. See Puritans
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN, an English statesman, born in Somersetshire, England, in 1584. He studied at Oxford and became famous as a lawyer. He entered Parliament in 1614, and during the reign of James he attained great influence by his opposition to the arbitrary measures of the king. In 1626 he took part in the impeachment of Buckingham am and was imprisoned. In the Short Parliament of 1640 Pym and Hampden were exceedingly active as leaders of the popular party. Pym impeached Strafford and at his trial appeared as accuser. He was the main author of the Grand Remonstrance, the final appeal presented in 1641, and one of the five members to arrest whom the king went to the House of Commons in January, 1642. When civil war became inevitable Pym was appointed one of the committee of safety. He died in 1643.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The facts of Pym's life stand as Aiton's gave them in 1910 and Collier's in 1921, though the two disagree on his first Parliament: modern reference works side with Collier's 1614, when he sat for Calne, rather than 1621. Aiton's note that his remains were laid to rest in Westminster Abbey needs a sequel it does not give: after the Restoration in 1660 Pym's body was dug up and thrown into a common pit in St Margaret's churchyard nearby. The larger shift is in interpretation. Where Aiton's reports that he is by some writers regarded as the founder of party government, historians since the 1970s, Conrad Russell above all, have been sceptical of reading modern parties back into the 1640s, and treat King Pym instead as a formidable manager of a shifting parliamentary coalition.
Written for this edition, 2026.