John Pym is the sort of hero we need these days; a politician who risked his life and liberty to stand up against the abuse of power by a king who believed it was his divine right to rule as he saw fit. And in opposing the arbitrary, expensive, and sometimes destructive acts of his king, John Pym became one of the leaders of the opposition against the crown, whose words and deeds eventually sparked the English Civil War. His actions helped lay the foundations of English parliamentary democracy and governance.*

Pym was also one of the authors of the Grand Remonstrance, a document presented to Charles 1 in December 1641. As Wikipedia notes, this paper, “…summarised all of Parliament’s opposition to Charles’s foreign, financial, legal and religious policies, setting forth 204 separate points of objection and calling for the expulsion of all bishops from Parliament, a purge of officials, with Parliament having a right of veto over Crown appointments, and an end to sale of land confiscated from Irish rebels.”

Charles was deeply offended that anyone would dare stand up to him, and rejected the document. He later attempted to have Pym and four others arrested on the false claim that they had encouraged Scotland to invade England and were trying to turn the people against him. Just like Trump, trying to intimidate and harm his political opponents.

The wannabe dictator Donald Trump has a lot in common with Charles 1. Both believe they have the right to govern as they see fit, without recourse to bothersome democratic institutions.** For example:

• Charles levied taxes without the approval of Parliament; Trump levied taxes (tariffs) without the approval of Congress.
• Trump pandered to pseudo-Christians (aka Christian Nationalists, aka Talibangelists, aka Christofascists) and gave several of them Cabinet positions (Pete Hegseth, for example); Charles religious policies were arbitrary, sometimes pro-Catholic, sometimes pro-high Anglican, offending pretty much everyone in Puritan England, and Scotland and Ireland.
• Charles waged war without Parliament’s consent; Trump invaded Venezuela and had people in boats murdered without any due process of law to justify it.
• Charles failed to support England’s Protestant allies in the Thirty Years’ War; Trump failed to support Ukraine and has threatened US allies over his desire to invade Greenland and Canada.
• Charles reconciled with Spain, England’s enemy; Trump has reconciled with Russia, the USA’s enemy (and is particularly friendly with its autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin).
• Charles imposed “forced loans” on his opponents and imprisoned those who would not pay; Trump requires visitors to give him gifts (like Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize), bullied companies like Nvidia to “donate” 15% of their profits of chip sales to the US (aka him), and took the money he stole from sales of Venezuelan oil and stuck it in an offshore account in Qatar where no elected US official has access to it.
• Charles imposed martial law in 1628, “forcing private citizens to feed, clothe and accommodate soldiers and sailors, which implied the king could deprive any individual of property, or freedom, without justification;” Trump has imposed his taxpayer-funded gangster ICE (and National Guard) to terrorize and kidnap citizens in cities and states run by politicians he doesn’t like or who have opposed him.
• Charles claimed he had the right to decide whether to detain someone. Trump had the president of Venezuela (Nicolas Maduro) and his wife kidnapped and jailed without due process of law or approval of Congress.
• Charles dissolved Parliament for eight years and ruled without it; Trump simply ignores elected officials in both houses.
• Charles pardoned two clergymen who Parliament censured for publishing sermons supporting the divine right of kings and passive obedience to royalty. Trump pardoned crypto criminals who donated to his campaigns, pardoned violent January rioters who attempted to overthrow the US government in his favour, pardoned Trump-friendly fraudsters, and the drugs-and-arms-dealing ex-president of Honduras, among others.

Wikipedia also notes the distrust of the king was not confined to Parliament, but had spread among the general population, similar to how most of the American public distrusts Trump today:

Many of his subjects opposed his [Charles I’s] policies, in particular the levying of taxes without Parliamentary consent, and perceived his actions as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch. His religious policies, coupled with his marriage to a Catholic, generated antipathy and mistrust from Reformed religious groups…

Like how Trump treats his opponents — through vindictive lawsuits, bullying, threats, and coercion — Charles had his opponents arrested and jailed. After Charles rejected the Great Remonstrance, in early January, 1642, he attempted to “arrest the Five Members, one of whom was Pym.” But, forewarned a few hours before the 300-400 armed troops arrived with the king, they fled into the city of London. The king demanded the City of London surrender the fugitives, and marched with his armed troops in person to the Guildhall, and again demanded the City officers hand them over. Unbowed by the show of force, “the City officers declared their support for parliament, as did the regiments of the Inns of Court.”

Not entirely unlike Trump’s use of the National Guard and the gangsters of ICE in his attempt to kidnap people from the streets and intimidate those cities and the political leaders (especially those Democrats in power) into subservience. Unlike Charles, Trump lacks the courage to appear in person, however. Never forget how he avoided the draft by alleging to have “bone spurs.” At least Charles had the spine to show up in person.

More from Wikipedia:

The next day the Five Members came out of their hiding place in the City, and travelled by barge back to parliament accompanied by a regatta of decorated craft, and cheering citizens. The king had lost the support of the people of London.

The result of this debacle was that the House of Commons issued a public denunciation of the king’s intrusion into Parliament with his armed soldiers, calling it “a high breach of the rights and privileges of parliament, and inconsistent with the liberties and freedoms thereof.”

It declared the king’s order to the City to seize the Five Members to have no basis in law, and announced that any person doing so would be guilty of breach of privilege of parliament and deemed a public enemy of the Commonwealth. Any person harbouring the five, on the other hand, should have parliamentary protection.

Would that more US governors and mayors issued similar declarations against the intrusions of the Trump Brownshirts known as ICE, and took more concrete action. Not merely huff and puff about how terrible and illegal the intrusions are.

Parliament demanded the king transfer control of the army from him to Parliament. After he refused,  parliament passed the law anyway. The king fled London with his supporters, effectively, leaving the city in control of the Parliamentarians and taking the first step towards civil war.

Initially, the Royalists were successful militarily, but in mid-1643, as the Parliamentarian cause seemed close to collapse, Pym stepped in and ensured their army had the financial support and resources necessary to continue. He also got Scotland to agree to support their cause. Pym also got Parliament to fund the Scots, and an army of about 11,000 of them intervened on the Parliamentarian side. That helped turn the tide in Parliament’s favour.

Pym himself died of cancer shortly at the end of 1643, probably of cancer. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, but after the Stuart Restoration, a vindictive, petty King Charles II had the remains exhumed in 1660 and re-buried in a common pit at St Margaret’s.

Of course, the English Civil War is a lot more complicated and convoluted than just these few paragraphs can explain. There are entire books written just about the religious aspects, the military aspects, the social, the sieges, and the political aspects of the period of the three wars. But it did have some real heroes who stood up to the king and his attempt to impose absolute authority on the nation, just as Trump is doing to the USA today. John Pym was one of the heroes who stood up against autocracy, stood for democracy, and the rights of Parliament.***

Would that there were similar heroes in the US Congress or Senate today. Yes, several of them have spoken out, sometimes even bravely critical of the erratic dictator in the White House, but their umbrage is paper-thin, and not backed by any demonstrative action beyond verbiage. The world is still waiting for a real hero to emerge and lead the nation back to democracy.

Notes:

* Pym was a moderate, not a radical. He and most of those around him did not intend to overthrow the king: they wanted to ensure a constitutional monarchy in which the king’s powers were constrained by Parliament. In fact, Pym wanted nothing to do with the more radical Henry Marten who wanted to end the monarchy entirely. As Wikipedia notes:

[Pym] orchestrated the expulsion of Henry Marten, a fellow Parliamentarian known for his radical views and outspoken criticism of the monarchy. Marten had publicly advocated for the deposition of King Charles I, a stance deemed too extreme by many in Parliament. Pym seized upon this opportunity to remove Marten [in 1643], demonstrating his commitment to maintaining a more moderate and unified Parliamentarian front. Historian David Como believes this manoeuvre underscores Pym’s political acumen and his influence within Parliament during this critical period.

Marten was imprisoned in the Tower of London for “expressing the view that the royal family should be extirpated and monarchy brought to an end.” But he was released in 1644 and took direct part in the war on the Parliamentarian side. He returned to Parliament in early 1646, where he again advocated extreme republican views. Marten was arrested in 1660 as a regicide and found guilty, but given internal exile instead of the death penalty. He died in exile in 1680.

** In the introduction to Charles I in 1646: Letters of King Charles the First to Queen Henrietta Maria (1968, p. viii-ix), editor John Bruce wrote this description of the king, most of which would be a suitable description of Donald Trump’s behaviour and views about his rule in 2026 (emphasis added):

He believed that the machine of government could not act without him; that if he could only keep the public affairs long enough in the condition of dead-lock to which they were reduced, his enemies would be wearied, or would be forced by the people, into yielding to his terms. His mind was as full as ever of the most exalted notions of the sacred and indefeasible character of his royal authority. All who opposed him were, in his estimation, wicked rebel whom God would judge. It was his place to govern, and that of his people to submit. His sins of misgovernment never occurred to him. Regret that for many years his course of action had been totally wanting in the kingly virtues of justice and fair dealing never entered his mind. It never troubled him that he had sought to govern in defiance of his own concessions, in opposition to the even then acknowledged principles of the constitution, and in breach of his coronation oath. The only things which grieved him were his concessions to the popular fury which himself had roused. While such was Charles’ state of mind, peace was out of the question. On the side of parliament, it was clearly seen that when a king sets up his standard against his people, he must conquer or submit; and that if, having failed to conquer, he refuses to submit, he must be deposed. To have yielded to him on the ultimate points of the contest, would have been to have relinquished the fruits of the warfare in which parliament had been victorious. What then was to be done? Simply to follow him through a succession of messages and answers, until it became apparent to the people that the country must be governed without him. That was the course for parliament, but what remained for the king? Nothing but to fall back upon his old course of intrigue.

*** More properly, wars, since there were three outbreaks of conflict between 1642 and 1651. From Wikiquote:

The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians (“Roundheads“) and Royalists (“Cavaliers“) over, principally, the manner of England’s government. The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

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