Another individual--far different from this pedantic adviser, and incapable of the tergiversations of the representative for Kent, though he is not to be confounded with reckless revolutionists--was still inflexibly pushing forward those ecclesiastical and political reforms which he had inaugurated by the blow he struck at Strafford, the patron and upholder of arbitrary power. Pym supported the new bill against Bishops, and managed the conference respecting the impeachment of the obnoxious thirteen prelates, and the prevention of the remaining occupants of the Bench from voting upon this question. He asked whether those who had made the hateful canons, who had endeavoured to deprive the subject of his liberties, and who were accused of sedition, were fit to be continued as legislators? St. John, the Solicitor General, and "dark-lantern man," supported Pym, and supplied an erudite legal argument to shew that bishops did not sit in the Upper House as representatives of the clergy; and that their right of peerage differed from the claim of temporal lords--they having no vote in judgments touching life and death, and their consent not being essential to the integrity of an Act of Parliament.[225] [Sidenote: 1641, October.] Change and reaction went on. There had long been much talk about some "Grand Remonstrance," and a committee had been appointed as soon as Parliament assembled, to draw up such a document. In April the committee had been directed to collect a list of grievances, and on the 22nd of November the long delayed paper came before the House, to be "briskly debated." This remarkable production deals largely with ecclesiastical affairs; and the intimate connection between the religion and the politics of the times is apparent throughout its various contents. In a series of numbered propositions, amounting altogether to 206, the history of arbitrary government is carefully traced from the beginning of Charles' reign; religious grievances are made distinct and prominent; complaints appear of Papists, bishops, and courtiers, who had aimed at suppressing the purity and power of religion, and who had cherished Arminian sentiments; prelates and the rest of the clergy are depicted as triumphing in the degradation of painful and learned ministers; and the High Commission Court is compared to the Romish Inquisition. The vexatiousness of episcopal tribunals shares in the general censure, and the exile and depression of Puritans are noticed with the deepest sorrow;--preaching up the prerogative, sympathy with Papists, superstitious innovations, the late canons, the toleration of Papists, and the permission of a Papal nuncio at court, are all deplored as very great evils, whilst an opinion is expressed that there is little hope of amendment so long as Bishops and recusant Lords remain numerous, and continue to misrepresent the designs of the patriots.[226] [Sidenote: _Debates by the Commons._]