In the month of December, 1643, just after the Scotch treaty had been ratified, and while the Puritans waited for their allies, a great man passed away from the scene of strife. A journal reported how some at Oxford drank "a health to his Majesty, by whom we live and move and have our being; and to the confusion of Pym, his God, and his Gospel." Whether the report be an exaggeration of fact, or, as we would hope, a pure fiction, certainly Pym was an object of intense dislike to the Royalists, and his death removed a formidable antagonist. Crushed by toil and anxiety, his health had rapidly failed; and, while his body suffered from disease, and his mind from anxiety, he had to endure the fury of a populace which now sought to dash in pieces the god of its former idolatry. As the patriot lay on his death-bed, men, in women's clothes, instigated by those who wished to thwart the rigorous prosecution of the war, besieged the House of Commons, madly crying out, "Give us the traitor, that we may tear him to pieces, give us the dog Pym!"[374] The brutality of the mob had its match in the malignity of the Royalists, who, if rumour be true, kept horses idle in the stables, waiting to carry down to Oxford tidings of the wished-for stroke.[375] Report further spoke of knighthood as promised to the first who should bring the news. It was also stated that the night after Pym's decease, bonfires were blazing in the University streets to celebrate the event.[376] [Sidenote: 1643, December.] [Sidenote: _Burial of Pym._]