Robert Pye (Royalist)

Sir Robert Pye (1585–1662) was an English courtier, administrator and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1621 and 1629. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War.

Pye was the son of Roger Pye of The Mynde at Much Dewchurch in Herefordshire.^[1] He became Auditor of the Receipt of the Exchequer under King James I in 1620.^[2] In 1621 he was elected Member of Parliament for Bath and was re-elected for Bath in 1624. In 1625 he was elected MP for Ludgershall and in 1626 he was elected MP for Westminster. He was elected MP for Grampound in 1628.^[3] He purchased the manor and estate of Faringdon, which at that time was in Berkshire, from the Unton family.^[2]

Pye was a supporter of the King, and on this account was deprived of his office in 1642. During the Civil War he garrisoned his mansion at Faringdon for the Royalists, and it was stoutly besieged by his own son, Robert, who espoused the Parliamentary cause.^[2]

Following the Restoration, Pye was restored to his post as Auditor of the Receipt of the Exchequer, and held it until his death in 1662 at the age of 77.^[2]

Pye married Mary, daughter of John Croker of Batsford in Gloucestershire^[2] they had several children:

• Robert (c. 1620–1701), his heir; supported Parliament in the Civil War
• John (1626–1697), who lived at Hone, in Derbyshire,^[2] and became a baronet with the creation of the Baronetcy Pye of Leckhampstead on 27 April 1641
• Mary (fl. 1641–1697), became a nonconformist patron and political activist, and married George Speke (1623–1689)^[4]
• Anne, married Edward Phelips^[5]

Pye's brother Walter Pye was also an MP.^[2]

• Burke, John (1835), A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, enjoying territorial possessions or high official rank; but uninvested with heritable honour, vol. 1, London, H. Colburn, p. 351
• Ferris, John. P. (1983), "Phelips, (Phillips), Edward I (c.1613-80), of Montacute, Som.", in Henning, B.D. (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, Boydell and Brewer
• Thrush, Andrew (2010), "Pye, Robert (c.1586-1662), of St. Stephen's Court, Westminster and Richmond, Surr.; later of Faringdon, Berks.", in Thrush, Andrew; Ferris, John P. (eds.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629
• Willis, Browne (1750), Notitia Parliamentaria, Part II: A Series or Lists of the Representatives in the several Parliaments held from the Reformation 1541, to the Restoration 1660 ..., London, pp. 229–239
• Zook, Melinda (May 2009) [2004]. "Speke, Mary". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/67750. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)