John Pym was born in Somerset in 1584 and was admitted to the Inn in 1602 after legal education at Oxford, though he does not appear to have been Called. He became a Member of Parliament in 1614, and in 1626 was instrumental in drawing up the articles of impeachment against the Duke of Buckingham. Pym conducted the proceedings against the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud in 1640 and 1641, two events which contributed to the King's abortive attempt to arrest him and four other members of Parliament in 1642, an event which triggered the outbreak of the English Civil War. He was appointed Lieutenant of the Ordnance early in the war but died not long after in December 1643.

Edward Hyde was born in 1609, the nephew of Sir Lawrence Hyde, Attorney General and also a Middle Templar. After studying at Oxford, he was admitted to the Inn in 1626, though he was not Called to the Bar until 1633, having preferred to immerse himself in a community of scholarly and literary friends including Ben Jonson and John Selden. After several successful years at the Bar, Hyde was elected an MP in 1640, growing gradually closer to the King and joining the Royalist side on the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642. Going into exile with the Prince of Wales, he soon found himself a close advisor to the future King and was made Lord Chancellor in 1658. Following the Restoration, Hyde continued to play a prominent political role, and saw his daughter married to the King's brother, the future James II, but by the mid-1660s his star had waned. He was impeached by the Commons and forced into exile in 1667 and died in France in 1674, having completed his magisterial History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England. Both of his granddaughters, Mary and Anne, would go on to be queens of England.

John Evelyn was born in 1620, and after an education at Oxford took up residence in the Temple. He was elected in 1642 one of the Comptrollers of the Temple-Revellers, but was overtaken by events and, on the outbreak of the Civil War, was excused this duty to go into the country, being a staunch Royalist. After spending ten years travelling and studying on the continent, he returned to England and lived quietly until the Restoration of the Monarchy, after which he held various offices at court. A polymath, Evelyn was one of the founders of the Royal Society and wrote books on a vast range of topics including horticulture, theology and air pollution. His diaries are an important source for the history of his times, running from his student days at the Inn to the time of his death in 1706. He memorably describes the Inn's Revels as 'an old, but riotous custom' with 'relation to neither Virtue nor policy', and Sir Henry Peckham's Reader's Feast as 'a pompous entertainment'.

The youngest son of Dudley, fourth Lord North, and younger brother to Francis, later Lord Guildford, Roger was born in Suffolk in 1653. Called to the Bar by the Inn in 1674, he was appointed Lent Reader in 1682 and Treasurer in 1683 at the age of just thirty. Solicitor-General to the Duke of York (later James II) from 1684, and MP for Dunwich from 1685, his star waned after the Glorious Revolution and he retired to his estate at Rougham in Suffolk. He is better known today as a prolific collector of books and for his many writings, including A Discourse of Fish and Fish Ponds, Memoirs of Musick, A Discourse on the Study of the Laws, and the biographical Lives of the Norths, which remain a valuable resource today for the history of his period, including a vivid account of the Middle Temple Fire of 1679.

Roger North after Sir Peter Lely. Oil on canvas, based on a work of 1680. NPG 766 © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Born in Yorkshire in 1670, Congreve spent most of his childhood in Ireland. After being educated at Kilkenny College and Trinity College Dublin, he moved to London and was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1690/1 with the intention of studying the law. He soon drifted away from the law into the literary world, attending gatherings in coffee houses and associating with John Dryden. Congreve enjoyed a period of considerable success as a playwright in the last years of the eighteenth century before changing public tastes and morality saw his popularity wane. He continued to write poetry and translate the classical authors and became involved for a time in Whig politics.

William Congreve by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt. Oil on canvas, 1709. NPG 3199 © National Portrait Gallery, London. This image has been cropped and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NonDerivs 3.0 Unported Licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode