Everything about Roundhead totally explained
"
Roundheads" was the
nickname given to the
Puritan supporters of
Parliament during the
English Civil Wars. Roundhead political and religious factions included (but were not limited to)
Presbyterians,
classical republicans,
Levellers, and
Independents. Today, Roundheads are most associated with
Oliver Cromwell, who rose to prominence as an MP and Parliamentary soldier, and eventually imposed unity on the various Parliamentary factions by establishing himself as
Lord Protector in 1653. The Roundheads' enemies, the Royalist supporters of King
Charles I, were nicknamed
Cavaliers.
Etymology
During the war and for a time afterwards, "Roundhead" appeared to have been first used as a term of
derision, towards the end of 1641 when the debates in Parliament on the
Bishops Exclusion Bill were causing riots at
Westminster. Some of the
Puritans, but by no means all, wore their hair closely cropped round the head, and there was thus an obvious contrast between them and the men of
courtly fashion with their long
ringlets. One authority says of the crowd which gathered there: "They had the hair of their heads very few of them longer than their ears, whereupon it came to pass that those who usually with their cries attended at Westminster were by a nickname called Roundheads."
According to
John Rushworth (
Historical Collections), the word was first used on
27 December 1641 by a disbanded officer named
David Hide, who during a riot is reported to have drawn his sword and said he'd "cut the throat of those round-headed dogs that bawled against bishops."
The principal advisor to
Charles II, the
Earl of Clarendon (
History of the Rebellion, volume IV. page 121) remarks on the matter: "and from those contestations the two terms of 'Roundhead' and 'Cavalier' grew to be received in discourse, . . . they who were looked upon as servants to the king being then called 'Cavaliers,' and the other of the rabble contemned and despised under the name of 'Roundheads.'"
Richard Baxter ascribes the origin of the term to a remark made by Queen
Henrietta Maria at the trial of the
Earl of Strafford; referring to
John Pym, she asked who the roundheaded man was.
History
The Roundheads eventually won the Second Civil War in 1648, and
Charles I was executed in 1649. There was further fighting in Ireland and Scotland, and Cromwell defeated at Scots invasion in support of
Charles II at the
Battle of Worcester in 1651. These events are sometimes called the
Third Civil War, although strictly speaking Scotland was a foreign power.
In the
New Model Army it was a punishable offense to call a fellow soldier a "Roundhead". The name remained in use to describe those with
republican tendencies until after the
Glorious Revolution of 1688.
In general, modern historians deprecate the use of the term 'Roundhead' except in discussions of its use during the Civil Wars.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Roundhead'.
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