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Information about Roundhead

This article discusses the "Roundheads", the Parliamentary faction in the English Civil War. For other sense of the word, see Roundhead (disambiguation)


The Roundheads was the nickname given to the supporters of Parliament during the English Civil War. Their enemies, the Royalist supporters of King Charles I, were nicknamed the Cavaliers.

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.

During the war and for a time afterwards Roundhead was a term of derision - in the New Model Army it was a punishable offence 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.

Roundhead appears 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. 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."

John Rushworth (Historical Collections) is more precise. According to him 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 would "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.

References

The word roundhead or roundheads may refer to any of several things.

In English history, "roundhead" can refer to:
  • Roundhead, a supporter of the Parliamentarian and Puritan faction during the English Civil War

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Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. Its roots can be traced back to the early medieval period. In a series of developments, it came increasingly to constrain the power of the monarch, and went on after the Act of Union 1707 to form the main basis of
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The English Civil War consisted of a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians (known as Roundheads) and Royalists (known as Cavaliers) between 1642 and 1651.
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Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, King of Scotland and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.

Charles famously engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England.
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Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I during the English Civil War (1642–1651). (In response, the Royalists called the Parliamentarians Roundheads.
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Fashion in the period 1600-1650 in Western European clothing is characterized by the disappearance of the ruff in favor of broad lace or linen collars. Waistlines rose through the period for both men and women.
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For the band, see .
The New Model Army became the best known of the various Parliamentarian armies in the English Civil War. It comprised professional soldiers led by trained generals, unlike other military forces of the era, which tended to have
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republic, for all other uses see: republic (disambiguation)

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The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England (VII of Scotland) in 1688 by a union of Parliamentarians and the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau (William of Orange), who as a result ascended the
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The Clergy Act 1640 (also known as the Bishops Exclusion Act or the Clerical Disabilities Act) (16 Car. I, c.27) was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of England passed in 1642[1] by the Long Parliament.
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Westminster


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John Rushworth (c.1612 - May 12, 1690) was born at Acklington Park in the parish of Warkworth, Northumberland, England. He compiled a series of works called Historical Collections (which are also referred to as the Rushworth Papers
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December 27 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

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Charles II (Charles Stuart; 29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

According to royalists, Charles II became king when his father Charles I was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, the climax of the English Civil War.
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Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (18 February 1609–9 December 1674) was an English historian, statesman and grandfather of two queens regnant, Mary II and Anne.
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Richard Baxter (November 12, 1615 - December 8, 1691) was an English Puritan church leader, theologian and controversialist, called by Dean Stanley "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen".
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Henrietta Maria (25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669), was Princess of France and Queen Consort of England, Scotland and Ireland (13 June 1625 – 30 January 1649) through her marriage to Charles I.
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Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (April 13, 1593 – May 12, 1641) was an English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War.
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John Pym (1584 – December 8, 1643) was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.

Early life and education

Pym was born in Brymore, Somerset, into minor nobility.
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