Roundheads were the supporters of theParliament of England during theEnglish Civil War (1642–1651). Also known asParliamentarians, they fought against KingCharles I of England and his supporters, known as theCavaliers or Royalists, who claimed rule byabsolute monarchy and the principle of thedivine right of kings.[1] The goal of the Roundheads was to give to Parliament the supreme control overexecutive administration of the country/kingdom.[2]
Most Roundheads soughtconstitutional monarchy in place of theabsolute monarchy sought by Charles;[3] however, at the end of theEnglish Civil War in 1649, public antipathy towards the king was high enough to allow republican leaders such asOliver Cromwell to abolish the monarchy completely and establish theCommonwealth of England.
The Roundhead commander-in-chief of the first Civil War,Thomas Fairfax, remained a supporter of constitutional monarchy, as did many other Roundhead leaders such asEdward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester, andRobert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex; however, this party was outmanoeuvred by the more politically adept Cromwell and his radicals, who had the backing of theNew Model Army and took advantage of Charles' perceived betrayal of England in his alliance with theScottish against Parliament.[4][5][6][dubious –discuss]
England's manyPuritans andPresbyterians were almost invariably Roundhead supporters, as were many smaller religious groups such as theIndependents. However, a number of Roundheads were members of theChurch of England, as were mostCavaliers. Roundhead political factions included the proto-anarchist/socialistDiggers, the diverse group known as theLevellers and theapocalyptic Christian movement of theFifth Monarchists.
Some Puritans (but by no means all of them) wore their hair closely cropped round the head or flat. There was thus an obvious contrast between them and the men ofcourtly fashion, who worelong ringlets.[7] During the war and for a time afterwards,Roundhead was a term of derision,[7] and in theNew Model Army it was a punishable offence to call a fellow soldier a Roundhead.[8] This contrasted withCavalier, a word used to describe supporters of the Royalist cause, but which also started out as a pejorative term. The first proponents used it to compare members of the Royalist party with SpanishCaballeros who had abused Dutch Protestants during the reign ofElizabeth I. However, unlike Roundhead, Cavalier was later embraced by those who were the target of the epithet and used by them to describe themselves.[8]
"Roundheads" appears to have been first used as a term of derision toward the end of 1641, when the debates in Parliament in theClergy Act 1640 were causing riots atWestminster. TheEncyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition quotes a contemporary authority's description of the crowd that 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 calledRoundheads".[7] The demonstrators included London apprentices, for whom Roundhead was a term of derision, because the regulations which they had agreed to included a provision for closely cropped hair.[8]
According toJohn Rushworth, the word was first used on 27 December 1641 by a disbanded officer named David Hide. During a riot, Hide is reported to have drawn his sword and said he would "cut the throat of those round-headed dogs that bawled against bishops";[9] however,Richard Baxter ascribes the origin of the term to a remark made by QueenHenrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, at the trial ofThomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, earlier that year. Referring toJohn Pym, she asked who the roundheaded man was.[7] The principal advisor toCharles II,Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, remarked on the matter, "and from those contestations the two terms ofRoundhead andCavalier grew to be received in discourse, ... they who were looked upon as servants to the king being then calledCavaliers, and the other of the rabble contemned and despised under the name ofRoundheads."[10]
After the Anglican ArchbishopWilliam Laud made a statute in 1636 instructing all clergy to wear short hair, many Puritans rebelled to show their contempt for his authority and began to grow their hair even longer (as can be seen ontheir portraits)[11] though they continued to be known as Roundheads. The longer hair was more common among the "Independent" and "high-ranking" Puritans, which included Cromwell, especially toward the end of the Protectorate, while the "Presbyterian" (non-Independent) faction, and the military rank and file, continued to abhor long hair. By the end of that period, some Independent Puritans were again derisively using the term Roundhead to refer to the Presbyterian Puritans.[12]
Roundhead remained in use to describe those with republican tendencies until theExclusion Crisis of 1678–1681, when the term was superseded by "Whig", initially another term with pejorative connotations. Likewise, during the Exclusion Bill crisis, the termCavalier was replaced with "Tory", an Irish term introduced by their opponents that was also initially a pejorative term.[13]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Roundhead".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 772.
