Parliamentarians | |
|---|---|
| Leaders | Oliver Cromwell Richard Cromwell John Bradshaw Thomas Fairfax |
| Founded | 1641 (1641) |
| Dissolved | 1678 (1678) |
| Merged into | Whigs |
| Ideology | Parliamentary supremacy Popular sovereignty Factions: Constitutional monarchism Republicanism Universal suffrage(Levellers) Proto-socialism(Diggers) |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| Religion | Protestantism |
| Party flag | |
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TheParliamentarians, commonly calledRoundheads by their enemies, were the supporters of theParliament of England during theEnglish Civil War (1642–1651). 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 England.[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 (although in the English territory of the Somers Isles, orBermuda, Episcopalians and Presbyterians united as Royalists against the Independents).[7][8][9] 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. This created an obvious contrast between them and the men ofcourtly fashion, who worelong ringlets.[10] During the war and for a time afterwards,Roundhead was a term of derision,[10] and in theNew Model Army it was a punishable offence to call a fellow soldier a Roundhead.[11] 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.[11]
"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".[10] 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.[11]
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";[12] 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.[10] 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."[13]
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)[14] 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" faction, and the military rank and file, continued to reject long hair. By the end of that period, some Independent Puritans were again derisively using the term Roundhead to refer to the Presbyterian Puritans.[15]
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.[16]
Richard Dawkins reports that at his secondary school,Oundle, and another, boys who were circumcised were referred to as "Roundheads" and those who were not as "Cavaliers".[17] Various other sources report the usage, includingPrince Harry's memoirSpare[18][19][20][21]s
in England, Parliament had purged the Somers Islands Company of members who opposed the Commonwealth, so its remaining members pushed Bermuda into submission. They also allowed the Eleutherian Adventurers to return to Bermuda from the Bahamas, and pushed Governor Forster to punish the people who had revolted after the regicide … or tried. Forster evaded their questions, feigned ignorance, and downplayed both the revolt and the previous governor's participation in it. He protected his predecessor, and the rebels, from the consequences demanded by the company on Parliament's behalf, and to his credit, Bermudians lived peacefully thanks to his leadership.
If you've been listening, and if you remember, Bermuda was the colony that tore itself apart first when war broke out in England. The only other colony that suffered the same sort of division was Maryland, but Maryland had so many external issues that it's not even a comparable situation. By 1651, various political and religious factions in Bermuda had spent about a decade seizing power from each other, and then rebelling, imprisoning, banishing and otherwise abusing each other. Governors had been rotated every few months by a company that was, one, completely befuddled, two almost as passionately divided in England as its colony was in America, and three, which colonists were barely listening to at this point.
There was a violent rebellion after King Charles was beheaded, and that prompted a purging of the company within England, as well as orders that the Independents who had been exiled and founded Eleutheria in the Bahamas be allowed to return. Like everywhere else in Commonwealth-era England and America, people could only vote if they signed an allegiance to the king-free government, which Bermuda's Presbyterians refused to do for over a year. And so, after a decade of unbridled animosity, this had given one side complete control over the island. And to their limited credit, the Company realized that this might be a problem. So, in order to try to address this issue, kind of? They reinstated Governor Josias Forster, who was known for being the island's most moderate of moderates.
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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.| International | |
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