Roundhead
The
Roundheads was the nickname given to supporters of the
Parliamentary cause in the
English Civil War. The
Royalists, on the other side, were the nicknamed
Cavaliers.
Roundhead, is a term applied to the adherents of the parliamentary party in England during the Civil War. Some of the Puritans, but by no means, all, wore the 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 principle advisor to King
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.
Roundhead (weapon) was also used during the Civil War as the name of a weapon. This is described as having an head about a quarter of a yard long, a staffe of two yards long put into their head, twelve iron pikes round about, and one in the end to stop with.
based on the article ROUNDHEAD
