Roundheads And Cavaliers

[poliphilo]

Corbyn is a roundhead and Johnson a cavalier.

The civil war has never really come to an end- and it's not unusual for roundhead to face cavalier across the despatch box. The most significant such pairings were Attlee and Churchill, Gladstone and Disraeli. Blair was a cavalier with a roundhead lieutenant breathing down his neck in the shape of Gordon Brown. Thatcher confused us all by being a roundhead in a plumed hat.

Comments

[cmcmck]

I have to disagree.

So few of the recent generation have that burning religious ardour that went with picking sides in the 17th century.

David Lloyd George is the only one that comes close in my book and he was a blazing hypocrite.

[poliphilo]

Well, yes, circumstances have changed- and religion no longer has the grip on us it had back then- but the character types remain. Corbyn is a puritanical ideologue and Johnson a hedonistic adventurer.

[razorbladeromance]

BoJo is a complete idiot... but I'm intrigued. What is a roundhead and a cavalier?

[poliphilo]

They're nicknames for the two sides in the English Civil War. The roundheads were the parliamentarians and the cavaliers the royalists.

Cavalier sort of explains itself. I think roundhead has to do with the parliamentary troopers wearing their hair short- which makes sense if you've got to fit it under a helmet.

[razorbladeromance]

I am a cavalier then. I am all for the monarchy.

[poliphilo]

The 21st century monarchy is rather different from that of Charles I.

[razorbladeromance]

Ah yes, of course. :)