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

[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. :)