Roundhead

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 as Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester, and Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex; however, this party was outmanoeuvred by the more politically adept Cromwell and his radicals, who had the backing of the New Model Army and took advantage of Charles' perceived betrayal of England in his alliance with the Scottish against Parliament.

[4][5][6][dubious – discuss] England's many Puritans and Presbyterians were almost invariably Roundhead supporters, as were many smaller religious groups such as the Independents.

Roundhead political factions included the proto-anarchist/socialist Diggers, the diverse group known as the Levellers and the apocalyptic Christian movement of the Fifth Monarchists.

The Encyclopædia 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 called Roundheads".

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 Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, at the trial of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, earlier that year.