cavalier

 

(kăv'əlĭr') , in general, an armed horseman. In the English civil war the supporters of Charles I were called Cavaliers in contradistinction to the Roundheads, the followers of Parliament. The royalists used the designation until it was replaced by Tory.

Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I during the English Civil War (1642–1651). (In response, the Royalists called the Parliamentarians Roundheads.) Typically, the term "Cavalier" referred to the high-born supporters of King Charles, who were fond of fashionable, extravagant clothing. Prince Rupert, commander of much of Charles I's cavalry, is often considered an archetypical cavalier.

Early usage

The usage of the term originates from the French word "chevalier", meaning knight, and was originally derived from "caballarius", meaning horseman in Vulgar Latin. Chevalier is the regular French word for "knight," and is chiefly used in English for a member of certain foreign military or other orders.

Cavalier in English was applied early in a contemptuous sense to an overbearing swashbuckler or swaggering gallant. In Shakespeare (2 Henry IV. v. iii. 62) Shallow says "I'll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all the cavaleros about London" (this spelling rather suggests the Spanish version of the word, "Caballero").

English civil war

"Cavalier" is chiefly associated with the Royalist supporters of King Charles I in his struggle with Parliament in the English Civil War. Here again it first appears as a term of reproach and contempt, applied by the opponents of the king. Charles in the Answer to the Petition June 13, 1642 speaks of cavaliers as a "word by what mistake soever it seemes much in disfavour." It was soon adopted (as a title of honour) by the king's party, who in return applied Roundhead to their opponents, and at the Restoration the court party preserved the name, which survived till the rise of the term Tory.

Cavalier style of dress included long flowing hair in ringlets, a liking for elaborate embellished clothes, and plumed hats. This was in complete contrast to the "Roundhead" supporters of Parliament, with their preference for short hair and plain dress, although neither side conformed to the stereotypical images entirely. In fact the best patrons in the nobility of the archetypal recorder of the Cavalier image, Charles I's court painter Sir Anthony van Dyck, all took the Parliamentary side in the Civil War. These derogatory terms (for at the time they were so intended) also showed what the typical Parliamentarian thought of the Royalist side — capricious men who cared more for vanity than the nation at large.

The chaplain to King Charles I, Edward Simmons described a cavalier as "a Child of Honour, a Gentleman well borne and bred, that loves his king for conscience sake, of a clearer countenance, and bolder look than other men, because of a more loyal Heart.” There were many men in the Royalist armies who fit this description since most of the Royalist field officers were typically in their early thirties, married with rural estates which had to be managed. Although they did not share the same outlook on how to worship God as the English Independents of the New Model Army, God was often central to their lives. This type of Cavalier was personified by Lord Jacob Astley whose prayer at the start of the Battle of Edgehill has become famous "O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not forget me". At the end of the First Civil War Astley gave his word that he would not take up arms again against Parliament and having given his word he felt duty bound to refuse to help the Royalist cause in the Second Civil War.

However, the word was coined by the Roundheads as a pejorative propaganda image of a licentious, hard drinking and frivolous man, who rarely, if ever, thought of God. It is this image which has survived and many Royalists, for example Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester, fitted this description to a tee. Of another cavalier, Lord Goring a general in the Royalist army, the principal advisor to Charles II, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, said that he "would, without hesitation, have broken any trust, or done any act of treachery to have satisfied an ordinary passion or appetite; and in truth wanted nothing but industry (for he had wit, and courage, and understanding and ambition, uncontrolled by any fear of God or man) to have been as eminent and successful in the highest attempt of wickedness as any man in the age he lived in or before. Of all his qualifications dissimulation was his masterpiece; in which he so much excelled, that men were not ordinarily ashamed, or out of countenance, with being deceived but twice by him."

Cavaliers in the arts

See also 1600-1650 in fashion and Cavalier poets

An example of the Cavalier style can be seen in the painting "Charles I, King of England, from Three Angles" by Anthony van Dyck.

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. based on the article CAVALIER
• The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Annotations: Cavaliers

Further reading

• Barratt, John; Cavaliers The Royalist Army at War 1642–1646, Pub Sutton, 2000, ISBN 0-7509-3525-1
• Marryat, Frederick; The Children of the New Forest; (Novel)
• Stoyle, Mark; Choosing Sides in the English Civil War BBC website
• John Cruso Military Instructions for the Cavallrie: or Rules and directions for the service of horse first published 1632^[1]

Footnotes

1. ^ Military science in western Europe in the sixteenth century page 45

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