Roundhead

Member of the Parliamentary party during the English Civil War 1640–60, opposing the Royalist Cavaliers. The term referred to the short hair then worn only by men of the lower classes.

Men at the court of Charles I fashionably wore their hair in long ringlets, so the Parliamentarians chose to wear theirs short in contrast. Many Parliamentarians were also Puritans, who thought they should live and dress simply and austerely. ‘Roundhead’ was originally a derogatory term and is thought to have first been used in 1641, possibly by Queen Henrietta Maria.