[Sidenote: The Parties to the Civil War: "Cavaliers" and "Roundheads"]
To the king's standard rallied the bulk of the nobles, high churchmen,
and Roman Catholics, the country "squires," and all those who disliked
the austere moral code of the Puritans. In opposition to him a few
great earls led the middle classes--small land-holders, merchants,
manufacturers, shop-keepers, especially in London and other busy towns
throughout the south and east of England. The close-cropped heads of
these "God-fearing" tradesmen won them the nickname "Roundheads," while
the royalist upper classes, not thinking it a sinful vanity to wear
their hair in long curls, were called "Cavaliers."
[Sidenote: Parliament and the Presbyterians]
In the Long Parliament there was a predominance of the Presbyterians--
that class of Puritans midway between the reforming Episcopalians and
the radical Independents. Accordingly a "solemn league and covenant"
was formed (1643) with the Scotch Presbyterians for the establishment
of religious uniformity on a Presbyterian basis in England and Ireland
as well as in Scotland.
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