I'd rather be a Roundhead than a Cavalier

uh the question is or the motion before us rather is I'd rather be a roundhead than a Cavalier uh and these terms as you know roundhead and Cavalier were applied to the opposing sides in the English Civil War which tore this country apart uh between 1642 and 1649 uh the person perhaps rarely quoted in these gatherings but not for gotten Michael foot uh a previous and some would say equally unpopular leader of the labor party uh famously said the only thing I want to know about a man is which side he would like his ancestors to have fought on at Maron Moore it's extraordinary to think that the dividing lines of a war fought some 370 years ago uh could still be used to define uh who we are in Michael foots day but even today as well I thought it' be useful before we hear our two speakers to just uh give a little bit of the background information so they can plunge right away into the the arguments the Civil War or Civil Wars or as historians I'm told prefer to refer to them these days as the war of three kingdoms and we may hear an explanation of that term were caused by a complex uh mix of political and economic and religious and social factors many of them had been brewing uh right through the earlier part of the 17th century in England uh but it crystallized with the struggle for power between King King Charles I and Parliament which eventually came to a head when Charles raised his Royal Standard in Nottingham that conflict ended with the defeat of Charles and famously his execution in 1649 that led to the formation of the Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell leader of the parliamentarians uh became and rejoiced in the title of Lord protector after cromwell's death and the brief rule of his son the monarchy was restored in 1660 with the accession of Charles II uh to the throne I know of course you're all familiar with that that was purely to bring up the one or two people here who are not steeped uh in English 17th century history up to speed and I think we've done that so who were the two sides in this conflict on the one side the king uh mostly supported by aristocratic families older more established families Catholics and by people in uh the north and west of England and on the other hand Parliament supported largely in the South and Southeast uh also backed by Puritans and religious Independents who had been uh offended and inflamed by Charles's attempts to impose religious uniformity across the land uh each side then would give and this is often how the names uh stick would give insulting nicknames pejorative names to their opponents so the parliamentarians called the royalist Cavaliers a term derived from the Spanish term cavaleros meaning armed Troopers or Horsemen and the royalists called the parliamentarians roundhead it's a reference to the shaved heads uh of the London apprentices who were active on the parliament side before the fighting began so there was uh obviously an element of mockery and stereotyping going on with these terms but the key stereotyp in each case was that Parliament saw the royalists or Cavaliers as Louch and dissolute and flamboyant while the royalists saw the parliamentarians The Roundheads as uncouth ill-dressed and sort of uh infract lowborn so tonight we're going to look and drill down into those stereotypes see whether uh they were real whe they were fairly applied then uh but also and I think this is the uh Spice in our conversation why it is that those terms might still resonate today and to what extent the country we live in in 2014 still divides on roundhead or Cavalier lines now to uh debate this we have two uh great speakers um both of them are and I warn you here going to Ed Miller Bandit this evening uh by which I don't mean they're going to forget the large and Central chunk of their argument um they are going to instead dispense with a Podium and just uh present themselves informally to you uh our first Speaker tonight let's get straight to this arguing for the case of The Roundheads is historian whose books include Blen him the battle for Europe and Prince rert the last Cavalier his latest book widely acclaimed is the killers of The King The Men Who dared to execute char Char I first which tells the stories of the men who signed Charles the first death warrant which is interesting given tonight that he's uh defending the Parliamentary cause because his forbear Henry Spencer the first Earl of Sunderland was a royalist in the Civil War I don't mean to intimidate his opponent when I point out that he is also included in volumes that collect the great speeches of the 20th century and of other centuries in fact uh usually he appears at the end of the volume uh for the eulogy he gave famously for his sister Diana Princess of Wales so our first speaker please a warm welcome for Charles Spencer well thank you very much I should say this is the first debate I've been parted to since 1982 when at Eaton I took on Boris Johnson over the existence of Father Christmas and uh rather remarkably I won but I think Boris helped me with my Case by not having prepared for one second surprising uh as I was waiting to come into this cockpit this evening uh I was making polite conversation downstairs and I said so why is it shaped like this and they said oh no that's so they could see bodies being carved up in the olden days and see the dissections so I'm feeling very small and slightly exposed tonight I'm going to cut straight to the nub of my argument and then build up around it and bring you personality who I think will support my cause uh I think if we go really to the nub of the issue of the roundhead Cavalier debate it is whether you honestly believe that the divine right of kings allows a man whose head of a state to act as he want believing that he's only answerable to God or do you believe in the right of Parliament and the people who elect those people to Parliament to have their voice heard and to curtail the action of a man or woman with a crown on their head and that's really where this comes down to and the fact is I'm going to broaden a debate to where its full meaning comes into focus and that is that this argument yes it does have its ramifications today but it's really about Charles I first and Charles II and their rules so we're talking really the the I suppose the focus is from 1625 when Charles took over the crown to 1685 when Charles II died and I think I have to just lay it out there that neither man was very impressive individual and I'm going to start with Charles I I think on a human basis he was perfectly admirable in certain areas he was a very good husband until he took his mistress towards the end of his life he was a very good father he was a h a patron of the Arts a great patron of rubben and Van djk and and a great he had a real appreciation for those fine things but he was never meant to lead so I think that's his get out clause he was the second son he had an elder brother who took an unwise dip in the temps and died so this is a man who's much better suited not as king but as somebody who enjoyed his real pleasures reading the Bible playing chess he was very good at lawn balls but leader at a time when this country needed leadership more than it ever had he was an ABS absolute disaster and yet how come he led an army into war against his own people well I see that as the definition of a bankruptcy of leadership the fact that this man not only raised his standard at Nottingham calling his troops to come and support him uh and in fact in a moment of great significance the banner blew down that night uh in a superstitious age this mattered a lot but here he was whipping up an army to fight against his own people now the people who went to fight him these Roundheads who were so despised and looked down upon uh by the Cavaliers these tended to be people a lot of them from the southeast and uh uh the London areas and and the East Anglia people who had strong leaders of their own and who wanted to make a stand against what they had seen as a very long period of Royal abuse of power from the late 1620s till 1640 Charles chose to rule without Parliament and to do this to fund himself without the money that the revenue that Parliament would have given him he had to resort to really shameful abuses of medieval powers that the Kings had had and it was only because through his own I suppose Prejudice in terms of religions he whipped up the Scots to rise against him and to invade England that he had to raise armies and had to call Parliament so this is a man who's not worried about bringing Warfare and bloodshed upon his own people he lost the first Civil War a series of uh stunning defeats towards the end uh reduced the military force of the royalists to nothing and then you enter this stage where Charles was taken basically prisoner but prisoner not as you and I would recognize it he was treated with great care nobody knew what to do with a defeated King and he shuttled around various palaces including Hampton Court until he made a break for it and being uh not aware of the the safest place to go which would have been the the continent he ended up on the aisle of white and there he did his real real mistake and this is where I think even those who would have a notional and gut reaction to loyalty towards the crown must let him go he went against all of the public pronouncements he was making about peace and he fostered the second Civil War and this is his big sin in my eye it's one thing to lose the first Civil War but to secretly whip up a second one which caused unnecessary and and quite severe Bloodshed in the spring and summer of 1648 this is the arrogance of a man who was as we know from his baggage train at nasby prepared to bring in foreign Catholic forces to try and prop up his kingship against his own people this is where he becomes a traitor and this is where they were justified in trying him for his life and I believe although the the actual court that was constructed to try him in January 1649 was totally flawed there was an absolute right of those who accused him to tell him that he was a traitor he was as the Puritans among the judges said that man of blood this was a little snippet from a verse in the Book of Numbers which said that man of blood who brings blood shed upon his kingdom must die so Charles was duly dispatched and then we get the decade uh of well 11 years in fact of I suppose roundhead rule which is mainly cromwell's time and cromwell's of course a hugely divisive figure only in England could a man who chops off the head of a king and then kicks out Parliament have a statue outside the House of Commons but he was a great man as well as a flawed man and I think one of the signs of greatness is how you act in Triumph and it would have been totally understandable by makavelian terms for Cromwell to have got stuck into to the remaining royalists and maybe executed a few to make sure that if everything went wrong on the roundhead side there weren't ready people ready to jump up and take the royalist cause again and people advised Cromwell to take this harsh attitude but no he refused to do it he thought it wrong and he didn't do it at all and of course this left his legacy vulnerable he left as his Heir his son Richard as Lord protector and I have to say Richard has had a very bad R wrap of it from the uh from the historians over the years but in fact he was a perfectly decent man he realized he wasn't up to the job he stepped aside and it's only because of the chaos that happened after this that Charles II came back he had no right to come here he hadn't done some wonderful thing abroad to make him this great Talisman that we needed to have here he just happened to be born the eldest son of Charles I first and this country was in chaos so we went to the default of monarchy so Charles II came back among this wave of royalist euphoria people tripping over themselves to forget that they had actually fought for Parliament and they pointed their fingers at the regicides and let them be the scapegoats the 80 men the survivors of the 80 men who had somehow either signed the death warrant or or pursued the king in court or on the scaffold but Charles II soon showed his true worth this was a man who before this had revealed himself to have no sense of loyalty the Duke of montro was the great royalist standard Bearer in Scotland and in 1644 1645 had delivered six incredibly rare royalist victories but in the 1650s Charles II as Prince of Wales double DT him and left him to be taken by the enemy and he was taken by in Chains through the streets of Edinburgh uh he wasn't allowed to defend himself from the missiles raining in at him and he was beheaded and his four quarters dispatched but this was a family tradition because Charles I had done the same to the Earl of straford straford had risked everything to support the king and the King wrote to him and said that he would guarantee his honor his fortune and his life well he failed on the third one and straford unbelievably was sent for his dispatch so I think at this point I would like to say that if you're going to be loyal to a cause loyalty has to be a two-way street and you're offering your loyalty to two men who have no concept of it for themselves even on the day that straford was going for his execution Charles I first had the goal to say that he was feeling worse than straford must do this is an incredibly self-absorbed Dynasty the stewards I think have this C cataclysmic record of not being very good at being Kings and not worthy of loyalty and if you look at their legacy if you look way back to Mary Queen of Scots executed James I first failed in his fundamental Duty as a Protestant King in Europe to go to the rescue of his own daughter who had married the elector Palatine and had her kingdom taken away by Catholics and it was Parliament who was the the force that wanted England to go to war to save a Protestant Dynasty and James would have nothing to do with it because it was too expensive and then you have Charles the first and Charles II and then James II who's just outside the period I'm encapsulating tonight but was an utter disaster and after three years was exiled and expelled and became an embarrassment to the French living off them so all in all we're looking at a family who are asking you to believe that they have a god given right to your loyalty but they have no concept of loyalty to those who risk everything for them and it's on that basis that I think anyone who votes for them is really doing so at their Peril thank you thank you thank you perfectly to Time Each of our speakers have got 12 minutes if by any chance our second speaker uh is overshooting you may hear me pinging the glass uh that's the polite warning of time rather than a demand for bord or bergundy to be brought to me um but we didn't need to do that then our next uh speaker making the case for the for those Cavaliers we just heard denounced as self-absorbed and undeserving of loyalty is the reader in early modern history at Royal Holloway University of London uh she regularly appears in the broadcast media and elsewhere to talk about monarchy as well as the politic IC and social history of these islands she is the author of Elizabeth's bedfellows and intimate history of the Queen's court and of Mary chuda England's first queen here to make the case for the Cavaliers a warm welcome for Anna [Applause] whitelock thank you very much I'm not going to quite millerand it just in case I uh forget some key points um first of all Charles Spencer undoubtedly a great Storyteller however I'm going to add a few facts and nuances to his argument Charles Spencer and his supporters can argue perhaps that to be a roundhead was to be a defender of Freedom the fundamental Rights of Man and popular sovereignty he can and he did point to the climatic years of the late 1640s uh which saw The Roundheads challenge defeat and of course ultimately execute Charles I the absolutist Tyrant as they would have it as such uh Char I have problems because we've got a nice and a nasty Charles or you know two Charles's uh so Charles Spencer uh of course can then argue that uh with uh the Civil War we see the end of uh what he's described as ridiculous concepts of medieval kingship and the birth of uh the Constitutional rule that we take for granted today now I want to sort of take apart some of those arguments or at least challenge them a little bit I will argue that uh Charles Spencer's support for the round head and indeed his uh claims for their achievement misrepresents their cause as it developed during and immediately after the Civil War I will point to the reality of Life under the round heads during the 1650s and ask whether this was the kind of country you would have wanted to have lived in we will look at the actions of the archetypal and much praised uh by Charles fencer roundhead Oliver Cromwell has his achievement been overstated should The Roundheads get the plaudits that Charles claims they deserve I will also question how decisive and significant the Civil War actually was in the journey towards constitutional rule the vict ictory of The Roundheads was after all emphatically reversed with the restoration of Charles II in 1660 and one only needs to look for example to the 1680s when the crown humbled Parliament to argue that the round heads did not inevitably set a course towards constitutional monarchy we also need to move Beyond these stereotypical images of Roundheads and Cavaliers as Jonathan said they were born as terms of pmic and abuse um but in deciding your position today in this debate it's important to realize that this is not simply a choice between a monarchy or Republic when we think of round heads and Cavaliers we're thinking more than that we're thinking about an attitude to life a lifestyle a temperament an ideal and it crosses class lines pleasure passion Jo deiv or self-control self-denial and a dow lack of humor such is the Stark choice now in reality of course we need both but it's what you would prefer to be made of the most if I can put it like that that this debate is about but first let us deal with the 17th century context what was it to be a round head or a Cavalier can we look back and make a choice well it's not an easy question everybody has an impression and mental image of the Cavaliers gorgeously dressed supporters of Charles I and of course we have van dijk uh to thank for much of that the popular impression has much to do uh with a Cavalier's clothes and his Charles Spaniels as it does with his politics and it's long been a tendency to dismiss uh the Cavaliers in the the words of Celler and yatan in their 1066 and all that as wrong but romantic as the unthinking unyielding Defenders of an Absolut Monarch in the face of those who asserted the supremacy of parliament but actually and this is a crucial point that I would First Take issue uh with uh nice Charles here was that actually the terms are much more complicated it's not simply about foreign against Divine Right monarchy matters of religion of politics geography gender family self-interest all of these played a part in people's decisions about which sides to take in the Civil War broadly speaking yes those who fought for the king uh were high anglicans and Catholics but there were there were also some moderate Puritans there were men and women and they were not simply Defenders of a Mor bound status quo royalism was full of Vitality cultural vibrancy and intellectual creativity perhaps the archetypal Cavalier was the king's nephew Prince Rupert who was put in charge of the Cavalry he was tall strikingly handsome and a brilliant leader he's often remembered today as little more than being an impulsive Cavalry man brightly clad and Galloping at the head of the royalist forces but actually that does very uh scarce Justice to the whole of the man when his participation in the Civil War ended rert was only 26 years old and went on to have an active Life as a soldier a sportsman a scientist and artist indeed our very own uh Charles Spencer has written an excellent book on Prince rert the last Cavalier and he himself has acknowledged uh Prince Rupert's appeal in this fantastic book of Charles the the prince is portrayed as impetuous and imperious but also courageous and industrious a man interested not only in the art of war on land and on sea but also an amateur scientist who invented new arguments and explosives uh sorry new armaments and explosives an artist and a founded member of Charles II's rawal Society there was more to him than his handsome looks and his spanel wasn't there Charles another great Cavalier of course was William Cavendish Marcus and later Duke of Newcastle in many cases he perfectly matches the kind of stereotypical image of the Cavaliers uh but again there's more to him than this Beyond his enthusiasm for fencing and horse riding he was an important patron of the artart in particular Ben Johnson he wrote verse and Pros himself and together with his brother he was at the forfront of the new philosophy in England promoting theoretical research practical experiments in Optics mathematics mechanics and when he was in Exile he continued his philosophical and scientific researches drawing uh dayar and Hobs into his uh Circle he patronized many of the leading exponents in the fields of literature art music and Science and he must be acknowledged for this he also married whilst he was in Exile and his wife uh who better known as Margaret Cavendish was also a figure uh to much to be recommended she was a feminist in many ways ahead of her time the first woman in Britain to publish books in her own name including a biography of her husband so I think we can agree that we can dismiss the Cavalier stereotype of style over substance uh I could go on I could point to William davan I could point to uh Edward Hyde who wrote A a history of uh the English I could go on and not to least to mention of course Cavalier poets who wrote about sensual love and the importance of enjoying life and living in the moment so from this distance it's perhaps impossible to say whether where you would have been in the 17th century a Cavalier or a roundhead So Many Factors were at stake and in fact again to add a slightly more nuanced position to the debate many people were initially reluctant to commit themselves to one side or another people saw themselves as being both for the king and for Parliament and were then only as the War developed forced to take sides and what of the round heads did did they prove to be the champions of populist sovereignty and Liberty would you have liked to live under roundhead rule the round heads were against the monarchy and in support of parliament we know that but actually what's Central to their uh belief was religion the centrality of religion and we need to put that very much at the heart of our debate and we're we're talking about The Roundheads here we're not simply talking about a desire for simple Worship in the fa of Charles um more ornate uh more ornate worship and equal access to the scriptures we're actually talking about their core belief being predestination in the Divine election for salvation of a Chosen Few and it was this in fact that galvanized their opposition to church and King far from the Puritans being egalitarians or Proto Democrats this was about the most elitist worldview imaginable not to mention one that tended towards a strident paternalism a knowing what's best for the unsaved and unwashed and we also can see division in roundhead ranks after the establishment of the Commonwealth the group of thinkers known as the levelers soon clashed with the newly appointed K Council of State key leveler leaders were imprisoned moreover many of the tens of thousands of women who fought on the side of The Roundheads were equally disint pointed when thousands signed a petition for equal rights and deliver it to Parliament they received short shrift they were told by cromwell's parliamentarians to go home and wash the dishes pretty much words to that effect when we're talking about Cromwell and loyalty I think we need to think in very different terms than perhaps uh our nice Charles here would suggest what resulted after the execution of the King was not the Visionary Commonwealth that many held out hope for in the end it seemed seemed more like a military coup than a democratic Revolution England became a religious Republic an armed Camp an occupied country in or but name where law might easily be delivered at the point of a sword as in the magistrates Court along with this massive security campaign was this drive to Puritan eyesee the land the Church of England was destroyed uh Bishop priests chaplain School teachers were ordered to leave their posts the universities were purged all joy was removed from daily life Christmas for goodness sake was to be banned even on a Sunday no longer could you do horse riding or knitting Cromwell we need to consider very carefully he W he displayed a colossal self-righteousness a coarse intolerance uh and for bullying he was no Pro to Democrat he of course perpetuated in land not least Infamous atrocities which dominated uh that period and he's apping cruelty is acknowledged right to this day and of course in 1653 this great Champion defender of uh Parliament dissolved the r Parliament and in doing so he undid at a stroke the entire legitimacy of the war which he'd fought against the king's own unparliamentary principles the Republic failed have I got one minute I haven't pinged yet oh I haven't pinned oh good got at least 90 seconds oh brilliant the Republic failed in 1660 there was a widespread desire to establish the relationship between crown and Parliament and with the restoration of Charles II the exploits of the parliamentarians were emphatically reversed so much that in 1700 the Pope laurate John dren could write thy Wars brought nothing about indeed it might be argued that the most important effect of the Regis side and cromwell's protectorate was to induce as one historian has described an enduring mistrust of radical institutional change in England if Charles I first had not been executed it might be asked would we still have a monarchy now but what about the terms roundhead or Cavalier today and this is really where the heart of tonight's debate lies these terms survive regardless of the 17th century conflict and have come to describe different uh and opposing types or archetypes in British national character and just as in the 1640s it's not simply a question of class or money left or right but it's one of taste and temperament on the one side we have flamboyant the love of fun a scorn for rules a sense of irony on the other side we have those marked by earnestness discipline in life and work an iron will to give up pleasure always ready to be outraged or indignant ready to wave a finger of disapproval and not naturally given to irony and some people might say isn't that basically American culture well in many ways in many ways that's true many uh of the English revolutionaries were exported there at the restoration Cavaliers instead rely on flamboyant connections they rely on the big picture big gestures taking risks seizing the day they believe in self-sacrifice if the CTS motivates them them they celebrate the court Cult of the amateur it's about taking part not necessarily winning now in their commitment to hard work and moral prty of course The Roundheads are to be admired they've made a considerable contribution to Britain today they've set up bureaucracy and systems with a bowler hatted professionalism but are we now not increasingly aware of the dangers and the downside of roundhead Britain an encroaching sense of the nanny state of being what we can and cannot do there's growing resistance to the intrusion of the state to health and safety regulations Big Brother surveillance cameras in our life yes we've achieved thank you Roundheads but at what cost society's now suffering from a burnout inst an inability to get off life's treadmill a sense that there's more to life than work but not knowing how to change we all want a bit more Cavalier influence in our lives we you want more food more good company and appreciation of the better things we can also I think see Cavalier and roundhead types among politicians I'm sure we recognize roundhead ones rather humorist puritanical Dow more focus on winning and being more politically correct than inciting the passions you know the type of people it doesn't make you want to stay watching question time they are the politicians who conform to professional party machines who follow the dictat of party officials or Spin Doctors Cavalier politicians on the other hand stand out for their irreverence their passions their determination not to be politically correct one might Harald Tony Ben as a figure might one might even point to Boris Johnson you don't have to agree with his politics to acknowledge his flamboyance and his ability to liven up a debate surely Winston church with Hisar smoking love of Rogues his Relentless passion his charm and wit heralded by many the greatest Britains was the ultimate Cavalier nowadays surely we want more Cavalier politicians there's too many clones too many risk averse carbon copy MPS who have few core convictions for which they are prepared to live and die for political disaffection and disengagement is surely a consequence oh what Ed millerand would do for some Cavalier Charisma and so to return to the motion ladies and gentlemen life is short life is precious we should celebrate it and enjoy its riches and live in the moment ladies and gentlemen do I look like a roundhead I urge you to reject the motion and support me in saying I would rather be a Cavalier than a round [Applause] head thank you very much tremendously Spirit of speeches from them both I'm going to give you the results of uh the vote you uh took part in as you came in here this was before you'd been moved and stirred and your passions roused by these two speeches uh this was the sort of indicative vote before you came in or as you came in but before you'd heard so those opting before the debate to be and to identify uh with The Roundheads were 33% uh those identifying as Cavaliers 38% Cavaliers with the advanced uh and don't knows a whopping 29% when you came in uh sitting on the fence um but we'll see how those numbers stuck up now that you've heard the speeches and and with what you're going to hear uh later on well inspired um by Anna's uh definitions there of these two types the passion and pleasure uh of uh the Cavaliers set against the self-discipline and uh humor bypass of The Roundheads as you defined it I just thought we would do something I had plan this but it just inspiration came to me a sort of quick fire round with the two of you I'm going to throw out a few names and I want to see if you agree on just at least if we're going to agree on our terms here um it's partly because you said Tony Ben who I would have down as a roundhead you see definitely he's mine okay you very good and uh but you claim Boris Johnson and Winston Churchill are you going to argue with those too well Boris well Winston church will go either side as we know from his record he did cross the floor Boris I won't give you because there was a famous reeside who was Boris Johnson uh he was a womanizing brilliant minded uh legally uh fantastic man who used to people used to pack into hear him called Henry Martin and he was a regicide who got off the death sentence because he was so charming and so brilliant at speaking and he was allowed to go and have life sentence in Chapo castle with his mistress I think Boris could do that but he hasn't as yet want to avoid Li I like the presumption that he would be facing a death sentence were it not for his charm um now let's so quick fire round I'm just going to throw a name and I want to hear both of you in a word David Cameron roundhead or Cavalier you can have him round no I don't roundhead you think yeah I think more well round head but he's trying to manufacture some Cavalier Charisma I think he sees himself as a as a Cavalier and that that it would be unfair to disillusion him okay I want I want us to so agreed on our definitions that you come to some convergence George Osborne roundhead or Cavalier roundhead I'm afraid so roundhead yeah very good I knew You' get agreement um Margaret Thatcher roundhead or Cavalier I I think roundhead actually yeah round roundhead good they agree Ed millerand you want to say he is he's the worst sort of round head but well good I think we I don't want him to be seen as representative I think there's going to be agreement on this one farage Cavalier yeah he's definitely a Cav Cavalier wild card here Alex sammon hard one began as a roundhead become a little bit of a Cavalier well there was a third section they were called the club men who sort of hated everyone I I'd put him i' I'd put him there okay I think we're going to get consensus on this one Russell Brand why do we give him space Cavalier [Applause] haut alone surely well he looks like a Cavalier but I think if you scratch underneath and not that I want to um you would find roundhead because he's pretty anti anti the rule of law isn't he okay very good I had two more which I was just going to throw you one of them is not a person but we'll see what you think of this but the one who is a person Grayson Perry roundhead or Cavalier cavaliere yes yeah good and my last one is Twitter roundhead or Cavalier gosh interesting uh I think it's made up of both Roundheads and Cavaliers when you said I can't see Charles the first managing Twitter so I I uh I I think we're looking at more Progressive types well I think Twitter's definitely a roundhead I thought to when you said it was lacking in humor no irony and constantly Earnest and wagging its finger in the manner of a nanny State I thought Twitter um I thought unfair stereotypes myself good all right well you've heard the arguments I'm going to start with you Charles SP because you heard the argument there that was put very trenchantly that um we shouldn't identify with Roundheads because they were joyless uh they uh had a terrible record in Ireland the atrocities in Ireland under Thomas under Oliver Cromwell purging of the universities even although some might count this in their favor even Banning knitting on a Sunday um I thought that put them in the round Camp a bit um but uh but you know the this pretty grim and Bleak record uh with even when you uh take out the sort of cultural things about the sense of self-denial and the humorlessness there's actually a historical record as well which is pretty Grim well if I can start with the Irish thing because that's the one I'm most familiar with yes it was it was a a horrendous thing that the New Model Army did in Ireland um there was a lot of Bloodshed among civilians but if you know the the rules of law uh of in terms of Warfare at this time in Europe uh it was very much that you warned a city to surrender and if they didn't surrender they knew the consequences because they were absolutely understood everyone would suffer if you were taken and the thing is particularly in Ireland the conditions were so terrible they had to draw lots to get regiments to go there uh they had little boys go and pick little straws out and the regiments had to go because nobody wanted to go there because of malaria and all the other terrible diseases that were there so if you put an army to the huge inconvenience and loss of life of sitting and besieging somewhere then you suffered the consequences so of course we can sit here today and say that was appalling this was entirely normal in Europe and everybody knew the rules and going on to the humorous bit yes I I mean and the the church bit and all of that well how accepting a church was the one under the stewards that forced all those people across the Atlantic to go and settle in America and start again because it was so repressive here and what about uh the whole the whole feeling that everything was monitored by the established church this was a time of enormous Superstition and people had to find their way forward and to give The Roundheads credit Puritan they were trying to find the pure roots of Christianity and I'm not saying they always found it but that's a noble mission in my belief and then if you go back to the the general humism culture well Anna threw some rather Third Rate sort of playwrights towards us which we I'm not sure she could name and I certainly can't but let's think of the great writers on the roundhead side headed up by Milton Milton was in a debate in this very Forum as being one of the two great who was greater Shakespeare or Milton this is the great spokesman for culture among the Puritans and then I have to say just very briefly because I know I'm hogging it but the people that Anna chose as these epitome of Wonderful royalists well absolute rubbish Prince rert Prince Rupert was a significantly talented man across the board but going back to my earlier point he was kicked out despite devoting his life to helping his uncle King Charles I first Charles the first stripped him of all his offices and pushed him away because he lost Bristol a city that was impossible to hold in in the circumstances and Cavendish was the worst sort of cavalier he is the one I should have thought of myself because he lost the battle of Maron Moore because he had a hissy fit with one of his generals and was busy smoking a pipe in a carriage when the when he was attacked and they had no Commander at mmore and that was why they lost and then Edward Hyde she mentioned well I'm sure Hyde would be thrilled to be brought in as a supporter for the Cavalier cause because Charles II exiled him he had been the most loyal Lord Chancellor this country had ever had and his reward was to be kicked out in 1667 because a bunch of Cavaliers got together and undermined his position at court made sure he has exiled with the petty added punishment that even in Exile his children weren't allowed to come and visit him even though one of his children was married to James II the future James the second so we're talking about I have to say extraordinary examples from the other side which only show the utter emptiness of their argument so what about that and and uh yeah and what what about that that you've picked up some flaky hissy fit characters there and also the point that yes even you know some some horrible things happen but that was just how it was back then well that is just nonsense um and the point of picking out a few characters I mean the fact is Charles was still evaluating them on but you were evaluating them on whether or not they were successful as military figures what I'm trying to say is consider these people in the round not simply as military figures but actually you know as sense of a greater sense of Life an appreciation of the richness of life rather than simply being defined and evaluated for their success or otherwise as military figures and the point is that both of these camps The Roundheads and the Cavaliers I mean actually Encompass a whole spectrum of different personalities and individuals so yeah of course within it both camps there's going to be flawed figures that's you know the very nature of it what we're trying to talk about here is we're talking about the stereo well I suppose we're trying to move beyond the stereotypes but we're trying to evaluate way the kind of temperament the mindset the approach the the lifestyle of a roundhead in a Cavalier rather than say you know do I agree with everything that Prince rert did or Charles Etc um so I think you know in a in a way that's not what the debate is about the point about Ireland you know the fact that we can just say you know we never mind about a massacre raping pillaging whatever that's just how it was at the time you know is just mindblowing and I think that people from both sides roundhead heads and Cavaliers and historians in the hundreds of years since have always you know held Cromwell to account for those particular atrocities so the idea that you can kind of dismiss that in a couple of sentences uh is is is stunning what's your view on standing back back a bit just from the antagonism between RH and Cavalier why it is that here we are best part of 400 years later still debating in these terms and they are terms which have hung around whereas a lot of you know the majority of language used about factions in other Wars in other places have just long faded into history why is it that roundhead and cavaliere continue as a sort of typology as a kind of division that's useful for this country well I think because I suppose there was unfinished business the fact that the monarchy you know was restored and I suppose in that sense you know it was it was a you know a spirited fundamentally sort of changing in lots of ways in terms of Outlook and you know new ideas that began to spring up and circulate and so on but at the same time you know the monarchy was sort there was a sense of you know not a full resolution but I'm also I mean to be honest I mean I don't know if I'm supposed to say this as part of this debate I'm not sure that the terms roundhead and Cavalier are in general common use I mean you know I I'll ask this to you know to the a rhetorical question to the floor I'm not sure that people would first of all instinctively say whether they would see themselves as round her or a Cavalier let alone their friends or whether they would think oh at work that person's in a bit of a round head I just don't think it you know I don't know where you work but where I AB you've got a very upmarket crowd here I'm sure they rarely think of anything else ch um what about you Charles you know here we are four centuries later these terms are at least still understood I mean do you accept what Anna was saying there that maybe it's because there was some unfinished business here yes I I think even if the terms aren't in in common currency except in the Guardians office I I think the that the the actual notion of whether you're Cavalier or roundhead but Cavalier as a as an adjective is completely different to being a Cavalier I mean Cavalier has a sort of Dash and a and a sort of charm to it which obviously wasn't part of the the process back then but I think that we it's quite interesting the way um Anna sort of drilled down into what she perceived uh everyone to be and uh and I'm not going to to fighter on that but it is still open to interpretation the roundhead attitude or the Cavalier uh and and I don't think we should uh I agree with her you can't can't generalize that everyone on either side in the Civil War uh adhered to that stereotype but I think this is a country that if you look at it for so long we've had predominantly two political parties whether it was wig or Tor or or labor and conservative uh at the helm we are really a a two-party State although that's becoming uh more blurred now but traditionally that's what we've been so it's easy to sort of see it in a in a in a very clear-cut uh way Let's uh in perhaps roundhead Spirit of Proto democracy and imagine ourselves in the Putney debates let's open this up and hear other voices uh we've got people walking around I hope with microphones there's one there there's one there and although I'm a bit blinded I think yes there's a microphone a fixed microphone there I'm going to take them in s of groups of two and three any thoughts contributions questions do keep them brief if you can there's a firsthand up here uh and have we got someone in position well why don't we pass the microphone to you so we've got at least two ready yeah you go first can I just had a bit more noals to what Anna was saying earlier about Oliver gromwell who was a deeply complex man but he did enjoy practical jokes he loved music uh he said that when he was a Youngster he played football with a great great great Delight um he when he lived at Hampton Court he enjoyed the patronage of Milton and you've already mentioned Milton but also M Andrew marll who was one of the great Puritan poets and his poem to his koi mistress is all about car DM and you know enjoying life and having a lovely time so actually I don't think I don't think I accept your interpretation of roundhead and Cavalier anyway so maybe there's just a little bit of cavalier in every roundhead and a little bit of roundhead every um who's got the microphone next somebody should yes can you hear this y as a to RTI sorry should I ask question yes please yeah I'm just making retired me as two retired members sitting here amongst Regiment of foot I would argue that um that the AR the trium for restoration of Charles II answers the question just explain a little bit more what you mean and there's somebody there with the microphone yeah just unpack your I was say well I would argue that the res triumphal restoration of King Charles II to the throne would answer the question Oh you mean because it means we're all Cavaliers ex I see okay thank you let's have uh gentleman there yeah I wanted to hear from the historians your view of 1689 and in a sense the do you see that as a Vindication of The Roundheads or a Vindication of the Cavaliers it's it's parliamentary sovereignty or of A Sort but it's but it's restoration of the monarchy and preservation of the monarchy so so ultimately the Constitution that we've inherited since then is it a Cavalier or is it a roundhead okay well why do you pick up that and the contribution there that you know the very fact that Charles II takes his place on the throne shows the argument was settled and it was settled in the Cavaliers favor I think what 1660 settled was the fact that this was a country that gravitated towards monarchy as a concept and the fact that the experiment was republicanism from 1649 to 1660 was ultimately a failure but it doesn't mean that it was a return of the Cavaliers Charles I second came back he was a bankrupted fugitive living in Europe with no hope of coming back and no money he came back because he was needed here as a tool of the state and he came back on very reduced circumstances he had to agree not to go for vengeance against anyone and he had to although he was allowed to have a a tilt at the regicides but not the 50% of the country that had stood against his family so I think the real answer is 1689 or 1688 when the Glorious Revolution took place and that was when it was the end of the Stuart uh Mainline James II was made into an exile because of all his excesses his Cavalier excesses as I'd see them uh trampling across the the rights of independent bodies such as Oxford University uh and trying to impose Catholic officers on the Army and basically I see this as the great Triumph of the round head uh movement that they managed not only to get rid of a totally unacceptable form of monarchy but to replace it with the blueprint for what became over time through lots of honing and lots of experimentation the constitutional monarchy that's supported by over 80% of the country now thank you um and what about you and this point about there's will who actually had on your definition some quite Cavalier traits music football jokes poetry Marvel all of that yeah I mean I wouldn't disagree with those things and I think you know as you said we're not saying that it's to be around he is to be 100% roundhead And to be Cavaliers that be 100% a Cavalier and and you know when you decide which you'd rather be it's more about that you know it's the majority of you if you like rather than you in your entirety so yes Cromwell absolutely but the was one of the things that you said were true but that's not to say that you know what he was the points in terms of uh the supremacy of parliament um popular sovereignty and so on those promises that he made in many cases and and I mean Charles in the beginning talked about loyalty in the way in which uh Charles I first had kind of broken the trust and loyalty and and people that had fought for him and what had he done turned around and done the same actually could be said of Cromwell but I do agree with um with Charles and again with the gentleman up there about the significance of of 1688 really more than uh the Civil War and and the restoration um you know I think it's striking that even though Charles II was a weaken figure you know that the Army in the Navy for example remained in the hands of the King on his return there was an act in 1661 that said neither Parliament nor the people uh had any coercive power over the persons of the king of this realm so Parliament you know retreated quite significantly in 1660 I think you know I was reading today at one of the sort of great and late historians Kevin Sharp who's who's written these a whole uh three volume work on on monarchy and the uh image of the monarchy over time through from the chudah the Stewarts and so on you know and he talks about how you know Charles II was in a way understood that the climate had changed and actually was you know realized the need to engage engage more with uh with people and was able to have be both a sort of there was a sort of common touch to him as well as being able to blend the sort of Mystique of monarchy and he points to you know various examples of Charles II himself not simply kind of coming back in the same model of his father but acknowledging times had changed uh so again you know yes we can say that you know in that sense perhaps there was a roundhead achievement there in the way that it kind of tempered uh Charles we it should also be said of course that the Church of England was rapidly restored uh in 1660 uh after the the sort of Puritan uh directory of worship and so on so again this was something that was PE was desired by many thank you can we get the microphone to this chap here keep your hand up other people who've who want to get in let's make sure we see your hands too uh we've got somebody there at the back and uh well yeah let's get the second microphone there after we've heard from you yeah um can I suggest that in fact um neither side is wholly deserving of of admiration or support now that um that Charles first was uh totally unreasonable and had believed in divine right of kings which was outdated and absurd and was self-serving in the first place uh and he took that to an extreme which necessarily resulted in a Revolt but then the roundhead side uh was Grim puritanical abolished plays as well as Christmas um that it was they ended up in chaos and but out of all the conflict between them we ended up with a settlement in Britain the Constitutional settlement which has lasted to this day we avoided the Bloodshed of the French Revolution and many other revolutions throughout Europe and that we were extremely fortunate at these conflict between these two unreasonable sides um and that the real heroes of the peace were those who made the compromise I'm not knowledgeable enough to know exactly who they were but I'm thinking of people like Monk and people who were the Peep's Patron I forget his name but people who made the compromise and actually established the order from which we've benefited down to this day so we almost needed both and the clash between them to get where we are now who who's got the microphone there yeah I wanted to ask a question and I'm American so I want to say we take the best of both but I wanted to address Charles first premise that the round heads didn't believe in the divine right of the monarchy and you didn't address that Anna so I was just wondering what you thought about it well you're suggesting that The Roundheads did believe in that that no no they did not believe in it and you didn't address whether or not you believe that the monarchy had Divine rights and could only you know speak to God really and oh you want this child to ask argue with to explain whether he believes on Divine Right no Anna didn't respond to his main premise that The Roundheads didn't believe that the monarch and I didn't respond I see sorry I'd like to know your thoughts on that okay thank you that's uh fine and who else got the microphone next I think this be the third one of this round yeah as it turned out it was it was one bad lot up against another bad lot but if we were unfortunate enough to be alive in the 1640s it was not as the motion rather makes it sound a lifestyle choice would I rather be jolly and gay and have a nice time or am I a bit serious it was a choice about the future of the country and here was a king who believed in the divine right of kings who was having his way with the country as it were and here were the taxpayers who said enough is enough old chum up with this we will not put this is not a proper moral and decent way to run this country of England and that was the choice they were making not a choice about how their friends would see them next time they met them thank you is there somebody up here who would like to get in we've got that microphone up there is any any takers no in that case let's um deal with these things let's put those to you first of all uh Anna white lot this idea that uh well first of all how can you be on the other side of The Roundheads given that their defining principle was in opposition to the divine right of kings does that mean you're somehow uh a believer in that divine right and then the point you just heard there this wasn't about you know personality type and sort of flare and zad deiv this was a really straightforward argument about the constitutional principle and one side believed in divon right and one side didn't and your side that your defending were on the wrong side of that argument well it's unfortun I mean I thought the gentleman at the back put it very well but unfortunately as it sort of broke down it wasn't simply a choice between you know divine right or or not I mean actually with within you know the roundhead um Camp there was all kinds of debates and discussion about exactly what should replace the monarchy so it wasn't simply a sort of yes or no question you're absolutely right though that you know in a way the question does suggest a sort of you know are we choosing which lifestyle are we choosing and actually it was about the future of the country but that wasn't something that was um absolutely settled I mean although um The Roundheads you know wanted to uh get rid of the absolutist Tendencies the arbitrary rule of Charles many weren't looking simply to get rid of the monarchy per se and that's you know that's true on both sides so it's it's much more Nuance than that and I guess in some ways that answers the question of the the lady too um you know it's not simply subscribing to you know um a monarchy or not um you could have a different position within that and and it's also true to say that within the this you know the 1640s and 50s people changed sides too I mean this was these were very fluid debates that were going on um such was the nature of the times do you want to say something um Charles fencer about the uh questioner there or the first Speaker there who said that actually you did need both and it was the conflict between them out of which was forged the settlement that has endured in our country for more than three centuries and a good thing too and uh you know by just making the case spiritedly for Roundheads you're missing the other half of that very necessary equation yes I I think it's a very intelligent point and I think there's a lot of Truth in it but basically I think where where I uh still push my point over your very good one just is the fact that the settlement that came out of it was essentially a roundhead one uh that the days of the royalism of old the Cavalier view of Royal royalty and royal power had gone so yes there was an inevitability it wasn't it wasn't just we needed this Clash it was going to happen if you got a very OB Sate King who listened to the last adviser who' spoken to him who surrounded himself with advisers who even his right-and man Clarendon said were a pretty poor Bunch that he was going to be in opposition so yes you needed something to be sorted out but it needed somebody as unfortunate in leadership as Charles I first to turn it into and let's not forget this the bloodiest war this country's ever had you know this is is the key it wasn't a minor scuffle it wasn't just a few little skirmishes in the Midlands this was an absolutely massive cause of Bloodshed and uh we're remembering the first world war quite rightly this centinary but the loss of blood uh in this country was even greater uh per percentage of population because of the war that Charles I first started by raising his banana can I I just absolutely agree with that you know the amount of Bloodshed and the way in which families and communities and Villages were torn heart and decimated was you know incredible and I think in many cases overlooked in the way in in in the sort of curriculum at schools and stuff I think this is kind of relatively neglected area I just wanted to pick up on one point when you said that the settlement was certainly a roundhead one what settlement are you pointing to oh I mean I don't mean a settlement as in that there was one but I suppose the the 1688 Glorious Revolution was definitely a victory for the the fundamental uh tenets of of the Parliamentary cour but that but then there's also some blend of Cavalier give and take in that that's what I saying but I was saying the overriding uh [Laughter] the I'm trying to be so polite and but I mean it's it's just that I think if you if you split it down the middle at the end of 1688 it's it's 80% uh parliamentary settlement and 20% reconstituted Royal Settlement all right let's hear with two people people coming waiting to come in Christians and then what we're going to do is have summing up and there'll be another CH so let's go with you first yeah uh I'd just like to question Charles Spencer's uh view on King Charles himself you gave this lovely sort of picture of Charles which sets him out to be very disloyal very loou but and and used the fact that he didn't help his sister in as as an example of that but you sort of bent the facts Sly to fit your argument in the view of Charles you wanted to build up he did actually send over troops to help his sister in fact he got involved in three conflicts between uh 1625 and 1629 and really you you've just bent those facts out to fit your argument can you really say that he was that disloyal he did go and help his sister well I didn't say I didn't accuse him of that at all I accused his father of not helping his daughter and that is true all right let's hear from you and we'll let's um that's right let's hear from you and then the it's hard for me to see but I know somebody else is waiting with a with a question yeah I'm a little bit disappointed in the way the argument's gone because I would have thought it's more about fundamental human rights and democracy you I mean we're talking about the working classes against the ruling classes as far as I see it and and no one's really addressed that we're talking about uh Divine ruled by Divine right or or uh right by birth against the people and I'm not sure that and for your money with the roundhead side were the people the side ofwell and his record has has kind of distorted that a little bit the way he went about it but Cromwell dissolves the Parliament that you know Cromwell dissolves the Parliament and takes power essentially to himself and has all the regalia as a monarch so which is why he distorted that's what I'm saying originally originally I would have joined The Roundheads on the basis that they're fighting for uh democracy and the people that's not how it was understood at the time people didn't simply go right I'm fighting for democracy I'm going to sign up and be a roundhead um it simply wasn't as clearcut as that and it would have been a very limited definition of democracy it wouldn't fit not democracy as we know it and I was going to say I it's not it's not the people a lot of the people really were unaware of what was going on 1644 so you're two years in to this war and two great armies arrive to sort it out in the north of England at Maron Moore on a summer's day and there's a sheep farmer there from Yorkshire and he's got his sheep in the middle and somebody goes over to him and says you better move them along the King and Parliament are about to have a battle and he goes have they fallen out so this is about the ruling classes sorting it out it's you have to fight within the ruling CL it's within the ruling classes and yes they as ever called upon the ordinary man to come and fight for them and die for them but they apart from some really politicized and intelligent people in the New Model Army who debated the future of man talked about universal suffrage things that were really revolutionary uh these were not uh these were not representative of the people as a whole the people as a whole did what their masters told them I'm afraid okay let's just hear this last one there's going to be another round lat so don't worry but this just just now yeah you've kind you've kind of jumped the gun but there were two things I really wanted to say one was the bit about the elect I always remember being astonished at school and that team seems to be to be anical toward democracy and actually that's one of the things that the Anglican church had for it and the other thing I was going to say which you just said was the bit about the fact that ultimately cronwell became Lord protector and that essentially you you didn't end up with greater representation or for even for the small amount that was the Gentry and that seems to me to be their ultimate failing that they weren't a very Humane bunch I guess and just explain your problem with the notion of the elect and perhaps explain that for people who are not steeped in the what I understood at school was that there were a small group who were the elect and regardless of what they did um my favorite were always the Ranter um you you were going to go to heaven and that everybody else wasn't going to go and it didn't really matter what you what you did so there was this this one group that were chosen if you like and that everybody else um depending on your how your um religion went had to listen to them and that's not very Democratic and not very comforting either thank you what I'm going to do now is ask our two speakers just before you all vote because we're getting to that point crunch time to do deliver some sort of closing summary uh summing up speeches just a couple of minutes each and um I think probably Charles spcer uh you should uh take on board that point that you just heard there um why did you go first two minutes uh the case for why we should vote with you uh as as a roundhead and perhaps just take just include if you would that point about the elect and some rather do Ates well this is a time of great religious strangeness from our point of view there were a lot of strange sects and a lot of strange beliefs but they meant a lot to people whether they were roundhead or Cavaliers so I think um it's impossible to apologize uh for either side for their very strong religious beliefs this was an age of superstition where religion got mucked up in that but I would point out that it was Cromwell who welcomed back to this country people of Jewish faith he accepted quakerism which had started uh during the Civil War and he was apart from the Irish Catholics which I have tried to explain I don't excuse it uh a a man of of relative tolerance who uh did actually a good job in teaching the steuarts how to absorb other religions but going back to my fundamental point about I'd rather be a roundhead than a Cavalier I take on board some very very astute points from the audience but I would say that the people who started off as Roundheads morphed into the wig party that gave further suffrage to the the people of this country more voting rights over the succeeding century and a half than anyone could have dreamt of uh before the Civil War these were people who put a a price on Merit over a birth and I know you're thinking that's hugely ironic that I say that but it's true this is a time when peeps managed to win Samuel peeps in the Navy managed to win over prince rert who we've heard of from both sides uh the whole notion of how the Navy of this country should be governed Prince Rupert said if a man's from the right family he should be in charge of a ship but peeps managed to win in the 1670s the fundamental basis for the professionalism of the Navy that served this country so well for 300 years and that was that nobody should even rise to the lank rank of left tenant unless they passed uh first of all having done three years passed the requisite exams and this was maybe health and safety gone mad in Anna's view but this actually led to a a real professionalism and a talent in this country and I think my final thought this evening was that when this motion was first thought of as one that uh needed an airing tonight I was asked to speak on behalf of the Cavaliers and I couldn't think of a single reason to do so thank [Applause] you thank you with with her closing case for I'd rather be a Cavalier uh two minutes to you Anna white I should say when I was asked to speak here I wasn't given the choice [Applause] um I I would like to pick up uh Charles's comments about the kind of strange beliefs of the Puritans I mean I think perhaps that's slightly uh patronizing and dismissive of the beliefs of the the Calvinists and so on who had this notion of the elect and actually you know it wasn't just tied up in Superstition these were deeply held beliefs and actually key to understanding the debate at the time between The Roundheads and the Cavaliers and as the lady absolutely said there know when we are talking about Puritans who absolutely believe that some people are saved and some people are damned um it's very hard to really be talking about the good of the Common Man in the same breath um I to to finish I guess I would take a lot of the points as Charles said from the from the floor that have been spot on in many cases and I think probably we can agree that actually we need to be a bit of both and where we are now in terms of our constitutional monarchy is in many ways a successful blending of both particular sides however in terms of the actual motion whether I'd rather be a roundhead and a Cavalier we can only be talking about where we are now and in that sense I think whilst we can say that the Cavaliers would represent a Britain of panach pleasure uh individuality a sense of living in the now and seizing the day the round heads would point to a Britain of discipline of hard work of State intervention of doing the right thing uh of following the letter of the health and safety uh to the uh to the Limit as I say we actually want to be a blend of both but I call on you to support the cause of the Cavaliers as without it what an impoverished repressed boring Britain we would be the English have always had an affection for Wayward idiosyncratic types Nigel farage aside and long may that continue so that's why I say I'd rather be a Cavalier than a round head and I reject the motion thank you thank you very much it is uh it's crunch time time for you to vote people will be walking around with ballot boxes you will given this when you came here you haven't finished yet you'll beat you uh you were presented with these when you came in your voting slip very very simple just uh break it along the perforation so a round head card goes in the box if you're voting uh to be a round head and the Cavaliers to be Cavalier if you don't know stay sitting please if you don't know and if you're if you want to abstain or you don't know put the entire voting slip both roundhead and Cavalier in the box if you are on that fence uh between them uh I'm just going to remind you of the vote when you came in this is what it was like before you heard Charles and Annis debating 33% of you exactly onethird were Roundheads 38% of you slightly more were Cavaliers and uh 29% were in the don't know category now you're voting uh big solid moment we're going to try and count those as fast as we can uh but while we're doing that we just thought we would take in a last few questions and contributions from the floor you probably won't move many votes at this stage but get something off your chest we're going to bring it back here for responses let's try and do this uh rapidly there's a hand there let's can we take a microphone to the gentleman there the people holding the microphones may be collecting votes but maybe not um let's hear from you and I've got a question of my own for Charles which I'll come to um is there a hand here somebody here who would like to ask question anyone up there no well let's hear from uh you yeah thank you so much for a a Great Entertaining evening I was um now contemplating voting and I'm uh fearful I'm going to vote Cavalier and wake up with the round head uh but I I I totally subscribe to uh being gay and being really infused by uh your your uh Cavalier arguments very nice thank you anyone else who wants to chip in explain how they voted why they voted uh any questions they have still on their mind there's a hand up there if we bring the microphone and somebody up here I'm told that little boy had his hand up young man up there with a microphone did you have your hand up or were you just uh expressing sheer enthusiasm for the evening there's a hand there yeah um can we get a microphone to this chap here while we're doing that while we waiting for microphone I'm going to put my question to you Charles yes um which was that you know as we've been describing this side the grounded side were in a way the sort of Proto Republicans of their day in fact Republicans because they formed a republic I'm just wondering um sort of any discomfort for you given your background and uh lineage being on that side of the argument particularly because you will and I'm taking you back to the events of 1997 there were many who felt that was a kind of Republican moment in this country and that your speech there there were many people who said if that speech been delivered three or 400 years earlier who knows what the consequences might have been it may have made people turn against even this monarchy and I just wonder if you have some of the skepticism you reserve towards the monarchy of the 17th century where the some of that lives on even applied to the monarchy in the 21st century well I think 300 years earlier I wouldn't be here tonight so um but the the point being that that there wasn't really wasn't so much Republicans do you know when when The Roundheads went into battle start with it's it's extraordinary to think they did it in the name of Parliament and the King they thought they were going to win the battle and rescue the king from Bad advisors so they didn't start off as Republican Republicans and in fact I think it was only a real hardcore who thought we should do without a king um and in fact you look at Cromwell himself he very seriously contemplated taking the throne and I think it was with a view to securing a succession after himself but his own comrades the ones really at the core thought it was from self arrestment and they said don't do it we've got rid of one Tyrant and we'll get rid of another so I don't think it was really a republican um debate uh became one that cost the head of a king um uh but uh with with huge politeness I'm going to skip the rest of your question and and and I'm just going to give one last little push which I and I'll accept being pushed back but there you know there was a feeling here now it seems bizarre but for that week that as if the monarchy was hanging by a thread serious people thought that and said so and that your very very powerful artion seemed to be perhaps what could have been the last cut you know severing of that thread was any of that in your mind at the time well I'm sorry Jonathan but my main attack was on the press and um and and the bits about the monarchy were very much sort of add-ons and if you look at that speech there's very little about the the the um monarchy itself in fact I I think I even said we I fully respect the tradition that they come from so it wasn't it wasn't this great anti-monarchical thing it was very much a a bashing of the press because my sister wasn't there to speak for herself and I thought it a duty to speak for her and actually particularly because I've been left as guardian of William and Harry uh I thought I should sort of say something to try and protect them from not your end of the press but the stuff that's been uh tickled by the levenson inquiry and it was and remains one of the most powerful speeches probably anybody here has heard in their lifetime well that's very kind of you but I mean it's one I'd rather not have given of course can I I mean I was just I mean I would say I mean not I mean in a way I think you know Charles's speech was powerful but for the the the emotion and obviously the context in terms of his sister but I do think that that the whole bigger circumstances around that moment was was quite profound and I think it wasn't about necessarily people wanting to get rid of the monarchy at that point but I do think there was a moment of acknowledging uh that the style of the monarchy needed to change and there it was the sort of beginning of a of the monarchy turning out and engaging more with people um becoming more um sensitive to to uh PR perhaps I mean I was watching the film The Queen with you know that Helen mirin uh starred in uh just recently and and it kind of reminded me again of the sort of you know when the queen was in Bor and didn't come down to London and this kind of real Rising uh tensions in London and people gathering at the gates of the palace and when she going to come back and when she and the fact that she didn't want to say anything um and so on and so on in the end she was forced to make a kind of an address and C certainly that's how the film portrayed it you know it might be might not be an accurate portrayal so I think it really did sort of Mark the beginning of a change in presentation a gradual sort of the way in which the monarchy conveyed itself the way that it articulates itself it uses to use you know Twitter to be more outward facing to acknowledge that it needs to kind of be aware of popular opinion rather than simply disregard it if it's going to sort of endure and survive so I do think it was a kind of watered moment not for Charles's speech in a sort of bigger picture but I do think in that sense of needing to reconnect and and and see to be seen to respond to the people at large and I suppose the point connecting to this subject tonight is that it shows these things are never fully settled they're always contested even three or four centuries later I I think so I must tell you my my remembering of the the the the movie The spe the the queen was I got a letter out of the blue and it was from a production company Granada or whatever and they said they were going to uh could they use um extracts from my speech uh in something they were making and I thought oh that's nice it'll be on a late night program in in Liverpool and Manchester and I hadn't really looked at the whole thing and I said yes that's fine um would it be all right if you made a donation to a charity of my choice I got a letter back saying well what would you like and I thought oh well maybe it'll get repeated so I said uh would £500 be all right and of course it was the whole movie The Queen was being made by Granada and I didn't realize that but going back your fundamental Point uh my charity wasn't thrilled I don't think but um but basically I think that the the point uh which you're going against is that the monarchy apart from those 11 years has been the backdrop to This na Nation story and therefore it is uh always in some sort of vision but as I say you know I think it's it's reach this state now where it is if you look at these opinion polls EX extremely popular what's come out of this and the Civil War and 1688 and all that were little blips along the way but we got something out of our system I think in the 17th century which most European countries didn't and we all know of course the French Revolution but across Europe in the 1840s were really massive revolutions and we didn't have that and I think it's because we had sort of got a valve in place after the events which we've been debating tonight there are some people who think that was in a way uh not quite a tragedy but a missed opportunity for Britain because we had for as exactly as Charles says we had avoided a violent revolution in the 17th century it meant we didn't have for example the revolution that the Americans would have a century later where they went for a full Democratic settlement I mean it wasn't fully universal suffrage but you know what I mean and that in some ways these events act did act exactly as Charles say as a valve but not in a good way yeah I mean certainly some would argue that it sort of lanced a boil but you know the boil remained um is that the right kind of metaphor I'm not sure doesn't seem a very nice one got yeah but um but yeah I mean the sense that there was a kind of um people were fearful of fullscale Revolution um and and it sort of built in a sense of conservatism I suppose towards the established institutions and you know that was a very qualified Revolution as such um and yeah I mean I think you can argue that it LS the B but certainly you know Republicans and as Charles said you know now you know that uh percentage of the population is shrinking in recent years but certainly they would argue that yes I mean you know that was the worst thing that could possibly have happened in a way the execution of Charles the first because you know it simply meant that when we saw or certainly the events that followed because um there was no Prospect for a kind of uh French Revolution style uh Revolt that would lead to the abolition of the monarchy the the result just seconds away um I want to see if there's anybody else here who had their hand up and wanted to make contribution yes you waiting patiently yeah I was going to ask um a lot of things have been brought up about the divine right of the king or or queen um surely with the execution of Mary by Elizabeth the first and then later on the execution of Charles I first removes the idea of divine rights because it brought up an idea of a prince of Europe can be killed therefore saying that they're no longer they are just as mortal as the rest of us in other words so you think the right had already lapsed as it were by the time we get to this period yes and why was that such an issue with this particular it's already it already been done 100 years ago Charles Spencer do you want to react to it well yes I mean Mary Queen of Scots was executed um I I think basically because she kept plotting so uh she she was uh a long-term prisoner who really overdid it and Elizabeth reluctantly had her executed and it yes that was I mean if you it was so dramatic The Kill of this queen that it was one of the Prime reasons between the next year the Spanish Armada coming so these things didn't happen lightly you know I mean we can look back in history and say well that one lost their head and that one did but at the time they were moments of such extraordinary uh disbelief you know I have this theory on Charles the first execution that most of the people who turned up that day knowing the King was going to be executed didn't believe it actually happen somehow it wouldn't happen and even the people who condemned him to death had taken the precaution of NE of putting these four massive pins in the scaffold because they thought that if it came to it they would have to tie up Charles I first and force him to die because they couldn't believe they'd actually got to where they wanted to get to and peeps wrote about the gasp from the crowd when the axe fell and the king's head was held up people were absolutely stunned and then I suppose in the final sort of approval of the divine right of kings a lot so the crowd rushed forward at Charles's execution to dip their handkerchiefs and clothing in the Royal Blood believing it had magical Divine proper he became a Marty absolutely the instance that he died didn't he so in that sense it sort of continued very last contribution from you and then we're going to give the vote um May I just simply give a plug that many of the issues which Charles has outlined are gloriously exemplified in the Putney debates may I give a plug to my local church uh St Mary's Putney which has got a gorgeous little section with with recordings and descriptions of the Putney debates and if you haven't experienced it you've missed one of the greatest circumstances of English History quite right very good very worthwhile appla excellent well we we we do now have uh those results in so before you came in third of you 33% were Roundheads 38 Cavaliers 29% don't know the don't knows have now fallen to just 1% so you did make up your minds uh Cavaliers are 37% Roundheads are 62% a swing of [Applause] 15% it me it means as far as this house is concerned you would all rather be uh Cavaliers than oh let me have a look here sorry let me WR there sorry you would rather be Roundheads than Cavaliers by 62% to 37% 62% 3 to 37% the final result it remains to thank our two speakers Charles Spencer and Anna white loock thank you very much good night

Channel: Intelligence Squared

Views: 29,153

Keywords: Intelligence Squared, Debate, great oratory, Intelligence Squared debate, speech, top debates, best debates, most interesting debates, educational debates, intelligence2, intelligencesquared, is debate, iq2, iq2 debate, iq squared, Roundheads, Cavaliers, Charles Spencer, Anna Whitelock, Jonathan Freedland, history, Cromwell, Charles I, Stuarts, English Civil Wars, Conflict, Politics, Charles II, Monachy, regicide

Id: AF8_J-M5Ahs

Length: 87min 43sec (5263 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 13 2015