The Cavalier!

I just Googled Cavalier image aiming for a pic of a dashing fellow to use in this post. Well I should not have been surprised that the first image I came across was not so easy to mistake for our Errol, but I was so smitten I have had to go with it. The word has over time been twisted from it's original meaning and become almost a compliment. In the post below I mention the use of the word as a troop type, well it started a long way away from that in it's first use.

The original word is a bastardisation of a Spanish word and meant a heavy drinking, womanising waste of space. This fit the image Parliament wanted the rest of England to believe the followers of Charles I King of England were. In short it was both propaganda and an insult. As mentioned yesterday, this was countered by Royalist circles introducing the term Roundhead when talking or writing about Parliaments leaders. Whilst Roundhead fell out of use soon after the Restoration the Court and hence the rest of Britain continued to use the term Cavalier as a badge of Honour. The breed of Dog favoured by the now dead King Charles I was named King Charles Cavalier Spaniel hence the cute pic. More recently a car (1970's) in the UK was rather aptly named the Cavalier (cornered like crap and in the rain well crapper) and was sporty and the desired car of every boy racer who could not afford a real car.

OK a bit of a reach for ECW related post but I am trying to pad out till the bomb shell post (and trying to link them all LOL).