Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by John Fiske

The Cavaliers in Virginia: some popular misconceptions.

Some democratic protests.

We are thus brought to the question as to how far the Cavalier element predominated in the composition of Old Virginia. It is a subject concerning which current general statements are apt to be loose and misleading. It has given rise to much discussion, and, like a good deal of what passes for historical discussion, it has too often been conducted under the influence of personal or sectional prejudices. Half a century ago, in the days when the people of the slave states and those of the free states found it difficult to think justly or to speak kindly of one another, one used often to hear sweeping generalizations. On the one hand, it was said that Southerners were the descendants of Cavaliers, and therefore presumably of gentle blood, while Northerners were descendants of Roundheads, and therefore presumably of ignoble origin. Some such notion may have prompted the famous remark of Robert Toombs, in 1860: “We [i. e. the Southerners] are the gentlemen of this country.” On the other hand, it was retorted that the people of the South were in great part descended from indentured white servants sent from the jails and slums of England.[4] This point will receive due attention in a future chapter. At present we may note that descent from Cavaliers has not always been a matter of pride with Southern speakers and writers. There was a time when the fierce spirit of democracy was inclined to regard such a connection as a stigma. The father of President Tyler “used to say that he cared naught for any other ancestor than Wat Tyler the blacksmith, who had asserted the rights of oppressed humanity, and that he would have no other device on his shield than a sledge hammer raised in the act of striking.”[5] On the subject of Cavaliers a well known Virginian writer, Hugh Blair Grigsby, once grew very warm. “The Cavalier,” said he, “was essentially a slave, a compound slave, a slave to the King and a slave to the Church. I look with contempt on the miserable figment which seeks to trace the distinguishing points of the Virginia character to the influence of those butterflies of the British aristocracy.”[6] Historical questions are often treated in this way. We grow up with a vague conception of something in the past which we feel in duty bound to condemn, and then if we are told that our own forefathers were part and parcel of the hated thing we lose our tempers. Mr. Grigsby’s remarks are an expression of American feeling in what may be called its Elijah Pogram period, when the knowledge of history was too slender and the historic sense too dull to be shocked at the incongruity of classing such men as Strafford and Falkland with “butterflies.” The study of history in such a mood is not likely to be fruitful of much beside rhetoric.

Sweeping statements are inadmissible.

Before we proceed, a few further words are desirable concerning the fallacies and misconceptions which abound in the opinions cited in the foregoing paragraph. It is impossible to make any generalization concerning the origin of the white people of the South as a whole, or of the North as a whole, further than to say that their ancestors came from Europe, and a large majority of them from the British islands. The facts are too complicated to be embraced in any generalization more definitely limited than this. When sweeping statements are made about “the North” and “the South,” it is often apparent that the speaker has in mind only Massachusetts and tidewater Virginia, making these parts do duty for the whole. The present book will make it clear that it is only in connection with tidewater Virginia that the migration of Cavaliers from England to America has any historical significance.

Difference between Cavaliers and Roundheads was political, not social.

It is a mistake to suppose that the contrast between Cavaliers and Roundheads was in any wise parallel with the contrast between high-born people and low-born. A majority of the landed gentry, titled and untitled, supported Charles I., while the chief strength of the Parliament lay in the smaller landholders and in the merchants of the cities. But the Roundheads also included a large and powerful minority of the landed aristocracy, headed by the Earls of Bedford, Warwick, Manchester, Northumberland, Stamford, and Essex, the Lords Fairfax and Brooke, and many others. The leaders of the party, Pym and Hampden, Vane and Cromwell, were of gentle blood; and among the officers of the New Model were such as Montagues, Pickerings, Fortescues, Sheffields, and Sidneys. In short, the distinction between Cavalier and Roundhead was no more a difference in respect of lineage or social rank than the analogous distinction between Tory and Whig. The mere fact of a man’s having belonged to the one party or the other raises no presumption as to his “gentility.”

England has never had a noblesse, or upper caste.

Contrast with France.

Importance of the middle class.