Cavalier in the context of "Elias Ashmole"

I puritani (The Puritans) is an 1835 opera by Vincenzo Bellini. It was originally written in two acts and changed to three acts before the premiere on the advice of Gioachino Rossini, with whom the young composer had become friends. The music was set to a libretto by Count Carlo Pepoli, an Italian émigré poet whom Bellini had met at a salon run by the exile Princess Belgiojoso, which became a meeting place for many Italian revolutionaries. The opera is based on Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers (Roundheads and Cavaliers), a historical play written by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine and set in the English Civil War. Except for its title, the opera is not in any way based on Walter Scott's 1816 novel Old Mortality (translated into Italian in 1825 as I Puritani di Scozia), despite some claims to the contrary.

When Bellini arrived in Paris in mid-August 1833, he had intended to stay only about three weeks, the main aim being to continue the negotiations with the Paris Opéra which he had begun on his way to London a few months earlier. These negotiations came to nothing, but by October he had decided to spend the winter in Paris, especially as both Il pirata and I Capuleti e i Montecchi were to be given by the Théâtre-Italien that season. The offer from the Théâtre came in January 1834; he accepted because "the pay was richer than what I had received in Italy up to then, though only by a little; then because of so magnificent a company; and finally so as to remain in Paris at others' expense."

Richard Cromwell (4 October 1626 – 12 July 1712) was an English statesman who served as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1658 to 1659. He was the son of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.

Following his father's death in 1658, Richard became Lord Protector, but he lacked authority. He tried to mediate between the army and civil society, and allowed a Parliament that contained many disaffected Presbyterians and Royalists to sit. Suspicions that civilian councillors were intent on supplanting the army peaked in an attempt to prosecute a major-general for actions against a Royalist. The army made a threatening demonstration of force against Richard, and may have had him in detention. He formally renounced power only nine months after succeeding.

The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 in and around the city of Worcester, England and was the last major battle of the 1642 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Parliamentarian army of around 28,000 under Oliver Cromwell defeated a largely Scottish Royalist force of 16,000 led by Charles II of England and Scotland.

The Royalists took up defensive positions in and around the city of Worcester. The area of the battle was bisected by the River Severn, with the River Teme forming an additional obstacle to the south-west of Worcester. Cromwell divided his army into two main sections, divided by the Severn, in order to attack from both the east and south-west. There was fierce fighting at river crossing points and two dangerous sorties by the Royalists against the eastern Parliamentary force were beaten back. Following the storming of a major redoubt to the east of the city, the Parliamentarians entered Worcester and organised Royalist resistance collapsed. Charles II was able to escape capture.

After the final defeat of the Royalists in the English Civil War against Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, the future Charles II of England (already by that time King of Scotland) was forced to flee England. With the support of a network of Royalist gentry, Charles first attempted to escape into Wales, then to Bristol disguised as a servant, then to the south coast at Charmouth. Finally, he rode east to Shoreham from where he sailed for France on 15 October 1651. During the six-week flight, he passed through numerous English counties, and at one point was forced to hide in an oak tree on the grounds of a house that was being searched by Parliamentarian soldiers. A £1000 reward had been offered for information leading to Charles's capture.

The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653) was the re-conquest of Ireland by the Commonwealth of England, initially led by Oliver Cromwell. It forms part of the 1641-to-1652 Irish Confederate Wars, and wider 1639-to-1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Modern estimates suggest that during this period, Ireland experienced a demographic loss totalling around 15 to 20% of the pre-1641 population, due to fighting, famine and bubonic plague.

The Irish Rebellion of 1641 brought much of Ireland under the control of the Irish Catholic Confederation, who engaged in a multi-sided war with Royalists, Parliamentarians, Scots Covenanters, and local Presbyterian militia. Following the execution of Charles I in January 1649, the Confederates allied with their former Royalist opponents against the newly established Commonwealth of England. Cromwell landed near Dublin in August 1649 with an expeditionary force, and by the end of 1650 the Confederacy had been defeated, although sporadic guerrilla warfare continued until 1653.

Sir John Snell (1629 – 6 August 1679), founder of the Snell Exhibitions at the University of Oxford, was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, the son of a blacksmith. He attended the University of Glasgow from 1642 to 1644.

He joined the royalists during the English Civil War, and fought in several battles, including the Battle of Worcester. Thereafter he took refuge in Cheshire, where he met Sir Orlando Bridgeman, whose clerk he became, being raised to the offices of court-crier and seal-bearer as his patron was promoted to those of judge and Lord Keeper.

Elizabeth, Lady Bernard (née Hall, formerly Nash; baptised 21 February 1608 – 17 February 1670) was the granddaughter of the English poet, playwright and actor William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. Despite two marriages, she had no known children, and was the last surviving descendant of Shakespeare.

Elizabeth was closely associated with the Royalist cause during the English Civil War (1642 to 1651). Both her husbands were dedicated supporters of Charles I.

Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne was a title that was created three times, once in the Peerage of England and twice in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first grant of the title was made in 1665 to William Cavendish, 1st Marquess of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was a prominent Royalist commander during the Civil War.

The related title of Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne [sic] was created once in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was conferred in 1756 on Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne (of the third creation), to provide a slightly more remote special remainder. The title became extinct in 1988, a year that saw the deaths of the distantly related ninth and tenth Dukes of Newcastle-under-Lyne.

The Parliamentarians, commonly called Roundheads by their enemies, were the supporters of the Parliament of England during the English Civil War (1642–1651). They fought against King Charles I of England and his supporters, known as the Cavaliers or Royalists, who claimed rule by absolute monarchy and the principle of the divine right of kings. The goal of the Roundheads was to give to Parliament the supreme control over executive administration of England.

The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, then separate entities in a personal union under Charles I. They include the 1639 to 1640 Bishops' Wars, the First and Second English Civil Wars, the Irish Confederate Wars, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and the Anglo-Scottish War of 1650–1652. They resulted in the execution of Charles I, the abolition of monarchy, and founding of the Commonwealth of England, a unitary state which controlled the British Isles until the Stuart Restoration in 1660.

Political and religious conflict between Charles I and his opponents dated to the early years of his reign. While the vast majority supported the institution of monarchy, they disagreed on who held ultimate authority. Royalists generally argued political and religious bodies were subordinate to the king, while most of their Parliamentarian opponents backed a limited form of constitutional monarchy. This was worsened by differences over religion and religious freedom. Reformed Protestants such as the English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters opposed the changes Charles tried to impose on the Protestant state churches of England and Scotland. In Ireland, the only one with a Catholic majority, the Irish Confederates wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater self-governance, and a reversal of land grants to Protestant settlers.