Wily Dandies in Rustling Silks

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Byline: NED DENNY

REPROBATES: THE CAVALIERS OF THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR by John Stubbs (Viking, [pounds sterling]25) ALMOST four centuries on, the idea of the cavalier is still sufficiently potent to be part of a stock phrase, a speechmaker's cliche. When we speak of someone having a cavalier attitude, we summon an archetype that has its roots in the English Civil War -- and probably much further back than that. If no longer quite denoting the "petulant, disdainful, violentminded dandy" of Puritan umbrage, the phrase suggests nonetheless a sneering haughtiness, an inclination to ride roughshod over the feelings of others. Picture, if you dare, a silken-curled George Osborne in …