On 20 April 1653, Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament.
This is how he did it:
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
Ye sordid prostitutes, have you not defil’d this sacred place and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves gone…
Lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!”‘Deputed… by the people to get grievances redress’d… they barter’d… conscience for bribes.’
The more things change, the more they stay the same, as they say.
What price another Cromwell, eh?
What price another civil war?
Don't forget that Cromwell also let the jews back into this country who financed his 'new model army'.
ReplyDeleteIndeed he did, Scott. The man has much to answer for.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when the Devil tells the truth, that truth mustn't be dismissed simply because the Devil is telling it. If the parliamentarians back then were anything like those that have betrayed us over the course of the last sixty years, then his words were entirely appropriate.
All the best.