In 1653 the English Parliament was called the Rump, because it was only a remnant of that body which had been elected in 1640. 350 years ago today Oliver Cromwell entered the House of Commons and announced that the Members had grown immoral and corrupt (whoremasters and drunkards were some of the terms he used) and that the country could do without its services. “Take away that fool’s bauble” he cried of the Mace. At the point of the sword he dissolved the Rump Parliament.
Dexter normally does not support anti-Parliamentary coups but when he considers Cromwell's words below and the state of his own nation's Parliament he grows oddly wistful.
"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 of 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 that you do not possess? Ye have no more Religion than my horse! Gold is your God: Which of you have not bartered 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 defiled this Sacred Place, and turned 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.
Your Country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean Stable, by putting a final Period to your Iniquitous Proceedings in this House, and which by God's Help, and the strength He has given Me, I now come to do.
I command ye, therefore, upon the Peril of your Lives, to depart immediately out of this Place;
Go! Get out! Make haste, ye Venal Slaves, begone!"
The doors were sealed and some joker pinned up a poster reading, 'This House is to be let: now unfurnished.' The Rump Parliament was briefly succeeded by "Barebone's Parliament", named after one of its leading members, the eminent Puritan Praise-God-and-Flee-Fornication Barbone (known to his friends by the diminuitive "Praise-God". His brother was the equally splendidly-named Rise-Up-and-Tell-the-Glory of-Emmanuel Barbone.)
Posted by at April 20, 2003 04:47 PM