Recorded in October 2019. This speech is said to be a transcript of Cromwell's words, delivered to the House of Commons in 1653. It first appears in Annual Register of 1767, which reads:
"The following piece is said to have been found lately among some papers that formerly belonged to Oliver Cromwell: and is supposed to be a copy of the very words which he spoke to the members of the Long Parliament, when he turned them out of the house. It was communicated by a person who signs his name T. Ireton, and says the paper is marked with the following words: 'Spoken by O. C. when he put an end to the Long Parliament.'"
Dr Wolfgang Michael, writing in Sybel's Historische Zeitschrift (vol. xiii, pp. 69-71), accepted this speech as undoubtedly authentic. He found internal evidence for its genuineness in the fact that many ideas and expressions may be found either in Cromwell's own speeches, or in contemporary accounts of the incident. e. g. Cromwell charges Parliament with corruption; says it is high time to put an end to their sitting; urges that the best interests of the country oblige them to do so; and terms the mace a bauble.
C. H. Frith, on the other hand, writing in The Academy for 22 March, 1890, after acknowledging these points, nevertheless regarded the speech as inauthentic. After reviewing the evidence, he decided that it was written by one Thomas Hollis, an 18th-century republican and admirer of Cromwell. The point of view that the speech is inauthentic appears to have persisted ever since. e. g. Lay (2020) mentions the speech in passing as "a forged version of Cromwell's words, published in 1767."
In any event, this speech, regardless of its authenticity, has (in my opinion) great literary merit. And it pleases the imagination, inasmuch as it captures the essence of Cromwell's dissolution speech on one hand, and we have no other direct transcript of it on the other.
The speech also has a notable place both in the political history of the 18th century, and in the history of liberty in general:
“On December 9, 1768, a man named Dennis Shade was arrested for posting up a paper at the corner of Bond Street. ‘It pretended,’ complained Colonel Onslow, ‘to be the speech of Oliver Cromwell when he came to the House, and turned the members out of doors.’ On the following day Shade and his instigator, one Joseph Thornton, a milkseller, were committed to Newgate by the House of Commons for their share in publishing this ‘infamous and seditious paper.’” (Frith 1918:206, quoting Sir Henry Cavendish’s Debates, i. 100; Common’s Journal xxxiii. 97, 99, 113, 116.)
Again, from "Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution":
"During the imperial crisis, a number of almanacs became increasingly politicized to the point that, in 1774, Nathanael Low included a woodcut of Oliver Cromwell on the front page of his An Astronomical Diary; or, Almanack." On the first page, Low included a famous excerpt from Cromwell's speech in which 'he put an end to the Long Parliament.' The corollary between the past and present--a corrupt Parliament--would have been obvious to many of Low's readers: 'It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this Place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of Virtue, and defiled by your Practice of every Vice. Ye are a factious Crew, and Enemies to all good Government.'" (Hattem 2020:46.)
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Transcript:
It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of 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 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. You, who were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves the greatest grievance. Your country, therefore, calls upon me to cleanse this 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 am now come to do. I command ye, therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place. Go, get you out! Make haste, ye venal slaves, begone! So! take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.
