You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing lately…. Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

These words are attributed to Oliver Cromwell during his forcible dissolution of the English “Rump Parliament” on 20 April 1653. After years of civil war and the execution of Charles I (1649), the remaining Long Parliament continued to govern but was widely criticized—by Cromwell included—for self-interest, delay, and failure to deliver constitutional settlement or reform. Cromwell entered the House of Commons with soldiers, denounced the members’ conduct, and ordered them to leave, bringing the Rump’s rule to an abrupt end and clearing the way for the short-lived Nominated (Barebone’s) Parliament and, ultimately, Cromwell’s Protectorate.

The quotation is a blunt indictment of political stagnation and perceived corruption: the Parliament has “sat too long” and produced too little “good.” Cromwell frames dismissal not as a partisan maneuver but as a moral necessity, culminating in the religiously charged imperative “In the name of God, go!” The line encapsulates a recurring tension in revolutionary politics—between representative deliberation and the claim that extraordinary circumstances justify extraordinary executive action. It also illustrates Cromwell’s self-presentation as an instrument of providence, using sacred language to legitimize coercive power while casting opponents as obstacles to the common good.

1) “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
2) “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say; and let us have done with you.”
3) “In the name of God, go!” (often quoted alone as the closing command)