Henry Vane the Younger

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Sir Henry Vane the Younger
Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
In office 1636 – 1637
Preceded by	John Haynes
Succeeded by	John Winthrop
Born	1613 England
Died	June 14, 1662

Sir Henry Vane (Harry Vane) (1613 – June 14, 1662), son of Henry Vane the Elder, served as a statesman and Member of Parliament in a career spanning England and Massachusetts. A constant theme of his life was religious tolerance.

He was a leading Parliamentarian during the English Civil War. Vane served on the Council of State during the Interregnum, but refused to take the oath which expressed approval of the king's execution. At the Restoration in 1660, after much debate in Parliament, he was exempted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act.

In 1662, he was tried for high treason, found guilty, and beheaded on Tower Hill.

Contents 1 Early life 2 In New England 3 Return to England 4 Civil War 5 The Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell 6 Richard Cromwell and after 7 The Restoration 8 Family 9 Works 10 Reputation 11 References 12 Further reading 13 External links

[edit] Early life

He was baptised at Debden on 26 May, 1613. He was educated at Westminster School and Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and in continental Europe at Geneva and Leiden.^[1] He adopted Puritan views from 1628, and travelled to Vienna in 1631, attached to a diplomatic mission.^[2]

[edit] In New England

Vane visited New England, arriving in summer 1635 with Hugh Peter and Thomas Savage.^[3][4] He became in 1636 governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a short-tenured successor to John Haynes. The situation he encountered was complex, on the religious, political and military fronts.

He supported Anne Hutchinson, a radical religious figure, and was on good terms with both Roger Williams, who warned him about the outbreak of the Pequot War and later stayed with him at Belleau,^[5][6] and John Cotton. Vane played a significant part in the early stages of the war, sending John Endecott on a punitive expedition. In the course of the operation Vane and Endecott had to ask for co-operation of the Saybrook Colony, founded the previous year, and led by John Winthrop, the Younger. There was already tension because the Connecticut River was being colonised from Massachusetts, well upstream of the younger Winthrop's authority.^[7]

Vane lost his position to John Winthrop, the father.^[8][9] The election was marked by a sharp disagreement over the treatment of John Wheelwright, another Hutchinson supporter.^[10] Vane left a legacy including the purchase of Rhode Island, and the 1636 foundation under that name of Harvard College.^[11]

[edit] Return to England

In 1637 he returned to England and became an administrator (1639) and a parliamentarian (1640).

King Charles I of England knighted him in 1640. He was a leading member of, and like Nathaniel Fiennes a representative of the younger generation in, the 'junto' or clique of leaders in the Parliament from around 1640 that effectively managed affairs: as identified by Clarendon, it consisted in the Commons of John Hampden, John Pym and Oliver St John, in the Lords of the Earl of Bedford, Viscount Saye and Sele, and Viscount Mandeville. Saye and Sele was both the aristocratic sponsor of the Saybrook Colony, named for him, and father to Nathaniel Fiennes. The 'junto' was closely linked to the Providence Island Company.

With the Earl of Northumberland as patron, as well as his father's support, Vane gained an position as Treasurer to the Navy;^[12] he held it from 1639 to 1641, when he was out of favour with the King.^[2][13]

Vane was instrumental in the impeachment of the Earl of Strafford. He passed to John Pym some copied notes of his father's, of a Privy Council meeting. He claimed that these demonstrated that Strafford had an intention to use the Irish Army to subjugate England. The evidence, when examined, turned out to be second-hand, ambiguous, and hotly disputed.

In the Root and Branch petition debate in the Commons, from December 1640 and into 1641, he supported, as did Nathaniel Fiennes, the call for radical reform of episcopacy. This issue, however, did not engage the main junto leaders. A Committee of Twenty Four was set up to consider the matter, to which Vane, Fiennes and four others were added by the wish of the 'godly' reformers. This was though a stalling device of the House, since the question of the bishops was withdrawn from the remit.^[14]

[edit] Civil War

In August 1642, at the outbreak of war, he was placed upon the committee of defence. He also was asked by Parliament to resume as Treasurer of the Navy, where he began a policy including colonial considerations and New England.^[15]

In 1643 he was the leading man among the commissioners sent to treat for a league with the Scots. Vane, who was opposed to the Presbyterian system, was successful in two important points. The aim of the Scots was chiefly the propagation of their discipline in England and Wales, and for this they wanted only a "covenant". The English desired a political "league". Vane succeeded in getting the bond termed the Solemn League and Covenant, and further in substituting the whole expression "according to the word of God and the example of the best Reformed churches" for the latter part alone.

On John Pym's death at the end of 1643, he succeeded to the leadership of his party, sharing dominance in the Commons with Oliver St John.^[16] He promoted, and became a chief member of, the committee of both kingdoms established in February 1644, and was sent to York in the summer of the year to urge Sir Thomas Fairfax and Manchester to march against Prince Rupert of the Rhine, and secretly to propose the king's deposition. On 13 September 1644 he acted with St John and Cromwell in the Commons, to set up a "Grand Committee for the Accommodation", designed to find a compromise on the religious question dividing the Westminster Assembly, and at least identify some loopholes for religious tolerance, on behalf of the Independents.^[17]

In 1645 he was one of the negotiators of the Treaty of Uxbridge. He was, with Oliver Cromwell, a prime mover in the Self-denying Ordinance and the New Model Army, and his adherence to the army party and to religious tolerance now caused a definite breach with the Scots. Vane had argued for freedom of conscience for all religions, a policy directly opposed to Presbyterianism, and his leadership fell away in 1646. In fact the end of the First English Civil War left the "Presbyterian" group in the Commons, led by Denzil Holles, William Strode and Sir Philip Stapleton, slightly stronger than the "Independents", under Vane, Cromwell, St John, William Pierrepont and Sir John Evelyn.^[18]

During the subsequent struggle, Vane was one of the six commissioners appointed to treat with the army by the parliament, and endeavoured to effect a compromise, but failed, being distrusted by both the Levellers and the Presbyterians. His views of government may be studied in The People's Case Stated, written shortly before his death.

"The power which is directive, and states and ascertains the morality of the rule of obedience, is in the hand of God; but the original, from whence all just power arises, which is magistratical and co-ercitive, is from the will or free gift of the people, who may either keep the power in themselves or give up their subjection and will in the hand of another." King and people were bound by "the fundamental constitution or compact", which if the king violated, the people might return to their original right and freedom.

In spite of these free opinions, Vane still desired the maintenance of the monarchy and the constitution. He voted for a declaration to this effect on 28 April 1648, and had consistently opposed the various votes of "non-addresses". Several communications had already been fruitlessly attempted with Vane from the king's side, through the agency of Lord Lovelace in January 1644, and through that of John Ashburnham in March 1646. Vane now supported the renewal of negotiations, and was appointed on 1 September 1648 one of the commissioners for the Treaty of Newport. He here showed a desire to come to terms on the foundation of toleration and of a "moderate episcopacy", of which Cromwell greatly disapproved, and opposed the shaking off of the conferences. Vane absented himself from parliament on the occasion of "Pride's Purge" and remained in retirement until after the king's death (January 30, 1649), a measure in which he took no part, though he continued to act as a member of the government.

[edit] The Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell

On February 14 1649 he was placed on the Council of State, though he refused to take the oath which expressed approbation of the king's execution. Vane proved an able administrator. He furnished the supplies for Cromwell's expedition to Scotland, and was one of the commissioners sent there subsequently to settle the government and negotiate a union between the two countries. He showed great energy in colonial and foreign affairs, was a leading member of the committee dealing with the latter, and in 1651 went on a secret mission to negotiate with Jean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz, who was much struck with his ability; while his knowledge of foreign policy, in which he inclined in favour of the United Provinces, earned the praise also of John Milton.

In the First Anglo-Dutch War, following the defeat in the Battle of Dungeness late in 1652, a new Admiralty Committee worked to improve and reform the Navy. Articles of War were drafted, the basis for future naval tactics for many years. Vane directed these changes, as chief commissioner of the navy, and victories were obtained against Maarten Tromp.^[19]

In domestic politics Vane continued to urge his views of toleration and his opposition to a state church. In January 1650 he brought forward, as chairman the report of a committee on the regulation of elections, a bold proposal on electoral reform.^[20] He wished to reform the franchise on the property basis, to disfranchise some of the existing boroughs, and to give increased representation to the large towns; the sitting members, however, were to retain their seats. In this he was opposed to Cromwell, who desired an entirely new parliament and the supremacy of the army representation. He was in the group of 'February dissenters', along with his father, Arthur Hesilrige and Francis Rous.^[21][22]

On 20 April 1653 Cromwell forcibly dissolved the Long Parliament while in the act of passing Vane's bill. When Vane protested, "This is not honest; yea, it is against morality and common honesty", Cromwell shouted, "O Sir Henry Vane, Sir Henry Vane; the Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane!"^[23] This incident created a permanent breach in their friendship. It also meant that the radical group of Vane, Hesilrige, Henry Marten, Edmund Ludlow and Algernon Sidney were driven from power.^[24]

In his seclusion at Raby Castle, Vane now wrote the Retired Man's Meditations (1655). In 1656 he proposed in A Healing Question^[25][26] a new form of government, insisting as before upon a Parliament supreme over the Army. He was encouraged to publish it by Charles Fleetwood;^[27] in a postscript appear the words "the good old cause", and this coinage became a rallying cry in the next few years for Vane's group of republicans.^[28] The seditious movements of the "Anabaptists", or fringe religious Independents, were also attributed to Vane's influence, and on 29 July, 1656, he was summoned before the council. Fleetwood was Cromwell's son-in-law, but John Thurloe was disquieted by the work, as he wrote to Henry Cromwell in August.^[29] Reluctant to answer the summons, and refusing to give security (of £5,000) not to disturb the public peace, Vane was sent prisoner to Carisbrooke Castle.^[30] There he remained until 31 December 1656.

He addressed a letter to Cromwell in which he repudiated the extra-parliamentary authority he had assumed; he did have a circle of admirers or "Vanists".^[31] Richard Baxter classified Seekers, Ranters, Behmenists and Vanists together, as religious wild men.^[32][33] Henry Stubbe, a protégé of Vane introduced to him by Westminster head Richard Busby, defended Vane, in his Essay in Defence of the Good Old Cause, and Malice Rebuked (1659).^[34][35]

[edit] Richard Cromwell and after

In the parliament of Richard Cromwell he was elected for Whitchurch, when he urged that the protector's power should be strictly limited, and the negative voice of the new House of Lords disallowed.

Subsequently he allied himself with the officers in setting aside the protectorate and in restoring the Long Parliament. On Richard Cromwell's abdication he regained a position in the national counsels.

He was a member of the committee of safety and of the council of state appointed in May 1659, was commissioner for the navy and for the appointment of army officers, managed foreign affairs and superintended finance. He adhered to John Lambert, remained a member of the government after the latter had turned out the Long Parliament, and endeavoured to maintain it by reconciling the disputing generals and by negotiating with the navy, which first deserted the cause.

In May 1659, though, he also advocated for a Senate, a position he followed up in A Needful Corrective (1660), and Stubbe stated openly in October 1659 that permanent Senators would be required. These proposals caused a terminal split in Vane's alliance with Hesilrige, and their followers mostly deserted Vane.^[36] In consequence, at the restoration of the Long Parliament in December 1639, he was expelled from the House, over Hesilrige's protests, and ordered to retire to Raby.

A Needful Corrective or Balance in Popular Government in part answered James Harrington's Oceana, and in part was millennial in its expectations.

[edit] The Restoration

At the Restoration Vane was imprisoned in the Tower of London by the king's order. After several conferences between the houses of the Convention Parliament, it was agreed that he should be excepted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act, but that a petition should be sent to Charles asking that his life might be spared. The petition was granted.

On the meeting, however, of the new Cavalier Parliament of 1661, a vote was passed demanding his trial on the capital charge, and Vane was taken back to the Tower in April 1662 from the Isles of Scilly, where he had been imprisoned. On 2 June 1662 he appeared before the Court of King's Bench and Lord Chief Justice Robert Foster, with John Kelynge prosecuting the charge of high treason. In a rigged trial, he made a skilful defence, asserting the sovereign power of parliament in justification of his conduct. He was, however, found guilty. Charles II now felt he was too dangerous a man to be left alive, and retracted his earlier promise to show clemency.^[37][38]

He was beheaded on Tower Hill on 14 June 1662. Samuel Pepys was there and records:

He made a long speech, many times interrupted by the Sheriff and others there; and they would have taken his paper out of his hand, but he would not let it go. But they caused all the books of those that writ after him to be given the Sheriff; and the trumpets were brought under the scaffold that he might not be heard. Then he prayed, and so fitted himself, and received the blow; but the scaffold was so crowded that we could not see it done....He had a blister, or issue, upon his neck, which he desired them not hurt: he changed not his colour or speech to the last, but died justifying himself and the cause he had stood for; and spoke very confidently of his being presently at the right hand of Christ; and in all things appeared the most resolved man that ever died in that manner, and showed more of heat than cowardize, but yet with all humility and gravity. One asked him why he did not pray for the King. He answered, "Nay," says he, "you shall see I can pray for the King: I pray God bless him!"

[edit] Family

Vane married, in 1640, Frances, daughter of Sir Christopher Wray of Barlings and granddaughter of Sir William Wray of Glentworth, Lincolnshire, by whom he had a large family of sons and daughters. Of these Christopher, the fifth son, succeeded to his father's estates and was created Baron Barnard by William III.

[edit] Works

Besides works already mentioned and several printed speeches, Vane wrote:

• A Brief Answer to a certain Declaration of John Winthrop (reprinted in the Hutchinson Papers, published by the Prince Society, 1865)
• A Needful Corrective or Balance in Popular Government ... in answer to Harrington's Oceana; Of Love of God and Union with God, comprising two treatises:
  • (1) An Epistle General to the Mystical Body of Christ on Earth
  • (2) The Face of the Times: A Pilgrimage into the Land of Promise ... (1664).

The Trial of Sir Henry Vane, Knight (1662), contains, besides his last speech and details relating to the trial, The People's Case Stated,^[39] The Valley of Jehoshaphat, and Meditations concerning Man's Life.

A Letter from a True and Lawful Member of Parliament to one of the Lords of His Highness's Council (1656), attributed to Vane, was written by Clarendon; and The Light Shining out of Darkness was probably by Henry Stubbe; while The Speech against Richard Cromwell is the composition of some contemporary pamphleteer.

[edit] Reputation

"He had an unusual aspect," wrote Clarendon "which ... made men think there was something in him of the extraordinary; and his whole life made good that imagination." Vane's talents as an administrator and statesman were acknowledged. He possessed, says Clarendon, "extraordinary parts, a pleasant wit, a great understanding, a temper not to be moved", and in debate "a quick conception and a very sharp and weighty expression".

The 1662 biography The Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane the Younger by Vane's chaplain George Sikes included John Milton's Sonnet 17, written in 1652 and praising Vane.^[40] The sonnet was presented by Milton to Vane (July 3 1652), rather than made public at the time.^[41]

The religious writings were found difficult, even baffling, by readers as varied as Richard Baxter, the Earl of Clarendon, Gilbert Burnet and David Hume.^[42] Blair Worden comments that "Vane's opaque political ideas and religious beliefs are now barely intelligible".^[43] David Parnham writes "He presented himself as a "witness" of light, as a spiritualist, as one dispensing advanced wisdoms in the epistemological setting of an imminent and apocalyptic age of the Spirit".^[44]

His reputation was at its height in the nineteenth century, and particularly in the United States. John Forster wrote a biography of Vane with one of Henry Marten as Vol. IV (1837) in his Lives of Eminent Statesmen. Charles Dickens included the exchange between Vane and Cromwell at the end of the Rump Parliament in his A Child's History of England, part-published in the early 1850s.^[45] In English Traits (1856), Ralph Waldo Emerson starts a list of English greats with King Alfred and Roger Bacon, closing chronologically with George Herbert and Vane.^[46] Charles Wentworth Upham wrote a popular biography.^[47][48] James Kendall Hosmer, editing Winthrop's Journal in 1908, wrote of Vane that

“

... his heroic life and death, his services to Anglo-Saxon freedom, which make him a significant figure even to the present moment, may well be regarded as the most illustrious character who touches early New England history. While his personal contact with America was only for a brief space, his life became a strenuous upholding of American ideas: if government of, by, and for the people is the principle which English-speaking men feel especially bound to maintain, the life and death of Vane contributed powerfully to cause this idea to prevail.[49]

”

Sean Gabb has written on Sir Henry Vane: Americas First Revolutionary.^[50]

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

[edit] Further reading

• The Healing Question

Contemporary memoirs and diaries:

• Hist. MSS. Comm. MSS. of duke of Buccleuch, U. pt. ii. 756;
• David Masson, Life of Milton, iv. 4.42 and passim
• John Milton, [sonnet addressed to Vane]
• George Sikes, The life and death of Sir Henry Vane, Kt., 1662

Later works:

• S. R. Gardiner, History of England
• S. R. Gardiner, Great Civil War
• S. R. Gardiner, Commonwealth
• Clarendon, History of the Rebellion
• Margaret A. Judson (1969), The Political Thought of Sir Henry Vane the Younger
• Jack H. Adamson, Harold F. Folland (1974), Sir Harry Vane: His Life and Times, 1613–62

[edit] External links

• Official Massachusetts Governor biography
• (German) BBK page