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 supported him, and returned the three excluded magistrates as its deputies. Vane showed considerable irritation at his defeat, and some undignified resentment towards Winthrop, his successful opponent. A controversy with Winthrop over a new law enabling the magistrates to prevent the settlement in the colony of persons they thought dangerous was his last appearance in Massachusetts politics. On 3 Aug. 1637 he set sail for England (ib. i. 263, 277, 281; Hutchinson Papers, i. 79).

Vane's American career has been harshly judged by American historians. He made many mistakes, but the greatest mistake was that made by the colonists themselves, when, out of deference to birth and rank, they set a young and inexperienced stranger to deal with problems which tasked the wisdom of their ablest heads. Subsequently, however, his connection with New England became an advantage to the colonies, and in 1645 Massachusetts merchants in difficulties with the English government found him a strong helper. ‘Though he might have taken occasion against us,’ writes Winthrop, ‘for some dishonour which he apprehended to have been unjustly put upon him here, yet both now and at other times he showed himself a true friend to New England and a man of noble and generous mind’ (, ii. 305).

In January 1639 his father obtained for Vane a grant of the joint treasurership of the navy. This office, of which the chief remuneration was a fee of threepence in the pound on money paid by the treasurer, was worth 800l. per annum, and would be worth as much more after the death of Vane's colleague, Sir William Russell (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1638–9, pp. 125, 307, 343, 485;, p. 103). Vane was consequently employed in the expenditure of the ship-money and the equipment of ships to be used for the Scottish war, while his connection with the admiralty led to his election as member for Hull in the Short parliament (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1639–40, p. 568). On 23 June 1640 Vane was knighted. On 1 July he married at St. Mary's, Lambeth, Frances, daughter of Sir Christopher Wray of Barlings, Lincolnshire, his father settling upon him, at the marriage, Raby, Fairlawn, and all his lands in England, which were of an estimated value of 3,000l. per annum (, pp. 101, 115). At this time Vane seemed, according to Clarendon, ‘to be much reformed in his extravagances,’ and appeared ‘a man well satisfied and composed to the government’ (Rebellion, iii. 34). But his religious views were unchanged, and an accidental discovery brought him into close connection with the parliamentary opposition. About September 1640 Vane was searching among his father's papers with the leave of the latter for a document required in connection with his marriage settlement, when he found his father's notes of the council meeting of 5 May 1640. Impressed by its ‘high concernment to the Commonwealth,’ he began to copy it. As he was transcribing it Pym came to visit him, and he showed Pym the original paper, and allowed him to make a copy of his own transcript. A distinction between his duty to his natural father and his duty as a ‘son of the Commonwealth,’ and Pym's argument that ‘a time might come when the discovery of this might be a sovereign means to preserve both church and state,’ overcame his first reluctance to allow this breach of confidence. The original was subsequently burnt at the king's orders, Vane's own copy was destroyed by Pym at his request, and Pym's transcript alone remained to be used by the opposition leaders in case the oral testimony of the elder Vane and other councillors should prove insufficient to convict Strafford of his design to employ the Irish army against the liberties of England. The production of this paper in the House of Commons on 10 April 1641, and at the trial in Westminster Hall three days later, sealed Strafford's fate (, Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, p. 328;, Notes of the Long Parliament, p. 37; , Rebellion, iii. 132). The verdict of the puritan party was that ‘an admirable providence had discovered this business’ which justified the younger Vane ‘from all breach of duty,’ because ‘this was an act of God himself’ (, p. 331).

In the first session of the Long parliament Vane, who was again returned for Hull, was, apart from his share in Strafford's trial, chiefly notable as a leader of the most advanced ecclesiastical party. On 9 Feb. 1641 he was added to the committee on church affairs as a representative of the root-and-branch men (Commons' Journals, ii. 81;, Letters, i. 306). Vane, Cromwell, and St. John were the originators of the bill for the total abolition of episcopacy which Sir Edward Dering introduced on 27 May 1641. Vane's first printed speech was one delivered on that bill, asserting that the whole fabric of episcopal government was ‘rotten and corrupt from the very foundation of it to the top,’ and must be pulled down in the interest both of the civil state and of religion (Old Parliamentary History,