Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/131

 (p. 97). As treasurer of the navy Vane received from 1642 to 1645 a salary of about 3,000l. per annum in fees. After the passing of the ‘self-denying ordinance’ that sum was reduced by one half, in accordance with an order of parliament, and on 16 July 1650 it was resolved to appoint a treasurer who should be paid a fixed salary of 1,000l. a year. As a compensation for the loss of his place, Vane was voted church lands to the value of 1,200l. a year (Commons' Journals, iv. 207, vi. 14, 440; cf. English Historical Review, ix. 487).

In domestic politics religion and parliamentary reform were the two subjects with which Vane was most concerned. In 1652 he wrote to the government of Massachusetts urging them not to censure any persons for matters of a religious nature (Massachusetts Hist. Coll. 3rd ser. i. 35). He saw good even in quakerism (Retired Man's Meditations, p. 184), and he opposed the party which wished to oblige Irish catholics to attend protestant worship (Commons' Journals, vi. 138). On the question whether the republic should have an established church or not, Vane and Cromwell took opposite sides. The proposals of Owen and other independent ministers to the committee for the propagation of the gospel, which Cromwell carried out in the ecclesiastical organisation of the protectorate, were absolutely contrary to Vane's principles. Of his utterances on the question no record has survived, but his brother Charles was one of the petitioners against Owen's scheme, and the sonnet which Milton sent to Vane on 3 July 1652 is a further proof that Vane was hostile to it. It expresses the satisfaction with which the poet hails a statesman who, like himself, was opposed on principle to a state church. To know Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, What severs each, thou hast learned, which few have done. The bounds of either sword to thee we owe: Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son (, Life of Milton, iv. 391–7, 442;, p. 97).

Vane's action on the question of dissolving the Long parliament produced a lasting breach between himself and Cromwell. Clarendon asserts, and Ludlow hints, that after the battle of Worcester Vane became suspicious of Cromwell's designs, and began to seek to diminish his power (Rebellion, xiv. 2;, Memoirs, i. 347). But there is no good evidence of this, and it is clear that as late as March 1653 they were still political allies (, Commonwealth, ii. 182). On 15 May 1649 Vane had been appointed one of a committee to report on ‘the succession of future parliaments and the regulating of their elections,’ and on the question of ‘the time for putting a period to the sitting of this parliament.’ On 9 Jan. 1650 he produced their report, which proposed that the future parliament should consist of four hundred members, representing proportionately the different counties, and that the present members of the Long parliament should retain their seats. Cromwell and the army in general wanted an entirely new parliament, and succeeded so far as to get the date of its calling fixed for November 1654. The Long parliament, however, preferred Vane's scheme, and embodied it in the bill which it was about to pass in April 1653. At the last moment Cromwell obtained from Vane and some other parliamentary leaders a promise to suspend the passing of the bill in order to discuss a suggested compromise, but the house itself insisted on proceeding with the bill. To prevent its passing, Cromwell dissolved the house. How far Vane was responsible for this breach of faith there is not sufficient evidence to determine, but it is clear that Cromwell regarded him as the person most to blame. According to Ludlow, when Cromwell called on his musketeers to clear the house, ‘Vane, observing it from his place, said aloud, “This is not honest; yea, it is against morality and common honesty.” On which Cromwell fell a-railing at him, crying out with a loud voice, “O Sir Henry Vane, Sir Henry Vane; the Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane!”’ (Memoirs, i. 353). Another version is that, as the members were going out, ‘the general said to young Sir Henry Vane, calling him by his name, that he might have prevented this extraordinary course, but he was a juggler, and had not so much as common honesty’ (, Sydney Papers, p. 141; cf., xiv. 9; , History of the Commonwealth, ii. 209).

After the expulsion of the Long parliament Vane retired to his house at Belleau in Lincolnshire, which he had purchased from the Earl of Lindsey (Commons' Journals, vi. 611). A seat in the ‘Little Parliament’ was offered to him, but refused. Cromwell seems to have desired his participation in the new government, and Roger Williams describes him as ‘daily missed and courted for his assistance’ (Cal. Clarendon Papers, ii. 203, 213;, Life of Milton, iv. 549; , i. 265). He lived in seclusion, devoting much of his time to speculations on religion, the first fruit of which was the publication of the ‘Retired Man's