Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/132

Vane ’ (the introduction is dated 20 April 1655).

On the death of his father Vane thought of removing to Raby, and the arrangements for the sale of the arms there and the withdrawal of the garrison brought him into relations with the government of the Protector. Cromwell seized the opportunity to send him a courteous letter, which Vane answered by protesting (through Thurloe) that he was still the same both in true friendship to Cromwell's person and in unshakable fidelity to the cause (, iv. 36, 329; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1655 p. 315, 1655–6 pp. 43, 56). Vane was not a member of the parliament of 1654, though there was a report that he stood for Lincolnshire (ib. 1654, p. 288;, ii. 546). But, in spite of his inactivity, the discontent among the anabaptists and fifth-monarchy men was attributed to his secret influence (ib. iv. 509). In 1656 he came into open collision with the government. The Protector issued a proclamation for a general fast, in which the Lord was to be called upon to discover the Achan who had so long obstructed the settlement of the nation. Vane answered by publishing his ‘Healing Question propounded and resolved’ (, ii. 16; cf. Somers Tracts, vi. 315), which declared that the old cause was in danger because the general body of puritans was ‘falling asunder into many dissenting parts.’ The reason of this was that, instead of the freedom and self-government they had fought for, they saw a form of government rising up which suited only the selfish interest of a particular part (viz. the army), and did not promote the common good of the whole body engaged in the cause. The remedy was the adoption of a new constitution in place of the one which the army had imposed on the nation. Let there be called ‘a general council or convention of faithful, honest, and discerning men, chosen by the free consent of the whole body of adherents to this cause.’ The assembly thus chosen was ‘to agree upon the particulars that by way of fundamental constitutions shall be laid and inviolably observed,’ and tender this constitution to those it represented for subscription.

On 29 July 1656 Vane was summoned to appear before the council. He appeared on 21 Aug., was ordered to give a bond to the amount of 5,000l. that he would do nothing to the prejudice of the present government, and on refusing was sent a prisoner to the Isle of Wight (4 Sept.) Vane seized this opportunity to address a written reproof to the Protector. He told Cromwell that he was head of the army under the legislative authority of the people represented in parliament, but nothing more. ‘More than this I am not satisfied in my conscience is in truth and righteousness appertaining unto you.’ When Cromwell made himself the head of the state by the unlawful use of the power which parliament had entrusted to him, and allowed parliament only a share in the legislative authority, he was denying the principle of popular sovereignty which he and the army had asserted by executing the king. And just as he had denied his ‘earthly head,’ viz. ‘the good people of this nation in Parliament assembled,’ so he was denying Christ, his ‘heavenly head,’ by claiming authority in spiritual things and persecuting the saints (The Proceeds of the Protector (so called) against Sir H. Vane, Knight, 1656, 4to; cf., v. 122, 317, 328, 349; , ii. 16). Vane's imprisonment at Carisbrook Castle, which lasted till 31 Dec. 1656, prevented his candidature for the parliament of that year.

According to Ludlow, the Protector, in order to force Vane to compliance with the government, ‘privately encouraged some of the army to take possession of certain forest walks belonging to Sir H. Vane, near the castle of Raby, and also gave order to the attorney-general, on pretence of a flaw in his title to a great part of his estate, to present a bill against him in the exchequer’ (Memoirs, ii. 30). There seems, however, to have been real ground for doubt whether Vane was not claiming more than the grant under which he held entitled him to, to the detriment alike of the state and of smaller holders (Regicides no Saints, 8vo, 1700, p. 99; Carte MS. lxxiv. 15; Rawlinson MS. A. lxi. 102).

When Richard Cromwell called a parliament, Vane offered himself as a candidate at Hull and Bristol without success, but was returned for Whitchurch in Hampshire (, ii. 50;, vii. 588, 590). In a very able speech, 9 Feb. 1659, he urged parliament to define the Protector's authority before acknowledging Richard as Protector. The petition and advice, he argued, was but an attempt to revive monarchy, and would lead to the restoration of Charles II. ‘Shall we be underbuilders to supreme Stuart?’ ‘If you be minded to resort to the old government, you are not many steps from the old family.’ Let parliament therefore build upon the right of the people, which was ‘an unshaken foundation,’ and instead of accepting the new Protector as the son of a conqueror, ‘make him a son by adoption.’ The Protector, he explained, must be simply a