CHAPTER III

The Vane Family. Sir Henry Vane the elder. Education of young Henry Vane. He awakes to a religious life. His travels in Germany and the Netherlands. Returns to England. Desires to serve the Crown. Consorts with the Puritans.

SIR HENRY VANE came of an old family of country gentlemen; his descent could be traced back for sixteen generations to Howell ap Vane in Monmouthshire, whose son, Griffith ap Howell Vane, married the daughter of Blodwin ap Kenwyn, Lord of Powis. One of his ancestors was knighted on the field for gallantry at the battle of Poitiers; some of them spelt the name Vane; others Fane; a descendant of the latter branch founded the noble family of Westmorland. John Vane, grandfather of Sir Henry Vane the elder, was involved in Wyatt's insurrection, but pardoned on account of his youth. He sat in two of Elizabeth's parliaments.

Henry Vane, the elder, was born in 1589. He began life with the estates of Hadlow and Shipburne in Kent, worth no more than £460 a year. He was knighted by James I., an honour which could be had by purchase, and which is still a source of profit to officials about court. He married Frances, daughter of Thomas Darcy of Tollhurst-Darcy in Essex, and with the help of his wife's portion he bought, or gained

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by favour, one place after another about court. James made him cofferer to Prince Charles, which post Sir Henry retained after he became king. Sir Philip Warwick tells us that he was "the first of any great officer who was admitted to have his wife within the inner circle of the court, having a good diet as comptroller of the household and a tenuity of fortune." It is likely that Lady Vane was useful in keeping up his credit with Queen Henrietta, who favoured the comptroller and disliked Wentworth. Clarendon, who bore Vane no good will, acknowledges that he well discharged the duties of the royal household, though he was not fit to be Secretary of State, being of very ordinary parts by nature which he had not cultivated by art, for he was illiterate, meaning probably that he displayed little knowledge of Greek and Latin. Vane was, however, well acquainted with modern languages, having travelled three years on the continent. Clarendon adds that he was very industrious, stirring, bold, and boisterous; the last quality is difficult to reconcile with his success as a courtier and diplomatist. As a member of the privy council, Vane's signature appears in many oppressive sentences of the Star Chamber. During the Thirty Years' War he was sent upon embassies to Christian, King of Denmark, and to Gustavus and some of the Protestant princes of Germany, to further Charles's shifty overtures to get back the Palatinate for the elector. The mind of the Stuart king was scarcely large enough to care for the Protestant cause in Germany; but for his brother's sake he would have turned against the United Provinces, had Austria or Spain been willing to restore the Palatinate. Vane's mission to Gustavus gained nothing

for the dispossessed elector; but Charles seemed pleased with the conduct of his ambassador. Sir Henry Vane sat in the parliaments of 1614-1620 and 1625, for Carlisle. He was afterwards elected for Hertford and Wilton, and for the county of Kent, remaining a member of parliament till his death. Towards the close of his career Wentworth showed a great scorn and hatred for Vane, though the official letters which passed between them are full of professions of regard. Vane's are shorter than Wentworth's, and relate much to foreign affairs. Altogether, the elder Vane was a man well fitted to make his way in the world, though he had neither the unswerving rectitude nor the great abilities of his gifted son.

With the money which he gained from his offices at court and the sale of Hadlow, Sir Henry Vane made some advantageous purchases: Fairlawn in Kent from the city of London for £4000, the seignories of Raby and Barnard Castle for £18,000, and Long Newton in the county of Durham. These he estimated (8th January 1649) as bringing in a rental of £3000 a year, but on the expiry of leases to rise to near £5000. His eldest son, Sir Henry Vane, was born at Hadlow, in Kent, in 1612. He had six other sons and four daughters. His second son, Sir George Vane, was knighted in 1640, and seated himself in retirement in Long Melton, in the county of Durham, while Charles distinguished himself as a diplomatist under the Commonwealth, when envoy to Lisbon. One of his daughters married Sir Thomas Moneywood of Essex, a man of learning and a good soldier; another, Sir Francis Vincent of

Surrey; a third married Sir Thomas Liddel of Ravensworth; while the eldest became the wife of Sir Thomas Pelham, the ancestor of those families who are now represented by the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Yarborough. Here we may repeat the weighty words of his friend and biographer George Sikes :1

"His life was not like other men, or his ministry. His wages were of another fashion, as the reason therefore have I write his life after another fashion than men's lifes used to be written, treating mostly of principles and course of his hidden life amongst the sons of God, that the sons of men may the better know and consider what manner of man it was they have betrayed, persecuted, and slain."

Henry Vane was educated at Westminster School. Amongst his fellows were Arthur Hesilrige and Thomas Scot, both destined to play leading parts in the great game of war and politics. In a review of his life Vane said, "I was born a gentleman, had the education, temper, and spirit, of a gentleman as well as others, being in my youthful days inclined. to the vanities of this world, and to that which they call good fellowship, judging it to be the only way of accomplishing a gentleman; but about the fourteenth or fifteenth year of my age, which was about

Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane, Knight, or a Short Narration of his Pilgrimage, to which is added his last Exhortation to his Children the day before his Death. Printed in the year 1662. The author of this singular biography was George Sikes, a Bachelor in Divinity and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, an enthusiastic admirer of Henry Vane. He was so deeply inlaid with Vane's mystical style, that it is difficult always to distinguish their writings. Unfortunately, Sikes occupies most of his pages with an account of Vane's theological doctrines, giving only rare glimpses of his political career.