Cornell University Library F 67 .V24H82 3 1924 025 962 923 ^Ifta MXAML iz AP3±&i|9?r**P The date shows when this volume was taken. ^oTenewiiiis'book tgey the call No. and give to '■"■ .^' tjp(i^librarian, V . ^ HOME USE RULES r-' All books subject to recall All borrowers must regis- ter in the library to borrow books for home use. All books must be re> tiirned at end of college year .for inspection and repairs. Limited books must be returned within the four 'eek limit and not renewed. Students must return all bbbks before leaving town. ifficers should arrange for ;he return of books wanted ^ during their absence from ,j(/„.i town. '' Volumes of periodicals and of pamphlets are held in the library as much aa possible. For special pur- poses they are given out for a limited time. ..^ Borrowers should not use ' their library privileges for *' the benefit of other persona. Books of special value y', and gift books, when the ,.,V. giver wishes it, are not allowed to circulate. Readers are asked to re- port all cases of books marked or mutilated. Do not deface books by marks and writlnc. Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924025962923 llBooftfif bs Blames? K* ^o&mtv* SAMUEL ADAMS. In the Series of American States- men. i6mo, gilt top, $1.25; half morocco $2.50 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. With a portrait of Vane engraved on Wood, Plans of the Battles of Marston Moor and Naseby, a fa&simile of a letter by Vane, and a copy of the Great Seal of the Commonwealth under Cromwell, i vol. Svo 4.00 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. Publishers, Boston and New York. After Hmh-ahen's engrailing of the portrait by Sir Peter Lely. THE LIFE OF YOUNG SIR HENRY YANE GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, AND LEADER OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT WITH A CONSIDERATION OF THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH AS A FORECAST OF AMERICA SfC / JAMES k: hosmer PROFESSOR IN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS, MO. AUTHOR OF A " LIFE OF SAMUEL ADAMS," ETC. " As you advance in the second century of your national life, may we not ask that our two nations may become one people ? '* — John Bright to the Com- mitteeforike Centennial Ceiehratwn of the American Comtiiuiion. "The name of young Sir Henry Vane is the most appropriate link to bind us to the land of our fathers." — Uphah : Life cf Vane. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY €:{ie Stjtiertfitie ptre^#, Cam&niige i88S ^f Copyright, iSSS, By JAMES K. HOSMER. All rights reserved. President White Liorary The Riverside Press, Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton and Conqtany. To E. H. A. Non tam utilitas parta per amicum quam amici amor ipse delectat : tumque illud fit, quod ab amico est profectum, jucun- dum, si cum studio est profectum. Non utilitatem amicitia, sed utilitas amieitiam consecuta est. Solem e mundo tollere videntur qui amieitiam e vita tollunt ; qua a Diis immortalibus nihil melius habemus, nihil jucundius. CiCBKO : De A tnicitia, 13, 14. " Vane, young in years but in sage counsel old, Than whom a better Senator ne'er held The helm of Rome, when gowns not arms repell'd The fierce Epirot and the African bold, — Whether to settle peace, or to unfold The drift of hollow states hard to be spell'd, — Then to advise how war may, best upheld, Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage I — besides to know Both spiritual pow'r and civil what each means, What severs each, thou hast learn'd, 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." Milton, 1652. PREFACE. It fell to the present writer, a few years since, to prepare a life of Samuel Adams (American States- men series, Houghton, Mifflin and Company), who, according to his kinsman John Adams, was "the wedge that split apart" America from the land of our fathers. It falls to the writer now to prepare a life of young Sir Henry Vane, of whom it has been said that " his name is the most appropriate link to bind us to the land of our fathers." To treat each of these great historic figures has been for the writer a grateful task. There are few in America, perhaps a.t the present time there are few in England, who think it not well that England and America were severed. As to the usefulness of the work in which Samuel Adams was a main agent, doubt is not often enter- tained. But how as to the coming together again of the English-speaking race into some kind of a bond, moral if not political ? Are there many who think it either feasible or desirable ? The aspiration after such a coming together is via PREFACE. probably by no means widespread, but it has been uttered, and by voices of power. John Bright wrote in 1887 to the Committee for the Celebration of the Centennial of the American Constitution : " As you advance in the second century of your national life, may we not ask that our two nations may become one people ? " Sir Henry Parkes, one of the fore- most statesmen of Australia, addressing the legislar ture of New South Wales, November 25, 1887, said still more definitely : " I firmly believe it is within the range of human probability that the great groups of free communities connected with England, will, in separate federations, be united to the mother-country ; . . . and I also believe that in all reasonable proba- bility, by some less distinct bond, even the United States of America will be connected with this great English-speaking congeries of free governments. I believe the circumstances of the world will develop some such new complex nationality as this, in which each of the parts will be free and independent while united in one grand whole, which will civilize the globe." Mr. Goldwin Smith (Macmillan's Magazine, August, 1888), though believing a political union in the highest degree unlikely, says : " I prize and cher- ish as of inestimable value to us, all the moral union of the Anglo-Saxon race. I do not see why there should not, in the course of time, be an Anglo-Saxon franchise, including the United States." PREFACE. IX The idea of such an EngHsh-speaking brotherhood has seldom found expression among Americans. To the present writer, for reasons which are briefly set forth in the concluding chapter of this book, it ap- pears a consummation devoutly to be wished. In his view the supreme interest which attaches to the figure of Vane, is not the fact that excepting Cromwell he was the foremost man of the English Commonwealth, a character whose career is full of dramatic situations, of manifestations of great ability, of heroism carried to the highest, but that he more than any figure that can be named, stands as a reconciler between kins- men who have been long estranged. He had a career both in America and England. Although living for the most part in England, and at so early a period, he was regarded in a curious way by his contemporaries, as a product of American influences. While labor- ing to restore the ancient English freedom, which he believed had been superseded by abuses that must be cast out, he became in his political ideas thoroughly American, living and dying in the premature effort to bring about in England government of the People, by the People, and for the People. The broad suf- frage which Vane favored is already practically se- cured, though he would have had a written constitu- tion, drawn up by the representatives of the People, according to the provisions of which the work of leg- islation and government should carefully proceed. X PREFACE. The abolition or transformation of the House of Lords is at hand; few doubt that Disestablishment is near, and the abrogation of privileges that set some classes above their fellows. England has become, says John Richard Green, "a democratic republic ruled under monarchical forms." Her great depen- dencies, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, and Can- ada, already possess a degree of popular freedom which surpasses our own. How desirable that an- cient prejudices should be mitigated by dwelling upon the identity between these lands and ourselves, and how can that be done better than by some study of one who at the same time was so thorough an American and so thorough an Englishman ! Young Sir Henry Vane has been the subject of three elaborate biographies. That of his contempo- rary and religious disciple Sikes (The Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane, Kt, by George Sikes, B. D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, London, 1662) illustrates curiously the fanaticism of that time, in which Vane himself largely partook, but contains sur- prisingly little of coherent and intelligible informa- tion. More than fifty years since Mr. Charles Went- worth Upham prepared a life of Vane (Sparks Amer- ican Biography, ist series, vol. iv.), and a year or two later Mr. John Forster included a life of Vane in his " Statesmen of the Commonwealth." Both works possess great merits. Upham recognizes Vane's value PREFACE. XI " as a link binding America to the land o£ our fathers," while the book of Forster is marked with the qualities which have given him so high a place as a writer of biography. Both works, however, lack discrimination, speaking as they do of Vane in terms of unbroken eulogy, without mention of intellectual or moral limitations. While Vane was in some directions one of the clearest-headed of men, and possessed in practical life a marvellous power, he was in other directions so wild a dreamer that his influ- ence in his own time was impaired, and his vagaries at present are scarcely intelligible. While possessed of the noblest aims, which he followed out with an eye single to the public good, until he perished heroically upon the scaffold, the wiliest arts of the politician have seldom had clearer illustration than in his career. Says the latest biographer of Cromwell (Cromwell, by Frederic Harrison, Macmillan, 1888, pp. 117, 118) though he has the highest opinion of his hero: '' Cromwell was accustomed both earlier and later to deal with astute men, and to meet them on equal terms in tortuous and secret paths. He was himself far from being an Israelite without guile. He had probably persuaded himself that in diplomacy, as in war, stratagems with an opponent are lawful parts of the game." Vane, too, had persuaded himself that stratagems with an opponent are lawful parts of the game ; nor as regards friends was he at all scrupu- Xll PREFACE. lous about using indirect and devious management to sway them to his ideas. Great was his skill both in outwitting the cunning brains against which it was his fortune to be pitted, and in creeping to his own ends through concealed and winding ways. Moreover as regards the mighty figure of Crom- well, which in any life of Vane must be scarcely less prominent than Vane himself, a tone of detraction is employed by both Upham and Forster, not congenial to an age which, through Carlyle, has been able to enter into Cromwell's heart. Mr. Upham prepared his work, having access only to such sources of in- formation as were open in America at a time when the best libraries were most imperfect. With re- spect to Forster's book, also, while his knowledge of the sources of information open in his day was ex- haustive, the changes at the Public Record Office in London, and the British Museum, during the last half century, have made much accessible which in his time had not come to light. In view of these considerations a new life of Vane cannot be regarded as out of place. The plan of the present writer was, first, to familiarize himself with such knowledge bearing upon his subject as was to be obtained in America. In the Mercantile Library and Public Library of St. Louis were found such original sources as the great folios of Rushworth, Nalson, and Thurloe, Somers's " Tracts," Maseres' PREFACE. XUl " Tracts," the " Harleian Miscellany," the Camden Society publications, and other repositories of the documents of the period of the English Civil War. Here also were Whitlocke's " Memorials," Burton's " Diary," Sprigge's " Anglia Rediviva," May's " His^ tory of the Long Parliament," the " Athenae Oxoni- enses " of Antony a Wood, the " Memoirs " of Sir Philip Warwick and of Colonel Hutchinson, Win- throp's " Journal," and the Histories of Clarendon and Bishop Burnet. These books, through the kindness of the librarians, Mr. John N. Dyer and Mr. F. M. Crunden, the writer has been permitted to have at hand and to use as his own. He is also under obli- gation to his associates. Dr. W. G. Hammond, Dean of the Law School of Washington University, and to Professor M. S. Snow, its acting Chancellor, for kind advice and the free use of their valuable private col- lections, in which he found such works as the " Par- liamentary History," the " State Trials," volumes of popular ballads, and a variety of legal and constitu- tional works bearing upon the matter in hand. In Boston he received equal courtesy, which he grate- fully acknowledges. At the Public Library was found a copy of the " Journals of the Commons " ; at the State House, "The Retired Man's Meditations," a scarce theological book of Vane ; at the Athenseum and the rooms of the Massachusetts Historical So- ciety, Ludlow's " Memoirs," and many rare works XIV PREFACE. relating especially to Vane's New England career; while from the Harvard Library was obtained Vane's life by Sikes, bound up with which are many of his religious writings. As to authorities of a later date, the writer has sought to make himself familiar with all important books bearing upon his subject. The number of such works is quite too large for specification here, and the reader is referred to the foot-notes, which, it is hoped, give some evidence of an effort to be thorough. Carlyle's " Cromwell," though absurdly depreciatory of Vane, and often wrath-provoking on account of the stream of coarse and bitter contempt poured out so generally upon other writers who have touched upon his topics, is yet of inestimable value to any student of the period, as well for the letters and speeches of the hero, as for the light flashed upon events from the torch of a great genius. Two other great works of our own day may be mentioned as having especial worth, — the " History of England under the Stuarts," by Samuel Rawson Gardiner, and the " Life of Milton with a History of his Time," by Professor David Masson. For this period Mr. Gardiner is beyond all question the first living au- thority. His ten ample volumes relating to the years from 1603 to 1642 contain a vast mass of facts, treated with painstaking and judicious care. To the ten volumes an eleventh has been added, carrying the PREFACE. XV record to 1644, the year of Marston Moor. The pres- ent writer regards it as a calamity for him that the work has as yet gone no farther. No other writer upon that period has made researches so extensive, while it is impossible not to be impressed with the coolness and candor with which Mr. Gardiner, " mor- bidly impartial" as he has been called by a witty critic, moves in the midst of the strifes of parties and men. It will be noted that this work has been much relied upon in the earUer portion of the following narrative. Particularly in the chapter relating to Strafford's trial, the literature respecting which is im- mense in volume, and in the discussion of which for nearly two hundred and fifty years the most violent passions have been rife and the most various views expressed, the writer has been glad to avail himself of Gardiner's clear and calm resume. The work of Professor Masson, though less de- tailed than that of Gardiner, is based upon study hardly less exhaustive. It possesses, moreover, a certain picturesque quality which greatly relieves the perusal of the six large octavos. The writer is under an especial obligation to Masson in this way: while observing the interesting light which is thrown upon Milton's life from the manuscript records of the Council of State, of which he was the Secretary for Foreign Tongues, the writer was led to believe that something equally interesting could be discovered XVI PREFACE. about Vane, who at the same time was its most en- ergetic member. Resolved to make the search, and to see what could be found in the British Museum and elsewhere, the writer went to England. He ac- knowledges gratefully the courtesy of Dr. Richard Garnett and the librarians generally of the British Museum, and of Mr. Walford D. Selby and his assistants in the Search-Room of the Public Record Ofifice in Fetter Lane. By great good -fortune he met in the Search-Room Mr. S. R. Gardiner, an in- terview fruitful in valuable results. Learning the writer's errand, Mr. Gardiner offered his help, and the subsequent investigation was largely under his guidance. The writer studied the manuscript diaries of D'Ewes, Yonge, and Whitacre, members of the Long Parliament, sources of information of great value. He examined the Calendars of State Papers, the unprinted records of the executive committees of the Long Parliament, and many other manuscripts. His attention was also directed to the vast collection known as the "Thomasson Tracts," made by a London bookseller of the seventeenth century, and containing the fugitive literature of the period. Every sermon, ballad, play, news-sheet, broadside, pamphlet, Roy- alist or Roundhead squib, almost every handbill and placard, seems to have been bought by this indefati- gable gatherer, and laid aside. The huge mass, bound up in series, amounts to some thousands of PREFACE. xvii volumes, and reflects curiously the face of that distant time. The volumes are brought, a shelf-full at a time, to the student, who with index in hand winnows as he can after wheat for his own bin. From the statement that has been made it will appear that the writer has taken some pains in the collection of his materials. He believes, in fact, that there is little of importance relating to the subject which has not passed through his hands. What suc- cess he has had in digesting his results, and in hitting the truth among the reports of friends too partial, and enemies too violent, his readers must judge. His point of view is that of an American, who believes with Abraham Lincoln that in any Anglo-Saxon community " the plain People " can and should be trusted to govern themselves. He trusts, however, that his readers will find him fair to the upholders of different views, and not blind to the shortcomings of the men toward whom his own sympathies go out. In acknowledging obligation to gentlemen in Eng- land, Professors James Bryce, E. A. Freeman, and J. R. Lowell, and Mr. Henry White of the American Legation, must not be forgotten, who furthered the writer's aims by help and counsel. An especial debt is due to the Duke of Cleveland, the descendant of Vane, who extended to the writer a great courtesy described in its proper place in the volume. XVlll PREFACE. Two portraits of Vane by contemporary painters are in existence, — one by William Dobson, pre- served in the National Portrait Gallery, now at Beth- nal Green; the other probably by Sir Peter Lely, preserved at Raby Castle. In the print collection of the British Museum, also, are contained proofs of two fine engraved likenesses of Vane, — one by Fai- thorne, a London artist who must have known him well ; the other by Houbraken, after Lely's portrait. The Faithorne picture presents a younger, and in some ways perhaps a stronger face than the other. The Houbraken, however, gives a countenance of which the power is by no means lost in its high-bred delicacy and grace. By permission of the Museum authorities the writer secured photographs of both engravings. The Houbraken is a good specimen of the skill of that great artist, and has been reproduced for the present volume. It must be mentioned in conclusion that this life of young Sir Henry Vane has been written at the instance of Mrs. Mary Hemenway of Boston, and is to be regarded as an outgrowth of the work under- taken by her to promote love of freedom and good citizenship known as the " Old South work." JAMES K. HOSMER. St. Louis, September 17, 1888. CONTENTS. PART I. VANE IN MASSACHUSETTS. 1612-1637. CHAPTER I. Born in the Purple 1-15 ■ Antiquity and prominence of the Vane family, Howel ap Vane, Sir Henry Vane of Poictiers, 1 ; Sir Henry Vane of Wyatt's rebellion, Harry Vane, Duke of Cleveland in 1832, 2 ; Old Sir Harry Vane of the seventeenth century, becomes emi- nent under James I and Charles I, favored by the Queen, 3 ; ambassador to Gustavus Adolphus, buys Raby Castle, principal Secretary of State, birth of young Sir Henry Vane, at school at Westminster, 4 ; at Oxford, in the English embassy at Vienna, 5 ; extracts from his letters to his father, 6, 7 ; probably at Geneva, his appearance as a youth, 8 ; becomes a Puritan, his father's chagrin, 9 ; hides from the King behind the arras, Laud tries to convert him, 10 ; Vane resolves to go to New England, 11; first heard of by Strafford, 12; his letter to his father be- fore sailing, 12, 13; his appearance as given in his portraits, 14. CHAPTER II. Massachusetts Bay in 1635 16-31 The settlers cling to the sea, 16; pleasant suggestiveness in names of ships, gradual improvement in condition of the colo- nists, 17 ; polity of the colony, i8 ; description of early Boston, 19 ; the colonists, 19, 20 ; the New England ministers, 21 ; their theology, controversies, relaxations, 22 ; John Wilson, Nathaniel Ward, 23, 24; Roger Williams, 25-28; John Cotton, 29-31. CHAPTER III. The Boy Governor 32-60 Vane's arrival in Boston, his presumption, 32; chosen Gov- ernor, member of committee to establish " Fundamentals,'' 33, XX CONTENTS. 34 ; assumes much state, 34 ; troubles with the shipping, 35-38 ; settlement of Concord, 38 ; of Connecticut, 39, 40 ; John Gal- lop's sea-fight, 41, 42 I beginning of the Pequot war, 43 ; the old soldiers, Standish, Patrick, Gardiner, Underbill, Mason, 43, 44 ; the Pequots try to gain the Narragansetts, 44 ; foiled by Roger Williams, 45 ; Vane's progress through the colony, visit of Miantonimo to Boston, 46; Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, 47, 48; outbreak of Hutchinsonian Controversy, 48 ; the colonists take sides, 49 ; the diatribe of Rev. Thomas Weld, 50 ; Winthrop's account of the dispute, 51 ; establishment of Harvard College, Vane desires to go home, 52 ; rebuked by Hugh Peters, 53, 54 ; confusion of mind of the disputants in the Hutchinsonian con- troversy, 54, 55; danger of the colony, 55, 56; trifling nature of the dispute, 57 ; Vane's unpopularity and fall, 58 ; danger of civil war, 59 ; Vane's resentment, 60. CHAPTER IV. The Controversy with Winthrop 61-82 Order of the General Court for keeping out all persons dan- gerous to the Commonwealth, Cotton outraged by it, Winthrop defends it, 61 ; Winthrop defines a commonweal or body politic, Vane's strictures, his deference to royalty, 62 ; Winthrop main- tains the equity of the order, Vane answers, 63 ; maintains toler- ation, 64-66 ; Vane aiid Roger Williams recognize one another as kindred spirits, 66, 67 ; progress of the Pequot war, 67, 68 ; Mason's campaign against Sassacus, 69, 'jo ; Vane departs for England, 70 ; progress of the Hutchinsonian Controversy, 71 ; terrible nature of the crisis, 72 ; Underbill the Antinomian, 73, 74; discord of authorities as regards this period, 74, 75 ; Wen- dell Phillips on Vane, 75, 76 ; S. R. Gardiner's view, boyishness of Vane, 77 ; his splendid promise, 78 ; his magnanimity, 79, 80; his return to England, 80 ; recapitulation of his career hitherto, 80-82. PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF REPUB- LICANISM. 1637-1648. CHAPTER V. The Opening of the Long Parliament 83-107 Vane an American -Enghshman, constitutional resum^, 83; ancient polity of the Teutons, Saxon conquest of England, 84 ; CONTENTS. xxi Norman conquest, Feudalism, 8$ ; origin of Parliament, destruc- tion of freedom elsewhere than in England, 86 ; its vicissitudes in England, Simon de Montfort, Edward I, Richard II, House of Lancaster, Tudors, Stuarts, 87 ; young Sir Harry Vane's return to England, and marriage, 88 ; English Commonwealth as a real- ization of American ideas, 89 ; character of Charles I, 90,91 ; op- position to him of constitutional party, case of Sir John Eliot, Petition of Right, 92 ; Laud, Strafford, Star-Chamber, and High Commission Courts, 93 ; Scottish Covenant, rebellion, summon- ing of the Short Parliament, 94 ; Pym, Hampden, 94-96 ; Vane elected for Kingston-upon-HuU, 96 ; made joint Treasurer of the Navy, the ancient Palace of Westminster, 97, 98 ; Pym's speech at opening of the Short Parliament, 98, 99 ; sullenness of the members, 99 ; dissolution of the Short Parliament, Vane a man of mark, 100 ; knighted by the King, Strafford's affront to the Vanes, 102; alleged cowardice of Vane, 102, 103; power of Strafford, 104; the Long Parliament convened, the leading members and their seats, 105 ; appearance of the House of Commons, influence of Pym and Hampden, 106 ; general discon- tent, 107. CHAPTER VI. The Trial of Strafford 108-136 Career and character of Strafford, 108-110; denounced by Pym and impeached, in; his arrest, the general terror, 112; Strafford's peace of mind, 113 ; arrest of Laud, Sir Philip War- wick's account of Cromwell, 114, 11 J ; rise of the Root and Branch party, 115; the Separatists, court intrigues, marriage of the Princess Mary, 116; Westminster Hall, 117; Strafford brought to trial, 118; difficulty in making out a case of treason, violence of the royal party, 119; evidence of the Vanes, 120; Clarendon's description, 121-125 ; the motive of the Vanes considered, 126; consideration of the conduct of young Sir Harry, 127-130; Strafford's honesty, 130; the bill of attainder, 131 ; Strafford's defence, 132 ; passage of the bill of attainder, and of the bill that Parliament shall not be dissolved without its own consent, 133; general panic, 134; execution of Strafford, 135 ; estimate of his influence, 136. CHAPTER Vn. The Beginning of the Civil War 137-160 Abolition of tonnage and poundage, of Star- Chamber and High Commission Courts, King's journey to Scotland, 137 ; Irish re- bellion. Grand Remonstrance, division of nation into Cavaliers xxii CONTENTS. and Roundheads, 138 ; impeachment of the Bishops, attempt to seize the Five Members, levying of troops, 139; growing promi- nence of Vane, 140 ; bill for abolition of Episcopacy passed, Vane's subtle management, his diligence, 141 ; Laud impeached, 142; Clarendon's characterization of Vane, 143, 144; o'd Sir Harry leaves the King, testimony of Carterett and d'Ewes to the eminence of Vane, 145 ; Vane and the King at Theobald's and Newmarket, 146-148 ; Treasurer of the Navy under Parliament, his self-sacrifice, 148; Cavaliers characterized. Roundheads, I49i 150; outbreak of Civil War, 150; scenes of the first cam- paign, their present aspect, iji ; Edgehill, 152; the armies ready for battle, 153 ; Sir E. Verney, Sir Jacob Astley, 154 ; por- trait of Prince Rupert, his career and character, 154, 155 ; bat- tle of Edgehill, 156; London in danger. Vane opposes accommo- dation without redress of grievances, spirited conduct of the Queen, 157; Edmund Waller's plot, the rise of Sir Thomas Fairfax, 158 ; Parliament side depressed, sluggishness of Essex, Sir Wm. Waller and Fairfax defeated, fall of Bristol, death of Hampden, 159 ; Cromwell's plan to improve affairs, 159, 160. CHAPTER VIII. The Solemn League and Covenant i6i-i88 Vane scores Essex in Parliament, 161 ; Essex invites Vane to take the field, 162 ; idea entertained of sending Vane to the Army in Hampden's place, 163 ; reaction from America upon Eng- lish feeling, 163 ; progress of the Independents, 164 ; Indepen- dency in America, united there with intolerance, 165 ; English Independency derived from America,' 166; John Cotton its father, 167 ; Owen, Goodwin, Cromwell, Vane, his disciples, 168; the home of Cotton and Vane in Boston, 169; growth of Toleration, 169, 170 ; adopted by Baptists, by Churchmen, Roger Williams in England, 170 ; his Bloudy Tenent of Persecu- tion, 171 ; Vane's growth in Toleration, 172; Parliament resolves to appeal to the Scots, 172; commissioners appointed, 173; de- pressed condition of the cause of the Houses, London train- bands at Gloucester, 174; Vane reaches Edinburgh, 175; nego- tiations, 176 ; passage of the Solemn League and Covenant, 177; Scotch commissioners appointed for London, 178 ; charge of duplicity against Vane, 171-181; the case examined, 182-184; Vane's dying declaration, 185, 186; the signing in St. Mar- garet's, 187, 188. CONTENTS. xxiii CHAPTER IX. The Committee OF Both Kingdoms 1 89-211 Withdrawal of Pym, characters of Selden, St. John, Henry Marten, 189; wit of Marten, 190; Whitlocke, Cromwell and Vane in the leadership, Gloucester saved, train-bands at New- bury, 191 ; death and funeral of Pym, 192 ; the King plots to compromise Vane, 192, 193; strained relations of the Houses, 194; Violett's plot, 194, 195 ; discovered by Vane and St. John, 195, 196; Vane's speech at Guildhall, 196, 197; rejoicings of I city and Parliament, 198 ; origin of the Committee of Both King- doms in a Royalist intrigue, opposition of Peers and the peace party, 199 ; Committee of Safety of 1642, 200 ; necessity of an executive head, 200; manoeuvring of Vane and St. John, 200, 201 ; Committee of Two Kingdoms established, its great signifi- cance, its constitution, its records, 202 ; activity of Vane on the Committee, 203 ; King plots with Irish Papists, denies le- gal status of Parliament, successes of Parhament in the spring of 1644, 204; successes of King and Rupert in June, Vane sent to the siege of York, 205 ; plan for deposition of Charles I, 206 ; Vane's return and report from York, 207, 208 ; newspaper com- ments on his mission, 209, 210 ; his share in the victory of Mars- ton Moor, 210. CHAPTER X. Marston Moor 212-226 Skill of Rupert, inefEciency of Leven before York, abandon- ment of the siege, 212 ; description of York, of Marston Moor, of Long Marston, present appearance of the battlefield, 213^ description and position of the Parliament army, 214 ; the Cove- nanters, their harshness, their strength, David Leslie, 215 ; posi- tion of Cromwell on the left wing, the resume of his early miK- tary career, 216; battle hymns, discord among the Cavaliers, 217; order of the Cavalier host, Rupert and the Roundhead prisoner, Rupert's dog "Boy," 218; the White Syke ditch, be- ginning of the battle, 219; overthrow of Fairfax, danger at Par- liamentary Centre, bravery of Newcastle, flight of Leven, 220; demoralization of the Scots, charge of Cromwell and the left - wing, stubborn fight of Rupert, 221 ; peril of the Roundheads, prowess of David Leslie, rout of the Cavaliers, 222 ; Fairfax cuts his way through, the Parliament Centre succored, destruction of the White Coats, 223 ; Cromwell named " Ironside " by Rupert, 224 ; down Moor lane to the White Syke, the field full of skele- tons, 225 ; the battlefield at peace, 226. XXIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. Naseby 227-253 Vane worn out, surrender of Essex to the King, successes of Montrose, 227 ; depression of the Scots, advance of Indepen- dency, 228 ; Baillie on Vane's position, 229 ; friendship for Vane of Roger Williams and Milton, adherents to Independency, 230 ; 2d battle of Newbury, Cromwell denounces Manchester, origin of Self-Denying Ordinance, 231 ; Zouch Tate moves Self-Deny- ing Ordinance, manoeuvring of the Independents, Vane's speech, 232-234; Commons pass Self-Denying Ordinance, opposed by Lords, Vane's activity, 234 ; futile negotiations at Uxbridge, the Independents push the New Model, influence of Argyle, 235 ; Cromwell denounces the Lords, Vane's speech at Guildhall in behalf of the New Model, 236, 237 ; final shape of the Self-De- nying Ordinance, astuteness of Vane at time of the New Model, 238 ; Cromwell excepted from Self-Denying Ordinance, 239; constitution and officering of the New Model, its discipline, its piety, 240 ; subject of ridicule, victory of Montrose at Kilsyth, the King storms Leicester, his cheerfulness, 241 ; eve of the battle of Naseby, present appearance of the localities, 242, 243 : advance of the King, 243 ; order of the Roundheads, 244 ; of the Cavaliers, 245 ; appearance of the two hosts, 246 ; Rupert over- throws Ireton, 247 ; Cromwell overthrows Sir Marmaduke Lang- dale, 248 ; the fight at the centre, 249 ; the King's bravery baf- fled, the Ironside pursuit, 250; the booty, the King's letters, 251 ; present appearance of the battlefield, 252 ; results of the battle, 253- CHAPTER Xn. The Rise of the Independents 254-282 Ill-fortune of the King, his perfidy revealed, destruction of Montrose, 254; capture of Sir Jacob Astley, prosperity of the Independents, 255 ; strengthened by the Recruiters, the soldiers in Parliament, the Presbyterian leaders, William Prynne, 256; wildness of the sectaries, 257 ; John Lilburne, 257, 258 ; Roger Williams on the limits of Toleration, 258, 259; American ideas of the Ironsides, 260 ; Baillie's unhappiness, 261, 262; Indepen- dent manoeuvring, 262, 263 ; the King's two letters to Vane, 263, 264; clashing between Presbyterians and Independents, the King goes to the Scots, 265 ; he is surrendered to Parliament, the three troopers at St. Stephen's, 266, 267 ; the Agitators, 267, 268 ; Cornet Joyce seizes the King, 268 ; the Army demands the exclusion of eleven Presbyterian leaders, riots in London, CONTENTS. XXV 269 ; the Ironsides inarch through the city, 270 ; the Heads of Proposals, 270, 271 ; spurned by the King, 272 ; meeting in the Army, 273 ; Cromwell and Ireton at the Blue Boar Inn, 273, 274 ; the King flees to Wight, 275 ; his intrigues, league with the Scots, 276; the Argument of the People, and Case of the Whole Army, 277; their American ideas, 278-280; the .leaders lag behind the rank and file, 281 ; the prayer-meeting, 282. PART III. AMERICAN ENGLAND. 1 648-1 65 3. CHAPTER XIII. The Ironsides take Things in Hand 283-31 1 Sir Thomas Wroth moves to lay by the King, 283 ; the cushion- throwing, 284; the Derby House Committee reconstituted, 285; threatening front of the King's friends, 285, 286 ; temper of the Independents, Ironside prayer-meeting at Windsor, 287 ; Adju- tant Allen's account, 287-292 ; jnilitary movements of Lambert, Fairfax, Ireton, siege of Colchester, 293 ; Cromwell's march to Wales, Hamilton passes Carlisle, 294: Cromwell marches against the Scots, 295 ; battle of Preston, 296 ; activity at Derby House, 297 ; Vane broken down, 298 ; new negotiations with the King, 299 ; Vane impressed by Charles, 300 ; Vane's astuteness, effi- ciency of Independent statesmen, 301 ; popular petitions against an agreement with the King, 302; the Grand Ar}ny Remon- strance, 302-305 ; Prynne's manly opposition, 305, 306 ; defec- tion of Fiennes, 306, 307 ; Vane opposes treaty with the King, 307-309; the Independents overborne, 309; Pride's Purge, 310. CHAPTER XIV. The Rump against the World 312-340 Vane disapproves Pride's Purge and the execution of the King, manifestos of the Army and the Rump, 312; withdrawal from public life of Vane and Algernon Sidnej-, 313 ; death of Charles, 314; parallel between Cromwell and Abraham Lincoln, 315 ; expediency of the execution of the King discussed, speech of Scott, 315-317; Vane's reappearance in public life. Republi- canism supreme, 317; s^zovA Argument of the People, "^^if); Ire- ton's plan for a Constitution, 320, 321 ; odds against the Com- monwealth, 322; Lilburne gives trouble, 322, 323; hostihty of XXVI CONTENTS. Ireland and Scotland, 323 ; Charles II proclaimed at Edinburgh, vigor of the Commonwealth's men, 324 ; Marten's wit, policy of the Honest Party, 325 ; inauguration of the Council of State, eminence of Vane, 326 ; he adopts Repubhcanism hesitatingly, 327; constitution and membership of the Council of State, 327-329; Milton becomes its Secretary for Foreign Tongues, 329 ; execution of Hamilton and Lord Capel, 330 ; Lilburne im- prisoned, mutiny in the Army suppressed, steps taken to restore the Navy, 331 ; importance of Vane, committee to present heads for a new settlement, 332 ; Journal of the Commons, Order- Books of the Council of State, 333 ; their evidence as to Vane's activity, 334-336 ; Cromwell's Irish campaign, the Engagement of the Commonwealth, 337 ; relations established with foreign powers, Blake sent against Rupert, 338; activity of the Com- mittee for the new settlement, varied contents of the Order- Books of the Council of State, 339; Milton writes the Icono- clastes and Defensio Populi Anglicani, 340. CHAPTER XV. Dunbar and Worcester 341-369 Nomination of Council of State for second year. Vane perhaps ready for the new settlement, 341 ; disaffection of the sailors, Bradshaw and Vane state their difficulties, withdrawal of Fairfax, 342 ; preparations for Dunbar campaign, activity of Navy com- mittee, 343 ; case of the " Hart " frigate, Popham's letter from before Lisbon, 344; Charles II arrives in Scotland, David Leslie leads the Scots, 345; his skilful manoeuvring, 346; Cromwell's letter to Haselrig, 347 ; battle of Dunbar, 348, 349 ; Crom- well's letter to his wife, 350 ; Scots retire northward, illness of Cromwell, attitude of Holland, 351 ; embassy to Holland, 352 ; sudden march of the King into England, 353 ; the Ironsides in pursuit, financial management of the Commonwealth, 354; Vane's prominence here as shown by the Order-Books, 355 ; also in military affairs, 356 ; in management of Navy, of aflfairs of Ireland and Scotland, Brother Fountain and Brother Heron, 357; too high for Cromwell to fathom, 358; case of Rev. Christopher Love, 359; battle of Worcester, 360; Vane in- structs the Committee for congratulating the Lord General, 360, 361 ; Scotland and Ireland subdued, treatment of the van- quished, incorporation of Scotland with England, 362 ; death of Ireton, his home, 363 ; Ludlow's panegyric, 364 ; earnest desire of Cromwell and Vane for the new settlement, 365 ; third Council of State, Scotland incorporated, 366; standing com- CONTENTS. XXVI i mittees of Council of State, 366; the Rump overshadowed by Cromwell, 367 ; obsequiousness of foreign powers, 368 ; Pride on the lawyers, ecclesiastical settlement, 368 ; protest of Roger Williams, tolerance of Vane, 369. CHAPTER XVI. Blake and Van Tromp 370-398 Holland outraged by the Act of Navigation, 370 ; an embassy sent to London, collision of the fleets off Dover, 371 ; evidence from the Order-Books of Vane's energy, 371 ; president of the Council of State, preparations for war, 372 ; instructions to Blake, energy of the Navy committee, Blake wounded, 373; Vane at the front, 374 ; testimony to his prominence of Sikes, 375, 376 ; Milton's sonnet to Vane, 376-378 ; hostility to the Com- monwealth of foreign powers, reason for the enmity of Holland, 379; might of the Dutch, 380; character of 17th-century sail- ors, 380, 381 ; description of the Narrow Seas, 382, 383 ; associa- tions connected with them, 384 ; Blake's career and character, 385, 386 ; his fleet, approach of the Dutch, 387 ; Van Tromp, 388 ; action of Feb. 18, 389, 390; action of Feb. 20, 391 ; action of Feb. 21, the Flying Dutchman, 392; further progress of the war, 393 ; death of Van Tromp, 394 ; Blake's further career, 394) 395) war with Spain, the treasure-ships, 395, 396; battle of Santa Cruz, 3,96 ; death of Blake, 397. CHAPTER XVII. The Dissolution of the Rump 399-418 Dissatisfaction with the Rump, small attendance of members, 399 ; the rise of Blake, welcome to Parliament men, their fear of the influence of the Army and Cromwell, 400 ; difficulties in the way of a new settlement, Cromwell's plan, 401 ; plan of the Rump leaders, their eagerness for a dissolution, 402 ; particulars of Vane's Act of Dissolution, 403-405; meeting of the Rump and Army chiefs at Whitehall, 405 ; the bill before the House, 406 ; the scene in St. Stephen's, 407 ; Ludlow's account, Crom- well's arrival, 408; "The Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane," 409; the Rump expelled, 410; Algernon Sidney's account, 411; Cromwell and Vane not as yet alienated, 412; Cromwell's motive, 413; his failure afterward, 414; hopeless- ness of the RepuMican position, 415; tributes to the greatness of the Rump, 416; Scott's defence of their policy, 417 ; the three heroes of the period, 418. XXVIU CONTENTS. PART IV. TO TOWER-HILL. 1653-1662. CHAPTER XVIII. The Healing Question 419-447 Description of Raby Castle, 419, 420; Vane's retirement, 421 ; his wife, children, brothers, 422 ; later career, death, and char- acter of old Sir Henry Vane, 423 ; Vane's letter to Providence for Roger Williams, 424, 425 ; the reply of Providence, 425, 426; Vane glad to lay down public life, 426 ; proofs of continued " friendship between him and Cromwell, his return to public life sought for, 427; Henry Cromwell's dislike of Vane, 428; his religious vagaries. Retired Man's Meditations, 429, 430 ; his be- lief in second coming of Christ and Fifth Monarchy ideas illus- trated, 430, 431; popular belief in hi^ fanaticism illustrated, 432, 433; his connection with the idea of a Written Constitu- tion, 433; the Written Constitution the unique feature in Amer- ican polity, 434; absence of such a controlling instrument in English polity, 435 ; value of the Written Constitution in Amer- ica, Hammond's view, 436; Sir H. Maine's view, 437; histor- ical development of Constitutional idea, its relation to Magna Charta, to mediaeval guild charters, the People ordain it, 438 ; American precedents, Social Compact on " Mayflower," Rhode Island agreement, Connecticut Constitution of 1639, 439; Ire- ton's Agreement of the People, Cromwell's Instrutnent of Gov- ernment, 440; occasion of the Healing Question, 441 ; recom- mends a Constitution, 442; to be formulated by a convention of representatives of the People, 443 ; style of the Healing Question, 444; Cromwell as Protector, 445 ; Vane's appearance then, their portraits by Houbraken, 446; the headsman's axe, 447. CHAPTER XIX. Richard's Parliament 448-479 Vane disciplined by Cromwell, 448, 449 ; sent to Carisbrook Castle, 449; his letters thence to Cromwell, 450, 451 ; descrip- tion of Carisbrook Castle, 452 ; political and religious writings, 453 ; Cromwell's later career, 454 ; Milton's panegyric, 455 ; Cromwell's last days and death, 456, 457 ; the factions, Crom- wellians, Wallingford House Party, 457, 458 ; convening and constitution of Richard's Parliament, 458 ; Vane returned for Whitchurch, position and character of Lambert, 459; Claren- don's account of Vane and Haselrig at this time, 460; Vane's CONTENTS. XXIX speeches, on Richard as Protector, 461 ; describes his growth in Republicanism, 462; denounces the Petition and Advice, 463 ; on limiting Protector's power, against an Upper House, 464; as champion of the People, 465 ; denunciation of Richard, 466, 467 ; character and influence of Haselrig, 467, 468 ; character of Scott, 468 ; fall of Richard, 469 ; restoration of the Rump, scene be- tween Vane and Prynne, 470 ; abdication of Richard, 471 ; false position of the Rump, 472 ; Cromwellians retire from the field, 473; Lambert turns out the Rump, 474; Vane sides with the Army, 474 ; the Committee of Safety, last effort at a Constitution, 475 ; desertion of Lawson, Fleetwood's weakness, 476 ; Vane judged by the Rump, Monk's march to London, 477 ; restoration of Long Parliament, Scott's intrepidity, 478 ; the Convention Parliament and Restoration, 479. CHAPTER XX. How Vane has been Judged 480-506 Imprisonment of Vane, fate of other Republicans, 480 ; the People's Case Stated, variety of judgments as to Vane, 481 ; testimony of Maidstone, of Baxter, 482, 483 ; of Stuartist writers, Anthony a Wood, Biographia Britannica, 484 ; of Bishop Bur- net, 484, 485 ; of Clarendon, 485, 486 ; Don Juan Lamberto, 486 ; Vane in popular ballads, Vanity of Vanities, i^T, A Psalm of ^ Mercy, 488 ; epitaph on Vane, 489; Henry Stubbe, 490; his de- fence of Vane, Hume's view, 491 ; Clarendon's, 491, 492 ; that of Sir James Mackintosh, 492 ; of CarlyJe, 492, 493 ; summary of evidence as to Vane's power as a statesman, 494, 495 ; his relative rank among leading Commonwealthsmen, 496; com- parison between Vane and Cromwell, 496-498 ; his hmitations, his fanaticism, 498-500; palliations for his weakness, 500, 501; Vane and the free-thinkers, 501, 502; wise and beautiful spirit of the Meditations concerning Man's Life, 502, 503 ; of the People's Case Stated, 504-506. CHAPTER XXL. The Trial before the Court of the King's Bench . 507-530 Vane's letter to his wife from the Scilly Islands, 507, 508 ; re- moval to the Tower of London and arraignment, 508 ; his undi- minished power, his impression of the significance of his trial, 509; the indictment, 510; the counts of the indictment, 511, 512; Vane's defence, the controversy with Charles I, 513 ; Salus pop- uli suprema lex, 514; the claim that Vane was not a Republican, 515, 516; vagueness of the term, 517; his belief in the sov- XXX CONTENTS. ereignty of the People, his tone as regards the Stuarts, 518-520; Vane defended, 521-523; he declares the subordinacy of the King, 523; Charles II refuses to grant pardon, 524; Vane's answer to the charge of keeping out the King, 526; the sentence, 527; extract from the Reasons for an Arrest of Judgment, 528, 529; Vane and Strafford compared, 530. CHAPTER XXII. The Scaffold 53I-S46 Vane's address to his children the day before his execution, 531; his prayer on the morning of his last day, 532, 533; descrip- tion of TowerTHill, 533, 534; account by an eye-witness of the closing scenes, 534; in the Tower, 535; the progress to the scaf- fold, 536, 537; his dress and mien, 537; his last speech, 538; in- terrupted by the trumpets, 539; speech continued, 540; second interruption, 541 ; the speech broken off, 542; his last prayer, 543, 544; the execution, 545; outpouring of a disciple, 545, 546 ; the triumph of Vane's ideas, 546. CHAPTER XXIII. Why the Story of Vane is Timely at the Present Hour ' 547-568 . Was the American Revolution worth while ? 547 ; American representation in the British Parliament favored by James Otis, 548; Franklin's ideas, 549; Grenville's, Adam Smith's, 550; political unification desirable, 551; advantage to the individual of being the citizen of a great country, 551, 552; the present English-speaking dependencies of Great Britain, Canada, Cape Colony, 553; New Zealand, Australia, 554, 555; England as the parent of democratic republics, 555 ; the American Revolution not a mistake, 556; a benefit to the other English dependencies, to England herself, 557, 558; decay of English freedom in reign of George III, 558-560; the permanence of America dependent upon faithfulness to English traditions, 560, 561; substantial identity of English-speaking peoples, 561-563; interdependence desirable, 564 ; obstructing prejudices, 565 ; trial to mitigate them, 566; Vane as a connecting link, 566-568. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Sir Henry Vane. After Houbraken's engraving of the portrait by Sir Peter Lely Frontispiece. Facsimile of Letter to John Winthrop . . . .81 Plan of Battle of Marston Moor 219 Plan of Battle of Naseby 246 The Great Seal of the Commonwealth .... 368 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. PART I. VANE IN MASSACHUSETTS. 1612-1637. CHAPTER I. BORN IN THE PURPLE. It would be hard to name an English family which during many centuries has possessed a prominence so honorable as that of the Vanes.-^ The stock ap- pears to have been in its origin Welsh, a certain Howel ap Vane of Monmouthshire, before the Con- quest, being the most remote ancestor to whom the heralds ascend- The family became fixed, however, in the county of Kent, and afterward in Durham, in England. As one traces the genealogy the name Henry, or Harry, often occurs, and several times in noteworthy connections. At Poictiers, in 1356, where the Black Prince with 12,000 followers routed 60,000 French, taking prisoner John, their King, a Harry Vane was among the conspicuous heroes of the field. He had a part in capturing the French King, obtaining from the monarch his right-hand ^ CoUins's Peerage, vol. iv., ar- tannica, article " Vane ; " Stately tide "Vane-," Burke's Peerage, Homes of England, 3Xtic\s " Raby article " Vane ; " Biographia Bri- Castle." 2 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [iSS4- gauntlet in token of submission. He received on the spot, from the Black Prince, the accolade, and " a dexter-gauntlet " remains to this day as a " crest " and a " charge " on the Vane arms. In the seventh generation from the young soldier of Poictiers, a young Sir Henry Vane took part in the insurrection of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who raised Kent against Bloody Mary, at the time when Protes- tant England felt outraged by her match with Philip n. of Spain. The leader was captured at Temple Bar, and died on the scaffold, but mercy was shown to Vane on account of his youth. He sat afterwards in two Parliaments, in the time of Elizabeth, and was the great-grandsire of the more famous rebel of the seventeenth century, whose long battle against arbi- trary power is about to engage our attention. In modern times the name has continued illustrious. In 1 832, still another Harry Vane, Duke of Cleveland and Earl of Darlington, although the most important considerations weighed upon him in favor of contin- uing old abuses, incurred, with the characteristic courage of his line, the curses of the class to which he belonged, and the diminution of his own power and resources, by standing faithfully at the side of Lord John Russell, for the reforms which were to save English freedom,^ As England's crisis in the seventeenth century was particularly sharp, so then it was that the fine quality of this admirable strain was especially shown. In the history of the period, two Sir Harry Vanes are prom- inent among the men of mark. The elder, born in 1 Forster, Life of Vane, in the wealth," Harper's edition, p. 265, " Statesmen of the Common- note. i6i2.] BORN IN THE PURPLE. 3 Elizabeth's day, was knighted by James I. at the age of twenty-two, and came quickly into notice. He married Frances Darcy, of an old Essex family, and in 161 2, at Hadlow in Kent, was born to the pair the son whose career we are to study. The father, a man rather busy and busthng than energetic, became noted, while his son was coming forward through boyhood and youth, as a traveller, and as one accom- plished in the modern tongues ; he early reached dis- tinctions of another kind. He sat in Parliament in 1 6 14, at the age of twenty-five, and soon became cofferer, or treasurer, of Prince Charles, then a hand- some boy, looking forward, we may be sure, to a future in which the Ironsides and the grewsome headsman by no means appeared. The elder Vane sat also in the Parliaments of 1620 and 1625, and in every suc- ceeding Parliament until his death during Cromwell's Protectorate. Besides young Sir Harry, three sons and five daughters were born to him. When James, with his maundering and fitful arbitrariness, came to his end at last, the accession, in 1625, of the digni- fied young prince, with brow high and narrow, with grave, melancholy eyes and habits so decorous, was the opportunity of the elder Vane. " Steenie," the Duke of Buckingham, whom Charles had been taught by his father to prize so unworthily, sank at Portsmouth beneath the stroke of Felton's dagger. Vane stood at once in high favor at court. Henrietta Maria, daughter of the great Henri IV,, who came from France to be queen of Charles I., a woman lively, impressionable, full of brightness, looked approvingly upon the cofferer. He was soon a member of the Privy Council; in 1631 ambassador to Christian IV. 4 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1626. of Denmark ; then to the great Gustavus Adolphus, in those days at the height of his fame, the highest diplomatic position at that time existing, in which Vane conducted affairs with skill. He followed the Swedes in the memorable campaign of 1632, return- ing to England in the month of November, when the Swedish hero laid down his life at the Great Stone at Lutzen. In the spring of the following year, Charles, on his way to be crowned in Scotland, received magnificent entertainment at Raby Castle, in Durham, the ancient seat of the Nevilles, which Vane had bought in 1626. From cofferer, the cour- tier became comptroller of the King's household, and at length principal Secretary of State. As the troubles drew on which were to make the decade from 1640 to 1650 a time of blood, we find him at one time in the field, at the head of a regiment of a thousand men. His service for the most part, how- ever, was in a civil capacity, and no man of that day felt more fully the royal favor. There was a shadow on his life from the enmity of a certain powerful figure, who stood by his side as a servant of the King. But this hated foe came, through him, as we shall see, suddenly to the block. As the elder Vane stood in middle life, all had gone well for him ; he had found the brightest worldly success. Seldom has baby had in its mouth spoon more golden, therefore, than the little Harry, who was brought at length from the green depths of Kent to London, and put to school, with some hundreds more of privileged boys, at Westminster, under the shadow of the great abbey. The nickname " Harry " the Henrys of the aid days never outgrew, even though 1631.] BORN IN THE PURPLE. 5 they became afterwards kings and knights. As a boy our Harry was bounding and spirited, probably committing no greater follies or offences than the venial ones of hearty, healthy youth. His Puritan conscience in later days, as was the case with Bun- yan, was ill at ease over his boyish escapades, and even on the scaffold he accused his earlier self with a bitterness quite undeserved. Lambert Osbalde- stone was his master, and boys destined to attain great fame were his companions — Thomas Scott and Arthur Haselrig, republicans afterward scarcely less noted than Vane himself, long his friends and help- ers, until at last the complications of evil times car- ried them apart from one another. When the Westminster life had passed, young Harry became a " gentleman commoner " at Magda- len College, Oxford. He was now a youth of sixteen, and the university was prepared to treat obsequiously the son of so thriving a courtier. But already a restiveness under restrictions began to appear in him, the germ of the sturdy rebel spirit which was to become so marked in the future. At his matricu- lation he found the time-honored scholastic costume repugnant to him. " He quitted his gown, and put on a cloak ; " ^ and though he studied for a time, he was at length removed, and sent by his father to Vienna, in 1 631, in the train of the English ambas- sador. It was not a good place for a boy of nineteen. At the court of Ferdinand H., who was struggling against Gustavus Adolphus, he lived in an atmos- phere of intrigue. He maintained a correspondence, partly in French, partly in cipher, with his father, J Anthony a Wood, AtheniB Oxonienses, article "Vane." 6 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1631. then at the Swedish headquarters, and became privy to important state secrets.^ He knew well the wily Jesuits who swayed, the Austrian state counsels, and one can hardly resist the conclusion that a certain cunning for which, with all his nobleness, he after- wards became famous, must have found here an important stimulus. A series of Harry's letters of this time still exists in the Public Record Office in London. August 10, 1 63 1, he apologizes for feeling so little interest in the Thirty Years' War. " Je suis si peu penchant au faict de la guerre. . . . Je ne puis pas disposer mon naturel et affections a une affaire que vous semblez tant approuver." He is very respectful, very sorry to disappoint his father " apres tant de soin et d'espence que vous eues employez sur moy." Passing over a number of letters on state topics, in which Father Quiroga, the evil genius in those days of the court at Vienna, is often referred to, letters which the faded ink and frequent diplomatic cipher make unintelligible except to such indefatigable stu- dents as Mr. S. R. Gardiner, the writer finds one writ- ten from Nuremberg, November 27, 1631,^ when Harry was on his way home, which has some inter- esting passages relating to that town just before it became the scene of the memorable struggle between Wallenstein and Gustavus. In the old French of the age of Richelieu, he says he has not ceased to take medicine " pour esta- blir et parfaire la guerison de ma maladie," from 1 S. R. Gardiner, History of ^ Received by Vane, Sr., at Mo- England, viii. 173. ritzburg. State Papers, Germany, 1631. i63i.] BORN IN THE PURPLE. 7 which he had suffered " trois sept maines." He has had a coat made for his journey, as his father directed, and also has brought another with him : " Mais le malheur vouloit que nostre coche se renversoit au milieu d'un eau, que non seulement I'habit, mais toutes mes livres, papiers, et autres petites besog'nes sont si gastes et estrangement accommodes, qu'^ peine me reste-il de I'esperance " of using the things again. In this time of confusion hosts charge high, on his journey. He has only 350 left of the 1,600 dollars he started with. He will get what he needs of M. Pestalouche, according to directions. His stay in Nuremberg, where he receives great attention, will cost something. He is called on at once by Kem- nitius, commissary of the King of Sweden, who stays to supper. Dr. Fetzer, former ambassador at Vienna for Nuremberg, and also M. Calendrini, wait upon him, who extend all sorts of courtesies. Lords of the town send him " douze grands pots de diverses vins," and offer to show him the city. " Yesterday, after dinner, Comte de Solmes sent his ' Reistmaistre,' a baron, to visit me." Vane returns the call. The count hopes to have the honor of seeing old Sir Harry. " You can well judge all this will cost." Young Harry hopes, in the margin, his father will not mind the writing ; he is in a great hurry, and badly accommodated with pens, ink, and paper. This is, however, his most legible letter, and one wishes he had always had Nuremberg stationery. It has been believed that Vane spent a period at Geneva, and that he was much affected by the theo- logical atmosphere of Calvin's town. In coming years, he was to show in practical life a force and 8 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1632. sagacity surpassed by few men of the English race. Side by side with this, however, existed an extraordi- nary dexterity in and liking for intellectual disputes, the subtle word-splitting for which the school-men had been famous, whose mantle had fallen upon the shoulders of the reformed divines. As yet the abil- ity for affairs lay undeveloped in our hero. He in- haled perhaps for a time the air of the Swiss city, sulphurously pungent with the fumes of a grim the- ology. As a high-born young stranger, to whom all doors were open, he may have been present as spec- tator or combatant at battles- where the weapons were dialectics, and may have sometimes taken part among the capped and gowned champions, the pupils and heirs of the men whose zeal and intellectual force had prevailed to fix upon Protestantism a philosophy so utterly repulsive. When at length he came home, at any rate, his character had taken on an austerity quite foreign to youth : he was a pronounced enemy to the Church of England, both as to its government through bishops and its formal service. When Harry at last returned to England, a friend of his father, Sir Tobie Matthew, wrote to the father a letter, a passage from which is given here from the autograph : " London, March 29, 1632. Your Lo?' familie is in perfect health except ye indisposition of your Sonne. Believe me, my lord, I find him ex- treamly improved and very worthy of his father. His french is excelently good, his discourse discreet, and his fashion comely and faire, and I dare venture to foretell that he will grow a very fitt man for any such honour as his fathers merits shall bespeake, or the kings goodnesse imparte to him." ^ * State Papers, Domestic, ccxix. 64. I633-4-] BORN IN THE PURPLE. g When father and son came face to face, however, stately and able as the young man was, the parent naturally was full of consternation at the shape into which the boy had developed. As to personal beauty and grace, indeed, he probably was all his father could ask. But he had absorbed the Puritanism which the court so hated. At court. Sir Henry, as one preferred by the Queen, was a principal figure. He was trusted with grave responsibilities, and besides was not averse to the masques and dances which the French princess enjoyed, and easily tolerant of the popish ceremonies and the priests, through her installed in the palace at Whitehall. The father was, in fact, an easy man of the world, who took the court of Charles I. as he found it, with no misgivings, just as he afterwards ac- commodated himself with little trouble to Parliament and Protectorate. " Bustling " everywhere, as Claren- don describes him, he fitted in at a later time among the halberds and armor of the Ironsides, as now among the pillows, hautboys, and silken fringes of Stuart housekeeping, — everywhere with a pliability which enabled him to keep in the foreground, how- ever circumstances might change. Such a father, of course, stood aghast before the sad-browed, uncom- promising Puritan son. He had hoped for promise of a different kind, and the question began at once to press whether a son of such dispositions, with such abilities to make them dangerous, — for he made upon all an impression of power, — might not seriously com- promise his own prospects. Sir Harry Vane did what he could to counteract the tendencies which were so manifest. Young Harry was introduced at court, where the way to lO YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1633-4- all favors was open before him, had not the severe stripling eyed coldly the pomp and glitter. Already, in his eyes, the divinity that doth hedge a king was utterly unapparent. There is a story that his father left him alone, purposely, in a room where he was certain to come into close contact with the King, hoping that the real personal dignity and grace of Charles might produce an effect. Young Harry, how- ever, hid himself behind the arras. The King, en- tering, and seeing the arras move, poked with his cane at the supposed intruder, till Harry was forced to present himself, and retire in confusion.^ As Charles possessed no glamour that could befool him, so the bishops could offer no argument that weighed at all in his eyes. Those were the days of the power of Laud, already Bishop of London, soon to become Archbishop of Canterbury, and to enter with Strafford upon the policy of " Thorough," which was to bring them both to the block. As yet there was no muttering of coming danger : the prelate swayed the court, and was quite ready, at the elder Vane's request, to take in hand the moody boy, dan- gerously infected from the continental cities that had gone into such extremes in the revolt from Rome. One can imagine the pair : Laud, small and choleric, punctiliously habited in the bands and cap which he made essentials of his calling, shallow but alert, perfectly sincere, walking the narrow An- glican ridge, on one side of which lay Rome, on the other Puritanism ; Harry Vane, serious, fluent through his training, speaking out without fear his ' Godwin, Hist, of Commonwealth, vol. iii. p. 2. i63S-] BORN IN THE PURPLE. 1 1 heresies. The prelate was no match intellectually for the youth he had taken in hand. It is recorded that the debate, from a good-natured remonstrance on the Bishop's part, soon became heated. The baf- fled Laud lost his temper, the face of the little man flushing red, as was his wont. Harry Vane con- temptuously tossed his long curls, for so far, if a Pu- ritan, he was no Roundhead. The interview ended, and the father feared his son was incorrigible. Young Harry now took a resolution not at all strange under the circumstances. Fixed as he was in his views, there was no career for him in England. How irksome life would be in the presence of his dis- appointed father, of the King whom he had avoided, the church dignitary he had defied ! Of roaming on the continent he had had enough. Why not try New England ? It was almost leaving the planet, to be sure, to go there, but he was at the age when dis- tance and difficulty do not appall. Laud was driving scores of the Nonconformist ministers, among the best of English brains and hearts, beyond the seas. Hundreds of the sturdy yeomanry, the flocks, were following these exiled shepherds. Now and then men and women of gentle, even of noble, birth had braved the risks, and still others were upon the brink of de- parture. Harry Vane set his face westward. His father remonstrated, but it is said the King interfered to remove the obstacles. In 1635, when Harry was just twenty-three years old, a correspondent of his father's great rival. Sir Thomas Wentworth, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, writes to Wentworth : ^ * Forster, Life of Vane, in " Statesmen of the Commonwealth," p. 267 (Harper & Bros., 1846). 12 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1635. " The Comptroller Sir Henry Vane's eldest son hath left his father, his mother, his country, and that for- tune which his father would have left him here, and is, for conscience' sake, gone into New England, there to lead the rest of his days. ... I hear that Sir Nathaniel Rich and Mr. Pym have done him much hurt in their persuasions." Wentworth, soon to be Earl of Strafford, probably heard now of the youth for the first time : he was to know him after- ward under circumstances very memorable. The thought, " So Pym demoralizes the young men," may perhaps have risen in his mind, as he dwelt for a moment on the great national leader, once his friend, but now his foe. Another scrap has come down, relating to Vane's emigration. A certain George Garrard, writing to Edward, Viscount Conway and Killultagh, says,* Sept. 18, 1635 : " Sir Henry Vane also hath as good as lost his eldest son, who is gone into New Eng- land for conscience' sake: he likes not the discipline of the Church of England ; none of our ministers would give him the sacrament standing ; no persua- sions of our Bishops nor authority of his parents could prevail with him : let him go." But let us hear the young man speak for himself. Upon the eve of sailing he writes to his father : ^ " My humble suite is that you wil be pleased to dis- patch my passe w'- his Ma!?', and if you shall so think fitt, to vouchsafe me by this bearer an assurance from yourself that you have really resolved this place for me 1 Mass, Hist. Soc. Proceed, vol. xii. p. 246. ' Ibid. pp. 245, 246. i63S-] BORN IN THE PURPLE. 1 3 to goe to, that I may w'^out farther protraction of time prepare myself effectually for it w'-'-' things sutable for the place. And, Sr, beleeve this from one that hath the honour to bee your sonne (though as the case stands judged to be a most unworthy one), that how- somever you may bee jealous of circumventions and plots that I entertaine and practise, yet that I will never do anything (by God's good grace) which both w* honour and a good conscience I may not justify or bee content most willingly to suffer for. And were it not that I am very confident that as surely as there is truth in God, so surely shall my innocency and integrity bee cleared to you before you dye, I protest to you ingenuously that the jealousy you have of mee would breake my heart. But as I submitt all other things to the disposall of my good God, so do I also my honesty amongst the rest, and though I must confesse I am compassed about w* many infir- mitys, and am but too great a blemish to the religion I do professe, yett the bent and intention of my heart I am sure is sincere, and from hence flowes the sweete peace I enjoy w'- my God amidst these many and heavy trialls w"- now fall upon me and attend me : this is my only support in the losse of all other things, and this I doubt not of but that I have an all sufficient God able to protect me, direct me, and reward me, and w'-in his due time will doe it, and that in the eyes of all my freinds. " Your most truely humble and obedient Sonne, "H. Vane. " Cherring Cross, this 7!? of July, 1635." 14 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1635. As Vane appeared upon the ship, among the Puri- tans who were seeking the New World, he was at first regarded with suspicion. He was maturing into the presence which his" portraits give him, — an oval countenance of fair complexion, running above the large, widely-opened, black-brown eyes into an ample brow, a straight, prominent nose, beneath which the lips, full and brightly red, as of a man of strong vital- ity, are very firm and somewhat stern. The lower face possesses strength, and the head, carried above the shoulders in an erect and manly poise, has a mass of rich brown flowing locks, like a Cavalier, instead of the close-clipped hair that one would look for in the man about to become an uncompromising Repub- lican. Clarendon, the Cavalier historian, a witness highly prejudiced, although his characterizations of foes as well as friends are often not only extremely graphic but fair, has described the appearance of Harry Vane as " unbeautiful," though making " men think there was somewhat in him of extraordinary," a want of attractiveness which the historian declares he came well by, since his parents were neither of them conspicuous for grace. The head and face, at any rate, are grave and powerful, a proper front for such a leader as he was destined to become.^ His companions on shipboard thought at first he might be a spy, and found his long hair especially repug- nant. As the voyage continued, however, and the 1 The frontispiece is after Hou- characteristics mentioned in the braken's engraving of the portrait text are more apparent in the en- of Vane by Sir Peter Lely. Faith- graving of Faithorne than in that orne's portrait represents Vane of Houbraken. at an earlier time. Some of the 1 635-] BORN IN THE PURPLE. 1 5 cabin and deck of the little tossing vessel were the scene of serious discourse and sombre devotion, his true quality soon became apparent, and before the point of Cape Cod was sighted he was master of all hearts. CHAPTER II. MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN 1 635. The colony of Massachusetts Bay, in 1635, was far from being well established. Settlers enough had crossed the sea to occupy a few points on the coast and just within the mouths of the rivers. Salem, to the north, was older than Boston by a year or two ; and still farther northward, at Agawam, John Win- throp and his followers were just reclaiming the farms which were to form Ipswich. About Boston as a centre were closely grouped Charlestown, Newtown, soon to become Cambridge, Watertown, Roxbury, and Dorchester. Through forty miles of woods, one could struggle to Plymouth, where the roots of the earlier colony were beginning to grasp the sand with some firmness, after a precarious hold of fifteen years. As yet there was no settlement beyond tide-water ; the scattered groups of Englishmen clung to the shore, for, bleak though it was, it was safer than the savage and panther-haunted swamps and thickets which shut them in to the landward. They held fast to the sea, because it was the path homeward also ; their best path, moreover, to one another, as they coasted now to the headland of Manomet, now to Cape Ann, or were borne by the tide to the neighbors i63S-] MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN J635. 17 about the harbor and up the Charles River. There is a pleasant suggestiveness in the names of the an- cient ships as they occur in the records, taking us back into the tenderness with which the hearts of the pioneers watched them as they came and went. The " Mayflower " leads the way ; the first ship the settlers build is the " Blessing-of-the-Bay ; " the " Hand-Maid " conveys cattle ; lookouts on the head- lands sight the approaching " White Angel ; " the " Welcome " brings a company of friends ; the " Hopewell," the " Friendship," and the " Charity " bring news and food. Scarcely larger they were than the harbor-craft of our time, but stanch and often swift. " Mr. Ball his ship," says Winthrop, " went from hence to England and saw land there in eigh- teen days." Though it could not yet be said that the colony was certain to live, things were in better condition than a few years before,^ when the opportune arrival of the " Lyon " had rescued the plantation from a want that might soon have become famine. Once the Governor even could not safely venture upon a short walk from his door without arms to defend him- self from the wolves ; or if an Englishman lost him- self in the woods while hunting a stray heifer, it depended entirely upon the capricious good-nature of the sannup, or squaw, whom he might chance to meet, whether he returned alive to his friends. Both wild man and wild beast, however, had now become respectful ; plenty was beginning to prevail, and the " Lyon " arriving again after a round trip across the 1 Winthrof s Journal, i. 41 ; (Palirey, Hist, of N. E. i. 325, note.) 1 8 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1635. Atlantic, the farmers could spread ^n abundant Thanksgiving dinner for the friends she brought, tired of their ocean fare.^ The charter, originally intended for a trading cor- poration, of which the members were to live in Eng- land, directing thence the Ikbor of their servants in America, had been transferred across the Atlantic. The rules established for the private company had become transformed into the foundations of a broad polity.'^ A Governor, Deputy-Governor, and eigh- teen Assistants held the power, according to the ori- ginal charter. Seven Assistants, with the Governor or Deputy, meeting once a month, made a quorum. Annually, four Great or General Courts were held, to elect and commission officers, and to vote upon the admission of freemen. Only eleven or twelve of the original Assistants, who at length were called also Magistrates, ever came over. In 1631, church-mem- bership was made a condition of the franchise. In 1632, the freemen had insisted on and secured the right to choose the Governor and Deputy. At the court for the general election in May, the whole body of freemen were present, but at the three other an- nual courts deputies attended. The Governor was no longer the head of a mere commercial enterprise, but began to seem like the chief of a nascent State ; the board of Assistants had grown into a senate ; the employees of a corporation had become the citizens of a Commonwealth. " The rocky nook, with hilltops three, Looked eastward from the farms, 1 Winthrop, i. 63. * Memorial Hist, of Boston, i. 156. I63S-1 MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN 1635. 19 And twice each day the flowing sea Took Boston in its arms."^ In 1635, the rocks and the Trimountain were still visible, as they are no longer, and the flowing sea, not as now shouldered out by square leagues of " made land," could embrace Boston so overwhelmingly that at spring tides there was little left above the sur- face but the three hills. Close by what is now State Street stood the primitive town-hall and church. The Governor, Winthrop, lived near the site of the Old South, the water for the family needs coming from the spring that still flows among the founda- tions of the Post-Office. The huts of the pioneers straggled from the lower ground up upon the steep slopes. On the highest summit rose the pole sur- mounted by the beacon. Looking from its foot down upon the peninsula of about seven hundred acres, the irregular village street could be seen to part into cart-tracks, and at length into cow-paths, while sea- ward, beyond the Castle watching the channel on the present site of Fort Independence, could be seen the harbor islands, the headland at Hull, and at length the open ocean. If we look at the colonists themselves, while of the laymen the larger portion were of humble estate and simple education, there were a number of gentle birth and ample means. The Lady Arbella John- son, who died in the early months, was daughter of the third Earl of Lincoln. Roger Harlakenden, the Magistrate, whose sister Mabel became the wife of John Haynes, Governor of Massachusetts, and after- 1 Emerson, Boston Hymn. 20 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1635. wards a principal founder of Connecticut, could trace his line back to the Plantagenets. The family of Saltonstall was illustrious. John Winthrop, the father of the colony, usually elected Governor at the May General Court, and even when not Governor the mainstay of the enterprise, through his abundant means, his public spirit, and his remarkable wisdom, was of most honorable station. He came from a Suf- folk family, staked in the enterprise a fortune yielding an annual income, for those days most handsome, of ;^6oo or ;£yoo, and, though not always 'in favor, al- ways fortunately possessed sufficient influence to turn things to a happy issue. It was not a democratic community. Blood was respectfully deferred to. Wrote Winthrop : ^ " The best part of a community is always the least, and of that best part the wiser part is always the lesser." In this expression Win- throp's associates in the management of affairs would undoubtedly have concurred. Of the dignitaries of the earlier time. Vane almost alone had any trace oi modern American ideas, and in his mind, as will be seen, the free notions for which he afterwards con- tended so powerfully were less clearly defined in his Massachusetts days than was afterwards the case. " Let men of God in court and churches watch O'er such as do a toleration hatch," wrote Dudley,^ a figure scarcely less conspicuous in the first days than Winthrop ; and intolerance was received in the colony as a matter of course, with the noteworthy exceptions presently to be considered. 1 Journal, vol. ii. p. 428, ed. = Hutchinson, Hist, of Mass. '853- Bay, i. 75. i63S.] MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN 1633. 2 1 Leaving out a few leading spirits among the lay- men, no class in the colony exercised anything like the influence possessed by the ministers. As regards birth and powerful connections, matters in those days so highly regarded, no men were superior to them. John Wilson,^ teacher of the Boston church, was grandnephew of Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury, and had married the daughter of Sir John Mansfield, master of the Minories and the Queen's surveyor. The first wife of Peter Bulkeley, of Concord, was aunt of Sir Thomas Allen, Lord Mayor of London, and his second wife a daughter of Sir Richard Chit- wood.^ The wife of Sherman, of Watertown, was the granddaughter of an earl.' At first the ministers had some loose connection with the Church of Eng- land. They became, however, zealous Nonconform- ists, and as Laud attempted to impose tenets, vest- ments, and ceremonies savoring of the abhorred Popery which had been left behind in the preceding century, they fell away more and more into Indepen- dency, ceasing to remember with regret the univer- sity fellowships, the rectorships of fine parishes, the cathedral establishments, which they had resigned for life in the wilds. Those stout divines were shapes grisly and por- tentous. John Cotton, the chief among them, said, " I have read the Fathers and the Schoolmen, and John Calvin too, but I find that he that has Calvin has them all ; " and the same great light " loved to sweeten his mouth with a piece of Calvin before he 1 Mather, Magnalia, i. p. 276. ' Ibid. p. 364. Hartford ed., 1820. * Ibid. p. 466. 22 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1635. went to sleep." Like him, the brethren in general had taken into their souls, in spite of its bristling points and sulphurous reek, the toughest theology ever en- tertained in Christendom. They had managed to di- gest and assimilate it, reconciling it with the universe, and finding illustration for it from learning of the widest reach then possible. What the ministers so rel- ished they administered to all as proper spiritual food. They could turn it, as occasion served, into milk for babes or meat for men ; and in prayer, sermon, lec- ture, and every sort of private exhortation, deliver it hour after hour, without failure of voice or weakness of knee. The sincerity of the ministers was perfect, their zeal glowing. What could stand against men thus in earnest, and made powerful by a training so tremendous } In the theocracy they stood like tow- ers, the chosen men for learning, genius, and charac- ter, by whom all were swayed. They fought with one another in the fiercest controversies, in terms to us scarcely intelligible, over matters which the world now regards as trivial, or absurd, or perhaps repulsive, — a battle no more engaging modern sympathies than the war of the " dragons of the prime." Even in their moods of relaxation they appear to modern taste scarcely more attractive. -After a cer- tain fashion they were all poets, and the quips and rhymes in which these tough bows of Geneva unbent themselves, for the moment leaving the prowling ad- versary unvexed by their missiles, are curious enough. We must look at a few of the ministerial figures who are to appear in juxtaposition more or less close with young Harry Vane, during his American life, i63S.] MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN 1635. 23 or soon after. John Wilson, first pastor of the church in Boston, as Cotton was the teacher (the New England pulpits from which such constant can- nonading was demanded were of necessity double- barrelled), was a bold and combative character, who combined with the fiercest polemic activity a great taste and faculty for the conceits and quirks which the ministers so generally loved. He was matchless in skill to detect allegories, to invent anagrams, to work out acrostics, and to twist puns and conceits into consolatory verses on mournful occasions. The " Magnalia " gives this epitaph upon him : — " This father will return no more, To sit the moderator of thy sages. But tell his zeal for thee to after ages. His care to guide his flock and feed his lambs, By words, works, prayers, psalms, alms, and anagrams." ^ More interesting than Wilson was Nathaniel Ward, minister of Ipswich, who deserves especial mention not only because his famous " Simple Cob- bler of Aggawam " ^ was the most pungent and amus- ing book which early New England produced, but because the principles for which he stood were in sharpest contrast with those which Vane defended. Ward had travelled much and known distinguished people ; for instance. Bacon, Archbishop Usher, the scholar Paraeus of Heidelberg. At Heidelberg, in- deed, he had known the Princess Elizabeth, sister of Charles I. of England, and wife of the " Winter King " of Bohemia. He had a picturesque reminis- cence of Prince Rupert. " I have had him in my 1 Tyler, Am. Literature, i. 271. ^ Ibid. i. 229, etc. 24 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1635. arms — I wish I had him there now. If I thought he would not be angry with me, I would pray hard to his maker to make him a right Round-Head, to forgive all his sins, and at length to save his soul not- withstanding all his God-damn mes." ^ The marked thing in Ward's book, besides its racy frankness and fervor, is its intolerance, curious enough as compared with modern liberality or indifference, but not dis- pleasiijg to the Simple Cobbler's contemporaries. " My heart hath naturally detested four things : the standing of the Apocrypha in the Bible, foreigners dwelling in my country to crowd our native subjects into the corners of the earth, alchemized coins, toler- ations of divers religions, or of one religion in segre- gant shapes. Poly-piety is the greatest impiety in the world. To authorize an untruth by a toleration of state is to build a sconce against the walls of heaven, to batter God out of his chair. It is said that . men ought to have liberty of their conscience, and that it is persecution to debar them of it. Let all the wits under the heavens lay their heads together and find an assertion worse than this, (one excepted) I will petition to be chosen the universal idiot of the world." Ward's straightforward book, though not published until ten years after Vane's American sojourn, re- flected the sentiments of the New England of that time. The modern idea of toleration had scarcely been heard of in the world. One of its chief apos- tles had, however, appeared, and already uttered the great thought which before many years was to have from him more emphatic and elaborate development. * Simple Cobbler of Aggawam, Pulsifer's ed., p. 66. l63S-] MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN 1635. 25 " In the year 1654," says Cotton Mather,^ "a cer- tain wind-mill in the Low Countries, whirling around with extraordinary violence by reason of a violent storm then blowing, the stone at length by its rapid motion became so intensely hot as to fire the mill, from whence the flames, being dispersed by the high winds, did set a whole town on fire. But I can tell my reader that above twenty years before this there was a whole country in America like to be set on fire by the rapid motion of a wind-mill in the head of one particular man." Such was the judgment of the theocracy of Massachusetts Bay upon Roger Wil- liams. Roger Williams, born in Wales, was now about thirty years old. It has been believed he had some kinship with Cromwell. He was a blue-coat school- boy in London, and was afterwards at Jesus College in Oxford. His patron in his young days was the great lawyer Sir Edward Coke, for whom his love was strong, and whose speeches he took down sometimes in short-hand. He became a minister of the Church of England, but was soon so thorough a Separatist that there was no safety for him before Laud, except in flight. " That man of honour and wisdom and piety, your dear father," he wrote later in life to a daughter of Coke, " was often pleased to call me his son ; and truly it was as bitter as death to me, when Bishop Laud pursued me out of the land, and my conscience was persuaded against the National Church and ceremonies and Bishops, beyond the conscience of your dear father, — I say it was as bit- 1 Magnalia, vol. ii. 430. 26 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1635. ter as death to me, when I rode Windsor-way to take ship at Bristowe, and saw Stoke House, where that blessed man was, and durst not acquaint him with my conscience and my flight." Roger WilHams arrived in Boston Feb. 5, 1631, and almost at once took steps which caused . him to be set down as hot-headed and impracticable. He was invited to become teacher to the church in Salem, and began his ministrations in that simple structure, still in existence, the timbers of which, squared by the Puritan broad-axes, were from the trees felled by the settlers in the first clearing. When he was called to Salem the General Court remonstrated : ^ " Whereas Mr. Williams had refused to join with the congrega- tion at Boston, because they would not make a pub- lick declaration of their repentance for having com- munion with the churches of England, while they lived there ; and besides, had declared his opinion that the magistrate might not punish the breach of the Sabbath, nor any other offence as it was a breach of the first table, therefore, they marvelled they would choose him without advising with the Council ; and withal desiring that they would forbear to proceed till they had conferred about it." Palfrey expresses the opinion^ that "to assume at once an attitude of opposition to the church argued an eccentricity un- promising of usefulness. It would be likely to "offend at home, if repentance were professed for having taken communion with the Church of England." In spite of the opposition of the court, Williams ' Winthrop''s Journal, April 12, 1631. » Hist.ofN.E. i. 407.. i63S.] MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN 1635. 27 was ordained at Salem, but presently went to Ply- mouth as assistant to the minister there, where he disconcerted the Pilgrims by questioning their title to their lands as not having been fairly bought from the natives, but being by King's grant, though the Pilgrims had made such satisfaction to the natives as they valued. Brewster was, no doubt, glad to get rid of him, when the uneasy-footed fellow soon after went to Salem again, where he broke out once more, this time against ministerial associations, which he held to be dangerous, as threatening to become pres- byteries. He made submission for having questioned the Pilgrims' right to their land, and his document was burnt ; but on all sides he saw abuses, and to see them was for him to hit at them. He insisted on women's wearing veils ; then, it is said, abetted Endi- , cott in cutting the cross out of the English flag. He soon recanted his recantation as to denying the valid- ity of the King's patent, and insisted as before upon the great sin of claiming through that a right to the country. Again, he spoke against administering oaths to the unregenerate, counselling the Salem church to break off all relations with the other churches of the colony, because they allowed the practice. His church demurred ; whereupon he, though the teacher, refused to commune with them, and even refused to pray with his wife or ask a blessing at the table where she was, because she declined to withdraw from the church communion. The magistrates sent Captain Underbill to put him quietly on board a ship bound for England, a way they had of dealing with embar- rassing characters. He, however, had taken to the 28 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1635. woods, where the sight of a spring, running from a pleasant hill intoa stream which opened into Narra- gansett Bay, determined his place of settlement, and Providence began. Among his protests, says Hutch- inson, occurred this one, which ought not to have been ranked with the others : " that to punish a man for any matter of his conscience is persecution." Williams drove in his criticism at this, that, and the other thing, until the whole feeble social fabric was shaken, and for the magistrates to treat him as they did was, they honestly thought, but proper fidelity to their trust. For forty years he remained at Prov- idence, changing his opinions sometimes capriciously. Though such a stickler for rights of conscience, he could " persecute " as well as others. He hated the Quakers. " These simple reformers are extremely ridiculous in giving thou and thee to everybody, which our nation corhmonly gives to familiars only, and they are insufferably proud and contemptuous unto all their superiors in using thou to everybody. .... I have therefore publicly declared myself, that a due and moderate restraint and punishment of those incivili- ties, though pretending conscience, is so far from per- secution, properly so called, that it is a duty and command of God to all mankind." * In other ways, at Providence, " the infinite liberty of conscience " of some who followed him was abhorrent to him. Roger Williams, we may be sure, was a noble fel- low, full of power and sincerity, and in his thought as to toleration one of the great leaders of the world. When he began himself to conduct, in Rhode Island, a * George Fox digged out of his Burrowes, p. 199, etc. i63S] MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN 163s. 29 state, the necessity of limitations probably came home to him as it had not done before. He could hardly have been as sharp as he afterwards showed himself against those who endangered the common welfare without feeling himself, in his heart, that the treat- ment he had once received in Massachusetts was not altogether ill-deserved. A beautiful thing about him is the perfect candor and good-nature which throughout characterize him. He shows no rancor, but in the strait into which Massachusetts presently fell renders, as will be seen, at the risk of his life, a most essential service to those who had just driven him out. To these ministerial portraits must be added, finally, a most important figure. The great John Cotton, so- marked a character in Boston during the American career of Vane, and vastly influential, as will hereafter be shown, in shaping the course of things in England, was a bachelor of divinity of Cam- bridge, once a fellow and dean of Emanuel College, afterwards a great light among the Nonconformists of England, and an especial mark of the persecution of Laud. He had been rector of the handsome St. Botolph's church in Boston, in Lincolnshire, where his fame as a preacher became very great. He came to America in 1633, at the age of forty-eight. Boston had received its name from his English home, by way of doing honor to him, and in the idea that the compliment might weigh with him as an induce- ment to emigrate. He became at once the spiritual father and glory of the new town, and the master of the New England theocracy. He was a man of 30 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1635. most solid virtues and abilities, of herculean vigor, and a most " lively an-d painful " preacher. A four- hour sand-glass stood on his study-table, which he turned over three times before his day's work was finished. As with his profession in general, verse- making with him, too, was a recreation, — the result usually worthless enough. He thus draws comfort from reflections on his past career : ^ "When I think of the sweet and gracious company That in Boston once I had, And of the long peace of a fruitful ministry For twenty years enjoyed, The joy that I found in all that happiness Doth still so much refresh me That the grief tp be cast out into a wilderness Doth not so much distress me." Here, however, is something, given in Mather's " Magnalia," ^ quite different in character ; an effusion as pathetic and natural, perhaps, as can be found in the volume, usually so dreary, of colonial poetry. The lines were written after the death of two chil- dren by small-pox. " Suffer, saith Christ, your little ones To come forth me unto. For of such ones my kingdom is, Of grace and glory too. We do not only suffer them, But offer them to thee : Now, blessed Lord, let us believe Accepted that they be ; That thou hast took them in thine arms. And on them put thine hand, And blessed them with sight of thee Wherein our blessings stand." Though sometimes at sword's - points with the J Masson, Life of Milton, ii. 555. * Magnalia, vol. i. p. 260. I63S-] MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN i635- 31 churches, his authority constantly grew. In his later years Cromwell writes to him as " My dear Friend," and his death in 1649 was foretold, as people be- lieved, by portents. There appeared " a comet, hav- ing a dim light, waxing dimmer and dimmer, a very signal testimony that God had then removed a burn- ing and a shining light out of the heaven of his church here, unto celestial glory above." A portrait of this protagonist of New England Puritanism shows a face framed in the ample curls of a flowing wig, above Geneva bands, — a face remarkable for a cer- tain square strength, the eyes far apart, the nose massive, the chin firm, the brow broad; a front in- dicative of balance and good herve. His voice was sympathetic, his bearing impressive. The innkeeper at Derby, having Cotton for a guest, wished him gone, since " he was unable to swear while that man was under his roof." CHAPTER III. THE BOY GOVERNOR. Harry Vane reached Boston in the ship "Abigail," on the 6th of October, 1635. The suspicion of his ship- mates, among whom was a character at times scarcely less famous than he. in after-days, the Rev. Hugh Peters, had, long before the voyage was ended, given way to deference. As the new company mingled with the people of the colony, they prepared a smooth way for him to positions of influence. It was part of his errand in America to settle, in conjunction with Governor Winthrop's son John, Connecticut; but the feeling toward him in Boston, almost at once, partook of infatuation, and he remained in Massa- chusetts. Before he had been two months in the country, on Nov. 30, the town records report : " At a general meeting, agreed that none of the members of this congregation or inhabitants among us, shall sue one another at the law before Mr. H. Vane, and the two elders, Mr. Thos. Oliver and Thos. Leverett, have had the hearing and the deciding of the cause if they can." Before he had been in the colony three months, we find him, in connection with Hugh Pe- ters, attempting to revise the administration of the government in a way implying much presumption. 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 33 A council was called, at which were present Win- throp, Dudley, Haynes, at that time Governor, and the more influential ministers. Winthrop had thought " there should be more lenity in the plantations than in a settled state ; " but a difEerent opinion being ex- pressed, Winthrop yielded, upon which articles were drawn up for a better ordering of matters. Vane and Hugh Peters here work in concert in supersed- ing the policy of the prudent pioneers, but we shall presently find Peters sharply rebuking Vane for arro- gance. At the first election after Vane's arrival, March 25, 1636, he was chosen Governor. A noteworthy move of the same General Court was the appointment of a committee as follows : ^ The Governor, Deputy Gov- ernor, Thos. Dudley, John Haynes, Richard Belling- ham, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Peters, and Mr. Shepherd " are intreated to make a draught of lawes agreeable to the word of God, wch may be the ffundamentalls of this coinonwealth, and to present the same to the nexte Genrall Court." A similar charge had been given, the preceding year, to a smaller committee,^ which appears to have done nothing. Of course the body of " fundamentals " contemplated was not in- tended to be a written constitution, — that is, an instrument binding the Legislature: the charter stood in place of that. A code of laws for the infe- rior courts was rather in the minds of the movers. " It is ordered that in the meane tyme the magis- trates and their assosiates shall pceede in the courts to heare and determine all causes according to the 1 Records of Mass. i. p. 174- z Ibid. p. 147. 34 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636. lawes now established, and where there is noe law, then as near the lawe of God as they can ; and for all business out of court for wch there is no certaine rule yet sett downe, those of the standing Counsell, or some two of them shall take order by their best dis- crecon, that they may be ordered and ended accord- ing to the rule of God's word." It is quite possible, however, that the incident has a connection with the development of the idea of a written constitution. In years long after this, Vane was to make the first clear exposition of the Constitutional Idea, showing how the fundamentals must be laid down by which a free state shall be governed, and so anticipating what is to-day the most unique and one of the most valuable features of the American polity. It is not unlikely that his connection in his Massachusetts days with this committee had something to do with this interesting work of his later time. The new Governor was hailed by the colony with more ceremony and rejoicing than had ever yet been shown on a similar occasion, and the ships in the harbor signalized his election with " a volley of great shot." Young Harry, no doubt remembering the state he had so often witnessed at the pompous European courts, assumed a circumstance that had not before been seen. Four sergeants, with hal- berds, steel-caps on their heads, bandoliers, and small arms, marched before him whenever he went to the General Court or to church. Within a week of his accession he carried through successfully a piece of public business presenting some difficulties, and of considerable importance to the colony. Shortly be- 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 35 fore, the " Saint Patrick," a ship belonging to Went- worth, Lord Deputy of Ireland, arrived in the harbor. The Lieutenant of the Castle went aboard of her as she came up the harbor and made her strike her flag, which Palmer, her master, regarded as a great, injury, since the Castle, to which he struck, had no colors flying. The fact was that the New England planta- tion was disposed even now to carry things in a most independent spirit. Endicott, not long before, had cut the cross out of the English flag as an idolatrous symbol, and the settlers were by no means ready to recognize it as their ensign. But though disposed to proceed with the high hand, the planters were wary. Went worth was not a man to brave rashly. The Magistrates tried to satisfy Palmer by making the Lieutenant acknovy^ledge on board the ship his error, " that so all the ship's company might receive satis- faction, lest the Lord Deputy should have been in- formed that we had offered that discourtesy to his ship which we had never offered to any before." ^ Palmer seems to have been satisfied, but the trou- bles as to the shipping were not over. Fifteen vessels, for those days large, lay at anchor before the town. The distinction between honest sailor and buccaneer in those times was much less marked than now, and the people naturally felt themselves to be in some peril, if so many crews of lawless men were allowed to lie at their very doors, under no restraint. Enemies might readily slip in, if there were no chal- lenging ; and hurtful goods be imported, if there were no care. To manage the matter required some deli- > Winthrop, i. 186. 36 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636. cacy. Probably the fifteen ships, acting in concert, carried guns enough, easily to blow the colony into the air. Vane's expedient was to invite the captains to dinner ; then, when all were in good-humor through the rich entertainment and the affability of the high- born young Governor, he frankly propounded to them the embarrassment, and gained their assent to certain articles^ which ensured the public safety: " i^' that all ships, which should come after this year should come to an anchor before they came at the fort, except they did send their boat before, and did satisfy the commander that they were friends. 2. That, before they offered any goods to sale, they would deliver an invoice, &.c., and give the gover- nour, &.C. twenty-four hours' liberty to refuse &.c. 3. That their men might not stay on shore (except upon necessary business) after sunset. — These they all willingly consented unto." Thus with a little tact and good-natured condescension. Vane put a bridle upon the wild sea-horses, who seemed likely to ride rough-shod over the germinating state. The good understanding thus produced was at once strained almost to breaking, the difficulty as to the flag coming up in a new quarter. Among the English ships that came to the colony was one called, by a felicity of fortune, the " Hector," whose crew, be- fore the weak authorities of the plantation, were loud- mouthed to a point that seemed likely to make much trouble. The " Hector's " mate, one Miller, declared that because the King's colors were not shown at the fort, the colonists were all traitors and rebels. Vane 1 Winthrop, i. 187. 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 2)7 sent for the " Hector's " captain, whose mood was still genial, perhaps, through the steam of the Governor's punch, and the captain promised to deliver the loose- tongued mate to the authorities. The marshal and four sergeants were sent to the ship to bring him ashore, but the crew, bewhiskered and cutlassed, swaggered before the majesty of the colony, and refused to give up their officer. The captain was forced to go himself, and succeeded in bringing the mate to the land, where he was committed ; where- upon the sturdy mariners so stormed that the Magis- trates were obliged to place him again on the " Hec- tor's " deck, obtaining an engagement, however, that he should be produced at a time specified. Miller appeared at the time, to the Magistrates' relief, in a softened mood. He confessed to his words, and re- tracted them. For the moment the embarrassment was overcome, but a matter had been opened which might have grave consequences. The colony had made itself liable to sharp blame from those who were disposed to conform to the powers that were, and in the circumstances such criticism as that of the " Hec- tor's" mate was natural. The plantation was not ready to go to the length of defying the power of Charles. Vane, in the presence of the Magistrates, talked the subject over good-naturedly with his friends, the captains. They declared it was quite possible they might be examined in England as to what colors were flying in Massachusetts, and they would like to see the King's flag displayed that they might give a good report. The discussion on the point was grave. The authorities slept upon it, and 38 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636. counselled with the wisest heads, but were no nearer an agreement the second day than the first. At last Vane, supported by Dudley and Cotton, determined that though the colony were fully persuaded the cross in the ensign was idolatrous and might not be set up in the colony's flag, yet that the ensign might be set up at the fort, since the fort was maintained in the King's name. It was accordingly done. Vane bor- rowing colors from the "Saint Patrick," since there was no ensign in the colony. Winthrop, however, and many others washed their hands of the conces- sion, admitting the Governor's right to act, but deny- ing the expediency of such yielding. It is hard to see that the young head in this affair was not more prudent and reasonable than the older ones, whose policy, if carried out, might have brought upon New England an application of " Thorough " that would have quite wiped it out.^ Vane had been but a few weeks in the Governor's chair when a move was made in the colony indicat- ing that the days had come to an end when the surveyors thought it unnecessary to lay out a road westward beyond Watertown, as it would never be required. The settlement at Musketaquid was pro- jected, the foundation of Concord, the first town beyond tide-water in New England. The leading spirits in the movement were Major Willard, an in- fluential emigrant from Kent, with a following of sturdy yeoman neighbors, who now went w^ith him westward, and the accomplished Peter Bulkeley, a man of fifty-three, who had been a fellow of St. John's * Winthrop, i. 189. 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 39 College at Cambridge, a minister in Bedfordshire, and had been forced by Laud to emigrate in the same year in which Vane had come. Vane and Winthrop, as Governor and Deputy, were invited to be present at Newtown, at the gathering of the church which was to proceed thus into the wilderness, " but took it in ill part and thought not fit to go, because they had not come to them before, to acquaint them with their purpose." Whether or not the officials were unreasonably punctilious, or showed only just resent- ment at a slight, there are no data for judging. Far more important than the settlement of Con- cord was the departure of Hooker with the Connecti- cut colonists, which took place in the early summer. Thomas Hooker, a stout-hearted preacher, once fel- low of Emanuel College, Cambridge, the associate of John Eliot in England, and afterwards an exile in Holland, was a figure scarcely less prominent among the candlesticks in the New England churches than John Cotton himself. The latter, although they had quarrels, described him, after his death, as " Farel, Viret, and Calvin, [the three Geneva worthies,] rolled into one. " A son of thunder and a shower of rain, A pourer forth of lovely oracles, In saving souls the sum of miracles." 1 * When this strong character, a mature man of fifty, proposed to set out to Connecticut, the colony was profoundly stirred. With him were associated other men of mark, notably John Haynes, who had just before been Governor. The matter was debated ./r Masson, Life of Milton, ii. 537. 40 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636. and con. Hooker alleged they wanted room for their cattle, and that the towns were too near together ; that Connecticut was fruitful and commodious ; and that if unoccupied by them, it might fall into the hands of the Dutch, or of Englishmen not in sym- pathy with themselves.^ On the other side, the inex- pediency of dismembering what was already weak was urged, among other considerations. When it came to vote in the General Court, permission barely was given. Of the twenty-five deputies ten opposed, and among the Magistrates only the Governor and two Assistants were favorable. Liberty was at last granted, and in 1636 the emigrants set out. Vane must have regarded the affair with great interest, for he, in company with young John Winthrop and Hugh Peters, had a commission to manage for Lord Say and Sele, Lord Brooke, and others their patent of Connecticut. The commissioners proclaimed the rights of their principals, which the emigrants ac- knowledged, and we may imagine Vane looking on in the lovely June weather as the company started from Newtown. They were one hundred in num- ber, and drove before them a herd of one hundred and sixty cattle. When it was necessary, they cut a path through the woods, and bridged streams too deep f(?r fording with the trees they felled upon the shore. They slept by night in huts or wagons, and varied their diet with the strawberries then just in season. The wife of the minister, Mrs. Hooker, was carried in a horse litter, being sick. The journey 1 See Johnston's Connecticut ior was a democratic secession from the claim that Hooker's emigration the oligarchy of Massachusetts. 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 41 occupied a fortnight. Other emigrants from Dor- chester and Watertown followed them during the summer, and the towns of Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor were founded. All went well at first, but the skies soon became clouded. Says Winthrop in a graphic narrative : ^ "John Gallop, with one man more and two little boys, coming from Connecticut in a bark of twenty tons, intending to put in at Long Island to trade, and being at the mouth of the harbor, were forced by a sudden change of the wind to bear up for Block Island or Fisher's Island, lying before Naragansett, where they espied a small pinnace, which drawing near unto, they found to be Mr. Oldham's (an old planter and member of Watertown congregation, who had been long out a-trading, having with him only two English boys, and two Indians of Naragan- sett). So they hailed him but had no answer ; and the deck was full of Indians and goods. Where- upon they suspected they had killed John Oldham, and the rather, because the Indians let slip and set up sail, being two miles from shore, and the wind and tide being off the shore of the island, whereby they drove towards the main at Naragansett. Where- upon they went ahead of them, and having but two pieces and two pistols, and nothing but duck-shot, they bear up near the Indians, (who stood ready armed with guns, pikes, and swords) and let fly among them, and so galled them as they all gate un- der hatches. Then they stood off again, and return- ing with a good gale, they stemmed her upon the 1 Vol. i. 189, etc. 42 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636. quarter and almost overset her, which so frighted the Indians, as six of them "leaped overboard and were drowned. Yet they durst not board her but stood off again, and fitted their anchor, so as, stemming her the second time, they bored her bow through with their anchor, and so sticking fast to her they made divers shot through her, (being but inch board) and so raked her fore and aft, as they must needs kill or hurt some of the Indians ; but seeing none of them come forth, they gate loose from her and stood off again. Then four or five more of the Indians leaped into the sea, and were likewise drowned. So there being now but four left in her, they boarded her; whereupon one Indian came up and yielded; him they bound and put into hold. Then another yielded whom they bound. But John Gallop being well acquainted with their skill to untie themselves, if two of them be together, and having rio place to keep them asunder, he threw them bound into the sea ; and looking about they found John Oldham un- der an old seine, stark naked, his head cleft to the brains, and his hands and legs cut as if they had been cutting them off", and yet warm. So they put him into the sea ; but could not get to the other two Indians, who were in a little room underneath with their swords. So they took the goods which were left, and the sails, &.c., and towed the boat away ; but night coming on and the wind rising, they were forced to turn her off, and the wind carried her to the Naragansett shore." This bold exploit happened July 20th, and is worth giving in detail, because it brought on the fierce 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 43 Pequot war, and also because it was the first naval engagement in which Vane, destined to become one of the greatest of naval administrators, had occasion to take any vivid interest. Block Island was under Narragansett rule. The colony demanded satisfac- tion of the Narragansetts, and soon became embroiled with their neighbors, the Pequots. These, the most ferocious and powerful of the New England tribes, who not long before this time had thrust themselves in from the north to occupy the greater part of Con- necticut, had been for some time disaffected. A picturesque element in the population of the colonies was the leaven of veteran soldiers, who, trained among the hazards of that stormy century, had grown to love danger, and had exchanged the powder-smoke of the Thirty Years' War or Nether- landish disorders for an atmosphere equally full of peril, by the lair of wild-cat and savage. The oldest among these was Dudley, who nearly thirty years be- fore had commanded a troop in the wars of Henri Quatre, and who was old enough to have cheered over the defeat of the Spanish Armada.^ He had hardly strength now to take the field, but was a leader in counsel, carrying his soldier's ways into the deliberations of the Magistrates. Standish of Ply- mouth was a younger man, but still a veteran.^ Pat- rick had been in the guard of Prince Maurice of Nassau, and was well able to discipline the Boston train-band. Lieutenant Lion Gardiner was a skilful engineer,^ and was to make good his reputation at the 1 Palfrey, i. 303. ^ Markham, The Fighting Veres, pp. 388, 458. 3 Ibid. pp. 389, 458. 44 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636. fort at Saybrook. Underhill had bearded Spaniard and Frenchman, and talked famiHarly with Count Nassau. But chief among these singed and sun- burnt veterans was John Mason, who had served under Sir Horace Vere, as comrade of Fairfax and Skippon, and with equal opportunities might perhaps have become equally famous with those great cham- pions of the English Commonwealth. These old sol- diers were now about to find their opportunity. Endicott, who at first had been sent with ninety men to put matters into better condition among the Indians about Long Island Sound, had only made things worse. At Block Island and on the mainland adjacent, massacres were perpetrated and crops and wigwams burned. The effect was not to intimi- date, but to incense. In his indiscriminate harrying, Endicott touched the Pequots, and Sassacus, their energetic chief, sent deputies at once to the Narra- gansetts to induce them to join with him against the English in a war of extermination. To this the Nar- ragansetts were not at all indisposed. Miantonimo, their chief, had professed readiness to make atone- ment for Oldham's murder, and could not have felt otherwise than that the punishment inflicted through Endicott upon the Block Islanders was excessive. Had an alliance been formed between the two power- ful tribes, the English could scarcely have escaped destruction. The alliance was prevented, and there is nothing more beautiful in New England history than the story of its prevention. Wrote Roger Wil- liams to Captain John Mason in 1670,^ when both 1 G. E. Ellis, Life of Mason, in Sparks's Am. Biog. 2?* ser. vol. iii. p. 360. 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 45 were old men : " When, the next year after my ban- ishment, the Lord drew the bow of the Pequot war against the country, . . . the Lord helped me* im- mediately to put my life into my hand, and scarce acquainting my wife, to ship myself all alone, in a poor canoe, and to cut through a stormy wind with great seas, every minute in hazard of my life, to the sachem's house. Three days and nights my business forced me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequot ambassadors whose hands and arms reeked with the blood of my countrymen, murdered and massacred by them on Connecticut river, and from whom I could not but nightly look for their bloody knives at my own throat also." To be sure, it may be said that Roger Williams was saving his own colony here, as well as Massachu- setts ; but looking at the matter in the light of his after career, it is plain that he showed a fine magna- nimity as he sought to ward off death from those who had driven him forth. How extraordinary the courage, too, which made it possible for him, braving a stormy sea in a light canoe, to trust himself in the depths of the woods to very doubtful friends, while the fiercest savages of New England, to some extent justly incensed, poured incitements into the ears of the Narragansetts ! His heroism prevailed. He had paid fairly for his land, and in the time since his arrival at the brook-side, under the pleasant hill, had done the Narragansetts many a favor. Miantonimo hearkened to his words, and the foiled Pequots with- drew sullenly. While Roger Williams counteracted their efforts to the east, the Mohegans to the west of 46 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636. their territory, led by their chieftain Uncas, remained friendly to the English. The Pequots were left to fight the battle alone. Early in July, Vane had made a progress through his small dominion, the whole of which, we may sup- pose, he up to this time had never seen. Starting northward, he made a public entrance into Salem on the 9th. In the absence of any records, Mr. Upham indulges his imagination after a pleasant fashion as to the exact manner in which the young Governor may have been received.^ But he was soon at home again. John Gallop's recital had made all feel that a desperate war must come. On October 2 1 , the out- come of Williams's effort was seen, and it began to seem possible that the colony might be preserved. " Miantunnomoh, the sachem ot Narragansett, being sent for by the Governour, came to Boston with two of Canonicus's sons, and another sachem, and near twenty sannups. The Governour sent twenty mus- keteers to meet him at Roxbury. He came to Bos- ton about noon. The Governour had called together most of the Magistrates and ministers to give counte- nance to our proceedings, and to advise with them about the terms of peace. It was dinner-time, and the sachems and their council dined by themselves in the same room where the Governour dined, and their sannups were sent to the inn. After dinner, Mian- tunnomoh declared what he had to say to us." ^ The Narragansetts wished for peace. Next morning the Governor met them again, and a treaty was signed, * Life of Vane, Sparks's Am. Biog. ist ser. vol. iv. p. 118. 2 Winthrop, i. 198. 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 47 the articles of which were to be interpreted to them by Roger Williams, who had become accomplished in the native tongue. After dinner they took their leave, escorted by musketeers, and were finally dis- missed with a salute. It maybe believed. that the scene was full of interesting traits, as the young Gov- ernor came down from the mansion in what is now Pemberton Square, where he lived with Cotton, pre- ceded by his halberdiers, while the savages, in their eagle's feathers, fringes, and paint, waited to meet him. The danger from the savages was by no means the only one by which the colony was now threatened. Compared with the points, dipped in bitterest Calvin- ism, of a theological controversy of the 1 7th century, the Pequot tomahawks present a prospect positively genial, and the historian turns with real reluctance from beneath the latter to impale himself upon the bristling details of the great word-war in which Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was the central figure. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson had emigrated to New England about two years before the period which we have now reached, in the same ship which brought a copy of the dangerous commission issued by the King to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and nine others of the Privy Council, to regulate for- eign plantations and call in charters. Her home had been Alford, near Boston, in Lincolnshire, whence she had come accompanied by her husband, who, although afterward in conspicuous positions, was plainly the weaker member of the partnership. In 48 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636. New England she took no satisfaction in any preach- ing except that of Cotton, whose parishioner she had formerly been in England, and that of her brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, a strong, indepen- dent character. On the voyage, the shipmates of Mrs. Hutchinson became aware that by the Puritan standards her opinions were not sound, and she made enemies who afterward caused her trouble. When she and her husband sought to be admitted to the Boston church, information was given of her singu- larities, and the matter was delayed. At first, how- ever, she made a good impression upon all ; she was full of neighborly kindness, helpful to people in sickness, and acquired influence by remarkable men- tal ability and force of character. Her home was where now stands the Old Corner Book Store, with the house of Winthrop nearly opposite, and the house of Cotton and Vane a few rods back to the northwest. In October, 1636, Winthrop first makes mention of trouble from her. " One Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church of Boston, a woman of ready wit and bold spirit, brought over with her two dan- gerous errors : ist, that the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person. 2nd, that no sanctifi- cation can help to evidence to us our justification. From these two grew many branches, as, ist, our union with the Holy Ghost, so as a Christian remains dead to every spiritual action, and hath no gifts nor graces other than such as are in hypocrites, nor any other sanctification but the Holy Ghost himself." This is not very clear, and it would be only waste of 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 49 time to attempt to make it clearer. The points of the controversy were not at all understood by many who took part, according to reports to be presently cited, and before the trouble was over we find the leaders so explaining their views that the difference was reduced to a minimum. Nevertheless, a schism of the bitterest rent asunder the New England Church. On one side were Mrs. Hutchinson, " the masterpiece of woman's wit," Cotton with all his pres- tige, and Wheelwright ; the greater part of the Bos- ton church stood also with these ; and here, too. Vane took his place, entering into the wordy war with all possible zest. Few men of the English race have possessed to any greater degree the faculty of plain speech, or greater power in practical life. With it all, however, he was, after a strange fashion, a dreamer, devoted, when he could find leisure for it, to rhap- sody and abstruse discussion, unintelligible to the men of his time, and the despair of those of the pres- ent day who seek to follow him. In the Hutchin- sonian turmoil he was in a congenial atmosphere, and although he made at the time certain most note- worthy utterances which will presently be considered, his speech in great part, probably, was not less blind than that of his fellow-strugglers. On the other side in the controversy stood almost unanimously the country churches (the distinction between town and country had already become marked) and five mem- bers of the , Boston church ; but of these five, two were among the strongest men of the colony, Win- throp and Wilson. The men of the Boston church had been in the 50 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636. habit of meeting to talk over the sermons of Wilson and Cotton, and in imitation of this Mrs. Hutchin- son had convened the women, at one time as often as twice a week. Sometimes the number amounted to one hundred, among them the principal women of the colony. Cotton and Wheelwright she com- mended as being under a " covenant of grace ; " but with a boldness which increased as time went on, she condemned the other ministers as under a "cove- nant of works." As the schism deepened, conduct and language grew violent. When Wilson rose in his place to speak, Mrs. Hutchinson and her follow- ers would withdraw from the meeting-house. Writes a fierce anti-Hutchinsonian : ^ " Now, oh their bold- ness, pride, insolency, and alienations from their old and dearest friends, the disturbances, divisions, con- tentions, they raised amongst us, both in church and state, and in families, setting division betwixt man and wife ! . . . Now the faithful ministers of Christ must have dung cast upon their faces, and be no better than legal preachers, Baal's priests, etc. . . . Now, after our sermons were ended at our public lectures, you might have seen half a dozen pistols discharged at the face of the preacher (I mean so many objections made by the opinionists in the open assembly against the doctrine delivered, if it suited not their new fancies), to the marvellous weakening of holy truths delivered. Now you might have seen man/ of the opinionists rising up, and contemptu- ' Rev. Thomas Weld, A Short and Libertines, that infected the Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruin Churches of New England. Pref- er the Anti-nomians, Familists, ace. 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 5 1 ously turning their backs upon the faithful pastor of that church, and going forth from the assembly when he began to pray or preach." Winthrop is so fair-minded that all historians have put perfect faith in the records of his diary, whether he speaks of friend or foe. Although he was a party in this strife, we may repose in his candor. He does his best to tell what Vane and what he himself believed.^ " The Governor Mr, Vane, a wise and godly gentleman, held, with Mr. Cotton and many others, the indwelling of the person of the Holy Ghost in a believer, and went so far beyond the rest, as to maintain a personal union with the Holy Ghost ; but the deputy [Winthrop himself], with the pastor and divers others, denied both ; and the question proceeded so far by disputation (in writ- ing, for the peace' sake of the church, which all were tender of) as at length they could not find the person of the Holy Ghost in scripture, nor in the primitive churches three hundred years after Christ. So that all agreeing in the chief matter of substance, viz., that the Holy Ghost is God, and that he doth dwell in the believers (as the Father ar\d Son both are said also to do), but whether by his gifts and power only, or by any other manner of presence, seeing the scrip- ture doth not declare it, — it was earnestly desired that the word person might be foreborne, being a term of human invention, and tending to doubtful disputance in this case." Of far greater interest than this dreary controversy is the minute in the colonial records,^ October 28, ^ Winthrop, i. 206, 207. ^ Records of Mass. Bay, i. 183. 52 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636- 1636, of the gift by the General Court, under the presidency of Henry Vane, of four hundred pounds for the establishment of Harvard College ; the first time, according to Edward Everett, that " the peo- ple, by their representatives, ever gave their ovirn money to found a place of education." ^ During the autumn weeks, while the strength of the terrible Pequots was gathering in the woods about, such discord was beginning to reign in the colony, and the Governor of twenty-four may well have believed that he had undertaken more than he could manage. The General Court having been summoned, he begged leave to resign his office, be- cause " he had letters from his friends in England which necessarily required his presence there." iHis popularity was still great, and as the people urged him to remain, " the Governor brake forth into tears, and professed that howsoever the causes propounded for his departure were such as did concern the utter ruin of his outward estate, yet he would rather have hazarded all than have gone from them at this time, if something else had not pressed him more ; viz., the inevitable danger of God's judgments to come upon us for these differences and dissensions which he saw amongst us, and the scandalous imputations brought upon himself as if he should be the cause of all, and therefore he thought it best for him to give place for a time." "^ The Governor had need to be sorely troubled, and his tears were natural enough in one so young. The Court refused con- sent to his going on those grounds ; whereupon Vane, 1 Palfrey, i. 548. ' Winthrop, i. 207, 208. 1636.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 53 showing some vacillation, recalled his plea, declaring " that the reasons concerning his own estate were sufficient for his departure," and that as for the other plea, " it had slipped him out of his passion, and not out of judgment." Upon this the Court consented to his departure. The Boston church, however, re- sisted his going so strongly that he was prevailed upon to stay. Henceforth through his American life there was nothing but trouble for Vane, and he met it with resolution. At a meeting of Magistrates and elders, convened to reconcile, if possible, jarring parties, he was taken sharply to task. At Vane's first coming we have seen him joined with Hugh Peters in calling Winthrop to account in a somewhat presumptuous way. Peters had become a great figure in the colony, commending himself perhaps as much by a certain practical good sense which he showed as regards the material development of the colony as by his spirit- ual ministrations. He was now the spokesman of the ministers, who, in the midst of the " patheticall passages " connected with the young man's desire to go home, were very plain in their fault-finding. One of the Magistrates declaring that he would utter freely what he held different from others,^ " the Gov- ernor said that he would be content to do the like, but that he understood that the ministers were about it in a church way, &c., which he spoke upon this occasion : the ministers had met a little before, and had drawn into heads all the points wherein they suspected Mr. Cotton did differ from them, and had 1 Winthrop, i. 209, etc. 54 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1636. propounded them to him, and pressed him to a direct answer, affirmative or negative to every one ; which he had promised and taken time for. This meeting being spoken of in the Court the day before, the Gov- ernor took great offence at it as being without his privity &c., which this day Mr. Peters told him as plainly of (with all reverence), and how it had sad- ded the ministers' spirits that he should be jealous of their meetings, or seem to restrain their liberty, &c. The Governor excused his speech as sudden and upon a mistake. Mr. Peters told him also, that be- fore he came, within less than two years since, the churches were in peace, &c. The Governor an- swered, that the light of the gospel brings a sword, and the children of the bond-woman would persecute those of the free-woman. Mr. Peters also besought him humbly to consider his youth and short experi- ence in the things of God, and to beware of peremp- tory conclusions, which he perceived him to be very apt unto. He declared further that he had observed, both in the Low Countries and here, three principal causes of new opinions and divisions thereupon : I. Pride, new notions lift up the mind, &c. 2. Idle- ness. 3. [a blank.] " Winthrop may be still further quoted to show what straw the generation was threshing, and in what con- fusion of mind the disputants themselves were : " Mr. Wilson made a very sad speech of the condition of the churches. . . . Mr. Cotton had laid down this ground, that evident sanctification was an evidence, of justification, and thereupon had taught that in cases of spiritual desertion, true desires of sanctifica- I637-] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 55 tion was found to be sanctification ; and further, if a man were laid so flat upon the ground as he could see no desires, &c., but only, as a bruised reed did wait at the feet of Christ, yet here was matter of comfort for this, as found to be true." Wilson's crit- icisms were taken very ill by the Boston church in which " the Governour pressed it violently against him, and [as did] also all the congregation, except the deputy [Winthrop himself] and one or two more, and many of them with much bitterness and re- proaches. ... It was strange to see how the com- mon people were led, by example, to condemn him in that which divers of them did not understand, nor the rule which he was supposed to have broken." In March, 1637, the ministers assembled at Boston determined to bring things to some issue. How could the world be more out of joint ! " A general fast was kept in all the churches. The occasion was the miserable estate of the churches in Germany ; the calamities upon our native country, the Bishops mak- ing havoc in the churches, putting down the faithful ministers and advancing papist ceremonies and doc- trines, the plague raging exceedingly, and famine and sword threatening them ; the dangers of those at Con- necticut, and of ourselves also, by the Indians ; and the dissensions in our churches." ^ As regards the Indian war, terrible stories filled the ears of the set- tlers. The Mohegans were their friends and to some extent softened by civilizing influences, yet if the Mohegans took a prisoner, forthwith he was put to torture. Strips of flesh were torn from him while 1 Winthrop, i. 213. 56 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. he lived and devoured by his captors before his eyes, until Englishmen present held their pistols to the heads of the victims and out of mercy put them out of misery. From such events in their own camps the settlers drew rueful conclusions as to what the English underwent who fell into the hands of the Pequots. The contortions^ groans, and devout ejac- ulations of their brethren in their death-struggles were caught with diabolical mimicry by the Pequots, who then from the opposite shore of some deep stream, or some thicket or hill-brow not easily reached, used them as taunts and jibes against their foes. In the month of the fast, Lion Gardiner, the stout soldier who held the fort at Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut, in the midst of the dan- ger, sent to Vane a horribly suggestive token of the fate that might overtake them all. It was the rib of a slain soldier pierced through by a Pequot arrow. The idea, it seems, had prevailed that a savage arrow had no force.^ Nor were the internal controversies and the Indian war the only occasions for anxiet}^ The danger of an application of " Thorough " by Laud and Strafford became more and more imminent, as the story of the dissensions tended to create the impression in Eng- land that the colony was falling to pieces. An oc- currence took place upon the occasion of the sailing of a ship for England which would be amusing were it not so pathetic and pitiable. Cotton and Wilson, who were fighting like deadly enemies at the heads of the two factions, fearing that news would be car- * G. E. Ellis, Life of Mason, p. 362. 1637-] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 57 ried which would result in the dreaded interference from home, laid aside for the moment their hostility, to whitewash, as far as possible, the melancholy situa- tion. Cotton spoke to the ship's company ^ " about the differences, and willed them to tell our country- men that all the strife amongst us was about magni- fying the grace of God ; one party seeking to advance the grace of God within us, and the other to advance the grace of God towards us (meaning by the one justification, and by the other sanctification), and so bade them tell them, that if there were any among them that would strive for grace, they should come hither." Wilson followed Cotton in an address " by occasion whereof no man could tell (except some few who knew the bottom of the matter) where any dif- ference was." Though when need was, the fighters could make their mountains thus seem like mole-hills, the opera- tion did not bring them to their senses. " Every oc- casion increased the contention, and caused great alienation of minds. ... It began to be as common here to distinguish between men, by being under a covenant of grace or a covenant of works, as in other countries between Protestants and Papists."^ The General Court at last, where the anti-Hutchinso- nians were in a majority, proceeded to extremities. The ministers said " that in all such heresies or errors of any church-members as are manifest and dangerous to the state, the court may proceed with- out tarrying for the church." In spite of the Boston church, therefore, one Greensmith, a zealous Hutch- * Winthrop, i. 213, ^ Ibid. i. 213. 58 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. insonian, was " committed to the marshal," and Wheelwright was censured. Against this Vane and a few deputies protested. His prestige, however, was waning fast. To show its displeasure with Boston, the Court concluded that its meetings should be held elsewhere, and it was moved that its next session, in May, when the important business of the choice of a new Governor was to be attended to, should take place at Newtown. Vane as presiding officer refused to put the matter to vote. Winthrop, Deputy Gov- ernor, also refused, as a Boston man, though he and Vane were now at sword's points. Endicott put the question, and it was carried. The Court met. May 1 7, at Newtown, both parties incensed to such a degree that bloodshed and civil war were scarcely avoided. " So soon as the Court was set, about one of the clock, a petition was pre- ferred by those of Boston." Vane declared that it should be read at once, which Winthrop opposed on the ground that it was out of order until the first business of the Court had been attended to, the mat- ter of the election. " Mr. Wilson, the minister, in his zeal, got upon the bough of a tree, and there made a speech advising the people to look to their charter, and to consider the present work of the day, which was designed for the choosing, &c. His speech was well received by the people, who presently called out, ' Election ! Election ! ' which turned the scale." ^ Vane shouted his protest, but the election was held in spite of him, Winthrop being made Governor and Dudley ' MS. Life of Wilson, quoted by Hutchinson, Hist, of Mass. Say, i. 62. 1637.] THE BOY GOVERNOR. 59 Deputy Governor, while Vane and his friends were left out in the cold. " There was great danger of a tumult that day, for those of that side grew into fierce speeches, and some laid hands on others ; but seeing themselves too weak, they grew quiet. They expected a great advantage that day, because the remote towns were allowed to come in by proxy ; but it fell out that there were enough besides. . . . Boston, having de- ferred to choose deputies till the election was passed, went home that night, and the next morning they sent Mr. Vane, the late Governor, and Mr. Codding- ton, Mr. Dummer, and Mr. Hoffe for their deputies, but the Court, being grieved at it, found a means to send them home again, for that two of the freemen of Boston had not notice of the election. So they all went home, and the next morning they returned the same gentlemen again, upon a new choice ; and the Court not finding how they might reject them, they were admitted. . . . Upon the election of the new Governour, the sergeants, who had attended the old Governour to the Court (being all Boston men, where the new Governour also dwelt), laid down their halberds and went home ; and whereas they had been wont to attend the former Governour to and fro from the meetings on the Lord's days, they gave over now, so as the new Governour was fain to use his own ser- vants to carry two halberds before him ; whereas the former Governour had never less than four." ^ The wrath of the moment was slow in cooling. " Mr. Vane professed himself ready to serve the cause of God in the meanest capacity. He was, notwith- 1 Winthrop, i. 220. 6o YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. standing, much mortified and discovered his resent- ment. Although he had sat at church among the magistrates from his first arrival, yet he and those who had been left out with him placed themselves with the deacons, and when he was invited by the Governour to return to his place, he refused it."^ Lord Ley, son and heir of the Earl of Marlborough, a boy in his teens, was at this time in the colony. Vane being invited by Winthrop to meet Lord Ley at dinner at his house, he " not only refused to come, alleging by letter that his conscience withheld him, but also at the same hour he went over to Nottle's Island to dine with Mr. Maverick [a kind of Ishmael- ite in the settlement], and carried the Lord Ley with him.'"' As far as young Harry Vane is concerned, no episode of this Antinomian controversy, which para- lyzed in such a perilous way the heart of New Eng- land at the moment when the most appalling dangers were gathering about her, is so memorable as his writ- ten controversy with the noble-minded and hearted John Winthrop, the father of the country ; and for this we must take a separate chapter, ^ Hutchinson, i. 63. 2 Winthrop, i. 232. CHAPTER IV. THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. Says Winthrop : " Another occasion of the discon- tent of that party was an order which the Court had made, to keep out all such persons as might be dan- gerous to the Commonwealth, by imposing a penalty upon all such as should retain any, &c., above three weeks, which should not be allowed by some of the magistrates ; for it was very probable that they ex- pected many of their opinion to come out from England." * Cotton had felt so outraged at this order that he at one time made up his mind to remove out of the jurisdiction. Winthrop published a de- fence of the order, to which Vane straightway replied at length in " A Brief answer to a certain Declaration made of the Intent and Equity of the Order of Court, that none should be received to inhabit within this jurisdiction but such as should be allowed by some of the Magistrates."^ Vane's work deserves careful attention as containing the first adumbration of a principle for which he was afterward to struggle most manfully upon a far larger stage, — the idea of toleration. ^ Winthrop, i. 224. relative to the History of Massa- "^A Collection of Original Papers chusetts Bay, made by Hutchinson. 62 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. Winthrop begins by defining " a commonweal or body politic " as " the consent of a certain company of people to cohabit together under one government for their mutual safety and welfare." To this Vane objects, as too unqualified : " There must be put in such a consent as is according to God ; a subjecting to such a government as is according unto Christ. And if you will define a corporation incorporated by virtue of the grant of our Sovereign, it must be such a consent as the grant requires and permits, and in that manner and form as it prescribes, or else it will be defective." The Commonwealth you describe, con- tinues Vane, " may be a company of Turkish pirates as well as Christian professors, unless the consent and government be better limited than it is in this definition ; for sure it is, all Pagans and Infidels, even the Indians here amongst us, may come within this compass. And is this such a body politic as ours, as you say ? God forbid ! Our Commonwealth, we fear, would be twice miserable, if Christ and King should be shut out so. Reasons taken from the nature of a Commonwealth not founded upon Christ, nor by his Majesty's charter, must needs fall to the ground." The main interest of the passage just quoted lies in the fact that its tone is so thoroughly loyal to the King. Vane, before many years, was to be a leader among the most uncompromising opponents of mo- narchical authority. At present he takes pains to emphasize his deference to royalty, in the midst of men disposed to deal very cavalierly with the claims of the sovereign, and the limitations of the charter I637-] THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. 63 granted by him. Vane quotes Winthrop again: " The first reason of the equity of the order is this, ' If we be a corporation, established by free consent, if the place of our habitation be our own, then no man hath right to come unto us without our con- sent.' " Ans. We do not know how we that stand a cor- poration, by virtue of the King's charter, can thus argue, yet to avoid dispute, suppose the antecedent should be granted, the consequence doth not follow. This is all that can be inferred, that our consent regulated by the Word, and suitable to our patent ought to be required, not this vast and illimited con- sent here spoken of; our consent is not our own when rightly limited, i Cor. vi. 19, 20." Vane continues, quoting Winthrop : " The third reason is thus framed : ' If we are to keep off whatsoever appears to tend to our ruin and damage, then may we lawfully refuse to receive such whose dispositions suit not with ours, and whose society we know will be hurtful unto us, and therefore it is lawful to take knowledge of men before we do receive them.' "Ans. This kind of reasoning is very confused and fallacious, for the question here is not only changed, but there is this further deceit of wrapping up many questions in one, and besides ; if it were put into a right form, the assumption would be false. The question is not, as was said before, whether knowledge may not be taken of men before they be received, nor whether magistrates may refuse such as suit not with their dispositions, or such whose 64 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637- society they know will be hurtful to them (though the second of these is not, nor cannot be proved), but whether persons may be rejected or admitted upon the illimited consent or dissent of magistrates. The assumption also would be false ; for men are not to keep off whatsoever appears to tend to their ruin, but what really doth so." Vane proceeds in Puritan fashion to show that there should be no exclusions, because it is quite possible that great benefactors may, to our short sight, appear to be harmful people. " Elijah appeared to Ahab, and no doubt to his counsel of state, a troubler of the commonwealth, one that brought three years famine, enough to ruin the whole state ; yet the Jewish magistrates ought not to have rejected him and all those of his frame and judg- ment because thus it appeared ; for in truth Elijah was the horseman of Israel and the chariots thereof. It appeared also to the chief priests and Pharisees that if our blessed Saviour were let alone, it would tend to their ruin (John xi. 47, 48), and therefore used means to keep it off by rejecting Christ and his gospel, and yet we hope you will not say they were bound to do so. Lastly, it appears to the natives here (who by your definition are complete commonwealths in themselves) that the cohabitation of the English with them tends to their utter ruin ; yet we believe you will not say they may lawfully keep us out upon that ground, for our cohabitation with them may tend to their conversion, and so to their eternal salvation, and then they should do most desperately and sinfully. Let us then do unto our brethren at least as we would i637-] THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. 65 desire to be done unto by barbarians ; which is not to be rejected because we suit not with the disposi- tion of their sachem, nor because by our coming God takes them away and troubles them, and so to their appearance we ruin them." Taking up Winthrop's declaration, that " profane persons may be less dangerous than such as are re- ligious, of large parts, confirmed in some erroneous way," Vane declares that here " you need not much confutation ; su^h shall be blessings wheresoever they come. . . . As for Scribes and Pharisees, we will not plead for them ; let them do it who walk in their way; nor for such as- are confirmed in any way of error though all such are not to be denied cohabita- tion, but are to be pitied and reformed, Jude, 22, 23." Here we have a shadowing forth of the idea that tol- eration must be shown to those whom we think to be in error. Vane goes on, " Ishmael shall dwell in the presence of his brethren. Gen. xvi. 12." We must bear with those who are different from us is his evi- dent thought. He judges the law to be " most wicked and sinfull — " I. Because the law doth leave these weighty mat- ters of the commonwealth, of receiving or rejecting such as come over, to the approbation of magistrates and suspends these things upon the judgment of man,. whereas the judgment is God's. Deut. ix. 17. This is made a groundwork of gross popery. Priests and magistrates are to judge, but it must be accord- ing to the law of God. Deut. xvii. 9, 10, 11. That law which gives that without limitation to man, which is proper to God, cannot be just. 66 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. " 2. Because here is liberty given by this law to expell and reject those which are most eminent Chris- tians, if they suit not with the disposition of the mag- istrates ; whereby it will come to pass, that Christ and his members will find worse entertainment among us than the Israelites and Isaac did amongst the Philis- tines, than Jacob amongst the Shechemites, yea, even than Lot .among the Sodomites. These all gave leave to God's people to sit down amongst them, though they could not claim such rights as the King's subjects may. Now that law, the execution wherof may make us more cruel and tyrannical over God's children than Pagans, yea than Sodomites, must needs be most wicked and sinfull. " 3. This law doth cross many laws of Christ. Christ would have us render unto Ceasar the things that are Ceasar's. Matt. xxii. 21. But this law will not give unto the King's majesty his right of planting some of his subjects amongst us, except they please them. Christ bids us not to forget to entertain strangers, Heb. xiii. 2. But here by this law we must not entertain, for any continuance of time, such stranger as the magistrates like not, though they be never so gracious." Hereafter, the rise of the doctrine of Toleration will be considered in some detail, and the position of Vane with regard to it estimated. Roger Wil- liams had already enunciated and practised it, though his memorable exposition, of it in the " Bloudy Ten- ent of Persecution " appeared six years later than the date we have reached. Vane and Williams no doubt recognized one another as kindred spirits dur- i637-] THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. 67 ing these disturbed days, while working together to fix the EngUsh foothold which the Pequots and the interior dissensions were making so uncertain. Wrote Roger Williams in after years, referring to this time and to his friend's later efforts in behalf of the Rhode Island charter:-^ "It was not price or money that could have purchased Rhode Island, but it was ob- tained by love — that love and favor which that hon- ored gentleman Sir H. Vane and myself had with the great sachem, Miantonimo, about the league which I procured between the Massachusetts English and the Narragansetts in the Pequot war. This I mention as the truly noble Sir H. Vane had been so good an instrument in the hand of God for procur- ing this island from the barbarians, as also for pro- curing and confirming the charter that it may be recorded wdth all thankfulness." Each, however, was probably quite independent of the other in coming out upon the free ground. The new ideas were close at hand ; before many years they were to find em- phatic expression, and an effort was to be made to put them in practice ; the approaching sunrise was already touching the higher and nobler minds as it slowly drew near. But what, meantime, of the Indian war.? While Vane sat in the chair of the Governor, as w^e have seen, Endicott, sent to retaliate for the massacre of Oldham, had done more harm than good. By God's mercy the Narragansetts and Mohegans had been held in firm friendship to the English ; but through 1 Mass. Hist. Coll. x. p. 20, note. 68 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. the winter and spring the Pequots had raged around the Connecticut settlements at Hartford and at the river's mouth, containing not more than two hundred and fifty fighting-men, all told, scarifying and worse, all those upon whom they could lay their hands. While Vane presided, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay agreed to raise for the peril one hundred and forty men and six hundred pounds. Plymouth agreed to send forty men, while Connecticut, as the colony in especial danger, sent into the field nearly half of those capable of bearing arms. Connecticut, more- over, furnished as commander-in-chief Captain John Mason, who proceeded to show such prowess, that his old comrade-in-arms, Fairfax, besought him after- wards, during the Civil War, to come over and fight against the King. In the spring of 1637 he made a junction with twenty of the Massachusetts men un- der Captain Underbill, a partisan of Mrs. Hutchin- son, one of the queerest fish that swam in those troubled waters, " a sort of Friar Tuck," says Palfrey, " devotee, bravo, libertine, and buffoon in equal parts." -^ To his little army of scarcely more than a hundred Englishmen Mason added seventy Indian auxiliaries, frightened out of all efficiency by the deeds of the Pequots, and took the field at once, without waiting for the Plymouth men or the main part of the Massachusetts contingent. What tactics the Puritans should employ in the campaign was decided in a curious but characteristic fashion. Mason had been ordered by the Connecti- cut Court to attack Sassacus from the west, the fear 1 Hist, of New Eng., i. 459. l637-] THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. 69 being great that if the Indians were allowed to get between the army and Hooker's settlement, the latter in the absence of so many of the men would be over- whelmed at once. Mason, however, with a soldier's eye, saw that the enemy were more vulnerable from the east, and, like McClellan in 1862, was anxious to strike there, even though he left his Washington un- covered. His officers would not bear him out in de- parting from his orders ; but, it being resolved to sub- mit the matter to divine direction, Stone, the stout chaplain, a figure scarcely less important in the eyes of the soldiers than the commander, spent the night in prayer, announcing in the morning as if by revela- tion from the Lord, that Mason's plan must be fol- lowed. This was in the middle of May, at the very time when the Massachusetts freemen, wrangling over the question of the reelection of Vane, were on the point of drawing swords upon one another on Cambridge Common. The details of Mason's campaign have no place here.^ Two hours before dawn the handful of Eng- lishmen rushed into the Indian fort among many hundreds of sleeping warriors. The Hutchinsonian Underbill was very valiant ; as was also the com- mander, stout in more senses than one, who multi- plied deeds of valor until, says the chronicler, " Fac- ing about, he marched a slow pace up the lane he came down, perceiving himself very much out of breath." There were privations as well as perils. " We had," says Mason, " but one pint of strong liquors among us in our whole march, but what the > Ellis, Life of Mason, 383. 70 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. wilderness afforded (the bottle of liquor being in my hand, and when it was empty, the very smelling to the bottle would presently recover such as fainted away, which happened by the extremity of the heat)."^ Indeed, no more thorough bit of Indian fighting has ever been done. The Pequots were cut off almost to a man, — a horde of marauders who merit small sympathy, for they had thrust themselves in not long before as intruders upon the territory they occupied,^ and had preyed like wolves upon their neighbors far and near. One embarrassment of New England, therefore, with the summer of 1637, was overcome. Under the brightening skies, on the 3d of August, " the Lord Ley and Mr. Vane went from Boston to the ship, riding at Long Island, to go for England. At their departure, those of Mr. Vane's party were gathered together, and did accompany him to the boat, (and many to the ship ;) and the men being in their arms, gave him divers vollies of shot and five pieces of ordnance, and he had five more at the Castle. But the Governor was not come from the Court, but had left order with the captain for their honorable dis- mission." ^ Though Vane has ceased to play a part, we may follow for a moment the course of the Antinomian controversy. A synod was held at the end of August, in which the temper on both sides was con- ciliatory. Cotton "stated the differences in a nar- 1 Palfrey, i. 468. s Winthrop, i. 235. 2 Ellis's Mason, 366. 1 637-] THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. 7 1 row scantling, and Mr. Shepard brought them yet nearer; so as, except men of good understanding, . . . few could see where the difference was." In November, however, the discord was as bad as ever. The General Court, "finding upon consultation that two so opposite parties could not contain in the same body without apparent hazard of ruin to the whole, agreed to send away some of the principal." The Hutchinsonians generally were put under ban. Wheelwright, driven to New Hampshire, became honorably prominent among the pioneers. Under- bill also, now in great fame as a vanquisher of the Pequots, betook himself thither. Mrs. Hutchinson herself was seized, tried, and banished, in the midst of spiritual excitement that drove weak heads to dis- traction. Father Wilson, called home from service as chaplain to help settle the strife, conveying from the seat of war such grewsome trophies as the scalps of Sassacus, of his brother, and five other Pequot sachems,^ sternly ruled the hour. " A woman of Boston Congregation, having been in much trouble of mind about her spiritual estate, at length grew into utter desperation, and could not endure to hear of any comfort, &c., so as one day she took her lit- tle infant and threw it into a well, and then came into the house and said, now she was sure she should be damned, for she had drowned her child." ^ Even Cotton was in danger, but escaped by bending to the storm. Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends went at first to Rhode Island, where a part of them, from the site of Newport, wrote Vane of the state of things, ^ Ellis's Mason, 396. ^ Winthrop, i. 236. 72 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. and besought his influence in obtaining from the King a patent of the island. The hearts of the exiles yearned after the young leader, and the strong- souled Mrs. Hutchinson was not so self-sustained but that she felt powerless without him. " I find their longings great," wrote Roger Williams,^ " after Mr. Vane, although they thinck he cannot returne this year ; the eyes of some are so earnestly fixt upon him, that Mrs. Hutchinson proposeth, if he come not to New, she must to Old England." It was her fate to be still further an outcast. At discord even with the exiles, she plunged into the pathless wilder- ness to the west, falling at last, with her family, vic- tims to the savages. What could be more terrible for New England than the crisis of the Antinomian controversy ! When a force was ordered to take the . field against the Pequots, the Boston men, a most important part of the contingent, refused to go, because they sus- pected the chaplain to be under a " covenant of works." ^ While there can be no question that Anne Hutchinson and Vane would have been horrified at such libertinism as that of the Munster fanatics, plain symptoms of it appeared, and in high quarters. A passage from Winthrop concerning the redoubtable Underbill, reveals him as a most precious blade, who might easily, if indulged, have developed into a Kniperdoling.^ " Capt. Underbill (being about to remove to Mr. 1 To John Winthrop, Ap. 1638. 2 Palfrey, i. 492. Mass. Hist. Coll., 4th series, vol. « W^inthrop, i. 270, etc. ii. p. 227. i637.] THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. 73 Wheelwright) petitioned for three hundred acres of land promised him formerly ; by occasion whereof he was questioned about some speeches he had used in the ship lately, in his return out of England, viz., that he should say that we were zealous here, as the Scribes and Pharisees were, and as Paul was be- fore his conversion, &c., which he denying, they were proved to his face by a sober, godly woman whom he had seduced in the ship and drawn to his opinions, but she was after freed again. He told her how he came to his assurance ; he had lain under a spirit of bondage and a legal way five years, and could get no assurance, till at length as he was taking a pipe of tobacco, the Spirit set home an absolute promise of free grace with such assurance and joy as he never since doubted of his good estate, neither should he, though he should fall into sin. . . . He made a speech in the assembly, showing that, as the Lord was pleased to convert Paul as he was perse- cuting, &c., so he might manifest himself to him as he was taking the moderate use of the creature called tobacco. . . . The next Lord's day the same Capt. Underbill, having been privately dealt with upon suspicion of incontinency with a neighbor's wife, and not hearkening unto it, was pubjicly questioned and put under admonition. The matter was, for that the woman being young and beautiful, and withal of a jovial spirit and behaviour, he did daily frequent her house, and was divers times found there alone with her, the door being locked on the inside. ' He con- fessed it was ill, because it had an appearance of evil in it ; but his excuse was, that the woman was in great 74 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. trouble of mind, and sore temptations, and that he resorted to her to comfort her ; and that when the door was found locked upon them, they were in pri- vate prayer together. But this practice was clearly condemned also by the elders, affirming that it had not been of good report for any of them to have done the like, and that they ought in such case, to have called in some brother or sister, and not to have locked the door, &c. They also declared, that once he had procured them to go visit her, telling them that she was in great trouble of mind ; but when they came to her (taking her, it seems, upon the sudden) they perceived no such thing." No chapter of New England history is so full of per- plexities as that which we have been considering. The student of the period finds himself plunged into a per- fect Donnybrbok fair of clashing authorities. What did Anne Hutchinson really teach ? Mr. Upham, who thinks he understands her, believes her views " would probably meet with a hearty response from enlightened Christians of all denominations at the present day."^ S. R. Gardiner, on the other hand, finds "her theology more stern and unbending than that of the settlers themselves." ^ What shall be said of the conduct of Winthrop 1 ^ Mr. Brooks Adams sees in him only the tool of tyrant-priests, trying by illegal means to exclude from the colony those who had every right to be there, and conspicuously foiled by the woman champion when they come to cross 1 Life of Vane, p. 139. » The Emancipation of Massa- ^ History of England, viii. 174. chusetts,€a..yi. 1637.] THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. 75 swords in court. To Palfrey, and multitudes more, Winthrop isthe model throughout of justice, wisdom, and patience. Finally, what shall we think of Vane ? Hutchinson calls him " obstinate and self-sufficient," ^ and worse. "He craftily made use of the party which maintained these peculiar opinions in religion, to bring him into civil power and authority, and draw the affections of the people from those who were their leaders into the wilderness."^ " Few men have done less good with greater reputation than this statesman," says Savage.^ Hildreth accuses him of dissimulation,* and Ellis thinks " no very critical eye or judgment is necessary to assure or persuade us that the departure of Vane was hailed as an inexpres- sible relief."^ Upham and Forster, on the other hand, his biographers, find his record always without imprudence or moral stain ; while Wendell Phillips pours out a tribute to his purity and mental gifts, as eloquent as it is undiscriminating : ® — " Sir Harry Vane — in my judgment the noblest human being who ever walked the streets of yonder city — I do not forget Franklin or Sam Adams, ' Hist, of Mass. Bay, i. 65. no man should be qualified for the ^ Ibid. i. 73. place of Governor until he had been ' I. Winthrop, i. 170, note. at least one year in the country." * Hist, of U. S., i. 235. Since no such entry appears in the ^ Life of Anne Hutchinson, records, Dr. Ellis doubts the fact, Sparks Am. Biog. 2d series, vol. but holds it to be certain that "the vi. p. 248. In Dr. Ellis's later ministers and the majority of the book, *'■ The Puritan Age " (Bos- people regarded him with great ton: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), the disfavor." historian Hubbard is cited as say- ' From the *. B. K. address at ing that the General Court "had Harvard College, 1881. passed an order that henceforward 76 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. Washington or Fayette, Garrison or John Brown. But Vane dwells an arrow's flight above them all, and his touch consecrated the continent to measure- less toleration of opinion and entire equality of rights. We are told we can find in Plato ' all the intellectual life of Europe for two thousand years.' So you can find in Vane the pure gold of two hundred and fifty, years of American civilization with no particle of its dross. Plato would have welcomed him to the Academy, and Fenelon kneeled with him at the altar. He made Somers and John Marshall possible ; like Carnot, he organized victory ; and Milton pales before him in the stainlessness of his record. He stands among English statesmen preeminently the repre- sentative, in practice and in theory, of serene faith in the safety of trusting truth wholly to her own defence. For other men we walk backward, and throw over their memories the mantle of charity and excuse, saying reverently : * Remember the temptation and the age.' But Vane's ermine has no stain ; no act of his needs explanation or apology ; and in thought he stands abreast of the age — like pure intellect, belongs to all time. Carlyle said, in years when his words were worth heeding, ' Young men, close your Byron, and open your Goethe.' If my counsel had weight in these halls, I should say, ' Young men, close your John Winthrop and Washington, your Jefferson and Webster, and open Sir Harry Vane.' It was the generation that knew Vane who -gave to our Alma Mater for a seal the simple pledge : Veritasr No writer has judged the matter more wisely than 1 637-] THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. T] Gardiner/ who declares that Vane, coming to Massa- chusetts at a time of unexampled difficulty, found that Anne Hutchinson, voluble, ready, earnest, ut- tered doctrines which attracted strongly his mystical temperament. The absolute character of his intel- lect, made him careless about expediency. He stood for tolerance, declaring a state had no right to sup- press liberty of speech and thought. But gold may be bought too dear. Vane stated the absolute truth, but perhaps then it could not be carried out. Win- throp knew that dissension in Massachusetts would be Laud's opportunity, and that a united front must be shown; the Pequot dangers, too, made this im- perative. Many things allowable in peace are not allowable in time of war. Winthrop felt toward Vane as Cromwell did when he prayed " that the Lord would deliver him from Sir Harry Vane ! " To this judgment of Gardiner, it may be added that Henry Vane in Massachusetts was a magnificent boy, full of power and fine impulses, but not yet freed from childishness. It was boyish presumption for him at once upon arriving to set himself up as an arbiter of disputes, and undertake among those wary, peril-seasoned veterans the critical post of Governor ; very boyish was his contempt of tact and neglect of expediency; when he felt that matters under him were drifting toward destruction, like a boy again, he had a hearty fit of crying over it, and sought with a certain degree of subterfuge to get out from under his burden. When at last he was displaced, and the power restored to the politic Winthrop, the petulance 1 Hist, of Eng. viii. 174, etc. 78 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. was boyish with which he pouted and sulked until he set sail for home. Yet with it all how prophetic is this Massachusetts experience of the noble leader into whom he was to mature ! The superb audacity which feared before nothing was to become a prin- cipal factor in the force that was to raise the Eng- lish Commonwealth to a position supreme among nations. Even now whoever stood in his presence seemed in some way subdued by a sense of great- ness, so that the absurdities and unintelligibilities which, in blindness, he favored, found a dangerous acceptance. " If it had not been for him, these, like many other errors, might have prevailed a short time without any disturbance to the State, and as the absurdity of them appeared, silently subsided, and posterity would not have known that such a woman as Mrs. Hutchinson ever existed."' In his after-years he was to countenance on the one hand Catholic emancipation, on the other, to extend pro- tection to the pioneers of Unitarianism. " The honest, moral heathen," indeed, were not beyond the scope of his charity. Even thus early this fine toleration had from him no indistinct utterance. Speaking of his New England career, says a writer of that day, " It was of God's great mercy that it ended not in our destruction." Very likely. He was to become one of the greatest of state-builders; he tried his " 'prentice-hand " on Massachusetts, the very energy which, when well guided, was to be so effec- tive, racking nearly to its downfall the jack-straw frame-work which the cautious Winthrop was so pain- fully erecting. ^ Hutchinson, i. 65. 1637-] THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP^ 79 Nothing is finer in these old-time strivers than the magnanimity with which, forgetting presently the bitter blow-giving, they stand by one another with helpful hands and affectionate speech. Roger Wil- liams, harshly driven out, blunts the scalping-knife of Sassacus threatening his persecutors. Vane too, forgetting his rejection, saved, a few years later, the freedom of the colony, a service generously rendered and heartily and gratefully recognized. When, in 1644, the planters were about to lose their privileges, and greatly needed friends at home, " it pleased God to stir them up such friends, viz.. Sir Henry Vane, who had sometime lived at Boston, and though he might have taken occasion against us for some dis- honor 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 generpus mind." ^ A letter of Vane's to Winthrop soon after shows the best spirit. With Vane charity has grown, and he wishes it may grow in the breasts of his old an- tagonists. " Honored S^ I receaved yours by your Sonne, and was unwilling to let him returne without telling you as much, the Excersise and troubles w* God is pleased to lay upon these kingdomes and the Inhab- itants in them, teaches us patience and forbearance one w* another in some measure, though there be difference in our opinions : w'''' makes me hope that from the experience heere it may also be derived to yourselves, least whilst the Congregationall way 1 Winthrop, ii. 248. 8o YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. amongst you is in its freedome and is backed w"' power, it teach its oppugners heere to extirpate it and roote it out from its owne principles and practice. I shall need to say noe more knowing your Sonne can acquaint you particularly w"" our affaires. S^ I am, Your very affectionat freind and Servaunt in Christ : H. Vane. June, the 10 1645. Pray Commende mee kindely to your Wife, Mr. Cotton and his wife and the rest of my freinds wth you. For my hono'^ freind John Winthrop, Sen. Esq., These In New England." ^ Young Harry Vane returned to England at an age when the youth of to-day is just passing from his years of training to serious work. What an experience he had had thus far ! From his tempestuous boyhood at Westminster school and Oxford, he had traversed Europe in the depth of the Thirty Years' War, at the very moment when the great Gustavus was beat- ing Tilly to the earth ; and he was behind the scenes in Vienna when Ferdinand and his Jesuit advisers, biting back their chagrin and jealousy, were beseech- 1 This letter betrays no sign of movements of the army of the agitation, but it was written in a " New Model " which were to re- most trying crisis. The Parlia- suit, that same week, in the hard- ment, of which Vane was now the won victory of Naseby. This leader, had received news of the interesting document, preserved in capture, the week before, of the the Massachusetts archives, is re- stronghold of Leicester by the produced here in fac-simile. King; and was directing those ■637.] THE CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. gl ye/i^-^ '}U- Yiyuji~j?*-<^ji ^^fte A5 ^'^^^^^^ i^J^^^^*^^^.^!^'^ -■^'" ^^ ^AtUlr ,^ffZ/yuc ^j^^ 7>t,C^-(^ '^.i/U^. .^^^ 82 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. ing the injured Wallenstein, sulking at Prague, to shield the .heart of the empire from the Swedish spear-thrust. At home again, he had stood undazed in the midst of the glamour surrounding the young Charles I., had borne unmoved both the blandish- ments and the ill-temper of Laud, and been for a moment in the thought of haughty Strafford, even at the time when, leaping boldly for the position of a Richelieu, over an England in which popular lib- erty should be utterly destroyed, he read, in the isolation of his Irish viceroyship, the news which his correspondents sent him of noteworthy men and events. He had crossed an ocean which only the boldest hearts dared to face, and on the con- fines of the world, while wrangling daily in the toughest of controversies, headed the settlers against the subtlest and most energetic foes whom the wil- derness ever sent against New England. What wonder that he ripened early, and that now, as he returns to England, the astute leaders of her desti- nies at this hour make him at once their associate and admit him to their most secret counsels ! PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF REPUBLICANISM. 1 637-1 648. CHAPTER V. THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. While Vane waits through the year or two be- tween his return from America and the opening of the " Short Parliament " in 1640, which was the be- ginning of his pubHc life in England, certain details of constitutional history must be made plain. It can be justly said that while Vane was thoroughly an Eng- lishman in his principles, he became also thoroughly an American. That this may be understood, the ancient institutions must be rapidly described which those white-bodied, fair-haired, blue-eyed Teutons from whom the English-speaking world descends cherished in their German home, and which have not become extinct, but only developed.^ The consti- tution of the United States contains them in modi- fied form, while the course of English reform is for 1 The brief constitotional sketch works of Stubbs, Freeman, Gneist, which follows is based upon the and Hallam. 84 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. the most part a struggle to regain them. The cause for which the heroes of the En'gHsh Commonwealth died in vain was the restoration of this primitive freedom. The great leading fact in that ancient polity is that power was in the hands of the tribesmen. At the assemblies of the nation, which took place at certain stated times, the public business was submitted to all the freemen, who gave their opinion by clashing their arms or by shouting. No man had authority over them except as he was elected. Some tribes had offi- cers called Kings, others not, — but where a King existed he was no autocrat. He became King only through the suffrages of the multitudes ; and the same thing can be said of the Principes, or Heretogas, army leaders, who, each one surrounded by a com- pany of voluntary adherents influenced by his prow- ess, wielded the war power. There were, indeed, sharply distinguished classes : below the freemen were slaves, and the freemen themselves contained a class of nobles out from whom the King and Here- togas must be elected. With some limitations, how- ever, it was government of, by, and for the People. With the Saxon conquest of England in the sixth century some modification of the primitive system may be observed. In remote expeditions, where there was a call for skilful guidance on the sea and good generalship on land, — where, too, a certain strong discipline was necessary, the one-man power would be needed, and King and Heretoga would naturally rise into greater authority than when the tribes were at home and at peace. We find then' as the separate 1637-] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 85 Saxon kingdoms come to dot the shore of Britain, that kingship has much more importance than in the eariier time. The King, however, remained elective, and the meetings of the freemen by no means lost their place or power. Alfred, four hundred years after the Saxon settlement, corrected whatever ten- dency to autocracy had appeared, reinvigorating the popular elements which had been the glory of the old order. At length; as a land-slide superimposes upon a tract a great new mass that differs from it, so the Norman conquest heaped upon the Saxon methods something quite foreign and which was slow to coa- lesce. The Norman race is the chameleon among races, taking on the tongue, the character, in fact, of whatever stock it chanced to fasten to, in its wide wanderings and vigorous fightings. In the tenth century it fastened to the Franks — and the polity which it transplanted to England one hundred and fifty years later was that of the Franks, which gave now to the Norman character its entire color. In this polity the People had become well-nigh obliterated. A company of great lords, owning some suzerain as chief, had, each one in turn, his own company of de- pendants, — these dependants in turn being lords of other dependants in a yet lower grade. Feudalism, in fact, it was which Duke William after Hastings laid over the folk-motes, with which in township, hun- dred, and shire the vanquished Saxon had heretofore regulated his life. William, however, dared do no more than super- impose his Feudalism. The Saxon system persisted 86 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. underneath : for local government the freemen still met in their assemblies. In each little neighborhood the motes were primary ; for the shire, with the more important individuals, there came to the mote repre- sentatives of each township, — the reeve and four men. Moreover, neither William nor his successors dared to reign without authorization by that ancient Saxon form of election. Conquered and conqueror at last, in tongue, in blood, in polity, coalesce ; and at the end of the thir- teenth century the resultant order can be plainly seen. Upon the throne still sits a powerful King, with feudatories below him, grade upon grade. Par- liament, however, has come into being : there sit the great lords of their own right ; but besides, as each township sent to the shire-mote its reeve and four men, so now to this mote of the nation, Parliament, each shire sends two discreet Knights and each con- siderable town one or more delegated Burgesses. The principle of representation has become fixed in the high places. Up to this time England has had no preeminence in maintaining the primitive Teutonic freedom. Cas- tile and Arragon have derived from their Visigothic founders powerful popular assemblies. Frederick II, the Hohenstauffen, has maintained them in Italy, and even in France they have not become extinct. Now, however, all disappears. As the powers of the Ibe- rian peninsula combine into ' Spain, arbitrary rule stamps out liberty. A tyrant suppresses it in France. It vanishes from Southern Europe with the great race of the Hohenstauffen. Germany, dismembered, 1 637-] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 87 is given over to a horde of brutish despots, who as with hoofs trample freedom to death. In England alone it persists, at first very doubtfully. It flickers like a candle-flame in a rough wind, but the hand of Simon de Montfort is providentially held before it. Edward I. still further feeds and shields it, and from that day to this it has been a light, unquenched, un- quenchable. Richard II, son of the Black Prince, would have ruled, if he could, by hereditary right, as an autocrat : the nation promptly deposed him, and the house of Lancaster came in as constitutional sov- ereigns. In their Parliaments, indeed, the Lords were powerful while the People were weak. The Lords being for the most part slain in the wars of the Roses, the People at the same time not yet becom- ing strong, the Tudor Kings succeed to great might — might increased by still another circumstance. The clergy, owing allegiance in the ancient time to Rome, had been in a measure independent of the King, and often opposed him vigorously. At the Re- formation, the sovereign became the over-lord of the Church, and Bishop and priest sank into subservience. About Henry VIII every thwarting influence seemed beaten thoroughly to the earth, and his children suc- ceeded to an autocracy whose limitations were of the slightest. But the power of the Commons was stead- ily growing. Elizabeth felt it, but had the tact to remain popular, and preserved to her death at least the semblance of all her father had bequeathed. In 1603 came to the throne the foolish race of Stuart, with slight governing ability, with no prudence, with no real patriotism. They claimed at once to rule/^r^ 88 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. divino, recognized no right in the People to limit their prerogative, and felt shame, as Charles I. de- clared, that their cousins of France and Spain had so far got the start of them in setting their feet upon the necks of the People. The reign of James I. did not pass without mut- terings of coming storm. Out from the People, op- pressed religiously and politically, fled westward as exiles a band of the best and bravest. With them young Harry Vane had thought at first to cast his lot, with a result which we have seen. He came home no doubt greatly matured and sobered. When he reached England, in the fall of 1637, his father and Sir Thomas Wentworth (not yet Earl of Strafford), the former Comptroller of the Treasury and favored by the Queen, the latter Lord Deputy in Ireland, were the two most prominent figures, if we except Laud, connected with the government. They were not friends. Wentworth's London correspondent informed Wentworth of young Harry's return, as he had informed him of his departure. " Henry Vane, the Comptroller's eldest son, who hath been Gov- ernor in New England this last year, is come home ; whether he hath left his former misgrounded opin- ions, for which he left us, I know not." ^ Not long after his return Vane married Frances, daughter of Sir Christopher Wray, of Ashby in Lincolnshire, thus connecting himself with a family of conse- quence, members of which find mention in the story of the Civil War before long to occupy us. He re- newed also his intimacy with Pym, and became the ^ Quoted by Forster, Vane, 280. i637-] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 89 friend of Hampden, remaining in the closest union with those men so long as they lived. Vane's pub- lic career in England did not begin until 1640. We shall have little farther to do with the Puritans of New England. We turn to those of the same way of thinking who remained at home, — who, less fortunate in that they were beset by a thousand hin- drances from which the exiles were freed, were car- ried prematurely into battle. They sought to estab- lish on the old soil what would have been in all substantial respects America. They failed, dying by thousands in the field, in dungeons, on the scaffold. They failed, but their ideal has ever since in their old home been slowly becoming the real. In 1832, Sir Charles Wetherell denounced the Reform Bill as the " same as that of Cromwell & Co. It was Pride's Purge over again ; the principle of the bill was Re- publican in its basis ; it was destructive of all old rights and privileges." ^ Wetherell was then the ablest of the Tory leaders of the Commons, and inter- preted with perfect correctness the signs of the times. The present writer heard Sir Wilfrid Lawson ex- claim in the House of Commons,^ " I belong to a society for the abolition of the House of Lords ; " and the utterance, so far from being regarded as treason- able or revolutionary, met with loud applause. The disestablishment of the Church has come in Ireland, is about to come in Wales, and cannot be far off in England itself. The abolition of all privileged faiths 1 Skottowe, Short Hist, of Parliament, p. 261. 2 Aug. 19, 1886, go YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1637. and classes, Voluntaryism in religion, the untram- melled popular voice in politics — the very adjust- ment for which the Commonwealthsmen strove, as all believe, is now not far off. " For the last two hundred years, England has been doing little more than carrying out, in a slow and tentative way, the scheme of political and religious reform propounded by the Army at the close of the Civil War." ^ Charles I. came to the throne in 1625, a man of twenty-five, by no means without gifts, accomplish- ments, and virtues. His portraits give a high, nar- row forehead, an oval face, ending below in a chin whose weakness is not concealed by the pointed beard. The handsome eyes have a somewhat mel. ancholy expression which strikes a sympathetic chord in a sensitive beholder. The delicate outline of the nose indicates refinement, not power. Well- built shoulders, upon which falls the long, abun- dant hair, surmount appropriately a figure through- out erect and soldierly. He was a good husband and father, well-read, and with fine taste in art. He could speak and write with ability, bore with perfect fortitude the hardest campaigning and the severest ill-fortune, and could fight bravely in battle. When he relied upon himself instead of trusting to foolish advisers, he sometimes showed ability as a general. His faults, however, were utterly in- curable, and of a kind to wreck any man. He had little self-reliance and no skill in selecting counsel- lors. The narrow Laud, the hare-brained Rupert, 1 J. R. Green, Short Hist, of the English People, p. 548, Mac- millan, 1875. i637-] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 9 1 most of all, the Queen, daughter of Henri IV, full of quick French wit and spirit, but frivolous, and utterly without appreciation of the sober, self- willed Protestants, among whom she, an ardent Catholic, had come to rule, — such advisers as these counted far more with Charles than the fine soldier Sir Ralph Hopton, the noble-minded Falkland, and the discreet Hyde. The great moral defect in Charles was the absolute faithlessness which made him completely unreliable in all things affecting his place and claims. This treachery of nature strangely coexisted in him with a sensitive conscience, his moral judgment having become perverted. He ap- peared to feel that a Prince, as to ethical obligations, was lifted into a sphere above that of ordinary mor- tals. It was right for him to make promises with a mental reservation, so that the engagement might be broken at his pleasure. In the atmosphere in which he had been educated " it stood fixed that between a King and his subjects nothing of the nature of recip- rocal agreement could exist, — that, even if he wished, he could not give away his absolute authority, — that in every promise and oath of the King lay the con- dition salvo jure regis, — that he, therefore, in case of necessity, might break his oath, and that the decision as to the existence of the necessity rested with him alone." ^ In the twelve years that Charles had now been reigning what manner of man he was had abundantly appeared. He had as high ideas of what it was 1 Gneist : Geschichte und heutige Gestalt der Aemter in England, 92 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. IJ637. proper for a King to be and do as Richard II, as Henry VIII, as his father James, and had the cour- age to carry them out. In his eyes his just prero- gative stretched so far as to cover the power of the purse, of the sword, of legislation, of settling religious faith, leaving, in fact, no room for the voice of the People anywhere in the public management. The constitutional party in Parliament, with which, from the first, Charles had been in difficulty, found them- selves obliged either to sacrifice the constitution, and besides that their persons and property, or to attack royalty itself. From the latter they were restrained by the oath which bound them " to hold upright the royal person and authority." As the struggle deep- ened, and they were forced to stand in opposition, they took refuge in the fiction that the King in Parliament was struggling with the King among bad advisers.-' The first bad adviser of Charles, Buckingham, was killed by an assassin at Portsmouth. He dissolved in anger three Parliaments in succession. He caused the brave and wise Sir John Eliot, the People's champion during his early reign, to die in prison. By ratifying the Petition of Right, the second Magna Charta of Anglo-Saxon liberty,^ " he bound himself never again to raise money without the con- sent of the Houses, never again to imprison any person except in due course of law, and never again to subject his people to the jurisdiction of courts- martial." Most reluctantly did he sanction this, and ^ Gneist, p. 221. => Macaulay's His/, of England, vol. i. p. 66 (Harper's ed.). 1637-] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 93 eleven years passed after the dissolution of the Par- liament which forced it, from him, years spent in trying to evade it, before he summoned another. We must try to do justice to well-meaning men who at the same time were terrible mischief-makers. Where can be found souls more brave and honest than Laud and Strafford, who in those eleven years, from 1629 to 1640, became the right-hand men of Charles, and instituted that policy of Thorough which was to put the nation under the King's feet ! Laud, small in figure and in intellect, testy in tem- per, thoroughly honest, in his zeal runjiing full tilt against obstacles whose gravity he was quite too short-sighted to estimate, — stopped at no means, even to the slitting of noses and the cutting off of ears, to reduce to conformity the sullen sectaries who hated Prelacy. Strafford, a man of far higher type, convinced that the People for their own good should submit themselves to the guidance of superior minds, — the King namely, acting with the help of the wise counsellors by whom he should surround himself, employed talents of the highest order to set up the enlightened despotism, in which he himself, with a high motive, might play the part of a Richelieu, — the polity which he believed to be so much better for the People than that the People should govern them- selves. By means of the Star-Chamber and High- Commission Courts, two innovations of the Tudor time, constituted of appointees of the King, and ad- ministering the vast prerogatives which the King, as head of both Church and State, had now come to claim, Laud and Strafford pushed on against pop- 94 YOUNG SIR HENRY. VANE. [1640. ular rights with the utmost energy. When Scotland, glowing and tenacious in the gritty Scotch fashion, laid the Covenant upon a tombstone in an Edinburgh churchyard, thousands of rugged hands signing it, while tears streamed and the sound of fierce prayer arose, the King and his advisers sought to force on Scotland the Bishops and the liturgy, not less hate- ful to it than the Pope or than Satan. During all these years great shiploads of earnest people were crossing the sea to settle in America, — men deter- mined that the King should not thrust them under. Yet it was ^oon plain that America would be no asylum. If the policy of Thorough prevailed at'home, the King's arm could easily reach across the sea. Long the King rode rough-shod, but his course was at last curbed. The great warfare began, in which the first missile to be discharged was the famous stool which Jenny Geddes, in St. Giles' Kirk in Edinburgh, hurled at the head of the Bishop as he read the liturgy. Scotland was already in re- bellion, England on the verge of it. The opposition was so powerful, the need of money so great, that a Parliament became indispensable. The writs were issued. From their castles came the. nobles to the House of Lords ; from each shire came in the old way the two Knights ; from each considerable town its Burgess, until 500 stout Englishmen sat down in the chapel of St. Stephen at Westminster. Something must be said of Pym and Hampden, who, now in these forming years of Vane, had great influence over him. In 1640, John Pym was fifty-six years old, and the leading commoner of England. 1640.] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 95 He was well-born, had been at Oxford, and early became famous as a lawyer. From 16 14 he had been in Parliament, and in 1620 was a leader there on the popular side. He had maintained the privi- leges of Parliament in 162 1 against James I, and been imprisoned for his opposition to the Court. In the first Parliament of Charles I he was a leader against prerogative, and in the following year, 1626, was a manager in the impeachment of Buckingham. He was prominent in treating with the Scotch Cove- nanters, who in 1639, after Charles had tried to force Episcopacy upon them, made overtures to the Commons, looking toward mutual help; and went with Hampden through the country to incite the people to send in petitions. He was fast advancing to that point of power which made his nickname. King Pym, so appropriate. John Hampden in 1640 was forty-six years old, one of the gentry, his mother an aunt of a Hunting- donshire squire at this time quite unknown, Cromwell. He too had had an Oxford training and had become a lawyer ; there had been at one time thought of con- fiding to him the education of the Prince of Wales, his classical attainments were so considerable. He had large estates in Oxfordshire, where he lived, had been in Parliament as early as 162 1, and also in the first Parliament of Charles I, in which he made no figure. The hour struck for Hampden toward the end of the decade, when the King, having angrily dissolved the Parliaments of 1625 and 1627, at- tempted to raise money by a forced loan. Hampden took the lead in refusing to' be assessed, and was fol- 96 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1640. lowed by eighty more of the landed gentry, all of whom underwent arrest, while recusants of a lower class were forced into the Army or Navy. The year 1636, however, it was which made him everywhere famous. It had long been customary to require a subsidy from the borderers to defray the expense of keeping out the Scots, and also to require "ship- money " from the maritime towns for maintaining a Navy in time of war. As regards these, the author- ization by Parliament seems not always to have been held necessary. At length, however, Charles de- manded ship-money in time . of peace, and of the inland counties. Hampden, following his own prece- dent in the case of the forced loan, refused, and resolved to bring the matter to trial. The case came on in 1636, in the midst of excitement, the Court pursuing Hampden with the utmost animosity, while the country in general, feeling that no man's property was safe against illegal seizure, exasperated against the Court, adopted the intrepid protester as their champion and hero. Of the twelve judges of the Exchequer who tried the case, seven pronounced against Hampden : this had the effect to draw still more toward him the hearts of men, and in 1640 Hampden was the most popular man in England. Vane is now to step forth into that career of pub- lic service from which, during the twenty-two years of life that remained to him, he was not to retire, ex- cept when forced to do so by the hand of tyranny. For the Parliament which the King was at last forced to summon, elections were held in March, and 1640.] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 97 Henry Vane was returned for Kingston upon Hull. Immediately after, "by his father's credit with the Earl of Northumberland, who was Lord- High- Admi- ral of England, he was joined presently and jointly with Sir William Russell in the office of Treasurer of the Navy (a place of great trust and profit), which he equally shared with the other." ^ The Ancient Palace of Westminster, the principal scene hence- forth of Vane's labors, is swept away, with the ex- ception of Westminster Hall. What the House of Commons is now, it was outwardly, in all substantial respects, two hundred and fifty years ago, in the days of the Long Parliament. It is now rather more than one sixth larger, and, since 1832, elected by a con- siderably broader constituency. In its general ap- pearance and bearing, however, its ways of conduct- ing business, its relation to the nation, there has been no great change, — nor since the earliest days has there been any change in location. As the police- man of the present time scrutinizes you for dynamite at the entrance, you can look across the street at the Chapter-house of the Abbey, where from Simon de Montfort's days until the Tudors, Parliament was cradled. From the Stuart times and before, West- minster Hall has been the vestibule — the outer promenade and meeting-place, of the Commons. The Central Hall and corridor of the statues hold the site of the beautiful. St. Stephen's Chapel, burned some fifty years since, which, after the Chapter-house, became the Chamber of the Commons. St. Ste- phen's Chapel in size and arrangement closely re- 1 Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, i. 293, Boston ed. 1827. 98 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1640. sembled the present Chamber of the Commons. Old pictures -^ give at the eastern end a similar throne and canopy for the Speaker, behind which the great win- dow, just over the river, admitted an abundance of morning sun. Just as now stood the table with the mace. The members sat on the benches, in the same free and easy fashion. Substitute for the modern equivalents, the steeple-crowned hat, the broad linen collar with tasselled strings falling in front of the doublet, the knee-breeches and buckled shoes, and as far as the eye goes the old House would answer to the modern. Just so they filed out on divisions, as one sees them now. The opposition beset Pym with just such roaring and horse-play as Lord Randolph encounters, and Speaker Lenthall cried " Order " like his successor, Speaker Peel. When Hampden rose, the most illustrious Englishman of his day, the same hush fell as always meets the words of Glad- stone. And now let us go back to that struggle of the former day, whether the People should or should not have a say in the government of England. When the Short Parliament assembled, in the spring of 1640, the air was full of the tumult which was to make the next twenty years so stormy. On the 1 7th of April,^ Pym harangued the Commons for two hours, every sentence moderate but firm. He reviewed at length the political grievances, the impo- sitions without parliamentary grant, — tonnage and poundage, ship-money, coat and conduct-money, as the expense of clothing new raised levies was called, 1 See the representation on the " 3. R. Gardiner, Hist, of Eng. Great Seal of the Commonwealth, ix. 98, etc. p. 368. i64o.] OPENJNG OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 99 and the abuses connected with the management of the forests. He declared that the highway to pre- ferment in the Church was to preach that there was divine authority for an absolute power in the King to do what he would with the persons and goods of Eng- lishmen. He inveighed against the long intromission of Parliament. The most memorable declaration of the address was that the " powers of Parliament are to the body-politic as the rational faculties of the soul to a man." Charles had perhaps scarcely, like Louis XIV, conceived that he himself was actually the state, but felt himself to be at any rate the soul of the body- politic. As the Commons in the lobbies and aisles, after Pym had finished, buzzed, " A good oration ! A good oration ! " adopting heartily the sentiments to which they had listened. King and People stood in Sharp conflict. The Peers sympathized fully with the temper of the Commons. They welcomed the notion that Parliament was the soul of the body-pol- itic, and in hostility to the Bishops were even more earnest than the Lower House. When Charles asked for money, Parliament grew only the more sullen, declaring that, " Till the liber- ties of the Houses and Kingdom were cleared, they knew not whether they had anything to give or no." In the Privy Council of Charles at this moment, Wentworth, just before made Earl of Strafford, stood in especial esteem. He was honest in his belief that the King should be supreme, and as difficulties now thickened about Charles, he grew fierce in urging re- sistance.^ On the 5th of May Charles summoned his 1 Gardiner, ix. p. 117. lOO YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1640. Council at six in the morning. The elder Vane, Sec- retary of State, reported that there was no hope of a grant of money before a redress of grievances, where- upon Charles, hurrying to the House of Lords, dis- solved the Parliament, after a session of three weeks. The Short Parliament accomplished no act of legislation, but it marks an epoch. It announced through Pym that Parliament was the soul of the Commonwealth, and there were some already who sought the soul in the Lower House alone. " It was observed," says Clarendon, '' that in the countenances of those who had most opposed all that was desired by his Majesty, there was a marvellous serenity ; nor could they conceal the joy of their hearts, for they knew enough of what was to come to conclude that the King would shortly be compelled to call another Parliament." What particular part young Henry Vane took in the Short Parliament is not recorded. Through friend and foe we know that he was already a marked man. His fellow-republican Ludlow writes ^ that he was elected to Parliament without effort on his part, " and in this station he soon made appear how capa- ble he was of managing great affairs, possessing in the highest perfection a quick and ready apprehen- sion, a strong and tenacious memory, a profound and penetrating judgment, a just and graceful eloquence, with an easy and graceful manner of speaking. To these were added a singular zeal and affection for the good of the Commonwealth, and a resolution and courage not to be shaken or diverted from the pub- 1 Memoirs, p. 421, ed. 1771, folio. 1640.] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. lOI lie service." Already the King had dignified him by setting him in a responsible and lucrative office, and others knew him as the intimate of Pym and Hampden. We may suppose that the young man sat in his place from eight to twelve, the hours of the ses- sions, the comeliness which Sir Toby Matthew had commended passing now into the power and dignity of strong manhood. His thoughts possibly recurred to Councils at Vienna at which he had been present in his youth, and to the deliberations in little Puritan Boston, when with Winthrop, Dudley, Haynes, and the Magistrates he concerted schemes for foiling the Pequots, or fought in the war of words over Anne Hutchinson. How different here the place and the assembly, — the picked men of a populous kingdom gathered in a stately chamber ! Perhaps in the long intromission of Parliament, men had forgotten some- what the traditions of procedure. " Men gazed upon one another looking who should begin," says Claren- don. When Pym arose, the young man's eyes must have become fastened upon the features of the speaker, as the eastern sunlight from the great win- dow brought them out plainly. Pym he knew well as a friend, but now for the first time he felt the full power of the man. The eyes of Pym, too, may have fallen upon the marked face upturned to him, the soul kindling upon It before his own utterances of freedom, and the sight may well have afforded him encouragement. When Pym had ended, young Vane's voice was, no doubt, in the heavy murmur that went round the hall — "A good oration ! " When Parliament was dissolved, though one can I02 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1640. hardly believe that young Vane's tendencies were un- known to the King, honors continued to fall upon him. Perhaps with the idea that he might still be won to his side, Charles knighted him in June, and his formal title henceforth is Sir Henry Vane of Raby Castle, Knight, — Raby Castle having now be- come the home of the family. The Royalists ^ have asserted that in spite of his advancement he thought both his father and himself ill-used at Court, and from now forward opposed the King with bitterness. Wentworth, his father's enemy, stood high in favor, had resisted with great earnestness making his father Secretary of State which the Queen had recom- mended, and delayed the appointment for a month. It was, moreover, a great insult to the Vanes, which Charles had negligently permitted, that when Went- worth, the preceding January, had been raised to the peerage, he had chosen to have his patent made out not only as Earl of Strafford but as " Baron of Raby." ^ It is, however, utterly unreasonable to sup- pose that young Vane's course was influenced by any feeling of trifling malice. As unreasonable is a stigma which his enemies sought to attach to him, that he was lacking in phys- ical courage. In 1653 appeared a burlesque list of books, a royalist squib, called the " Bibliotheca Parlia- ment!." One title runs " 'EJla^pog, Newburn Heath, an excellent Poem in Praise of one Pair of Legs, by Sir Henry Vane, Jr." ^ A note, added by a Royalist by 1 Biographia Britannica, article of the Reign of Charles I, pp. 123, "Vane." 124. ^ Sir Philip Warwick, Memoirs ' Somers Tracts, vii. 92. 1640.] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 103 way of explanation, says that Vane, though brave as a politician, was devoid of physical courage, and fairly fled at the skirmish at Newburn. Newburn skirmish took place August 28th of this year, not far from the Scottish border, the forces of the King, without food, discipline, or leadership, fleeing incontinently when encountered by the Scots. There is a bare possi- bility that young Vane was present. Though he was the friend of Pym and Hampden, neither they nor any one had as yet broken with the King. In 1637, he favored in New England a respect for the King's sovereignty, and recently he had accepted knighthood and high preferment from Charles. If at Raby Cas- tle during the summer, it is quite possible he went northward in the King's train to the scene of the skirmish, and if he took part, ran with the rest. But there was no discredit, under the circumstances. As the story proceeds, abundant evidence will appear that his courage was of the best. Burnet accuses him of cowardice, but Burnet's editor gives a most curious but most incontrovertible proof of Vane's intrepidity.^ After the dissolution of Parliament, things during the summer rapidly went from bad to worse. Con- vocation, the assembled clergy, which remained in session, disgusted the aroused nation with a new as- sertion of the doctrine that Kings reigned supreme by divine right. It was hopeless to expect that the King would return to constitutional ways, and the feeling was general that he was tampering with Catholics at home and abroad. Strafford had now ' Burnet, Hist, of his own Times, i. p. 280, note. I04 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1640. more influence with the King than all the rest of the Council put together. He had recently, in Ireland, been prostrated by gout and dysentery, and reached London in a litter; but his unconquerable will caused him to make light of ailments. In May, however, his life was despaired of. He grew a little better, and was visited by the King, whom, in his punctilious loyalty, he insisted upon receiving in proper attire, discarding the warm gown he had been wearing. A relapse carried him again to death's door. From his bed, nevertheless, he made his in- fluence felt, and as he found himself in the summer once more on his feet, he pressed things with energy. He took the lead in the high-handed compulsion that was to force out money from the kingdom. He sought for a loan of £300,000 from Spain ; he advo- cated a debasement of the coinage. Attempts, too, were made to obtain help from Genoa and France ; and the Queen, with Marie de Medici, her mother, besought the Pope for men and means, an attempt which the King did not thwart, if he did not connive at it, and the rumor of which thrilled the nation with disgust and terror. A levy of Danish horse was thought of. Worst of all, Strafford, now comman- der-in-chief, was authorized by his patent to bring the Irish army into England. At length Edinburgh Castle was lost, and it became indispensable to make some arrangement with the Scots. By a treaty with them at Ripon, they were promised £850 a day, and the King in his distress gave notice to a Great Coun- cil of his Peers, convened at York in September, that before the autumn ended a new Parliament i64o.] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT- 1 05 should assemble. On November 3 met the Long Parliament, the greatest in history, and in it young Vane sat once more for Kingston upon Hull. We know to some extent, through the invaluable diary of Sir Symonds d'Ewes,^ how the members arranged themselves as they gathered in the dull autumn weather at Westminster. Speaker Lenthall sat, of course, under his canopy, before the great eastern window, the clerk and assistant clerk in front, the latter John Rushworth, whose bulky folios garner the documents of the time. Pym sat on the Speaker's left, some distance down the hall ; between him and Lenthall were Edmund Waller, Daniel Holies, Henry Marten, and Oliver St. John, charac- ters with some of whom henceforth we shall be much concerned. On the opposite side, near the Speaker, were Edward Hyde, afterwards the famous Earl of Clarendon, his friend Lord Falkland, and Sir Henry Vane, Senior; these were close together. Not far off, on the same side, were Strode and Alderman Pennington, contenders for freedom, and the rough country member for Huntington, Oliver Cromwell. John Selden, scholar, free-thinker, mocker in a re- fined way both of Cavalier loyalty and Roundhead fanaticism, was under the gallery near the western end. Sir Arthur Haselrig sat in the gallery. Young Henry Vane, it is said, was on the south side, near St. John and Marten. As he rose to speak, the light from the great window over the river would have poured upon him from the right. His venerated friend and mentor, Pym, would have been upon his 1 Preserved in the British Museum, in manuscript. I06 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1640. left, and he must have looked full in the faces of his father, Cromwell, Hyde, and Falkland, on the benches opposite, a few feet distant, just across the table which held the mace. One can construct, in imagi- nation, a picture of the assembly, 500 in number, in pointed hat and belted doublet, knee-breeches and buckled shoe, — some, high-born men, sons and kins- men of Dukes and Earls ; some, London Aldermen, with badges of civic distinction ; some, provincial Burgesses and Knights-of-the-shire,— gathering under the rich, ecclesiastical architecture ; while the popu- lace of London, drawn by the unusual sight, crossing the fields past Whitehall, or brought by the water- men when the tide flowed, from Wapping, Billings- gate, or Blackfriars, thronged Old Palace Yard, as the members entered to take their seats. Future Cavalier as well as future Roundhead felt that all had gone wrong. No Parliament since the days of Simon de Montfort had reflected so accurately the people whom it represented. As yet, the King was mentioned only in terms of respect. Laud and Strafford being alone marks of execration, the coun- sellors through whom the gracious Sovereign was believed to have been misled. Pym was the recog- nized leader of the Commons. Hampden in Parlia- ment did little more than second him, speaking so seldom and so briefly that it is not easy to under- stand why his weight was so great. Great, however, it was, no man in England counting with the nation for so much. Pym in temper was purely conserva- tive, desiring to introduce nothing and overturn nothing, but simply to maintain constitutional prin- 1640.] OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 107 ciples in danger of overthrow. He had the civic temper, looking for wisdom in the result of common debate, rather than in one supereminent mind.^ The opening session of the Long Parliament was a long outburst of complaint. Exaggerated fears pre- vailed of a conspiracy, the aim of which was to lay England at the feet of the Pope. Let us remove from the King his evil counsellors, was the cry, and at once Laud and Strafford were called to account, together with certain associates of inferior mark. We can touch but briefly upon the crowding events of this great period. We reach now, however, what is probably the most important trial that ever took place in any court of the English-speaking race ; and since young Sir Henry Vane first made himself known in it to the world in general, becoming the principal instrument, in fact, through whom Straf- ford's head was laid low, the main facts must be given — facts of interest to-day, in America, in Australia, or wherever the English tongue extends, for had Strafford escaped, it would be easy to show that English, and, therefore, American freedom, would have been crushed out by the high hand, as in Spain and France. * Gardiner, ix. 224. CHAPTER VI. THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was at this time forty-eight years old, a man of Cambridge edu- cation, accomplished by foreign travel, of wealth and distinguished birth. Since the age of twenty-one he had been a statesman, leading the Commons in op- position to the policy of James I, with oratory bril- liant and charged, apparently, with zeal for freedom. In 1626 he had been imprisoned with Hampden for refusing to pay illegal taxes. In 1628 he had con- spicuously advocated the Petition of Right. How had it come about that in 1640 he stood on such different ground, coupled with Laud as the main bulwark of tyranny, and nick-named " Black Tom Tyrant " ? A noble portrait of Strafford by Van- dyke hangs in Warwick Castle. It presents a swarthy but handsome face, marked by sensibility and energy ; the dark eyes, in particular, strike the beholder as being the outlook of a generous, impetuous soul, while they possess a certain pensiveness, as if a ter- rible fate were presaged. It is the front of a man endowed with power, and not at all ignoble of pur- pose. In fact, no great man ever meant better for his land or kind than Strafford, and yet English free- i64o.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 109 dom was saved when he was brought to the block. In all probability, though Strafford in his earlier career is found at first on the side of the nation as repre- sented in the House of Commons, and at last against the nation, he thoroughly believed that not he but the House of Commons had changed.' In his idea the People were to have part in the government, but to counsel and cooperate, not to control. ■" Princes," he said, " are to be indulgent nursing fathers to their people. . . . Subjects, on the other side, ought with solicitous eyes of jealousy to watch over the preroga- tives of a crown. The authority of the King is a key-stone which closeth up the arch of order and government, which contains each part in due relation to the whole, and which once shaken and infirmed, all the frame falls together into a confused heap of foundation and battlement." He felt more and more as his life advanced, that in the maintenance and elevation of the royal authority lay the only safe path. He looked to Henry II, Edward I, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth for his precedents, — Sovereigns guiding a willing people, and found no mention of a dominant House of Commons, reducing the Sov- ereign to insignificancy. He had no confidence in the common-sense of ordinary citizens. After Straf- ford became privy councillor, in 1629, came a series of measures, no doubt to be traced to him, aiming at the protection of the helpless and the general benefit of the People.^ So, constantly, as he grew in power, good flowed from his arbitrariness, for he struggled against wealth and position in behalf of justice. 1 Gardiner, vii. 26. ^ Ibid. 160. no YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1640. Believing that in a proper state there must be a supreme guiding mind in order that the popular welfare should be secured, that the King might " use, as the common parent of the country, what power God Almighty hath given him for preserving himself and his people, for whom he is accountable to Almighty God," he had utterly parted from his old associates, saying of Hampden in the ship-money case : " I would have him whipped into his right senses ; and if the rod be so used that it smart not I should be the more sorry." From President of the Council of the North, a tribunal established in the disturbed times of Henry VIII, with large powers, he became Lord-Deputy of Ireland, and at length the chief councillor of Charles, whom he tried to make absolute, succeeding in the effort as far as Ireland was concerned. His ability was wonderful, and to a large extent also beneficent. As an autocratic mili- tary governor, his hand was heavy, but it led a degraded population to wiser and happier ways of living. When in the autumn of 1640, Strafford, in com- mand of the army opposing the Scots, found that in spite of his advice Parliament was to meet, he tried to go to Ireland, but the King sent for him, assuring him (and in this assurance the Queen, who had been no friend of his, joined) " that he should not suffer in his person, honor, or fortune." Pym was no wiser in his view of Strafford than men in general. He was not in Pym's eyes^ " a high-minded masterful states- man, erring through defect in temper and knowl- 1 Gardiner, ix. 229. 1640.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 1 1 I edge," but the black-browed apostate who was be- traying liberty through avarice and ambition. Clar- endon reports that Pym said to him vvhile walking in Westminster Hall at the opening of Parliament, " that they must now be of another temper than they were the last Parliament ; that they must not only sweep the House clean below, but must pull down all the cobwebs which hung in the top and corners." When the assembly, therefore, "of sad and melan- cholic appearance," debated in St. Stephen's Chapel their grievances, Pym denounced Strafford at once as " the fountain whence these waters of bitterness flowed." Others followed in the same strain. Not a voice was raised against bringing him straightway to judgment, except that of Falkland, by no means his friend, who only counselled against haste. Pym said that promptness was indispensable, and he was well advised. As the Parliament leaders misjudged Strafford, so Strafford misjudged them, believing them misguided and seditious. He had reached London, November 9, and urged Charles to accuse the Parliament lead- ers at once of treason, as abetting the invasion of the Scots. The I ith was fixed upon as the day. The Earl was in his place, but for some reason, most likely because the King faltered,^ he did not make the charge when it might have been done, and mean- time his enemies pressed on. The doors of the House of Commons were locked that none might interrupt, and soon Pym, 'unanimously deputed to carry up the impeachment to the House of Lords, 1 Gardiner, ix. 233. 112 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1640. walked toward their Hall, attended by most of the members. About 3 in the afternoon, Strafford, whose feeble condition kept him from being prompt, entered the House of Lords, to find them debating the unusual demand of the Commons, that he, who had thought to impeach their leaders, should be himself immediately imprisoned, pending a definite charge. He strode haughtily toward his seat, but his fellow-Peers, who were as bitter toward him as the Commons, shouted, " Withdraw ! " He complied, and was at once " sequestered " from his place and committed to Maxwell, the usher of the Black Rod, who took away his sword and brought him in as a prisonei;. He was forced to hear the decision upon his knees from the Lord Keeper sitting upon the wool-sack. As he was led away in custody, the crowd outside were equally pitiless, " no man cap- ping to him, before whom that morning the greatest in England would have stood discovered." It was an act of self-preservation. The belief was general, entertained by Pym as well as by the mass, in a terrible plot to lay England at the feet of the Pope. Most of the English Catholics, to be sure, were terrified on their side, and really wished nothing so much as to be let alone. There were, however, Catholic intriguers ; and the foolish and spirited Queen and her mother were constantly planning with priests who were tolerated at Whitehall to bring money and an army from the Pope, to amalgamate once more the churches of England and Rome, and to carry England back into the ancient spiritual bondage. It being resolved to remove Catholics 1640.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 1 1 3 fr<3m the neighborhood of Westminster, a justice of the peace charged with carrying out the order was stabbed in Westminster Hall itself. The wound was slight, and the assailant probably crazy, but the panic was great, and Alderman Pennington, a London* deputy, offered Parliament a guard of citizens. Pym's committee were diligent in collecting evi- dence and formulating charges against Strafford, so that on November 25 Strafford in due form was sent to the Tower as having tried to overturn the constitution and introduce arbitrary government by force of arms. " As to myself," wrote the victim to his wife, " albeit all be done against me that art and malice can devise, yet I am in great inward quietness, and a strong belief God will deliver me out of all these troubles. ... If there, be any honor and justice left, my life will not be in danger. . . . Therefore hold up your heart, look to the children and your house, let me have your prayers, and at last, by God's good pleasure, we shall have our deliverance, when we may as little look for it as we did for this blow of misfortune which I trust will make us better to God and man." -^ Meantime the course of events constantly widened the gulf between the King and Parliament. Mainly through the vehement urgency of Falkland, sup- ported by Hyde, men whom the drift of things was to carry before long to the side of Charles, ship- money was declared illegal, and the judges con- demned who had on their part condemned Hampden. Laud at length was declared the " root and ground 1 Gardiner, ix. 241. 114 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1640. of all our miseries." If the "fundamental laws'of England " meant the supremacy of Parliament, Laud was as guilty as Strafford ; he was perhaps, though a far weaker man, equally high-minded and honest, •and on December 18 he followed Strafford through the gloomy Traitor's gate. On December 24, the important bill was brought in providing for a Parliament every year, whether the King issued the writs for the elections or not, and a day or two after a little known member made a speech concerning whom we have the following vivid account : — " I have no mind to give an ill character of Crom- well, for in his conversation toward me he was ever friendly ; though at the latter end of the day finding me ever incorrigible and having some inducements to suspect me a tamperer, he was sufficiently rigid. The first time that I ever took notice of him, was in the very beginning of the Parliament held in November, 1640, when I vainly thought myself a courtly young gentleman ; for we courtiers valued ourselves much upon our good clothes. I came one morning into the house well-clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking, (whom I knew not) very ordinarily appar- elled, for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor ; his linen was plain and not very clean, and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar; his hat was without a hat-band, his stature was of a good size, his sword stuck close to his side, his countenance swolen and reddish, his voice sharp and untuneable, 1640.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. I15 and his eloquence full of fervor, for the subject- matter would not bear much of reason ; it being in behalf of a servant of Mr. Pym's who had dispersed libels against the Queen for her dancing, and such like innocent and Courtly sports ; and he aggravated the imprisonment of this man by the council-table unto that height, that would have believed the very government itself, had been in great danger by it. I sincerely profess it lessened much my reverence unto that great council, for he was very much hearkened unto."^ Up to this time there had been in Parliament a remarkable unanimity. We see Hyde and Falkland, the one destined to be chief counsellor of the Stuarts, the other a martyr in their cause, as zealous to do away with ship-money as the most radical. Capel, too, one day to be beheaded before Westminster Hall for faithful service of the Sovereign he now op- posed, was foremost in uttering the discontent of the Lords because Strafford was slow in answeringthe charges preferred. The unanimity was political more than religious, and in these seething days came the beginning of the quarrel that was to drive apart many now friends. The Londoners, among whom there was a strong set towards Presbyterianism, had petitioned that Episcopacy might be destroyed " root and branch," and the Root and Branch party now began to show signs of vigor. Petitions of similar purport came also from Essex and Kent. Separa- tists, too, a little company of whom twenty years be- fore had gone in the " Mayflower " to found Ply- 1 Sir Philip Warwick, Memoirs of the Reign of Charles I, 273, etc. Il6 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. mouth, were active and found countenance among those high in rank, — three or four Peers, among them probably Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke,^ being present at their meeting in Deadman's Place, Southwark. From this party, now so insignificant, the powerful Independents were soon to develop. On February 8, the London Petition was debated, Pym, Hampden, Vane, St. John, and Holies regard- ing it with favor, — Hyde, Colepeper, and Hopton speaking against, as well as Digby and Falkland.^ Those opposing wished to limit Episcopacy, but not abolish it. It seemed now an affair of slight moment, but it was to swallow up everything else. While Strafford delayed and Parliament used the interval in legislation and discussion that constantly put the Houses farther from the King, there was ac- tivity at the Court, too, and the mystery about it, with the imperfect hints that transpired, kept the world on the brink of panic. The Queen and Queen- mother forever solicited the Pope for money and men, and all might have been obtained if Charles could have turned Catholic. The marriage was ar- ranged between Prince William of Orange and the Princess Mary ; and the Queen-mother declared to the papal legate that the Prince was to bring with him twenty thousand men, that Strafford was then to be freed and put at the head of tfie government, and that France and Ireland would not be wanting. The army of the North, too, that had been acting against the Scots, was to the nation a cause of fear. In the uncertainties all seemed most critical. It was ^ Gardiner, ix. 267. 2 Ibid. 287. i64i.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 1 1 7 really not the thirst for vengeance, but the pitiless- ness of terror,^ which drove Parliament so vehe- mently in the pursuit of the man in whom all the vague danger centred. The story of the trial of Strafford needs not to be told here except in so far as it concerns young Sir Henry Vane. Passing into the House of Commons, one evening, the present writer paused in the corridor and looked into the great dim space of Westminster Hall, whose gloom seemed only the more heavy against the single light that struggled with its dark- ness. One could make out the long west side against which on that 2 2d of March, when Strafford was brought to judgment, stood the empty throne, the spot in front where sat the Earl of Arundel, the presiding officer, and the place still in front of that where Strafford fought for his life. The Lords in their robes, his judges, sat between him and Arundel. Close at hand to him were Pym and the other man- agers of the prosecution appointed by the Commons, his own lawyers, and to the right and left on either side the five hundred members of the Commons, the visitors who could gain admittance by money or fa- vor, and the Scottish Commissioners : among the lat- ter sat the quaint old covenanter Baillie, watching all with canny eye, that he might give a graphic report of it to his " presbytery of Irvine " as he did of many another great scene of those stormy times, thus mak- ing a record which now has the utmost value. There was " a close box at one end at a very convenient 1 Gardiner, ix. 294. Il8 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. distance for hearing, in which the King and Queen sat untaken notice of." ^ Not quite, for the first act of Charles was to tear down the lattice that screened him in front. All saw that he was there, though, since the throne was vacant, he was technically ab- sent, and the judicial function of the Peers was not restrained. A man of sensibility cannot look upon Westminster Hall to-day without feeling his heart beat quick. The general charge was of an " endeavor to over- throw the fundamental government of the kingdom and to introduce an arbitrary power." Strafford, his hair streaked with gray, his figure weakened by dis- ease, but infused with vigor from his lion-soul, strug- gled powerfully against his accusers amid the rapt multitude. The solemn tones of Pym, thrilled with the conviction that the welfare of England was trembling in the balance, rose in opposition. Glyn and May- nard, subtle lawyers, whom we shall meet again at Westminster upon an occasion not less tragic, were ready here with their cunning. The elder Vane cast in his word toward the destruction of his enemy ; a few voices, but very few, were friendly to the pris- oner. At the outset a difficulty was encountered in .mak- ing out a case of treason against Strafford. Trea- son, as understood through all past English history, had been a name given to acts against the person and authority of the Sovereign. Pym sought to broaden the signification of the word, making it any undermining of the laws which constitute the Sov- ^ Clarendon, i. 330. i64i.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. II9 ereign's greatness. It seemed to many like an unjust stretching of the meaning, and Strafford's vigorous defence told powerfully. Women were moved, and many of the Peers, however they may have felt that the course of the Earl was wrong, began to think he could not properly be called a traitor. A stage of the trial was at length reached, when the Commons, incensed at the Peers for their slowness, although the student at the present day must feel that the Peers were doing their best to proceed with a proper judicial temper,^ rose in fury, with loud shouts of "'Withdraw!' got all to their feet, cocked their beavers in the King's sight. We all feared it should go to a present tumult. They went all away in con- fusion. Strafford slipt away to his barge and to the Tower, glad to be gone lest he should be torn in pieces. The King went home in silence ; the Lords to their house." ^ The unusual step which the Commons now took was made possible by the violence of the partisans of the King. During the weeks of their session. Par- liament had succeeded in coming to a good under- standing with the Scotch army at the North, but at the same time had enraged the English army, lately opposed to the Scots, by neglecting what the troops felt to be their proper requirements. A plot had been formed to which Charles had listened, for bringing the disaffected army to his assistance, a plot promptly betrayed to Pym by the scoundrel Goring, an officer of high rank, whom the reader of Clarendon will remember as the subject of one of his 1 Gardiner, ix. 327. ^ Baillie, Letters and Journals, i. 289, 290. I20 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. most, finished characterizations. The Irish army was also at hand, — the rumors went on of Papal help from France and Rome, of Catholic risings at home, and of an army of Dutch to attend the Prince of Orange, who was about to appear in England as the bridegroom of the Princess Mary. No stone must be left unturned, the leaders felt; and as the Com- mons sat in St. Stephen's Chapel, angry over the punctiliousness of the Peers, through which the prisoner seemed so likely to escape, it was resolved to use an instrument the leaders would fain have spared. Young Vane now comes in with important evidence — evidence which, says Baillie, "for young Sir Harry's cause, a very gracious youth, they re- solved to make no use in public of as testimony, except in case of necessity." -^ So far, the most im- portant evidence adduced had been that of the elder Vane, who declared, that Strafford had said in a council just after the dissolution of the obstinate Short Parliament : ^ " Sir, you have now done your duty and your subjects have failed in theirs, and therefore you are absolved from the rules of govern- ment, and may supply yourself by extraordinary ways ; you must prosecute the war vigorously ; you have an army in Ireland with which you may reduce this Kingdom." Strafford denied the words, alleged the enmity toward him of Sir Henry Vane, and pro- tested that, at any rate, no weight ought to be attached to the unsupported testimony of a single witness. He urged, moreover, that even if it could be proved that he had spoken the words, no charge of treason 1 Letters and Journals, i. 289. ^ Clarendon, i. 337, etc. 1641.J THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 121 could be based upon them, for the Privy Council had been talking of Scotland, not England. Seventeen days had thus passed, when at last " there was a very remarkable passage of which the pretence was to make one witness, with divers circumstances, as good as two." The story with which Clarendon fol- lows this remark is quite too picturesque to be omitted.^ " Mr. Pym informed the House of Commons, of the ground upon which he first advised that charge, and was satisfied that he should sufficiently prove it. That some months before the beginning of this Par- liament he had visited young Sir Henry Vane, eldest son to the Secretary, who was then newly recovered from an ague ; that being together and condoling the sad condition of the kingdom, by reason of the many illegal taxes and pressures. Sir Harry told him, if he would call upon him the next day, he would show him somewhat that would give him much trouble, and inform him what counsels were like to be followed to the ruin of the kingdom ; for that he had, in perusal of some of his father's papers, acci- dentally met with the result of the Cabinet Council upon the dissolution of the last Parliament, which comprehended the resolutions then taken. The next day he showed him a little paper of the Secretary's own writing ; in which was contained the day of the month, and the results of several discourses made by several councillors ; with several hieroglyphics, which sufficiently expressed the persons by whom those discourses were made. The matter was of so tran- 1 Clarendon, i. 342, etc. 122 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. scendent a nature, and the counsel so prodigious, with reference to the Commonwealth, that he desired he might take a copy of it ; which the young gentle- man would by no means consent to, fearing it might prove prejudicial to his father. But when Mr. Pym informed him that it was of extreme consequence to the kingdom, and that a time might probably come when the discovery of this might be a sovereign means to preserve both Church and State, he was contented that Mr. Pym should take a copy of it; which he did in the presence of Sir Henry Vane ; and having examined it together, delivered the origi- nal again to Sir Henry. He said he had carefully kept this copy by him, without communicating the same to anybody, till the beginning of this Pariia^ ment, which was the time he conceived fit to make use of it ; and that then, meeting with many other in- stances of the Earl's disposition to the kingdom, it satisfied him to move whatsoever he had moved, against that great person." Pym then read his copy : " There were written two LL's and a t over, and an I and an r, which," it was urged, " could signify nothing but lord lieutenant of Ireland," and the words written and applied to that name were, " Absolved from the rules of govern- ment ; — Prosecute the war vigorously ; An army in Ireland to subdue this Kingdom." Pym told what the other hieroglyphics were, interpreting them, and giving the fragmentary report of the speech made by each member of the " Cabinet Council," adding : " That though there was but one witness directly in the point, Sir Henry Vane the Secretary, whose 1641.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 123 hand-writing that paper was, whereof this was a copy ; yet he conceived those circumstances of his and young Sir Henry Vane's having seen those original results, and being ready to swear, that the paper read by him was a true copy of the other, might reasonably amount to the validity of another witness. " When Mr. Pym had ended, young Sir Harry Vane rose in some seeming disorder, confessed all that the other had said, and added : ' That his father being in the north with the King the summer before, had sent up his keys to his secretary, then at White- hall ; and had written to him (his son) that he should take from him those keys, which opened his boxes where his writings and evidences of his land were, to the end that he might cause an assurance to be per- fected which concerned his [young Sir Harry's] wife ; and that he having perused those evidences, and despatched what depended thereupon, had the curi- osity to desire to see what was in a red velvet cabinet which stood with the other boxes ; and there- upon required the key of that cabinet from the sec- retary, as if he still wanted somewhat toward the business his father had directed ; and so, having got- ten that key, he found, amongst other papers, that mentioned by Mr. Pym, which made that impression in him, that he thought himself bound in conscience to communicate it to some person of better judgment than himself, who might be more able to prevent the mischiefs that were threatened therein ; and so shewed it to Mr. Pym ; and being confirmed by him, that the seasonable discovery thereof might do no less than preserve the kingdom, had consented that he should 124 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. take a copy thereof; which, to his knowledge, he had faithfully done ; and thereupon had laid the original in its proper place again, in the red velvet cabinet. He said, he knew this discovery would prove little less than his ruin in the good opinion of his father ; but having been provoked by the tender- ness of his conscience towards the common parent, his country, to trespass against his natural father, he hoped he should find compassion from that House, though he had little hopes of pardon elsewhere.' " The son no sooner sat down, than the father (who, without any counterfeiting, had a natural appearance of sternness) rose, with a pretty confusion, and said : 'That the ground of his misfortune was now dis- covered to him; that he had been much amazed, when he found himself pressed by such interrogato- ries, as made him suspect some discovery to be made by some person as conversant in the counsels as himself ; but he was now satisfied to whom he owed his misfortunes ; in which, he was sure, the guilty per- son should bear his share. That it was true, being in the North with the King, and that unfortunate " son of his having married a virtuous gentlewoman, (daughter to a worthy member then present), to whom there was somewhat in justice and honor due, which was not sufficiently settled, he had sent his keys to his secretary ; not well knowing in what box the material writings lay ; and directed him to suffer his son to look after those evidences which were necessary; that by this occasion, it seemed those papers had been examined and perused, which had begot much of this trouble ; that for his part, 1641.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 125 after the summons of this Parliament, and the King's return to London, he had acquainted his Majesty, that he had many papers remaining in his hands, of such transactions as were not Hke to be of further use ; and, therefore, if his Majesty pleased, he would burn them, lest by any accident they might come into hands that might make an ill use of them ; to which his Majesty consenting, he had burned many ; and amongst them the original results of those de- bates, of which that which was read was pretended to be a copy; that to the particulars he could say nothing more, than what he had upon his examina- tion expressed, which was exactly true, and he would not deny ; though by what he had heard that after- noon (with which he was surprised and amazed) he found himself in an ill condition upon that testi- mony.' " This scene was so well acted, with such passion and gestures, between the father and son, that many speeches were made in commendation of the con- science, integrity, and merit of the young ma,n, arid a motion made ' that the father might be enjoined by the House to be friends with his son,' but for some time there was, in public, a great distance observed between them." At Strafford's trial, Hyde and the Vanes were not far apart. Events, however, soon brought to pass two parties opposed to the death, in one of which stood Hyde, and in the other, the father and the son. Hyde, as Earl of Clarendon, looking back at a later day upon the events of this time, viewed them through an atmosphere of battle-smoTce, and it could 126 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. hardly be otherwise than that his figures should undergo some distortion. As the extracts quoted show, he felt, honestly it is probable, that the Vanes, actuated by personal hatred, arranged the plan for bringing Strafford to destruction — that young Sir Harry played a deep part, and that the wrath of the father was pretended in order to cover up the base intrigue. The idea of the courtier historian will not bear examination. The elder Vane, indeed, had neither great ability nor elevated character. "A man of no clear head, but a bustling, subtle, forward courtier in affairs of this magnitude." ^ " He could not stand erect, could adapt himself to any hole, round or square, smirked, ate good things, made himself useful under Charles, the Commons, and the Protector."^ There is no reason, however, for as- cribing to him such a depth of baseness as Claren- don's theory implies ; careful study of the facts will convince one that he was neither forger nor perjurer. Immediately after the meeting of the Council at which the words were spoken, it was rumored in London that Strafford had recommended the em- ployment of the Irish army to subdue England. The King knew of the Secretary's notes, felt them to be dangerous, and ordered them to be burnt before the trial. In all probability Vane's testimony was strictly truthful, and the outburst of wrath against his son a perfectly genuine manifestation. As to young Sir Henry Vane, since he has often been harshly judged for his conduct in this matter, 1 Sir Philip Warwick : Mem. of ' Peter Bayne : Contemp. Rev., Reign of Charles I, p. 153. quoted in Littell, 117, 323. 1641.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 1 27 a careful study of the particulars is in place. Other contemporary accounts are somewhat more favorable to him than that of Clarendon. By Whitlocke ^ the son is represented not as pursuing unauthorized ex- plorations after having already found the papers for which his father had given him permission to search, but as coming quite unexpectedly upon the records of the secret meeting while engaged in his proper quest. " The son, looking over many papers, among them lighted upon these notes ; which being of so great concernment to the public, and declaring so much against the Earl of Strafford, he held himself bound in duty and conscience to discover them." Nalson declares,^ " that no sooner had the son opened the cabinet and drawer according to his father's di- rections, but he found a paper with this endorsement, ' Notes taken at the Juncto.' " However it may have been, young Sir Henry made known his discovery to Pym, and Pym declared, as the extract from Claren- don shows, that the necessity of bringing Strafford to judgment first occurred to the Parliamentary leaders after the Secretary's notes had been thus re- vealed to them. Would a man of strict honor exam- ine in such a way the private papers of another man, and make known to others the secrets he discovered ? Pym and his friends felt that to reveal the matter would compromise Vane. " For young Sir Harry's cause," says Baillie, " a very gracious youth, they re- solved to make no use of it in public as testimony, ^ Whitlocke, Memorials, i. 125, Great Affairs of State, by J. Nal- Oxford, 1853. son, ii. 207. ^ Impartial Collection of the 128 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. except in case of necessity." Young Harry had been under dangerous influences. We have seen him as a boy at Vienna, cognizant of the unscrupulous Jesuitism with which Ferdinand II was trying to oppose the arms of Gustavus. He was always sub- tle, by the admission of his friends, — could pene- trate as no other man could " the drift of hollow states hard to be spelled " ; ^ and his enemies, as will be abundantly shown, were not slow to speak of his cunning as "cozening." In a desperate time, how- ever, cannot an act be justified, not admissible under ordinary circumstances } Let us put ourselves for a moment in young Sir Harry's place, in those evil days. No doubt in his mind he was much embarrassed. He had accepted favors from the King — the Treasurership of the Navy, and the honor of Knighthood. But while on fair terms with the King, he had at the same time been for years the intimate friend of Pym, and his sympathies had become strongly enlisted for the cause of the Parliament. The evil counsellors of the King, he felt, were bringing both Sovereign and nation to destruction. Finding himself in London, his father being still absent in the North, and being trusted with the keys to his father's private papers, the opportunity comes into his hands of discovering precisely what those evil counsels are, as communi- cated to Charles in his secret meetings with his ad- visers. To read the records of the Cabinet Council was, no doubt, an underhand proceeding, an abuse of confidence; but are such things never justifiable.? ' Milton's Sonnet to Vane. 1641.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 129 When, at a later day, the private letters of Charles were captured at the battle of Naseby, the knightly Fairfax, the General of the Parliament, refused to examine them because they were private. Others were less scrupulous ; the letters were found to con- tain evidence of treachery most important for patriots to know. Although Fairfax protested, the letters were made public, and had a most important influ- ence in strengthening the heart of the nation in the struggle upon which it had entered. Just before Naseby again, with like punctiliousness, Fairfax re- fused to open a letter from a Royalist commander to the King, which had been intercepted ; it was private, he thought, and though information, in all probability, was conveyed in it the possession of which might bring success to his cause, still the General felt that honor forbade the breaking of the seal. Few would say that in a time of war such scru- ples are not quixotic. In the summer of 1641 there was as yet to be sure no war, but nothing could be more critical than the condition of England in the eyes of the circle of which young Sir Henry had become a member. His regard for "the common parent, his country," he says, " had provoked him to trespass against his natural father." He had a good motive in abusing his father's confidence. Without doubt he believed that his father's record concerning Strafford made it certain that the Earl had advised the use of the Irish army for the subjection of Eng- land. The discovery " made that impression on him that he thought himself bound in conscience to com- municate it to some person of better judgment than 130 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. himself." Pym, therefore, became his confidant, " and being confirmed by him that the seasonable discov- ery thereof might do no less than preserve the king- dom," he had consented to its promulgation. Straf- ford, indeed, was the personal enemy of his father, and had just before offered the Vanes what they must both have felt as a cutting insult, in appropriating a title which properly belonged to them. It is utterly unreasonable, however, to suppose that young Sir Henry was actuated by any petty malice. His char- acter, as indicated by his entire course, makes it certain that only the public considerations weighed with him. He felt embarrassed ; his friends tried to shield him, but it became necessary to make the whole truth known to prevent the prosecution of Strafford from going by the board. The Commons felt that young Vane had in every way acted well. " Many speeches were made in commendation of the conscience, integrity, and merit of the young man." The candid student to-day must believe that his con- duct admits of a good defence. The country was on the brink of ruin ; was it a time to be fastidious in grasping at the means to save it ? As to Strafford, it may be believed he was honest in denying the words. They came from him as he was speaking impetuously, and may easily have been forgotten, and the Parliament men attached a weight to them which he did not at all appreciate. Having been long in Ireland, he did not understand English feeling, before which the use of an Irish army to overawe England was like the employment of the Turcos by the French in the eyes of the Germans of i64i.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 131 1870, or the employment of the savages by the Eng- lish in the eyes of the Americans during our Revo- lution. Strafford knew the army to be well disciplined and obedient, and could see no objection to bringing it to bear in behalf of that supremacy of the King which he honestly felt to be for the best interest of the nation/ Young Sir Henry Vane, then, gave his testimony in St. Stephen's Chapel before the House of Com- mons on the afternoon of the loth of April. Though the Commons were sullen at what they felt to be the 'delay of the Peers, the more prudent among them, Pym and Hampden, with others, had no thought but of persisting in the impeachment. There were more impatient spirits, however, and soon, under the lead of Sir Arthur Haselrig, a bold, blundering, honest man, young Harry's associate in boyhood, and des- tined to stand in close relations with him to the very last, it was resolved to substitute for the impeach- ment a bill of attainder. This was a device of the preceding century, originating with Thomas Crom- well, to be used against men who could not be reached by impeachment, by which the Commons became as much judges as the Lords ; culprits were declared guilty by sentence of the legislative power, — by a law in parliamentary form. Though unusual, a bill of attainder was sanctioned by precedent and was just, since Parliament could make laws for every case.^ When the Peers heard of it, they were indig- 1 The matter is carefully argued bearing upon the case, ix. p. 321, by Gardiner, who combines a tern- also pp. 123, etc. per thoroughly judicial with a ^ Ranke : Hist, of Engl. ii. 249. minute knowledge of every fact Warwick, 173. Skottowe : Short Hist, of Pari. 38. 132 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. nant. " It is unnatural," said one of them, " for the head to be governed by the tail. We hate rebellion as much as treason ; " and they went on in the im- peachment to hear Strafford's defence. Strafford himself, referring to Pym's new definition of treason, and claiming that he could not be blamed for having unconsciously sinned, said in an illustration, which to any one who knows the Thames will seem even now vivid, " If I pass down the Thames in a boat, and run and split myself upon an anchor, if there be not a buoy to give me warning^ the party shall give me damages ; but if it be marked out, then it is at my own peril. . . . Were it not for the interest of those pledges which a saint in heaven left me " — The strong man stopped, broken down at the thought of his wife and children ; iafter a moment he resumed : " I never should take the pains to keep up this ruinous Cottage of mine. It is laden with such infirmities, that, in truth, I have no great pleasure to carry it about with me any longer." He finished his plea in a strain solemnly devout. " My Lords, my Lords, my Lords, something more I had to say, but my voice and spirit fail me. I do submit myself clearly and freely to your judgments, and whether that righteous judgment shall be life or death, te Deum laudamus, te Dominum confitemur." As April wore to a close the Lords and Commons remained at cross-purposes, and meantime the im- peachment proceeded. Once more Charles sent word to Strafford " upon the word and honor of a King, you shall not suffer in life, honor, or fortune." But events favored the more violent course. Thicker 1641.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 1 33 and thicker flew the rumors of plots. The Dutch were believed to be at hand — the arm of the papal power not less imminent. What Goring had be- trayed to the leaders about the descent of the north- ern army, became generally known. At length the wildest panic prevailed, for it was reported a French army had seized the Channel Islands, and were at the very shore of England. A mob beset the House of Lords, clamoring for justice on Strafford. The feeling became universal among the Peers as in the Commons, in favor of the more irregular but quicker way. " We give law," cried St. John, " to hares and deer, because they be beasts of chase ; it was never counted cruelty or foul play to knock foxes and wolves on the head as they can be found, be- cause they be beasts of prey." One day a board cracked in the House of Commons, under the weight of two stout members. Some one cried out that he smelt gunpowder. The members rushed into the lobby, the lobby loungers into Westminster Hall, fearing a new Guy Fawkes plot. With shrieks of terror some sought the city; and the train-bands, arming, marched toward the danger, reaching Covent Garden before word came that it was a false alarm. In the midst of the tumult the memorable bill passed both Houses that Parliament should not be dis- solved without its own consent, and at last the bill of attainder, both bills being brought to the King for his signature on the 8th of May. Strafford knew that he must die, and proclaimed himself willing. " I do most humbly beseech your Majesty," he wrote Charles, " to pass this bill. 134 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. To a willing man there is no injury done. ... I only beg that, in your goodness, you would vouch- safe to cast your gracious regard upon my poor son and his three sisters. . . . God preserve your Majesty." As the bill of attainder for Strafford and the bill for perpetuating Parliament were brought to the King, an armed multitude followed. While Charles temporized, Whitehall was in a panic. The mob threatened each moment to attack the palace. The Catholic intriguers professed themselves to be stand- ing in fear of present death. The Queen was in im- minent danger of being carried to prison, with almost a certainty of being torn in pieces on the road. Scarcely a counsellor advised Charles to persist. The Lieutenant of the Tower declared he would ex- ecute the Earl whether the King agreed or not. The agonized Sovereign yielded at last, appointing com- missioners to sign both bills, so that they became law. Even then Charles could not give him up, but begged hard that the pursuers would be satisfied with something else than execution ; or, if not, that his life might be spared for a few days. But Parlia- ment was pitiless through terror. " Stone-dead hath no fellow ! " had been the stern exclamation of the Earl of Essex when asked to be merciful, and " Stone- dead hath no fellow ! " had become the general cry. Strafford seems to have had a glimmer of hope, for when the yielding of the King was announced to him : " Put not your trust in Princes," he cried, " nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no salva- tion." It was finished on the 1 2th of May. As the i64i.] THE TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. I 35 Earl passed the window of Laud, the old man ex- tended his hands through the bars to bless him, but fainted in the act. " This noble Earl was in person of a tall stature, something inclining to stooping in his shoulders, his hair black and thick, which he wore short, his coun- tenance of a grave well-composed symmetry and good features, only in his forehead he expressed more severity than affability, yet a very courteous person. And as he went from the Tower to the scaffold, his countenance was in a mild posture, be- tween dejection in contrition for sin and a high cour- age, without perceiving the least affirmation of dis- guise in him. He saluted the people as he walked on foot, often putting off his hat unto them, being apparelled in a black cloth suit, having white gloves on his hands. And though at this time there were gathered together on the great open place on Tower Hill, where the scaffold stood, a numerous crowd of people, standing as thick as they could one by an- other over all that great hill, insomuch as by modest computation they could not be esteemed less than one hundred thousand people, yet as he went to the scaffold, they uttered no reproachful or reflecting language upon him."^ The moral greatness of the man subdued even the rudest hearts, as he marched to the block with the step of a conqueror passing beneath the flower-hung arches of his triumph. " Thou shalt not bind mine eyes, for I will see it done," he said to the execu- tioner as he bared his neck. A silent prayer, then the hands were spread forth in signal, and all was over. 1 Rushworth, Hist, Coll. viii. 772, 773. 136 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. Long ago as it is, and champion though he was of un-American ideas, the eyehds still tremble as one reads how the Earl, his defence utterly beaten back, and the scaffold rising before him, refers with broken voice to his dead wife and innocent children. He could not understand the men who brought him to the block, nor they him. Perhaps it was fortunate that it was so. Had they perceived his real noble- ness, they could not have pressed upon him so re- lentlessly, and it was only relentless pressing that brought to pass his doom. It is well for us all that he died, for had he lived, and stood at the right hand of Charles, as he must infallibly have done, leading the armies, counselling and upholding the King as he felt inclined to palter — matchless as the Earl was in his time in intellect and strength of purpose, the freedom of the English-speaking race must have gone down, as freedom had before gone down among every people except the English, descended from those ancient Teutons, governing themselves in their assemblies in the plains of Central Europe. It is well that he died, although his purposes were good. The path he pursued conscientiously, like the path which many another would-be benefactor has pur- sued, led not to the elevation but to the debasement of mankind. One sharp pang and let us hope he stood in a light where he could see things in truer ' relations. Was young Sir Harry Vane in the crowd that day to see the end of the man whom he had done so much to bring low ? . There is no record, — but a day will come when we shall see Vane on Tower Hill. CHAPTER VII. THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. The course of events must be briefly outlined from the period we have reached until the actual outbreak of hostilities between the King and the Houses. While the trial of Strafford was in hand, the matter of tonnage and poundage (the illegal im- post of the nature of ship-money, which had been much in dispute) was settled by divesting the King here of all power. We have seen how the immensely important law that Parliament should not be dis- solved without its own consent, had received the sanction of the King in the distress of the moment when Strafford was condemned. Soon after came the abolition of the Star Chamber and High Com- mission Courts. The Scots, who for a year had lain in England, threatening the King, now received a good subsidy from Parliament and returned home well pleased. Charles yielded everything, going him- self in August to Scotland, and taking part in the grave and stately way which became him so well in the Presbyterian worship. When Parliament con- vened in October, aft^r a recess which had begun on the 8th of August, its temper towards the King was no more conciliatory than before. Almost at once 138 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641, news came that Ireland, relieved of the pressure of the hand of Strafford, had burst into furious rebellion. A strong set toward Presbyterianism was manifest- ing itself in the nation, and not only were Catholics believed to be driving at mischief, but Anglicans, too, were viewed with suspicion. At once after the opening of the session came a vigorous manifesto, the Grand Remonstrance, in which the King's mistakes were rehearsed in more uncompromising terms than ever, — the unsuccess- ful military expeditions, the forced loans, the ille- gal imprisonment, the levying of taxes without con- sent of Parliament, and a long catalogue besides, of arbitrary proceedings, implying a total subversion of the constitution. To many this manifesto seemed quite too violent, and it passed the Commons by a majority of only eleven, in the midst of an excitement which seemed likely to result in a battle. ' The au- thority of Hampden calmed the storm. A spirit more democratic than had yet appeared became rife, the Commons asserting that " they themselves were the representative body of the whole kingdom, that the Peers were only individuals, and if the Lords were contumacious the Commons must join together and take care of the King." In these days came a definite taking of sides, and the terms Cavalier and Roundhead appear. Hyde, Falkland, Colepeper, and many another, who up to this time had opposed Charles, now ranged themselves, displeased at the violence of the majority, upon the King's side. The close of the year was marked by a proceeding highly revolutionary. In the tumults that prevailed, the 1642.] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1 39 Bishops, unable to make their way to Westminster without being insulted or indeed roughly handled, were absent from their places in the Lords. They protested against action which took place in their absence, whereupon the whole . body of them were impeached and arrested as impeding legislation. If Charles had possessed proper prudence, he might now have gained great advantages. He had been well received in London on his return from Scotland, and a temperate course would have won him friends. Urged on by the Queen, however, who was made to believe that the Commons might be cowed by a show of vigor, Charles undertook, Janu- ary 3, the Impeachment of the Five Members whom he regarded as ringleaders of the opposition, going himself with an armed force to seize them. Warned in time, they escaped to the city, whence Skippon, leader of the London train-bands, escorted them back to their places. Charles left London, never to see it again except as a prisoner. Parliament, now seizing the power of the sword, made levies of troops, to which act the King gave a warlike response. On the side of the Cavaliers ranged themselves most of the nobles and gentry, the clergy, the universities, the Anglicans in general ; also, all who made pleasure a business, painters, comic poets, rope-dancers, and buffoons ; — these with the Catholics.-' Opposed to these " Malignants " stood the nonconformists in general — the small freeholders, and the merchants and workmen in the towns. The environment of the King speedily became splendid. Forty Peers of the 1 Macaulay, i. 80. I40 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. first rank were soon in his train, whereas there were now seldom more than sixteen at Westminster. About half the Commons also disappeared, sixty making their way with Hyde to the northern head- quarters of the King at York. Abundant evidence exists that young Sir Henry Vane had made a strong impression of ability upon the members of the Long Parliament from the first. Following diligently the Journal of the House of Commons, one finds constant mention of both father and son. The reports are very meagre, giving the merest outline of business transacted. Of the elo- quence which must have been poured out, the spasms of terror, the alternations of hope, one obtains scarcely an idea. As regards the present subject, a great difficulty arises from the fact that in the reports there is a careless neglect to distinguish be- tween father and son. " Sir Henry Vane " is con- stantly at work, but whether the young or the old Sir Henry, the searcher is for the most part left to his own wits to determine. Vane's contemporary biographer, Sikes, testifies to a diligence which no doubt existed from the first : — " During the Long Parliament, he was usually so engaged for the Publick, in the House, and several committees, from early in the morning to very late at night, that he had scarce any leisure to eat his bread, converse with his nearest Relations, or at all to mind his Family affairs." At once after Strafford's trial, the old_ecclesiasti- cal order was swept away. On the 2 7th of May, a l64i.] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 141 certain Sir Edward Bering, being in the Commons, introduced a bill for the abolition of Episcopacy,^ Daring afterwards changing his ground stated in an " Apology," that the bill was presented ty him al- most without having been read, having been " pressed into his hand " just before by Haselrig, who in turn received it from young Sir Henry Vane and Mr. Oliver Cromwell. The measure was a most radical and important pne, the immediate cause of the defi- nite taking of sides, from which war was at once to result. We find Vane at the bottom of it. It is an interesting crisis, too, in Vane's story from the fact that here for the first time we see him associated in action with Cromwell, with whom henceforth his ca- reer is most closely bound. The shrewd indirection, moreover, that marks the incident is to be noted. The originators themselves do not present their meas- ure, but pass it from hand to hand until it reaches a member by whom it can be laid before the House with a better chance of meeting success. If Bering's statement can be trusted, he was unwary and was surprised into doing something from which he would have shrunk. This subtle management we shall find to be thoroughly characteristic of Vane and his friends. The measure was passed, and, on June 21, Vane proposed the form of church government which should take the place of the abolished Prelacy, — that for the present namely, commissioners, partly clerical and partly lay, should be appointed for the purpose in each diocese. 1 Sanford, The Great Rebellion, Old Parliamentary History, Lond. p. 363, etc. Gardiner, ix. 383, etc. 1753, under date. 142 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. It is a fact of significance that whereas Pym car- ried up the impeachment of Strafford to the House of Lords, the member charged to do the same office for his fellow-culprit, Laud, was young Sir Henry Vane. February 26, " Sir H. Vane is appointed to go up to the Lords to desire a conference with their lordships by a committee of both Houses so soon as may stand with their 'lordships occasions, concern- ing articles to be preferred against Wm. Laud, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, in maintenance of the common charge whereby he stands accused of high treason." ^ On June 11, the House being in committee of the whole, with Hyde in the chair, a speech against Episcopal government was delivered by Sir Henry Vane. Nalson,^ and also the Old Parliamentary His- tory, ascribe this speech to Sir Henry Vane of Wil- ton. This would make the father the speaker, Wil- ton being the borough for which he sat. The speech is a noble arraignment of Prelacy, and it is quite impossible that it should have been delivered by the elder Vane ; he at this time was still in full accord with the Court, proceeding with the King in August to Scotland.^ The speech, plainly, was young Sir Henry's. Clarendon,* just before describing the trial of Straf- ford, characterizes in his skilful way the leaders of the Commons. After considering Pym, Hampden, and St. John, he speaks of young Sir Henry Vane '^ Journal of House of Commons, * See letters to and from the also Laud's Diary, Rushworth, iii. elder Vane in the Nicholas Pa- 1087. pers, Camden Society publication, " Impartial Collection of the 1886. Great Affairs of State, vol. ii. p. * Ibid. 291, etc. 276 and index. 1641.] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 143 as being received by the three magnates into an es- pecial confidence. " Sir Harry Vane was a man of great natural parts, and of very profound dissimula- tion, of a quick conception, and very ready, sharp, and weighty expression. He had an unusual aspect, which, though it might naturally proceed both from his father and mother, neither of whom were beauti- ful persons, yet made men think there was something in him of extraordinary; and his whole life made good that imagination. Within a very short time after he returned from his studies in Magdalen Col- lege at Oxford, where, though he was under the care of a very worthy tutor, he lived not with great exact- ness, he spent some little time in France and more in Geneva ; and after his return into England, con- tracted a full prejudice and bitterness against the Church, both against the form of the government and the liturgy, which was generally in great rever- ence, even with many of those who were not friends to the other. In this giddiness, which then much dis- pleased, or seemed to displease, his father, who still appeared highly conformable, and exceedingly sharp against those that were not, he transported himself into New England, a colony within a few years be- fore planted by a mixture of all religions, which dis- posed the professors to dislike the government of the Church ; who were qualified by the King's charter to choose their own government and governors, un- der the obligation ' that every man should take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy,' which all the, first planters did, when they received their charter, before they transported themselves from hence, nor 144 YCUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1641. was there in many years after the least scruple amongst them of complying with those obligations ; so far men were, in the infancy of their schism, from refusing to take lawful oaths. He was no sooner landed there, but his parts made him quickly taken notice of, and very probably his quality, being the eldest son of a privy counsellor, might give him some advantage; insomuch that, when the next season came for the election of their Magistrates, he was chosen their Governor ; in which place he had so ill-fortune (his working and unquiet fancy raising and infusing a thousand scruples of conscience which they had not brought over with them, nor heard of before) that he unsatisfied with them and they with him, he transported himself into England ; having sowed such seed of dissension there, as grew up too prosperously, and miserably divided the poor colony into several factions, and divisions, and persecutions of each other, which still continue to the great pre- judice of that plantation. . . . He was no sooner re- turned into England, than he seemed to be much re- formed in those extravagancies, and, with his father's approbation and direction, married a lady of a good family. . . . He became so intimate with the leaders that nothing was concealed from him, though it is believed he communicated his own thoughts to very few." Young Sir Henry Vane, to pass over less important incidents, was one of the committee of Parliament appointed to sit during the recess in the fall, and was active in bringing the Commons into a committee of the whole for a consideration of the Irish rebellion. In 1642.] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1 45 December, the elder Vane, having now definitely taken sides with Parliament, lost his high offices at Court,^ Falkland succeeding him as Secretary of State. Young Vane also lost his own position as Treasurer of the Navy ; upon which displacements a royalist, Captain George Carterett, remarks : " It seems that Sir Henry Vane the younger is much esteemed in the Commons, but I do not hear the like of his father, but rather that he has lost the good opinion of both sides." ^ Young Sir Harry was not, to be sure, one of the Five Members whom the King sought to seize, but was one of the committee of ten appointed at the time to retire " and consider of some way of vin- dicating the privileges of Parliament and for provid- ing for the safety of both kingdoms." ^ The diary of Sir Symonds d'Ewes represents him as standing now in the first rank in the estimation of the House, and gives an instance of the young legislator's conduct highly creditable to his coolness and sense of justice. While the Commons impetilously denounced the breach of their privileges suffered at the hands of the King, using language implying a disposition to pro- tect their members in any case whatever, Vane caused it to be added to their declaration, " That we are so far from any endeavor to protect any of our members that shall be in due manner prosecuted (according to the laws of the kingdom and the rights and privi- leges of Parliament) for treason, or any other misde- meanor, that none shall be more ready and willing than we ourselves to bring them to a speedy and due 1 State Papers, Domestic, Dec. ^ S. P., Dom., Dec. 23, 1641. 10, 1641. * Commons yournai, Jan. 5,^(142. 146 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1642. trial; being sensible that it equally imports us, as well to see justice done against them that are crimi- nal, as to defend the just rights and liberties of the subjects and Parliament of England." ^ He was especially distinguished in all matters of religious reform ; and in debates as regards the com- mand of the militia, which had now become a great subject of dispute, he was very active and deter- mined. A picturesque incident of this time lets light in upon the bearing of Vane and also of the King. In March, 1642, Vane was member of a special com- mittee of twelve from both Houses, which waited upon the King at Theobald's, not far from London, when, the rupture not yet being open, the King was pressed to yield to Parliament the command of the militia. To the curt and peremptory tone of the commissioners, who demanded also that the King should reside near Westminster, and make provision for the proper education of the Prince of Wales, Charles replied, according to a royalist writer : ^ — " ' I am so much amazed at this message that I know not what to answer. You speak of jealousies and fears ! lay your hands to your hearts and ask your- selves whether I may not likewise be disturbed with fears and jealousies ? And if so, I assure you this message hath nothing lessened it. As to the militia, I thought so much of it before I sent that answer, and am so much assured that the answer is agreeable to what in justice or reason you can ask, or I in honor 1 S&e.'Forsier, Arrest of the Five " Echard, Hist, of Eng. ii. 298, Members, 309, 320. 299 (London, 1707). i642.] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1 47 grant, that I shall not alter it in any point. For my residence near you I wish it might be so safe and honorable that I had no cause to absent myself from Whitehall : ask yourselves whether I have not. For my son, I shall take that care of him which shall jus- tify me to God, as a father, and to my dominions as a King. To conclude, I assure you upon my honor, that I have no thought but of peace and justice to my people, which I shall by all fair means seek to preserve and maintain, relying upon the goodness and providence of God for the preservation of myself and my rights.' . . . The answer being suddenly and with unusual quickness spoken by the King, they were much daunted, and presently retired them- selves to take into consideration the terms of it, that there might be no difference in the reporting it to the several houses." The Earl of Newport, who was with the King, then called out his brother, the Earl of Warwick, a Parliament man, to tell him he felt sure that they would have a better answer if they would wait a little. To this the committee were inclined to assent, " when suddenly young Sir Henry Vane, a dark enemy to all accommodation, declared himself to wonder at it and said, ' Is there any per- son here who can undertake to-know the Parliament's mind ; whether this which we have, or that which is called a more satisfactory answer, will be more pleas- ing to the two Houses ? Fdr my part I cannot, and if there be any that can, let him speak.' " No one could answer this. Vane's outburst bore down his associates ; the commissioners departed without wait- ing, " which shows how easily one subtle ill-disposed 148 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1642. person may overthrow a general good intention." Vane's stiffness made the King stiff. There was an- other niessage a week later, from Parliament to Charles, then at Newmarket, when Charles was very spirited. Said Lord Pembroke for the Parliament, " ' Will your Majesty then deign to tell us what you would have .'' ' Chas. ' I would whip a boy in West- minster School that could not tell that by my an- swer.' ' Might not the militia be granted as desired by Parliament, for a time ? ' ' No, by God ! not for an hour ; you have asked that of me in this which was never asked of a King, and with which I would not trust my wife and children.' " Near the outbreak of the Civil War, the office which Vane had held from the King, jointly with Sir Wm. Russell, of Treasurer of the Navy, was restored to him by Parliament, but now without a colleague. Parliament did not make such appointments except in cases of necessity. The office was very lucrative even in peace and enormously so in war, being worth nearly ^30,000 yearly. Vane gave all this up in re- gard for the necessities of the country, stipulating only for £1000 a year for his deputy, "an agent he had bred up to the business." Sikes says that at this time he was embarrassed in his private affairs. Just as unselfish was he in his ambition, and Forster thinks ^ this may have been the reason why Crom- well, and not Vane, became the Man of the Com- monwealth, a judgment quite too enthusiastic to be adopted. ^ Life of Vane, p. 283. 1642.] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 149 Cavaliers and Roundheads at length stood defi- nitely opposed to one another, and the long word- wrangle deepened more and more into the thunder- ous tumult of war. Both parties pressed forward the levying of troops, the counties obeying the summons of one side or the other, according to their disposi- tion. The ranks of the Cavaliers held many who were dissolute, and their quarters for the time being — sometimes the courtyard of a castle, sometimes a protected nook by a stream under the open sky, sometimes the tap-rooms of a country village — rang with the clinking of glass and tankard and baccha- nalian songs. But with the revellers marched also many a knightly soul, prayerful after the noblest fashion, lamenting the errors of the King, but believ- ing after all he was more nearly right than his rebel- lious subjects, patriotically sad over the distraction of the land, and longing for peace. The Round- heads, on the other hand, received those generally who, refusing to conform to the established church, had undergone persecution until their temper had become that spirit, touched indeed by harsh sever- ity, running out into strange aberrations of fanati- cism, often marked by the narrowest intolerance, — yet in spite of all, perhaps, the most manful mani- festation which the world has 'ever seen, — Puritan- ism. England was about equally divided in pop- ulation, and also geographically, between the two sides. The West stood for the King ; the East, including the immensely important London, stood for Parliament ; but in each section a considerable minority opposed the prevailing sentiment. The 150 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1642. host of the King was far more splendid and martial than that of Parliament. It comprehended many seasoned soldiers, and many who readily became sol- diers, inured as they were to the semi-military train- ing of hunting and the chase. This advantage was offset by the circumstance that many partisans of the King were half-hearted. The Roundheads were clumsy at weapon -play and manoeuvring. Arms cramped to yard-sticks and plough-handles must de- velop a new set of muscles to wield properly pike and cutlass. The cuirass chafed painfully a body that had worn nothing rougher than a leathern doublet. The Roundheads, however, were generally zealous ; and in good time weaver, smith, and shopkeeper became well knit and callous to the work of battle. After much irregular skirmishing among neigh- bors, north, south, east, and west, through the sum- mer of 1642, the formal outbreak of the Civil War may be fixed upon the 23d of August, when the King set up his standard at Nottingham. Early in September, the Earl of Essex went the seventy miles from London to Northampton, where he found the twenty thousand raw Parliamentary levies, which he had been appointed to train and lead to battle. With these he marched westward toward the King, who now was gathering strength in the devotedly royalist shires toward Wales, and on the 23d of Octo- ber, at Edgehill, on the southern border of Warwick- shire, was fought the first great battle. Leaving London one day in August, the present wTiter followed in the track of Essex to Northamp- ton, to-day a prosaic shoe-town, noted for its radical- i642.] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 151 ism, sending to Parliament the famous Bradlaugh. The writer bowled on a tricycle over the hills of Northamptonshire, passed into Leicestershire, and then into Warwickshire, — now an easy bit of pedal- ling along a far-extending level ; now a dismount and tiresome push up a hill ; now a breathless rush from the upland down into the vale, while the air sang in your ears with the swiftness of the coast. It was lovely weather and a lovely land. The Avon, Shak- speare's Avon, was followed from its source through a series of pretty transformations. First, it ran a little thread from its spring in the garden of an up- land inn : it went looping off through the landscape out of sight, to appear again close by Lutterworth, Wickliffe's old home, as a gay ribbon, flowers purple, scarlet, and blue throwing in their reflections from the margin, until the silvery band was edged with brilliant color. At length, as he lay on the church- yard grass behind the church at Stratford, for those few evening moments, nearer to Shakspeare's dust than any other mortal, the river had become a scarf, and a Roman scarf at that, banded and shot through with the tints of sunset. Coventry was entered by a broad, smooth, oak-shadowed avenue. Here, too, as at Northampton, one finds himself on good Parlia- mentary ground ; for Coventry counts it among its honorable traditions that it kept out the King. One can look up at the heavy-timbered house, with pro- jecting upper stories and high-peaked gable, from a window of which, in answer to the King's Notting- ham demonstration, the flag of Parliament was first flung to the breeze. 152 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1642. Southward from Stratford the writer saw lying before him, at length, the high outlying ridge Edge- hill. From a distance, one approaching can see the outline of a horse, the red soil showing through the green turf, where the spades of some unknown gen- eration carved out the figure on the slope, as the memorial of a forgotten battle. The writer doubts whether any soldier of King or Parliament in the old time, the sun roasting him within his heavy iron encasement, heaving at a cannon-wheel to help the panting horses, worked harder than that vagabond wheelman to get to the top of the ridge ; for the tri- cycle seemed to hang back by a will of its own on the road sloping so steeply toward the vertical. Stand- ing on the breezy summit, however, he was paid for his pains by having at his feet perhaps the finest prospect in the English midlands. The guide-book said fourteen counties could be seen. At any rate, blue to the west were the high Malvern Hills by Worcester. Nearer at hand lay the levels of Glou- cester. Oxfordshire was close by, and the fine roll- ing country of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, which had just been traversed, lay east and north. All spread, that August noon, in perfect summer beauty under bright sunshine, the verdure brilliant through lately fallen rain, patches of forest dark on vivid grass, the gray of church-towers, the yellow of freshly built wheat stacks, a patch of red now and then where the soil lay bare. The acres just below claimed special notice, dignified as they are by asso- ciation with a great event : there it was that Essex advancing from Warwick, and Charles descending the steep side of Edgehill, clashed together. 1642.] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1 53 It was mid-afternoon of an October Sunday, as the Cavaliers looked; down from the crest upon the Par- liamentary advance. First came cuirassiers. Boxed up as each was in his close-fitting, articulated iron case, with sword and lance for antennae, the nick- name " lobsters," which the people sometimes gave them, was no bad description. The troops of Den- zil Holies were in scarlet ; those of Lord Brooke wore purple ; those of Say and Mandeville blue. The body-guard of Essex himself were in orange, his color, and all the high officers wore orange scarfs. As to arms, the musketeers carried heavy matchlocks, fired laboriously from a rest ; the foot, in general, pikes and pole-axes which admitted of quicker movement. The cavalry had a far greater relative value then than now : the horses were powerful ; the men in close armor carried long-sword, carbine, pistols, and some- times a lance. The army of the King varied little in its aspect from the Roundheads, except perhaps in a gayer display of scarfs and pennons. Charles himself, like a valiant soldier as he was, rode along the line in steel armor, a black velvet mantle blowing back from his shoulders ; on this an embroidered star and his George (a figure of St. George hanging upon his breast by a rich chain) showed his rank. To both sides fighting was new business, but the field was bloody. As the writer paused for breath once, making his way up the hill, he fell in with a laborer, who pointed out, near by, an enclosure where once he had been set to make a ditch. As he dug, he broke into one of the pits in which the dead had been buried, and laid open with his spade enough of 154 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE: [1642. the wreck of the battle to give vivid suggestion of its sharpness. It was a drawn action, and with a glance at two or three interesting figures who played a part there, we must pass on to far greater and more decisive fields. The King's standard-bearer, Verney, had little heart for his master's cause. It was, how- ever, his hereditary office to bear the royal banner : this he did even while uttering pathetically his dis- sent : he was slain fighting among the King's red regiment, which was cut all to pieces. Sir Jacob Astley, a stout old soldier of Gustavus, was a most knightly figure. " Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day," he prayed. " If I forget thee, do not thou forget me." We shall see Sir Jacob on other fields besides this of Edgehill. In Warwick Castle, the day before the writer was at Edgehill, he saw one of the most attractive of the portraits of Vandyke — a handsome youth, scarcely more than twenty, in a corselet over a coat of buff leather, beautiful brown hair falling in Cavalier fash- ion over the broad linen collar. " As smooth as Hebe's is the unrazored lip " of the portrait, but the eye is bright with manly, martial energy. It is Prince Rupert, close upon the time when he was to become famous. At Heidelberg Castle, one may see the nook where he was born — a hawk's nest high above the Neckar — and the hawk is no inapt symbol of this man whose life was involved in the wildest storms, whose glance was like lightning, whose swoop toward his prey was resistless, whose heart was rapacious and merciless. In all the thousand figures that become prominent in this time of strug- 1642.] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1 55 gle, there is none so picturesque as this young prince, so haughty and cruel — so swift and beauti- ful. Once as a boy, with his exiled father and mother in Holland, he outrode the hunters, pursuing a fox. The train coming up saw the boots of the prince sticking out of a hole in the bank. Rupert was pulled out by his boots, and he pulled out by his hind-legs the hound that had run into the hole be- fore him ; the hound in turn pulled out the fox, into whose brush his teeth were fastened. Soon Rupert was running to earth with just as much dash far dif- ferent game than foxes. He was a dead-shot with the pistol ; proof of which, it is said, may still be seen at St. Mary's church in Stafford, where on a wager with his uncle, Charles I, he sent two bullets through the weather-cock on the spire. He dislocated his shoulder while riding hard to join the King before the raising of the standard, but made nothing of it, developing, even while crippled, into a splendid cav- alry leader. Caught near Worcester by Roundhead troopers, while, with armor laid aside, his horsemen were bivouacking under the trees out of- the heat, he sprang into the saddle bareheaded and uncorseleted, and had the foe presently captured, a Tartar quite too prompt for the promptest. If to his courage and persistence could have been united good judgment, he might have been a great soldier. To a head like that of Wallenstein or Gustavus, what an arm he might have been ! But he brooked no superior save the King, and even the King gave way to him. In the landscape of his time his fame is as the flash of a sword-blade, the waving of a brilliantly-dyed scarf : 156 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1642. it catches the eye for a moment, but is utterly unsub- stantial. It is said that as Rupert led the King's vanguard down Edgehill, the church-bells could be heard ring- ing in the lowland. The ministers could be seen going from rank to rank among the Parliamentari- ans ; it was known that battle was near, and both in soul and in loins the Puritans took care to gird them- selves well. Rupert, as usual, in his charge scattered all before him, but, as always, he went too fast and too far. He met at last a band of men in green com- ing on with the cannon, led by a hero whose name comes down from that time enshrined in a steady glory in strong dontrast with the fitful flicker of Ru- pert's fame, John Hampden. At Edgehill his ser- vice was conspicuous, and the hope of the people in these times was more and more centring upon him as the battle-leader appointed by God ; but he fell before the troopers of Rupert at Chalgrove Field, before a year had passed, the most effective blow for his uncle that Hotspur ever struck. The success of the cavalry at Edgehill was cancelled elsewhere ; so that although Essex withdrew toward Warwick, the King found it prudent also to. draw off toward Oxford. In the memoirs of the time come down pic- turesque and pathetic touches — how the soldiers, as the sweat of battle dried off, found their armor, chilled by the frosty night air, a cold covering, and tramped about to keep themselves warm ; how the King and Rupert, on the slope of Edgehill, watched out the night, toasting themselves, as less exalted personages might have done, by the flame of a brushwood fire. i642.] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1 57 After Edgehill the King managed to take the ini- tiative soonest, and was presently threatening Lon- don. A battle took place in November, at Brentford in the suburbs, and but for a fine display of spirit by the Londoners under the lead of Skippon, the King might have ended the war then and there. On No- vember 7, when affairs were most threatening, a com- mittee of both Houses was sent to the city to ac- quaint it " with all the ways Parliament has used to procure a treaty of peace without being able to effect it, and to quicken them to a resolution of defending and maintaining their liberties and religion with their lives and fortune." ^ Of this committee young Sir Henry Vane was an important member, and a spokes- man. The King withdrew to Oxford to winter-quarters, and except that there was desultory fighting every- where, the war paused. A strong feeling in favor of peace pervaded Parliament and the nation, but there was no possibility of reaching terms of agreement. Young Vane led the opposition in the Commons to the disposition to come to terms before grievances were redressed. If Parliament began to treat with the King, it was urged, it would grow careless in its own defence.^ But misfortunes . came thick.- The Queen, who had fled to Holland, returned with arms and ammunition. Landing in the midst of hostile cannon-fire, the daughter of Henri Quatre showed her intrepidity, and soon at York gathered about her a spirited force headed by the Duke of Newcastle. She was dexterous in negotiation as she was spirited 1 Old Parliamentary History. ^ Gardiner, Great Civil War, i. 91. 158 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. in the field, and the peace-party in Parliament, more than ever active, sent commissioners to Oxford in March. Young Vane was on the committee to ex- amine and report upon these negotiations, which came to nothing, and immediately after was chair- man of a committee to stir up the zeal of the city and collect contributions.^ On the 31st of May a dangerous plot was discovered at the' head of which was the base time-server and graceful poet Edmund Waller, and on the committee of leaders appointed " with power to send for any persons and examine them, and to commit them if they see cause, and to seize on their papers and to meet when and where they please, and to do whatsoever they think good to prevent the danger threatened to the safety of the kingdom and city," — with Pym, St. John, Sir Gilbert Gerard, and Glyn, we find again the younger Vane. All was felt to be imperilled, and no trust could be heavier than that imposed upon these five men. As there was treachery within, so there was dis- aster without. There had, to be sure, been Parlia- mentary successes. When Charles, leaving London the year before, had gone to the North, at a great meeting upon Heyworth Moor, a vigorous young knight, Sir Thomas Fairfax, forcing his way to the side of the King, had laid upon the pommel of his saddle a petition little to the King's taste. Spurring his horse impatiently, Charles nearly overthrew the young knight. We shall see how large a part he was to play in the overthrow of the King. Already ^ Commons Journals. l643-] THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1 59 in 1643 Sir Thomas Fairfax with his father, Lord Fairfax, had done much in the North for Parliament. Sir WilUam Waller had had such success in the South and West as to receive the name " William the Conqueror." The Earl of Manchester, whom shortly before, as Lord Kimbolton, the King had tried to seize at the same time with the Five Members, was at the head of the eastern counties, confederated for Pai'liament. The same Colonel Cromwell, so ill- dressed and slovenly in the eyes of the Cavalier dandies of the first months of the Long Parliament, was already famed for several dashing exploits. As summer advanced, however, misfortune followed mis- fortune. Essex was unmistakably sluggish with the Parliament's main army. Waller was defeated at Roundway Down and elsewhere, Fairfax at Ath- erton Moor. Hull, at the North, for which young Vane sat in Parliament, was on the point of surren- der to Newcastle and the Queen. Bristol, the second city of the kingdom, did surrender to Rupert. Heavi- est blow of all, on the i8th of June, at Chalgrove Field, Hampden received a mortal wound. " How can it be otherwise .? " the hard rider Cromwell had said just before to his cousin Hampden, as they talked of defeats.^ "Your horse are for the most part worn-out serving men, tapsters, and people of that sort ; theirs are the sons of gentlemen, men of quality. Do you think such poor vagabonds as your fellows have soul enough to stand against gentlemen full of resolution and honor ? Take not my words ill : I know you will not : you must have fellows 1 Guizot, English Revolution, 207, New York, 1846. l6o YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. animated by a spirit that will take them as far as the King's gentlemen, or you '11 always be beaten. I can do something toward it and I will : I '11 raise men who will have the fear of God before their eyes, and who will bring some conscience to what they do, and I promise you they shall not be beaten." The King, flushed with success, denied to Parliament all legal status. But hearts were still stout in the ranks of his foes. CHAPTER VIII. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. Young Sir Henry Vane was never a soldier, but there is reason for thinking that in the summer of 1643 he came near leaving Westminster in order to try, by command of the Parliament, the fortunes of the field. After Hampden's death, Essex, deprived of his wise guidance, wrote an ill-considered letter to Parliament, counselling an apphcation to the King for peace. He advised that "his Majesty may be desired to absent himself from the scene of conten- tion," apparently out of his tenderness for the King ; also, " that both armies might be drawn up near the one to the other, that if peace be not concluded, it might be ended with the sword." The proposal of Essex was taken ill both by the Lords and Commons, Vane in particular observing with bitter sarcasm, as we are informed by Sir Symonds d'Ewes,^ " that since we had neglected, upon the several messages of the Lords, to entertain the consideration of sending prop- ositions to his Majesty, the Lord-General had done well to stir us up to it, although our fatherly care of the kingdom should have preceded his lordship's care. He also observed that the purport of his lord- ^ Quoted by Sanford, Great Rebellion, p. 570, etc. 1 62 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. ship's letter was, that if we would send propositions of peace to his Majesty, and they did not take effect, that then he would do his duty." And not till then — seemed to be the plain implication. Vane afterwards made a formal apology, but Essex, who, though slug- gish, was honorable and well meaning, upon receiv- ing word of the speech, was cut to the quick. July 1 3, he wrote : " I shall advance, God willing, at far- thest on Friday. I have often desired that a com- mittee of both Houses might be sent to be a witness of our integrity to the service of the state. ... If it may stand with the convenience of the House of Commons, I shall entreat the favour that Sir Henry Vane the younger may be an eye-witness of our ac- tions, he being an intimate friend of mine, and who by his constant carriage in the Parliament, which hath gotten him a good reputation in all places, may be a true testimony of our actions, it being of huge advantage to keep a good correspondence betwixt the Parliament and their servants the army. He is be- sides a man I put so much trust in, as that, if he pleaseth, I shall go hand and hand with him to the walls of Oxford." " All men," says d'Ewes, " easily saw this letter to be spoken in a scoffing way ; . . . yet few did approve my Lord-general therein, in respect that he did strike at the foundation of the liberty and privilege of Par- liament, if men might not be suffered to speak their minds freely there." ^ The Earl, perhaps, scarcely intended to be taken at his word, but there is some evidence to show that » Sanford, pp. 573, 574. 1643-] THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 1 63 the Commons entertained the idea of sending Vane to represent them with the army. Says the " Mercurius Aulicus," a news sheet of CavaUer temper, pubHshed two or three times a week, many numbers of which are preserved in the Thom- asson Tracts : — " It was advertized that on the death of Mr. Hamp- den, whom the lower House had joined as a coadjutor with the Earle of Essex, or rather placed as a super- intendant over him, to give them an account of his proceedings, they had made choice of Sir Henry Vane the Younger to attend that service, who having had a good part of his breeding under the holy minis- ters of New England, was thought to be provided of sufficient zeal, not only to inflame his excellency's cold affections, but to kindle a more fiery spirit of rebellion in his wavering souldiers." ^ The passage quoted contains a suggestion of the utmost interest to Americans. Vane, it was felt, would be a good man to fan the flagging zeal of the General and the troops, because he had been under American influences. What grounds had men in those days for supposing that the spirit of rebellion which was driving England so fiercely into conflict against the arbitrary King, was related to America .? American ideas Pym and Hampden cannot be said to have had, for they by no means wished to do away with royalty or privileged classes, or to show a gen- eral toleration to varying forms of faith. They de- sired simply to restore the proper balance to the ancient triple-pillared polity of King, Lords, and ' Forster, Life of Hampden, p. 253. 1 64 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. Commons, which the Sovereigns had disturbed by their overweening claims of prerogative ; there had been no assertion, even among those who talked most freely, of a wish beyond this. Not Cromwell or Vane or any other army or Parliamentary leader had as yet gone farther ; but things were about to undergo a sud- den transformation. One hears much to-day of the reaction of the new world upon the nations of the old world. Europe, America claims, and the old world admits, has been wonderfully modified by influences which go back from us. The very earliest instance that can be traced of a reaction from America upon England, is to be assigned to the time which we have noV reached, and a principal channel of that influ- ence was our young Sir Henry Vane. Now it was that the Independents began to rise in power, destined in time to supersede the Presbyterians, who since the beginning of the Civil War had been in vast majority among those opposed to the King. Independency was often referred to in thdse days as the " New England Way," and a brief sketch will make plain the appropriateness of the title. ' The first hint at Independency is perhaps to be found in the writings of Zwingle.-' It first took form in England, however ; then developed fully in Amer- ica. While Prelacy was dominant in the time of Elizabeth and James, little congregations of Brown- ists, or Separatists, appeared here and there in Eng- land, some of which went to Holland, so magnani- mously hospitable in those narrow days to varying shades of faith. One such congregation became at ^ Doyle, The English in America, vol. i. p. 9. 1643O THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 1 65 last the Pilgrims of Plymouth. Winthrop and his band, arriving in America ten years later, though nominally at first adherents of the Church of Eng- land, were at any rate hostile to the efforts of Laud ; and as the struggle deepened in the effort to drive through the policy of " Thorough," both in the Old Colony and in Massachusetts Bay, a body of con- gregations came to exist, owning the sway of neither Bishop nor Synod, but each independent as regarded its government. To be sure, there was here small toleration, as we have seen. New England had a reputation for freedom which she did not at all de- serve, and which the voices of her champions ^fiercely repudiated as the worst possible stigma which could rest upon her fair fame. " We have been reputed," says the valiant Nathaniel Ward,^ "a colluvies of wild opinionists, swarmed into a remote wilderness to find elbow-roome for our phanatick doctrines and practices. I trust our diligence past and con- stant sedulity against such persons and courses,- will plead better things for us. I dare take upon me to bee the herauld of New England so farre as to pro- claime to'the world, in the name of the Colony, that all Familists, Antinomians, Anabaptists, and other enthusiasts, shall have free liberty to keep away from us ; and such as will come to be gone as fast as they can, the sooner the better." New England offefed to Baptists the hospitality of the ducking-pond, to Quakers the cart's tail and the scourge, to High-Churchmen a most unceremoni- ous shouldering out. When now in the Puritanism ' Simple Cobbler of Aggawam, Pulsifer's ed. p. 3, etc. 1 66 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. opposed to Charles the sectaries began to grow pow- erful, who taught that each congregation should be independent, not only of Bishop, but also of Synod, and that as one of their number, a certain John Mil- ton, declared, " New Presbyter was but old Priest writ large," the New England example had much to do with it, and not only books, but men also crossed the Atlantic to foment the schism. The great lead- ers of English Independency among the ministers were a certain noble scholar and preacher. Dr. John Owen, afterwards chaplain to Cromwell and Fairfax, and a man of note until late in the century; Dr. Thomas Goodwin, a member of the Assembly of Di- vines; Hugh Peters, who was once more in Eng- land; and Philip Nye, of whom we shall presently know more. To these must be joined the laymen, Cromwell, now not at Westminster but fast growing famous in the army of the Parliament ; Milton, be- coming noted as a pamphleteer ; and young Sir Henry Vane. Says a writer who has studied the subject with great thoroughness : ^ " The polity of the strong men, Goodwin, Owen, Peters, Vane, Milton, Cromwell, and their fellows, to whom under God, was confided the immediate future of England, was moulded in the freer life and thought of New England, by their cor- respondents and fellow-workers, Cotton, Williams, and their fellows. England in her agony, looked to New England for counsel, got it and followed it, un- til she too had a Commonwealth." The proposition 1 J. Wingate Thornton, "The wealth." Boston, 1874, pp. 33, 71. Historical Relation of New Eng- I am indebted to Mr. H. E. Scud- land to the English Common- derformy knowledge of this book. i6«.] THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 1 67 is startling enough, that the great English Common- wealth, with its heroic record, came out of that little spot in New England Boston now known as Pem- berton Square, but something can be said to sustain it. The Independents built up the Commonwealth ; and that the relation of this corner of the Massa- chusetts city to the development of Independency was most important can be shown in short space. In what is now Pemberton Square lived John Cot- ton, the ablest of the Massachusetts ministers, and young Sir Henry Vane. No one character can so justly be called the father of Independency as John Cotton. Baillie, in 1645, charges Cotton with be- ing " if not the author, yet the greatest promoter and patron of Independency, a man of very excellent parts, of great wit and learning, the great instrument of drawing to it not only the thousands of those who left England, but many in Old England, by his letters to his friends. The best of the Brownist [or Independent] arguments are brought in the greatest lustre and strength in Mr. Cotton's work, " The Way of the Churches." ^ The ideas of the " Way of the Churches of Christ in New England," and of another book by Cotton written about the same time, " The Doctrine of the Church to which is Committed the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven," both of which had a great cir- culation in England, are plainly shown in the follow- ing extracts : — "No church hath power of government over an- other, but each of them hath chiefe power within 1 Quoted by Thornton, pp. 53, 54. 1 68 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. itselfe, and all of them equall power one with an- other ; every church hath received alike the power of binding and loosing, opening and shutting the King- dom of Heaven. Finally all of them are candle- sticks of the same precious metall, and in the midst of them all Christ equally walketh." ^ " Though one church claim no power either of Ordination or Jurisdiction over another, (for we know of none such given us by Christ), yet wee maintain brotherly Communion one with another, so far as wee may also help forward our mutuall Com- munion with the Lord Jesus." ^ John Owen and Thomas Goodwin were in Eng- land, says Anthony a Wood, " the Atlases and patri- archs of Independency." Among the laymen beyond all others in power were Cromwell and Vane. How did these foremost English Independents stand re- lated to John Cotton .? Owen declares that he was converted to Independency by Cotton's '' Keyes,"^ while Goodwin, likewise his convert, was the princi- pal medium for the diffusion in England of Cotton's writings. Philip Nye was not less affected. " Master Cotton did take Independency up and transmit it to Master Goodwin, who did help to propagate to sun- dry others in Old England first, and after to more in Holland, till now, by many hands it is sown thick in divers parts of this kingdom." * To Cromwell, Cotton was an "esteemed friend" to whom he wrote with affection and reverence ; ^ while it is scarcely too 1 The Keyes,-p.\z. ^ Baillie in 164J, quoted by 2 Way of the Churches, chap. Thornton, p. 54. vi. Sec. I. * Carlyle, ii. 9. ' Thornton, p. 54. I643-J THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 169 much to say that Vane was " trained in Cotton's study." ^ There on the steep side-hill of the Tri- niountain the two men lived together during Vane's New England sojourn. To the minister's house the young Governor made an addition, turning his prop- erty over to his friend's family when the time came for his departure. Under that roof they took counsel together while the Pequots threatened : there they strengthened one another in the dreadful days of the Hutchinsonian controversy, when the whole colony turned against them and the Boston, Church : there they labored together over a code of laws, which was found in Cotton's study after his death. It was with- out doubt while in communion with this powerful character that the youth imbibed the spirit with which he became charged. TKe spot ought indeed to be held in veneration, upon which once stood the dwelling of John Cotton and Henry Vane ! ^ Like the New England so the Old England Inde- pendency regarded for the most part, at first, only the matter of Church government, Independents no less than Presbyterians subscribing to the Calvinistic formulae, and being often very intolerant. We for- get how modern the idea of Toleration is. A trace of it may be found in " More's Utopia " and French writers of the i6th century, but the first perception of the full principle of liberty of conscience belongs to the English Separatists, the Baptists in particu- > Thornton, pp. 56, 57. is still extant. See a comraunica- * There is some reason for sup- tionof Mr. D. T. V. Huntoontothe posing that a considerable portion Boston Transcript, Monday, July of this house, removed from its 30, 1883. Boston site to the town of Canton, lyo YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643- lar.^ We find it announced by English Baptists in Holland in 161 1. Soon after, in Leyden stands the reverend figure of John Robinson, who scarcely falls short of the Baptists, advocating a broad charity to- wards those of different faith, and freely admitting that as regards the creed which he himself professes, more light in the future must be looked for. His congregation became the Pilgrims, the " Mayflower " company. The noble pastor, to be sure, never set foot upon the new world, but something of his spirit survived among the flock. Soon we find Vane pro- claiming, in the controversy with Winthrop, the idea of Toleration, and side by side with him the free- tongued enthusiast Roger Williams. Very early the spirit of Independency in Old Eng- land became freer than in New England, and that freedom came more and more to prevail. After the meeting of the Long Parliament, Toleration seemed to rush into the air. Churchmen as well as Puritans were working that way ; the names of Fuller, Chil- lingworth, and Jeremy Taylor among these should stand in letters of light. Just at the crisis when the days for the Parliament were the darkest, in June, 1643, no other than Roger Williams himself appeared in London, known and beloved by Vane since they two had struck hands together to ward off the Pe- quot scalping-knives. He was Vane's guest at his house in London, at his seat of Belleau in Lincoln- shire. One can imagine how Vane's tendencies must have quickened under the stimulus to which he was now subjected ; for Roger Williams, driven to com- 1 Masson, Life of Milton, iii. 98, etc. l643-] THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. I'Jl bat by the narrowness of John Cotton and Richard Mather, was about to proclaim liberty of conscience to the world in tones never more to be silenced. Al- ready he was burning with the thoughts and yearn- ings which in a few months were to be poured into that epoch-making book, " The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed in a Conference between Truth and Peace." ^ Its bold and passionate tone may be judged from a few of the marginal summaries : " Evil is always evil, yet per- mission of it may in case be good." " Christ Jesus the deepest politician that ever was, and yet 'he com- mands a toleration of anti-Christians." " Seducing teachers, either Pagan, Jewish, Turkish, or anti- Christian, may yet be obedient subjects to the civil laws." " Christ's lilies may flourish in his church notwithstanding the abundance of weeds in the world permitted." " Forcing of men to godliness or God's worship the greatest cause of the breach of civil peace." " The civil magistrate owes two things to false worshippers: i. Permission, 2. Protection." In the preface to the " Bloudy Tenent " Roger Williams refers to one whom Gardiner supposes can have been none other than young Sir Henry Vane. " Mine ears were glad and late witnesses of an heavenly speech of one of the most eminent of that 1 Mr. Gardiner, while paying a Tenent," which Masson has over- high tribute to Masson's account looked. It is called " Liberty of of the rise of Toleration (Civil Conscience," and excited no atten- War, I, 337, 341), calls attention to tion whatever. It is to be found an exceedingly noble tract which among the Thomasson Tracts, preceded by three or four months xxxix. But even this would shut the publication of the " Bloudy out Catholics. 172 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. High Assembly of Parliament: 'Why should the labours of any be suppressed, if sober, though never so different ? We now profess to seek God, we de- sire to see light ! ' " As Vane grew in Independency, he grew also in the spirit of Toleration, and recognizing the narrow- ness of his old New England associates, from whom yet he had gained so much, he at this time lovingly urged them to unite liberty of conscience with the ecclesiastical freedom in which they had led the way, in the letter to Winthrop which has already been given.-' " The exercises and troubles which God is pleased to lay upon these kingdoms and the inhabitants in them, teach us patience and forbearance one with another in some measure, though there be difference in our opinions." /^ So things stood in the summer of 1643. The cause of the Houses was languishing. Independency was rising, an American idea, and foremost among its professors stood young Sir Henry Vane. If Parliament had ever entertained the thought of sending Vane into the field to replace Hampden, it was abandoned, for he was required for a more im- portant service. Hard pressed as the Houses were, there was nothing for it but to call in help from out- side. Why not appeal to the Scots, our brethren in faith, though under a different ecclesiastical order ? our brethren, too, under the harrow of persecution.? Early in July, Pym had taken action looking toward 1 See p. 81. I643-] THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 1 73 this.^ From the Lords at length, Lord Grey of Warke and the Earl of Rutland, — and from the Com- mons, Sir Wm. Armyne, Thomas Hatcher, and young Sir Henry Vane, were made a committee to entreat for Scotch aid : to obtain this aid on terms at all tolerable was in a high degree difficult. Lord Grey refused and was sent to the Tower : Rutland with- drew under plea of sickness : the Commoners alone remained, among whom Vane was the only significant figure. At great length they were instructed to " de- sire that both nations may be straitly united and tied for our mutual defence against the Papists and Pre- latical Faction, and their adherents in both kingdoms, and not to lay down arms until they shall be disarmed and subjected to the authority and justice of Parlia- ment in both kingdoms respectively." With the Com- mittee were to go two ministers, Stephen Marshall and Philip Nye, the former a stiff Presbyterian, in high repute for eloquence and character, while the latter was already well known as one of the Independents. Both ministers were members of the great Westmin- ster Assembly of Divines, — a body convened by Parliament and at this time sitting side by side with it, to render help in settling ecclesiastical matters, which, now that the old-church government was abro- gated through the efforts of the " Root and Branch " men, required a thorough reorganization. The committee departed for Edinburgh by sea, the roads northward being in Cavalier hands. A de- spondency prevailed which could scarcely have been deeper. At the beginning of August, proposals for ^ Old Parliamentary History, under date. 174 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. peace were adopted by both Houses, which, says Clarendon,^ if they had been sent to the King, would have been accepted, so far did they surrender the points in dispute. Essex was weary of the war in which he was chief commander, and the disposition was becoming general to submit : the recourse to the Scots was regarded as so " desperate a cure " that the nobles refused to go. But for the spirit of Lon- don, all would have been lost. Amid popular tu- mults, the city presented a petition which caused the Commons to withdraw from the reactionary policy. Nor was the zeal of London merely a matter of words. Gloucester, the most important fortress left to Parliament in the Midlands, was hard pressed ; if it fell, it would indeed be a coup de grace, and the London train-bands marched forth to its relief. The town and garrison were well worthy to be succored. When, on August lo, they were surjimoned,^ "with the trumpeter returned two citizens from the town, with lean, pale, sharp, and bald visages, indeed faces so strange and unusual, and in such garb and fea- ture, that at once made the most severe counte- nances merry. . . . The men without any circum- stances of duty or good manners, in a pert, shrill, undismayed accent, said ' that they had brought an answer from the godly city of Gloucester to the King,' and were so ready to give insolent and sedi- tious answers to any question, as if their business were chiefly to provoke the King to violate his own safe-conduct." When they left, within a few paces of Charles they put on their caps which bore orarige 1 iii. 1746. " Clarendon, iii. 1470. i643-] THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 1 75 cockades, the color of Essex. The town would hold out for the London train-bands. It was a weary sail for young Sir Henry Vane and his colleagues during those critical weeks. They left London on the 20th of July, not reaching Leith, the seaport of Edinburgh, until the 7th of August.* The negotiation which was now to take place pro- duced very memorable results. The power of Vane was perhaps never more conspicuously shown : no passage in his career, moreover, has been so turned to his discredit, for many read in his conduct nothing but duplicity. Was a man of free impulses ever put in a harder place than Vane, when he was forced to, undertake the Scotch negotiation } Help was only to be had from Scotland, but the Scotch were relent- less persecutors. He went from the companionship of Roger Williams to deal with men who, with all their virtues, were the narrowest bigots of Protestan- tism. What a crushing down of his nature there must have been as he encountered that repugnant atmosphere ! The graphic Baillie gives an account of the recep- tion of Vane and his colleagues by the Convention of Estates and the Assembly of Ministers, both then in session, the latter considering among other busi- ness, " the late extraordinary multiplying of witches, especially in Fifeshire." " For the present the Parliament side is running down the brae. They would never in earnest call for help till they were irrecoverable; now when all is desperate they cry aloud for help : and how willing 1 Spalding, Hist, of the Troubles, under date. 176 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. we are to redeem them with our lives you shall hear. The 8th, 9th, and loth of August, the Moderator showed that two of the English ministers had been at him, requiring to know the most convenient way of their commissioners' address to the synod." ^ . . . The Assembly accordingly named a committee of nine, who, joined with others appointed for the same purpose by the Convention of Estates, met the Eng- lish envoys. " When we were met, four gentlemen appeared, Sir William Armyn, Sir Henry Vane the younger, one of the gravest and ablest of that nation, Mr. Hatcher and Mr. Darley, with two ministers, Mr. Marshall and Mr. Nye. " They presented to us a paper introduction, drawn up by Mr. Marshall, a notable man, and Sir Harry, the drawers of all their writs, . . . also their com- mission and a declaration of both Houses to our General Assembly, shewing their care of reforming religion, their desire of some from our Assembly to join with their divines for that end ; likewise a letter from their Assembly, showing their permission from the Parliament to write to us, and their invitation of some of us to come for their assistance ; further a letter, subscribed by above seventy of their divines, supplicating in a most deplorable style, help from us in their present most desperate condition. The let- ter of the private divines was so lamentable that it drew tears from many. . . . Above all, diligence was urged ; for the report was going already of the loss of Bristol, from which they feared his Majiesty might 1 Baillie : a Journal of the General Assembly, 1643, Sept. 22, to Mr. William Spang, p. 374, etc. 1643-] THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 1 77 march for London and carry it. For all this we were not willing to precipitate a business of such conse- quence." The Scotch wished to help the English, but dif- fered about the way. " One night all were bent to go as ridders^ and friends to both, without siding al- together with Parliament. This was made so plausi- ble that my mind was with the rest for it ; but Wa- riston showed the vanity of that motion and the impossibility of it. In our committee also we had hard enough debates. The English were for a civil league, we for a religious covenant. When they were brought to us in this, and Mr. Henderson had given them the draught of a covenant, we were not like to agree on the frame ; they were, more than we could assent to, for keeping of a door open in England to Independency. Against this we were peremptor. At last some two or three in private accorded to that draught, which all our three committees, from our States, from our Assembly, and the Parliament of England, did unanimously assent to. From that meeting it came immediately to our Assembly. . . . The minds of the most part was speired [asked], both of ministers and elders ; where, in a long hour's space, every man, as he was by the moderator named, did express his sense as he was able. After all consider- able men were heard, the catalogue was read, and all unanimously did assent. " Thursday August 1 7, was our jo5^ul day of pass- ing the English covenant. The King's commissioner the Earl of Hamilton made some opposition ; and ^ Mediators. 178 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. when it was so passed, as I wrote before, gave in a writ, wherein he, as the King's commissioner, having prefaced his personal hearty consent, did assent to it, so far as concerned the religion and liberties of our church ; but so far as it concerned the Parliament of England with whom his majesty, for the present, was at odds, he did not assent to it. The moderator & Argyle did always so overawe his grace, that he made us not great trouble. Friday the i8th, a comm. of eight were appointed for London, of whom any 3 were a quorum. Henderson, Douglas, Rutherford, Gillespie, I, Maitland, Cassilis, Warriston. Our last session was on Saturday, the 19th. The moderator ended with a gracious speech and sweet prayer. In no assembly was the grace of God more evident from the beginning to the end than here ; all de- ' parted fully satisfied. " 20th. On the Sabbath before noon, in the new church, we heard Mr. Marshall preach with great contentment. But in the afternoon, in the Gray friars, Mr. Nye did not please. His voice v/as clam- orous : he touched neither in prayer nor preaching the common business. He read much out of his paper-book. All his sermon was on the common head of spiritual life, wherein he ran out above all our understandings upon a knowledge of God as God, without the scriptures, without grace, without Christ. They say he amended it somewhat the next Sabbath." Let us take a Cavalier view of this memorable ne- gotiation. " Sir Harry Vane was one of the commis- sioners, and therefore the others need not be named, I643-] THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 1 79 since he was all in any business where others were joined with him. . . . There hath been scarce any- thing more wonderful throughout the progress of these distractions " than the passage of the Covenant, " when the main persons were as great enemies to Presbytery as they were to King or Church. And he who contributed most to it, and who in truth was the principal contriver of it, and the man by whom the committee in Scotland was entirely and stupidly governed, Sir H. Vane the younger, was not after- wards more known to abhor the Covenant, and the Presbyterians, than he was at that very time known to do, and laughed at them then, as much as ever he did afterwards. He was indeed a man of extraordi- nary parts, a pleasant wit, a great understanding, which pierced into and discerned the purposes of other men with wonderful sagacity, whilst he had himself vultum clausum, that no man could make a guess of what he intended. He was of a temper not to be moved, and of rare dissimulation, and could comply when it was not seasonable to contradict without losing ground by the condescension ; and if he were not superior to Mr. Hampden he was infe- rior to no other man, in all mysterious artifices. There need no more be said of his ability, than that he was chosen to cozen and deceive a whole nation, which excelled in craft and cunning : which he did with notable pregnancy and dexterity, and prevailed with a people, that could not otherwise be prevailed upon than by advancing their idol Presbytery, to sacrifice their peace, their interest, and their faith to the erecting a power and authority that resolved to l8o YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. execute Presbytery to an extirpation ; and very near brought their purpose to pass. . . . Vane (who equally hated Episcopacy and Presbytery, save that he wished the one abolished with great impatience, believing it much easier to keep the other from being established, whatever they promised, than to be rid of that which is settled in the kingdom) carefully con- sidered the Covenant, and after he had altered and changed many expressions in it, and made them doubtful enough to bear many interpretations, he and his fellow - commissioners signed the whole treaty." ^ ;^30,ooo a month were to be paid to the Scots by the English Parliament, ^100,000 in advance, before a Scottish army crossed the border. A committee from Scotland was to sit at Westminster in connec- tion with an English committee, each empowered with equal authority for carrying on the war, and no treaty of peace was to be made without the consent of both kingdoms. A most critical and important negotiation having been in this way promptly con- cluded, a document at length comes forth destined to great fame under the name of the Solemn League and Covenant. Clarendon was no more thoroughly persuaded of the ability and duplicity of young Sir Harry Vane throughout this affair, than the Cavaliers in general. " Wise observers wondered to see a matter of that high importance carried through with little or no deliberation or debate . . . which made all appre- hend there was some first mover that directed all 1 Clarendon, Bk. vi. vol. iv. 1582. I643-] THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. l8l those inferior motions. This by one party was im- puted to God's extraordinary providence, but by oth- ers to the power and policy of the leaders, and the simplicity and fear of the rest. . . . The main of it indeed was managed by the superior cunning and artifice of Sir Henry Vane, who as Dr. Gumble tells, was very earnest with the Scots to have the whole called' a league, as well as a covenant, and argued it almost all night and at last carried it. He held an- other debate about church government, which was to be ' according to the example of the best reformed churches.' He would have it only ' according to the Word of God ; ' but after a great contest they joined both and the last had the precedence. One of his companions afterward asking him the reason, why he should put them to so much trouble with such needless trifles, he told him he was rriistaken and did n't see far enough into that matter ; for a league showed it was between two nations, and might be broken upon just reasons, but not a covenant. For the other, the church government, ' according to the word of God,' by the difference of divines and expo- sition would be long before it would be determined. For the learnedest held it clearly for Episcopacy ; so that when all are agreed, we may take in the Scotch Presbytery." ^ Echard, as a boy, might have heard old Cavaliers talk of the Solemn League and Covenant. To Sir Philip Warwick, Vane is "sly Sir Henry Vane,"" while Hume speaks of his " artifice," declaring that he used " his great talents in overreaching the Pres- * Echard, ii. p. 449, etc. " Memoirs, p. 296. l82 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. byterians, and secretly laughed at their simplicity." ^ The Scotch came soon after to take a view of Vane not less severe than that of the Royalists,; Baillie, among others, to whom, during the negotiations the imposing man of thirty-one had been " that sweet youth," at last regarding him as the main enemy of what was to be held most sacred. How far can any stigma here properly attach to Vane ? In his youth, as we have seen, he became familiar at Vienna with the wiles of a most intriguing Court. In the affair of Strafford, perhaps his conduct is not free from a suspicion of unfairness. We shall find him here- after, as we have already found him, the deftest man- ager of his party, as regards the foe without and the factions within into which the Parliamentarians be- came presently split. As he was shrewd in his own contriving, so beyond all others he was acute in pen- etrating the devious ways of others. What basis is there in the facts for the charge of " overreaching " or " cozening " that was brought against him in the matter of the Solemn League and Covenant .? When Vane appeared at Leith, with his colleagues after their protracted voyage,, one may believe that his powers were stimulated to the utmost. For his party, all had been on the brink of failure three weeks before, when the commissioners left London. The sole hope for the cause in which his heart was bound up was in winning the Scots, and it must be done instantly; perhaps it was already too late. The impression which he always made, wherever he ap- peared, seems to have been unusually strong upon 1 Hume, vol. vi. 261, 262. i643-] THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 1 83 the Estates and the Assembly. The Scots, to be sure, were not at all averse to the alliance which the Parliament sought: they had plenty of old scores against Charles which they longed to wipe off. What made the negotiation critical was the different end which each nation sought. " The English were for a civil league, we for a religious covenant," says Baillie. Vane, guiding the negotiation for the Eng- lish, made no secret apparently of his dislike for narrow restrictions. "They were more than we could assent to for keeping of a door open in Eng- land to Independency," says Ba,illie ; and Clarendon admits that Vane, by whom the committee "were entirely and stupidly governed, was not afterwards more known to abhor the Covenant and the Presby- terians than he was at that very time known to do." Vane, apparently, was straightforward in avowing what he stood for. What he did precisely was this : Alexander Hen- derson, presiding officer of the Assembly, the ablest and noblest of the Covenanters, the greatest name in the Scotch Kirk since the time of John Knox,^ had drawn up the agreement, following in the main the lines of the Covenant of 1638, which Scotland had solemnly and tearfully entered into against the usurpations of Laud. To this Vane offered amend- ments tending to greater vagueness in the religious part, and greater prominence in the civil. In the title he introduced the word League^ and in the first article he inserted twice a phrase, accepted at last by 1 Masson, Life of Milton, iii. " Neal, History of the Puritans, 16. iii. 91. 184 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. the Scots, but which the English were hereafter to take advantage of as a " door left open for Indepen- dency." The first article, namely, had stipulated,^ " that we shall all and each one of us sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of God, en- deavor in our several callings and places the preser- vation of the true Protestant reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, and the reformation of religion in the Church of England, according to the example of the best reformed churches." As amended by Vane, the article read, " the Church of Scotland in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government according to the Word of God^ and the reformation of religion in the Church of England according to the same Holy Word and the example of the best reformed Churches." The inserted expressions had then a significance which they have not now. Slight as these changes seem, if we can trust Echard as just quoted, the in- sertion of League in the title was brought about only after an all night debate. Vane wished to strike out entirely the phrase " according to the example of the best reformed Churches," substituting simply the " Word of God," and the compromise through which both phrases at last appeared in the article was brought about only after another long debate. As to the remainder of Echard's story, that Vane deliberately plotted " to take in the Scotch Presby- tery," it must be rejected. Echard's authority is by no means the best, and we have testimony, which no candid mind will treat otherwise than most rever- 1 Gardiner, Great Civil War, i. 270. I643-J THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 1 85 ently, that Vane was honest in his negotiation, and was greatly troubled at the charge of chicanery in the matter, which Royalists and Presbyterians hurled at him as long as he lived. It was almost the last subject which occupied his thoughts. After his con- demnation in 1662, in certain "reasons for an arrest of Judgment" which he left behind, he states in beautiful terms the interpretation which he put upon the Covenant. " I will not deny but that as to the manner of pro- secution of the Covenant to other ends than itself warrants, and with a rigid oppressive spirit, to bring all dissenting minds and tender consciences under one uniformity of church-discipline and government, it was utterly against my judgment. For I always esteemed it more agreeable to the word of God, that the ends and work declared in the Covenant should be promoted in a spirit of love and forbearance to differing judgments and consciences, that thereby we might be approving ourselves ' in doing that to others which we desire they would do to us ; ' and so, though upon different principles, be found joint and faithful advancers of the reformation contained in the Cove- nant, both public and personal."^ The last words which he put upon paper, just before laying his head upon the block, were : " That noble person, whose memory I honor,^ was with myself at the beginning and making of the Solemn League and Covenant; the nature of which, and the holy ends therein con- * State Trials, vi. p. 197. prized by Vane, whom the reader " The reference is to the Mar- will come to know, who had suf- guis of Argyle, a friend highly fered his doom at an earlier time. 1 86 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. tained I fully assent unto, and have been as desirous to observe ; but the rigid way of prosecuting it, and the oppressing uniformity that hath been endeavored by it, I never approved. This were sufficient to vin- dicate me from the false aspersions and calumnies which have been laid upon me, of Jesuitism and Popery, and almost what not, to make my name of ill savour with good men ; which dark mists do now dispel of themselves,. or at least ought, and need no pains of mine in making an apology. For if any man seek a proof of Christ in me, let him read it in this action of my death, which will not cease to speak when I am gone : And henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." To a biographer of Vane, this is almost like a voice from the grave. The " dark mists " are dis- pelled and " need no pains of ours in making an apology." The Scots understood that England as- sumed their own narrow Presbyterianism, with its complete intolerance : Vane and his friends gave the instrument a different interpretation, which they honestly felt it would bear. It will appear how a chasm at last opened between them which drank much blood. The Solemn League and Covenant, as the title now stood, one of the most memorable documents in the history of the English-speaking race, occupies about four pages of Neal.^ We need, however, not occupy ourselves further with its diffuse phraseology. There were clauses providing for the abolition of ^ History of the Puritans, iii. 92-95. American ed. 1816. l643-] THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 1 87 Episcopacy in England, the maintenance of the rights of the Parliaments of the two countries, and the bringing to trial of incendiaries and malignants. It was at once accepted by the Scotch Assembly, and on August 17, by the Estates.^ Vane's work brought an army of twenty thousand hardy Scots to the succor of the perishing Parliament, to command whom a veteran .was selected who probably was at that time held to be the best soldier of Great Britain ; this was Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven, a captain seasoned under the great Gustavus, and who, as de- fender of Stralsund, had performed no less a feat of arms than to foil the terrible Wallenstein. On the 26th of August, the Solemn League and Covenant reached London, where it was immediately acted upon by Parliament and the Assembly of Divines. Gloucester was still unrelieved ; the sword of the King's vengeance still hung over them suspended as it were only by a thread. The Scotch Commission-, ers who were to reside in England during the alli- .ance soon arrived, among them Henderson, Johnston of Wariston, and Baillie, and the 25th of September was appointed as the day when the Parliament and Assembly of Divines should swear to and sign the agreement in the church of St. Margaret. St. Margaret's stands, in its modest proportions, to-day as it did then, in the shadow of Westminster Abbey. The mural reliefs, the tombs, the columns of the interior rise as of old, broken here and there, perhaps by Roundhead blows, and darkened by the heavy air of London. Into this thronged on the ' Gardiner, Great Civil War, i. 272. 1 88 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. appointed day the ministers in gown and bands, and the men from St. Stephen's, girt with the sword and with brows heavy with anxiety, as befitted the gloomy time. It should have seemed ominous to the Scots that Philip Nye the Independent, who had found little favor in Edinburgh, was appointed to preach. Nye took occasion to remind his hearers that the Covenant did not bind them to a servile imitation of their northern brethren.^ Nevertheless the Scots took no offence. The solemn ceremony which bound the nations together was concluded, and among the signatures the names of Vane and Cromwell are side by side. 1 Gardiner, Civil War, i. 276. CHAPTER IX. THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. When the Solemn League and Covenant was adopted, Parliament had just lost the two great chiefs upon whom so far it had mainly depended. Hamp- den had died of his wound in the summer, and now Pym, fast sinking under a mortal disease, was with- drawn. Of the men now at the front, John Seldeni a man of sixty, represented Oxford University, a scholar of vast reputation, of cool and sceptical spirit, whose motto was " Liberty above everything," rather a critic than an actor. He was the typical " Erastian," the party that put the civil above the ecclesiastical power, in reality a free thinker, and a sore thorn in the side to the ministers with his deli- cate mockery. Oliver St. John, a man of forty-six, solicitor-general, had great fame as a lawyer, dating from his famous defence of Hampden in the ship- money case. He was proud and reserved, of a dark and clouded Countenance, and was called " the dark lantern man " of the Puritans. His wife was a cousin of Cromwell. Henry Marten was a man of forty-two from Berkshire, who, strangely enough, in this stern circle, was a loose liver and great wit. He was a soldier as well as a statesman, and bore himself in igO YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. either field with a devil-may-care good-natured reck- lessness that makes his career a refreshing streak in the gloomy Civil War annals, however unexemplary it may have been. " His company was incomparable, but he would be drunk too soon. His speeches were never long, but wondrous pertinent, poignant and witty. He would often turn the whole House by a happy jest." ^ He used often to take, says the old writer, in the House " dog sleep," which we may un- derstand no doubt as a " cat nap." One day, when he was thus dozing, a dull member then upon his feet, indignant at the slight, moved that he should be put out. Marten, whose wits were always about him, started at once to his feet with, " Mr. Speaker, a motion has been made to turn out the nodders : I desire the noddees may also be turned out." His ideas were of the broadest, and he came at last to be called atheist and communist. He, perhaps, was the very earliest Republican of the Long Parliament. In this very summer of 1643, ^^ ^'^'^ said in his place it was " better one family should be destroyed than many," naming the King and his children, and hint- ing at a government without a King, an utterance for which he had been sent to the Tower. Although so much of a scape-grace, he was a favorite in his generation. Those cropped and steeple-hatted coun- sellors, fighting their terrible battle, forgot their perils in bursts of hearty laughter over his sallies, and now they are almost the only humorous relief that can be found in the tragic history. 1 Aubry, quoted by Anthony a Wood, Athenm Oxonienses, art. " Marten." 1643-] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. igi With these men must be put Bulstrode Whit- locke, a solid lawyer, for reform on the whole, but much influenced by personal considerations, a man bound by precedents, and exceedingly useful in va- rious high official positions, carrying as he did a thread of legal order through tumults that some- times became anarchy, during the whole long dis- turbance. By no means his least important service was the compiling of his " Memorials," one of the best authorities for the time. Of far higher significance than the men mentioned were . Cromwell and young Sir Henry Vane, who much surpassed the others in the qualities of leader- ship ; and since Cromwell for years was to be mainly a soldier, it was upon the shoulders of Vane, now just thirty-one years old, that the mantle fell of the dying Pym. " He was that within the House that Crom- well was without." ^ Already before the end of September, affairs for Parliament had a better look. The London train- bands saved Gloucester, and on their return under Essex fought a brave battle at Newbury, which, though, not decisive, was more nearly a victory for Parliament than for the King. Hull in the North had maintained itself. After the signing of the Cove- nant, most of the Westminster Assembly, the flower of the Puritan clergy, went home with resolute hearts to calm and encourage their people. In the sober fashion, prayers were held each day in London, and at the drum-beat the people went out to work on the > Baxter, Calamy's Abridgment of Baxter's Life, p. 98. 192 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. defences. The tide seemed to be turning at last, and in the Parliament there was a general bracing up of spirits. On the 26th of October,^ Vane made a relation in Parliament of the negotiation in Scot- land. We must think of him, in these days, as much at the bedside of Pym, who at length, on the 8th of December, ended his great struggle. For a last solemn service to his friend and teacher, Vane, as one of ten of the leaders of the Commons, lent his shoulder to the coffin as Pym went to his grave in Westminster Abbey. Young Sir Harry now stood in his place : oile thinks that the serious brow must have assumed a new shade of gravity, as in the great funeral, the Commons in procession before, and the multitude behind, he marched in the dim wintry day down the lofty aisle. It was only gradually that Vane's Independency became revealed. No doubt, at first, however it may have been the case that a liberal utterance some- times fell from him, he was uncertain himself of his ground. To the unsuspecting Baillie and his col- leagues of the Scotch Commissioners now in London, he was " that sweet man Pym's successor," though very soon they begin to take on a different tone. The hour pressed, and even while Vane stood at the grave of the leader whose place he must try to fill, a demand was made upon his subtlety even greater than that during the negotiation with the Scots. The King, inveterate intriguer that he was, already in the fall ^ had made overtures to the Independents, 1 Whitacre's Diary, yxxi&^x AaXt. " Gardiner, Civil War, i. 310, etc. l643-] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. 1 93 who grew more prominent every day, promising a broad toleration in case peace could be secured. How hollow was his purpose came presently to light on the discovery of certain plottings of his with the Catholics, carried on at the same time. Vane was set to trap the fox, and showed himself conspicu- ously skilful. As regards the King's overtures to the Indepen- dents, a certain Lord Lovelace, acting in his name ^ "by a secret messenger and letter to Sir Henry Vane, did to this effect impart : that the King hav- ing taken notice of him and others of his judgment, and conceiving them to be real and hearty in their intentions, did promise unto them liberty of con- science, and that all those laws that have been made by Parliament, and all others, the rights and liber- ties of the people, should inviolably be preserved : of which he would give what assurance could be de- vised." Through Lovelace, Charles assured Vane that he knew his true inclination to the public good, that he knew he belonged to a strong party in the Commons of which he was the chief, and desired him to send a trusty and able messenger to negotiate ■for him. Vane proceeded circumspectly. He ad- vised with the Speaker and a few of the wariest heads of the Commons as to the best course to be pursued. An answer of seeming compliance was at length sent back, and an agent appointed. It was soon discovered that " the utmost of the design was only to entrap Sir Henry Vane, by first inviting him to the conference, and then discovering it underhand, 1 Anti-Aulicus, Feb. 1644, Thomasson Tracts, xxxi. 194 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1643. and so render him obnoxious to the mistake and ill opinion of good men." ^ It is good evidence of the consequence attached to Vane, now that Pym and Hampden were gone, that Charles was popularly believed to be intriguing in this way to break down his reputation.* There is still more to this transaction. The relations between the two Houses at this time were, in modern phrase, very strained. Lord Holland, who had forsaken his place at Westminster and joined the King, thinking better of his defection, had returned in the winter of 1643 to the House of Lords, assuming his seat quietly without making any explanation of his con- duct. The Commons, enraged, resolved to impeach him of high-treason. The Lords sought to shield him, and by way of retaliation, news having leaked out of the Independent transactions with Lovelace, it was " proposed " to charge Vane and his fellows with high-treason for holding intelligence with Ox- ford. Vane, however, "prevented" the Lords by making at last a full and public report to the Com- mons, all motive for concealment being now removed, whereat great pleasure was expressed, and Vane was thanked " for his wise and faithful carriage." ^ While Vane delved thus below the mine by which he was himself to have been hoist, he was busy un- earthing still other petards which sly Charles was trying to explode against the gates of his enemies. While the King was reaching out for the Indepen- 1 Whitacre's Diary, Jan. 17, * Anti-Aulicus, Feb. 1643. Old 1644. Style. 2 Baillie, 426, etc. I644-] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. 1 95 dents, his intrigue with the Catholics was as follows : Reade, a Catholic who had been confined in the Tower, escaping to Oxford, advised the King to open negotiations with a certain Sir Basil Brooke, of the same faith, about winning over London to the King. Brooke, being addressed, agreed to do his utmost, be- lieving that there was a wide-spread dissatisfaction, because the train-bands were absent so much and so far, and because trade was so depressed. His main instruments were Violett, a Royalist goldsmith, who had been imprisoned for refusing to pay his tax, and Reyley, an official of the city known as the " scout- master," perhaps a detective officer. The King's letter, which Parliament got hold of, adapted for Cath- olics, was vastly different in tone from his communi- cations to the liberty-loving Independents. Baillie^ writes to Scotland in his usual vivid way about this matter, and in the newspapers of the Thomasson Tracts interesting lights are thrown on the plot, and the rejoicings which followed its discovery. When the plot was " on the point of breaking out in execution, some favor of it coming to the nose of young Sir Henry Vane, he calls the Solicitor [St, John] and my Lord Wharton to meet in Goldsmith's hall on Thursday at eight o'clock at night ; sends in a friendly way for Reyley, no ways suspecting him (a deep rascal, a leader in the city council, esteemed very religious) ; yet finding him confused in his an- swers and more reserved than they expected, after, long conference to little purpose, the Solicitor, walk- ing up and down the room, pensive and musing, kicks 1 Letters, Feb. 18, 1644. 1 96 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644- with his foot a bit of paper on the floor, as a foul clout. In his turns he kicks it now and then till it came to the side of the fire on the hearth ; and when it was ready to burn, the sweet man, Pym's successor [Vane] began to think possibly there was somewhat in that paper might do good : taking it up, he finds it, reads the letter which had fallen from Reyley. Upon this they made Reyley void his pockets all wherein they found so much as led them to Sir Basil Brooke and Violett, who were presently sent for, and afterwards their papers also; whereupon all that night was spent, and before the autographs of the King's letters were found, all was made plain." The danger seems to have been great and the dis- covery excited much interest. At Guildhall there was " a large demonstration of all to a huge number of citizens, to their manifold exclamations and cries for justice." Of those who addressed the crowd Vane was the principal. He made first a short pro- logue,^ " that you may see the design in its lively colors, and that as you have had it summarily pre- sented to you, you may now hear the parties them- selves speak." The details of the discovery of the plot were then given, ending with the proclamation of the King, which at the proper time was to have been spread abroad. " This," continued Vane, " suf- ficiently discovers to you how palpable and gross they are, that all this fair and foul weather is made up only to shift hands to work the same design of sowing division and dissension among us, that so their party might prevail." Referring to the accusa- 1 Thomasson Tracts, xxix. 1 644-] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. 1 97 tion of the King, that in the Scots a foreign foe had been admitted into England, he called the attention of his hearers to the fact that the King himself was at the same moment introducing the Irish, " whereby they have let loose worse than a foreign nation, a nation imbrued in the Protestant blood, and settled upon principles for the utter destruction of the reli- gion and' laws of this kingdom. . . . For the coming of the Scots, I believe you all know very well that the Parliament did think fit, finding how near the in- terest of those two nations was conjoined in one, finding the constant love and amity of that kingdom to this, and how in its greatest extremity it was very punctual to it . . . they thought fit to enter into a treaty with them in solemn covenant, which treaty is now solemnly ratified by both kingdoms : yet this must be called an invasion. " Here is a second paper in the form likewise of a proclamation, whereby you shall see the unevenness and unsteadiness of his Majesty's councils, at least in appearance ; for though they be steady and united in that which is to bring destruction and ruin upon the Parliament and Kingdom, yet you may see them halt in their expressions. Before, you were called a famous city, you had deserved so well, and had all encouragements offered you : here, on the contrary, you shall see what language is given you, and be- cause the welfare of this city consists much in the residence of this Parliament, and courts of justice that are here, and of such persons of quality as are necessarily attendant thereupon, it is not now only thought fit to call away the Parliament from you, but 198 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. the courts of justice, that so you might be left a mis- erable confused city, notwithstanding all the fair words and promises that have been given you." It was borne home upon all minds by Vane's speech, that the King was ready to make himself all things to all men and had no intention of fulfilling his promises. After a solemn fashion city and Parlia- ment rejoiced that the royal machinations had not sundered them. January 18,^ Lords and Commons heard at Christ Church a sermon by Marshall, re- puted the best preacher in the Kingdom, after which, by invitation of the city, they proceeded to Mer- chant Tailors' Hall, " where they were moderately feasted, exceedings being declined in these sad and bleeding times." To the banquet the Common Council marched first ; then the Aldermen, then the Parliament, whom the train-bands, honestly exultant over their prowess at Gloucester and Newbury, guarded on each side.^ " Against they came through Cheapside, there was set up a sleight scaffold of fir- poles, on which was fixed the statues and pictures of the fahcied Roman gods, idolatrous superstitions, crucifixes, crosses, whips, &c. And as the Lords and Commons were passed by, they were all set on fire and burnt to ashes : the smoke, like incense, as- cended to heaven, as that which was acceptable to God." It is scarcely possible to exaggerate Vane's ser- vices rendered at this period to the cause of Parlia-, '^ Parliament Scout, fr. Jan. 12 ' The Scotish Dove, Thomasson to Jan. ig, 1643. O. S. Tracts, xxxi. i644-] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. 199 ment, services in which constantly appears a certain extraordinary astuteness which unfriendly authorities call cunning. The quality appears in a marked way in the unmasking of the duplicity of Charles, just narrated. It was now to receive still further illus- tration in the establishment of the Committee of the Two Kingdoms, a pie'ce of work which increased marvellously the efficiency of the Parliament, and which was due mainly to the agency of Vane, sec- onded ably, as he always was in these days, by St. John. Curiously enough, the Committee of Both Kingdoms, a provision destined to affect the course of affairs very disastrously for the Royalists, was in its origin the outgrowth of a Royalist intrigue. The Earl of Hamilton, the agent of Charles at Edinburgh at the time of the negotiation of the Solemn League and Covenant, unable to thwart that measure, sought to gain his point indirectly. He brought it about that for the conduct of the war a small controlling committee should be insisted on, to be selected from the Parliaments of both countries, believing that English pride would never consent to tlvs. Vane, however, acquiesced at once, feeling sure, no doubt, that his party could manage the Scotch members of such a committee, a confidence which the event justi- fied. This provision of the treaty with the Scots was obnoxious to the Peers and also to the peace party in the Commons, then very strong. The negotiators, the war party, however, were under obligation to carry it out ; they were anxious to do so, moreover, because they felt more and more, as time proceeded, the need of a concentration of power in a few hands, 200 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. and believed that such a committee might be made an efficient executive head. • While matters were still nebulous as regarded the war, during the uncertain days of the summer of 1642, a Committee of Safety had been constituted, consisting of fifteen members divided between the Houses. This, however, since it was a mere channel of communication between Par- liament and the outside world, was found to have quite insufficient powers for the crisis. Parliament had now four armies in the field, those of Fairfax, Waller, Essex, and Manchester, not to speak of the Scots, who were in their pay. Among the Generals and their partisans there was bickering, and in the armies there, was insubordination, — disorder sure to bring to pass fatal results in presence of a powerful enemy, and only to be remedied by establishing some strong central authority. Not until toward the end of January, through Parliamentary manoeuvring in which Vane and St. John bore a leading part, chiefs as they were of the war party, was the Com- mittee of Two Kingdoms established, to consist of seven Peers and fourteen Commoners, who were to be joined with the commissioners from Scotland. As we have here a good specimen of Vane's dexter- ous management, it is worth while to look closely at details. Knowing that the chief difficulty would be with the Peers, Vane and St. John persuaded their particular friend, Lord Say, to manage matters in the Upper House. The Lords were in some way caught napping, and passed an ordinance proposed by him, establishing the Committee, empowering it " to or- der and direct whatsoever doth or may concern the I644-] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. 20I managing of the war . . . and whatsoever may con- cern the peace of his Majesty's dominions." In the Commons there was violent opposition from the peace party, partly because the measure came from the other House, of which the Commons felt great jealousy, but more because an executive government seemed about to be established, which might in all things set aside Parliament itself. Vane and St. John met the objections by opposing the Lords' ordi- nance and introducing a new ordinance proceeding from the Commons, establishing a Committee which should have only military authority, while as regards peace matters Parliament was to retain the supervis- ion. The Commons, propitiated by what seemed a large concession, passed this. When the new ordi- nance reached the Peers, it found them in a more wakeful state than before. It was really far less sweeping than their own ordinance, but now the Peers violently opposed, feeling that it would be a heavy blow to them. It was, nevertheless, at length passed on February i6, but the duration of the com- mittee was restricted to three months.^ Now to a small, independent, responsible body authority was given in war matters, a measure sure, if the Committee were well chosen, to increase im- mensely the efficiency of the resistance to the King. When the time of the Committee expired, in May, there was a most critical moment when there was no central authority but a discordant Parliament to direct an active campaign. Vane's tact which had got in the entering wedge now cleaved the difficulty. ' Civil War, i. 360. 202 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. The original ordinance, which had come down to the Commons from the Lords, the "omnipotent ordi- nance," as it was called, because it gave the Commit- tee authority in peace as well as war, — passed as we have seen when the Lords were napping, had never been rejected by the Lower House, but simply laid aside. It was now taken up and passed by the Com- mons, its opponents having lost power. It had already passed the Lords, and did not require to be referred to them again. " The baffled Lords, circumvented by a trick, had to look on without the possibility of giv- ing effect to their dissatisfaction, when the old Com- mittee met on May 24, to continue its work."^ It was the old Committee, but through the shrewd manoeuvring, it possessed powers vastly extended. Gardiner regards the formation of the Committee of Both Kingdoms as having a still farther and wider interest. Here we may see, he thinks, the first germ of a political union between England and Scotland, and also the first germ of the modern cab- inet system.^ The Committee of Both Kingdoms which met at Derby House, near St. Stephen's, brought thus into existence, as Baillie says, " over the belly of its oppos- ers," consisted of twenty-one members from England, seven Peers and fourteen Commoners, — from Scot- land of the four or five commissioners. Parliament put upon it its ablest men, and among them were both the Vanes. The records of the Committee, in those days most jealously guarded, are kept in the 1 Gardiner, Civil War, i. 404. Whitacre' s Diary . 2 Civil War, i. 360. I644-] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. 203 Public Record Office in two forms, known in the language of the Office as the " draft " and the " fair." The " draft " record is the jotting down, made by Gualter Frost, the secretary, while the business was in process. The " fair " record is the carefully made copy of the jottings, drawn up afterward at leisure, for easy consultation. Both " draft " and " fair " have passed through the hands of the present writer. A rigid oath of secrecy, imposed upon all members, kept back proceedings from the world. As one to-day pores over the pages (the penalty would once have been a dungeon in the Tower), he feels admitted be- hind the veil, and seems almost to touch the hands and hear the voices of the great Parliamentary chiefs. On every page, though the record is meagre, giving only the orders of the Committee with little report of the discussions which must have attended their adoption, the prominence of Vane is plain. He is frequently sent to Parliament with communications, a fact implying that he originates the measures to be submitted, or at any rate is especially capable in rec- ommending and defending them. In financial man- agement he is in the foreground, superintending the vast sequestrations of the property of " Malignants," stirring up the city to raise money and send out succor, providing for the proper disbursement of the great subsidy to the Scots. He cares for the sending of powder and match to Hull for the northern army, bargains with men in Kent about draught-horses for Sir William Waller, and has a careful eye toward Ireland, in which quarter the machinations of the King just now are especially dreaded. In most of 204 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644- the action other names are associated with his, often that of his father, but the best evidence exists that his audacity, deftness, and zeal are at the heart of all proceedings. While the Committee of Both Kingdoms had been getting under way, the active campaign for the new year had been preparing. Besides the intrigues with the Independents and the London Catholics, the King had also been plotting with Papists in Ireland. All came to naught ; as did also an open negotiation between the hostile parties, undertaken by Harcourt, the French ambassador. The sword must again be resorted to, and Charles now broke more definitely than before with his enemies, by denying to the Par- liament at Westminster all legal status. There remained of the original Long Parliament but twenty-two Lords and three hundred and eighty Commoners ; of these one hundred were absent in various services. With the King at Oxford were forty-five Lords and one hundred and eighteen Com- moners, and with these the King undertook in Jan- uary to set up a rival Parliament. Moreover, at St. Stephen's the want of harmony was great be- tween the two Houses and also between the parties who, within the Houses, favored respectively peace and war. The campaign opened favorably for the Parliament. Sir Thomas Fairfax cut to pieces at Nantwich a force from Ireland which had come to succor the King, and Waller defeated Hopton in the South. In the winter, the punctual Scots, marching knee-deep in snow, to the number of 20,000, had crossed the border under the veteran Leven, and i644-] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. 205 touched hands with Fairfax. As soon as the Com- mittee of Both Kingdoms could get to work, this improvement in affairs was wonderfully promoted. Heretofore the King had known, through his friends, whatever was projected in the Parliamentary camp : now all was secret. Suddenly Manchester, Fairfax, and Leven united, were besieging his General, the Earl of Newcastle, whom they had shut up in York, and news came also that Essex and Waller were marching upon Oxford. Against this threatening front of the Parliament, Charles, relying much, prob- ably, upon a shrewd Scotch soldier in his suite, the Earl of Brentford, opposed himself vigorously and skilfully. He ordered at once to the succor of York Rupert, who spurred through Lancashire dur- ing June, taking town after town, rolling up at the same time a most formidable force. Charles him- self, manoeuvring dexterously, defeated Waller at Cro- predy Bridge, close by Oxford, then pursued Essex, who was making his way into the West. On the 3d of June^ Vane was sent to the army in the North by the Committee. His ostensible errand was to urge the sending of Manchester and Fairfax to oppose Rupert in Lancashire. He was thus ac- credited to the three nobles in command : ^ — " The Committee of Both Kingdoms upon anxious consideration had of ye affairs in ye northern parts, and of what great concernment ye success of them will be to ye three kingdoms and because ye mutual consults between ye com'ff and ye Lords cannot so 1 Order Book of Comm. of Both ^ Yrom "Letters Sent." State Kingd. Papers, Domestic, E. 18. 2o6 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. fully and speedily be recommended each to other by letters as by one of themselves acquainted "with their debates and conclusions -^ they have therefore intrusted Sir Henry Vane ye yonger to repayre to y' Ldships to whom they desire that your Ldships would give full credence in such matters as he shall impart to you from this Committee." The letter was signed by the Earl of Northumber- land and Lord Maitland, representing respectively the English and Scotch commissioners, and a copy sent to each of the three Generals. Vane had however a secret mission, none other than to arrange, 'if possible, for the deposition of Charles, of whose faithlessness he and his friends had now become thoroughly convinced, and the raising to the throne of his nephew Charles Louis, the young Prince Palatine, the elder brother of Rupert, pre- cisely in the way in which, fifty years afterward, William of Orange was substituted for James 11.^ The Scotch Commissioners had opposed the scheme when broached to them, but Vane thought the sol- diers would receive the idea more favorably than the politicians. As regards both his open and secret mission. Vane was doomed to disappointment. It proved to be inexpedient to abandon the siege of York, even to block the path of Rupert ; and as to the deposition of Charles, not one of the three Gen- erals, Manchester, Lord Fairfax, or Leven, would listen to the idea. Leven and the Scots, in partic- ^ Gardiner, Civil War, i. 431, of such a supersession. SeeLi/e etc. Forster thinks that Pym and of Cromwell, 415. Hampden had entertained the idea i644-] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. 207 ular, were violent in their antagonism. It is highly- probable, however, that Cromwell, who had now risen to be second in command in the army of Man- chester, was won,^ and that here began a fierce quarrel between him on the one side, and Man- chester and the Scots on the other, which ended at last in the disappearance of Manchester from the stage, and, in the case of the Scots, in torrents of bloodshed. While Vane was absent, the Committee at Derby House, feeling that they could ill spare his brave and shrewd head, ordered " that a Itr. be written to Sir Henry Vane Jr., to let him know that the Com'°* ex- pects that he will returne by the tyme limited in his instructions." ^ On June 30, the name of Vane oc- curs as again present, and on the day following he is thanked " for his great paynes and faithfull discharge of his employment to the North." He was sent at once to Parliament to report news of the " leaguer before York," and received here, too, public thanks.^ During his absence he had not left the Committee uninformed of his adventures. The following ex- tracts from letters are copied from the letter-book of the Committee : — " My Lords & Gent : Notwithstanding all ye dilli- gence I endeavoured to make in obeydience to yo"^ Comand for my speedy repaire hither : I found ye weather soe bad, the wayes soe deepe, and the horses 1 The evidence for this rests ^ Order Book, upon reports of the French and * Journals of the House of Corn- Venetian ambassadors, ably sum- mons. marized by Gardiner. Ibid. pp. 432, 433- 208 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. soe difficult to be speedily gott, that it was ye Lord's day at night before I could reach ye Leaguer. Since w""'' time I delivered yo' Lop's Itrs. and communi- cated yo"" desire cone, the releife of Lancashire accord- ing to my instructions [so far literal]. We herein had yesterday a very long and serious debate before the three Generals and chief officers of the army and likevi^ise at ye Committee of Both Kingdoms/ and no certain resolution as yet able to be taken concerning the same. In regard ye siege before York hath no foot to spare, and ye citty is in so hopeful a condition of being suddenly gained either by force or treaty, it is nowise advisable to give any interruption there- unto for the present. . . . According as I find mat- ters here it does appear to me most clearly, that if the Earl of Manchester had not brought up his foot to this siege, the business would have been very dila- tory. Whereas upon the coming up of his foot the siege is now made very streight about ye city, his Lordship's forces lying on the north side where they have come very near ye walls and are busy in a mine, of which we expect a speedy accompt, if by a treaty we be not prevented. The Scots forces under Sir James Lumsdale's command, united with those of the Lord Fairfax, possess the suburbs at the east part, and are within pistol shot or less of Wamgate. The Scots hold that fort on the south side which very gallantly they took in on Thursday last, and are very busy in their approaches on that side. . . . 1 A committee with the army which had the same name as that at Derby House. i644] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. 209 June 16. " Since my writing thus much, Manchester played his mine with very good success, made a fair breach and entered with his men." Leven and Fairfax, how- ever, are ignorant of it, so Manchester is beaten off, but with no great loss. " I would gladly see York takSn in before my return," which now draws very near. He is pressed to stay because the Committee there are not a quorum without him.^ From the Thomasson Tracts some specimens of the newspaper comments, Royalist and Parliamen- tarian, on Vane's mission are given. " But young Sir Henry Vane is now come back to London, and will charme that mutinous body by declaring all its priviledges, as fast as he and his father can remember them. He stept down to Yorke to take an account of the Scots, whom he invited into England ; and findes them very tender of laying down their lives, Fairfax and Manchester having been still tasked to all hard work. Yet the Scots were the first and the last which were paid, &c. . . . Notwithstanding all this Sir Henry cheered the houses that all was well with the Northerne armies (Manchester meanwhile saying if his men did not re- ceive their arrears they would all forsake him) that the Generalls intended at his coming away to send 25,000 to oppose Prince Rupert's coming ; and yet leave sufficient force to keep them up in Yorke ; But, said he, you must have a care of the associated counties, for the Earl of Manchester cannot return till August be past (How now Sir Henry ? not till August be ^•S. p., Dom., Interregnum, E. i6. 2IO YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. passed ? Why what 's become of his Lordship ? Are he and his father both together ?) But Sir Henry had no sooner ended but in came letters from Ar- myne, &c." ^ Mercurius Britannicus rallies Aulicus. " Yes, why did you not intercept him [Vane] by the way ; because you have not so much as an acre of ground from London to Yorke to ride upon ; I think your inheritance will shortly be in hospitals and alms-houses. . . . " He tells us all the speech of our gallant and wor- thy senator Sir H. Vane." ^ July 4, we find Vane reporting certain news just received from the army where he had lately been a guest. " Manchester, Leven, Fairfax had raised the siege before York, carried all their men, horse, artil- lery, and baggage over the river with intent to meet Prince Rupert said to be in those parts with a puis- sant army of near 30,000 men." * Young Sir Henry Vane was not a soldier, but who that has read these pages can doubt that in the magni- ficent victory which this allied army of the North was about to win for Parliament, as much credit should be assigned to him as to any soldier who , fought upon the field ! To him it was due more than to any other one man that Parliament, under the lead of the peace favorers, had not supinely come to an agree- ment with the King, leaving the fearful grievances all unredressed. To him, in a still greater degree, it was due, that twenty thousand hardy soldiers had come ' Mercurius Aulicus, July 4, the Parliament had for rejoicing 1644. will presently appear. « July 15, 1644. What reason « Whitacre's Diary. I644-] THE COMMITTEE OF BOTH KINGDOMS. 2 1 1 to the support of the failing cause. Scarcely less was it due to him, that a head had at last been given to what had been headless — that stern discipline had reduced to harmony insubordination and divided counsels — that a central authority had begun to control the sword wielded so often without result, however bravely. Who will say that Marston Moor does not belong to the story of Vane ? ^ 1 Among a number of authori- cial obligation to Markham, Life ties, contemporary as well as of of Fairfax, to Merivale, Macmil- later date, consulted for the Battle lav! s Mag., May, 1862, and to San- of Marston Moor, I am under spe- ford's Great Rebellion. CHAPTER X. MARSTON MOOR. Against the allies before York the Earl of New- castle made a bold defence ; for Rupert was advanc- ing impetuously through Lancashire in the south- west, his power growing as a conflagration grows with its progress : toward the end of June he was with his horsemen close at hand. The Prince showed now more than ordinary skill. Leven, on the other hand, who was greatly deferred to, grizzled veteran that he was, was growing old and losing fire. The siege of York was raised, and the allies began to retreat toward the northwest : Rupert was instantly upon their track, his own confident host swelled now by the defenders of the town. Eight miles out, the Cavaliers pressed fiercely the Parliamentary rear, and at Long Marston Moor, on the 2d of July, Leven, much against his will, was forced to turn and face them. Few English towns have changed less than York in the two hundred and forty years since that time. The great minster still dominates the place, the beauty of pillar, turret, and rose-window finding a foil in the ugly gargoyles which spout the moisture from eave and buttress. The writer reached York I644-] MARSTON MOOR. 213 at the end of a summer afternoon, passing in under the ancient wall which girds the town yet, substan- tially as it was left by the King's engineers, of gray- stone, buttressed and battlemented, the ancient gates intact, with the same inscriptions and escutcheons as when they barred out the Parliament. I did not linger long, but was soon following the old Marston road along which the Parliamentary army withdrew with Rupert on their rear. To the westward, within a mile or so, soon appeared a heavy growth of forest, between which and the road lay a broad, marshy plain broken by hedges. The plain also extended southward, ending at the distance of half a league in a long low ridge ; grass-land it was, while on the ridge, the harvests, just reaped, were stacked high. These were all noteworthy localities. The forest was Wilstrop wood, of which there will be presently mention ; the ridge was the ground upon which the men of the Parliament paused and turned at bay; the marshy plain was Marston Moor, the entire land- scape probably little changed since the battle-day, except that what was then open moor-land is now an enclosed and cultivated tract. Long Marston has changed less, perhaps, than the fields about it. It is a straggling village of thatched cottages placed at irregular distances along a wind- ing street, homes of the farmers who apparently form the entire population, for there is no sign of manu- facture or trade. Inquiries after some one who knew something about the battle seemed likely at first to bring little to pass, but at last an old farmer was found who said that his stock, father and son, had 214 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. been upon the spot almost since the battle-day, and who claimed to know the important points of the field. So between six and seven o'clock, the sun still bright of the long English summer day, the very hour when the battle began, the writer rode with the farmer, in a two-wheeled cart without springs, down a track which led into the centre of Marston Moor, and studied the field from the point where the fight was most desperate. Let us now look more closely at these two armies, each about twenty-five thousand strong, who are about to fight the greatest battle that has taken place on English soil since the Wars of the Roses. To form the force of the allies, two English armies had been joined to that of the Scotch, one led by the Fairfaxes, the young Sir Thomas becoming every day more noted, the other by the Earl of Manches- ter; in the latter army the cavalry was commanded by Cromwell, who so far had found but small oppor- tunity. The chief command was still in the hands of the old field-marshal of Gustavus, Leven, but it would have gone hard with the Parliament had there not been better soldiers than he. Sir Thomas Fair- fax had covered the rear as the allies withdrew ; and as he began at Marston to feel the breath of Rupert's sharp pursuit, he sent hot alarm to the advance, post- ing himself at the same time at the village. He had some seasoned troops, but the horse of Lambert, a brilliant soldier during the years that followed, were raw recruits. Next to Fairfax, the line running west- ward along the ridge, Leven placed his centre or main " battle " as it was called, tough Scotch infan- 16440 MARSTON MOOR. 215 try, sternest Covenanters, massed in solid squares, the pikemen in the centre, the musketeers on either flank ; a superannuated arrangement which Gustavus had discarded, but the military pedant was afraid of innovations. Uncouth and often repugnant forms these old Covenanters are, as the investigator digs them out of the historic stratum which holds their fossils, as remote from our sympathies almost as the extinct saurians, — with their interminable sermons, their all-night theological debates, their all-day pray- ers ; — indeed, worse than that, for they burned witches and warlocks by the score, and a dismal ap- paratus of thumb-screws and torturing boots stood close at hand to their courts of justice. But what for-life-and-death-devotedness, what craggy strength, and in the end, what superb accomplishment, — that forceful Scotch character, which to-day leavens the world to such good purpose! Among them that day was the Lord Eglinton, called " old gray steel " for his courage, — Cassilis, known as the grave and solemn earl, while Lindsay, stanch enough to have been a son of John Knox, led the men of Fife. The Lords who were in command were generally inexpe- rienced, but the lieutenant-colonels and majors under them were often veterans from the Thirty Years' War, schooled, sometimes demoralized and steeled to all forms of ruthlessness, in desperate scenes of carnage and license. Among these the best soldier was Da- vid Leslie. The world has not often seen stouter men than were the Scots that day, but some of them were destined to gain little credit, rather perhaps through the force of circumstances than any failure of their own. 2l6 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. West of the Scotch, who formed the centre, came the EngHsh infantry of the army of Manchester, one body commanded by Pickering, a young cousin of the poet Dryden, and another by a spirited boy of nineteen, Montague, destined to great fame after- ward as the Earl of Sandwich, one of the greatest of English Admirals. As the infantry to the east were flanked by cavalry, so to the west, at a village called Tockwith, at the extreme left of the Parlia- mentary line, were the troopers of David Leslie, be- tween whom and the infantry sat on their powerful chargers a body of about twenty-three hundred men, conspicuous at a glance from out the entire host, as in every way perfectly appointed and disciplined. It was the horse of Oliver Cromwell. Notice them well, out on the left wing there, the afternoon sun flashing from the left upon them as they steadily range themselves. What has the rude-looking squire whose careless dress so shocked in Parliament Sir Philip Warwick been doing through all the disturbed times ? He was early at the head of a troop of cavalry in the eastern counties, and though full forty-three years old when he took sword in hand, soon wielded it as if he were born for it. In the earlier desultory skirmishing he was foremost in many a raid, making himself espe- cially to be talked of by his promptness in circum- venting the authorities at Cambridge, who were arranging to send the university plate to the King. He was in the melee at Edgehill, where there is little record of what he did. This night, on Marston Moor, he was to win his first great fame — he and i644-] MARSTON MOOR. 2 1 7 his men equally good at prayer, at sermon, and at sabre. At Warwick Castle you are shown the steel cap that covered the head of this most magnificent of Englishmen, as he galloped, and smote, and shouted his Old Testament war-cries, where the danger was thickest. So the twenty-five thousand stood ranged, their artillery in front, the line a mile and a half long, from Marston to Tockwith. As they took position they trampled down the tall grain just ready for harvest ; now and then a dash of summer rain incommoded them ; it is said that as Covenanter and Puritan sang their battle-hymns, low thunder in the heavens was heard in the pauses. As there was division in the host of the Parlia- ment, Scot and Englishman not coalescing with en- tire cordiality, so among the Cavaliers, Rupert had touched witl> his superciliousness the haughty soul of Newcastle. York had been relieved ; there were good military reasons for avoiding battle ; but Ru- pert's spur was hot, and he had galloped, as we have seen, after the withdrawing foe. Nevertheless, there was delay in forming the Cavalier line. Some of the regiments were mutinying for pay, and both Rupert and Newcastle, says a chronicler, " had been forced to play the orator to them " all the forenoon. At length, however, on the Moor, an answering line had placed itself opposite the Parliament. The Scots of the centre were opposed by a division of Newcastle's foot, among them the " White Coats," a superb body of troops composed of the Earl's own tenantry. Opposite Fairfax was posted Goring, 2l8 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. with Urry for a subordinate, both conspicuous vil- lains, the latter a soldier of fortune of the most mer- cenary type, changing sides repeatedly, from King to Parliament, and Parliament to King, during the war. Already he had brought about the death of Hampden, guiding Rupert, to whom he had just de- serted from the Parliament, to the camp of those who had shortly before been his friends. In the battle about to begin, as the second of Goring, and with the help of a soldier of a different type, the high- minded knight Sir Charles Lucas, he was to come very near winning the victory for the King. The other wing, opposite Manchester and Cromwell, was held by Rupert's men : first his infantry ; then his horse, till now irresistible, five thousand troopers, into whom the Prince had poured a fire like his own. As the lines were forming, a Roundhead prisoner was brought in, of whom Rupert asked, pointing to- ward the Parliamentary right, " Is Cromwell there ? " The Roundhead answered, " Yes." " Will they fight ? " continued Rupert. ' If they will, they shall have fighting enough." The prisoner was sent back to his friends unharmed with this message. " If it please God," said Cromwell solemnly under his hel- met, "so shall it be." The Prince wore, it is said, a scarlet cloak, and was followed by his huge white dog " Boy," concern- ing whom the wildest tales were believed. His master had found him and trained him in Germany, and he followed Rupert everywhere. Many a brave man's heart sank as the great brute passed him, for in that superstitious time, some said he was a fa- MARSTON MOOR. o 'A Vi. I mile. I I ?art'\amen\ar>j Ullll'^/Z/w/V/iilillilliUlv- i644-] MARSTON MOOR. 219 miliar spirit, — others, that he was a Lapland lady or a powerful wizard in disguise, — others, that he was the Devil himself. This night he was to meet his death while in the act of pulling down a Roundhead. While the lines were forming, heavy cannonading had been going forward from the twenty or thirty pieces which each side possessed. The foemen faced each other across a narrow interval, but a deep ditch, designed to drain the Moor, divided them, known as the White Syke. There was little difference in the appearance of the two armies, and the Parliament men wore therefore a white badge in their hats. Rupert's standard of silk, some five yards long and broad, emblazoned with the arms of the Palatinate and with a cross of red, waved over his life-guard. " God and the King," was the Cavalier watchword ; " God and our cause," that of Parliament. The fight began at seven, Manchester's foot and the Scots of the main body advancing in a running march across the ditch, and charging vigorously. Soon the two lines, equally eager, moved forward throughout their lengths ; the cavalry on both sides following rushed together at a gallop, with a clink- ing of blades, a crashing of armor, and a tumult of hoof-beats, that made the battle at once the wild- est tumult. Fairfax had at first the more difficult task, for he was forced to proceed through bad ground, by a narrow lane, crossing ditches, and im- peded by hedges of furze. Urry and Lucas struck his column with all the spirit possible, as it toiled toward them through the Moor ; and in spite of all their leader could do, his force, with the exception 2 20 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. of his own regiment, was soon in flight. Fairfax himself received across the cheek a deep sabre-cut, the scar of which he always bore, and his major, pierced with thirty wounds, died on the field. Lam- bert's recruits, in terror, rode over the infantry of their own side, until all were in flight upon the right, except the handful whom Sir Thomas could still hold firm. What became of him we shall pres- ently see. The Parliamentary right wing therefore was ut- terly broken and dispersed. How fared it with the centre? Lucas and Urry attacked it by the right flank, which the rout of Fairfax's wing had exposed. Here fought the "White Coats" of Newcastle, heroic troops, although that eve they had not the leadership of the Earl himself. He, assured by Rupert that there would be no battle that night, had gone to take a quiet smoke in his travelling carriage. Roused by the confusion of the Parliamentary onset before he had taken a whiff, he had sprung among the com- batants, but he fought without command as a simple volunteer. Stubborn as granite stood three regi- ments of the Scotch centre, those attacked and those attacking wrapped in battle-smoke, lurid with the frequent glare of cannon, — the deafening tumult of war-cries, the clang of armor, the staccato of mus- ketry rolling far away. Multitudes beside them did indeed break and flee, following in the track of the other fugitives. Among these was the Earl of Leven himself, who thought all was lost. A trav- eller who that eve was coming toward York has left a vivid account of the flying men who impeded his i644-] MARSTON MOOR. 221 progress along the road, — officers of foot without hat or sword, — horse and infantry mingled together to the number of many thousands, the Scots lament- ing dismally : " Wae 's us, we are all undone ! " As some of the Scots too soon lost heart, so the Cava- liers on their side believed too soon that the battle was gained, and parties of them fell to plundering the baggage on the ridge. It was negligence most ill-timed. The sun now was just at its setting, the level light tingeing the war-cloud above the cumbered field. Though the day seemed lost on the side of Marston, the opposite wing had had different fortune. While the infantry of Manchester had boldly come to push of pike with the foe, the horse of Cromwell, minding as little the volleys of the musketeers whom Rupert had posted in the White Syke ditch as they had the summer rain of the afternoon, spurred forward. Ru- pert and many of his troopers had dismounted and were at supper, but all were in the saddle in an in- stant under the folds of the great banner. His own charge was as prompt and fiery as that of the Puri- tans, and the thousands of galloping horses and brandishing swords met together, like nothing so much as two oceans suddenly opposed. They stood, says the old describer, " a pretty while at sword's points, hacking one another." How horses, over- thrown, writhed and rolled upon their riders, how headpiece and corselet rang to lance and sabre, how the war-cries were shouted, the fierce Old-Testament phrase from the lip of Roundhead, the curse from Cavalier, the trampling and smiting, the prayers for mercy, the defiance, — how can it be told } 222 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. " Wouldst hear the tale ? On Marston Heath Met front to front the ranks of death. Flourished the trumpets fierce, and now Fired was each eye, and flushed each brow. On either side loud clamors ring, • God and the cause ! ' ' God and the King ! ' How each fierce zealot fights and bleeds For King or state as humor leads ! At trumpet's sound the battle's rage Was like the strife which currents wage, Where Orinoco in his pride ■Rolls to the main no tribute tide. But 'gainst broad ocean urges far A rival sea of roaring war. .... That heart of flame Hot Rupert on our squadrons came. Hurling against our spears a line Of gallants, fiery as their wine. But the stout Cromwell ne'er gave way ; On his barbed horse he won the day." ^ For a moment all seemed lost for the Parliament. Cromwell, wounded in the neck, was for the time being stunned. The Roundheads missing his shout recoiled, and were on the brink of ruin. David Leslie, however, drove in with his Covenanters like lightning on the Cavalier flank. Cromwell, dashing the stupor from his senses, was in an instant himself again. The steeds of the Cavaliers were forced back on their haunches, the line was beaten through and through : at last a great rush of panic-struck fugi- tives poured eastward to where the twilight was be- ginning to gather in the heavy Wilstrop wood. Just here it was, while Cromwell and Leslie paused from pursuit of the flying foe, that a group of pant- ing horsemen, with broken armor and steeds almost spent, suddenly appeared in the midst of the victors. 1 Scott, Rokeby, Canto J. 12, 13. 1 644-] MARSTON MOOR. 223 Their leader, scarcely recognizable through the gore from the sabre-cut upon his face, was wellnigh faint- ing, and all had evidently but just emerged from a life -and -death struggle. It was Fairfax, who from his conquered wing had cut his way through the pursuers. In the smoke and uproar, the ends of the long battle line had little idea how their comrades were faring. Fairfax brought the first news of his defeat. Instantly the horse of the left wing, not less perfect in discipline than ardent in courage, obeyed their leader's call; were back once more at the White Syke close at hand to the hard-pressed Parliamen- tary centre — " both sides not a little surprised that they must fight it over again, when each thought victory gained." The face of the battle was exactly counterchanged. In the twilight, what still remained unbroken of each army stood opposed, the Cavaliers on the original Roundhead ground, the Roundheads on that of the Cavaliers. In the shadows the fight became more than ever close and desperate, but the scale inclined to the Parliament. The White Coats stand alone at length, all the re- sistance beaten down about them, within the White Syke Close, a space on the Moor ditched in and difficult of access. Here they die, disdaining to flee, lying in ranks as they had stood, refusing all quarter. As the late day fades, the moon lights the awful battle-wreck upon which at length a hush descends. From a distance, however, from the gloom of Wil- strop wood and far along the road comes a sound of galloping hoofs, of the stroke of sword upon armor, of voices raised in entreaty. The victors, tireless, 224 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. implacable, far into the night, pursue the fugitives to the gates of York. " God," says Cromwell, " gave them as stubble to our swords." " I am sure," said Rupert, " my men fought well, and know no reason of our rout but this : because the Devil did help his servants." Defeat was never more complete. More than four thousand, for the most part Cavaliers, were buried upon the field, and many more were slain in the pursuit. Thus the mighty Oliver bore Ru- pert to the earth, and Rupert it was who then and there gave him the name Ironside} So, at seven o'clock of the summer evening, the hour when the battle was beginning, the writer rode out of Marston village on to the battlefield in the two-wheeled cart, a wide-awake north-country boy driving, with the old farmer for a guide. The farmer told, as we proceeded, of the battlefield of Towton, close in the neighborhood, the scene of the bloodiest struggle between the Red and White Roses ; but the absorbing interest of the acres we were now travers- ing made one indisposed to listen to anything uncon- nected with the later contest. Close at hand, on the ridge to the left, a clump of trees marked the head- quarters of the Parliament, just in the rear of the army. The road we were following ran toward Tock- with, and marked the line where stood the troops of Fairfax. The farmer told of seeing skeletons disin- terred, and how fine and sound the teeth were ; evi- dently of men young and in their full strength. At last we turned from the highroad into a lane that 1 Gardiner, Great Civil War, i. p. 449. i644-j MARSTON MOOR. 225 led into the Moor, — the very lane down which Fairfax had charged, running, without doubt, as it did then. The weather had been dry ; but the Moor was still so marshy that the hoofs of the stout farm-horse slumped in the black mire, and we jarred unsteadily on as now one wheel, now the other sank into a rut. From a quarter to a half mile of such progress, and turning to the left, we were presently on the brink of a deep ditch, the White Syke itself, and in the cen- tre of the field. The spot was plainly recognizable as that where the hardest fighting was done. Here Goring and Urry met Fairfax as he debouched upon the Moor, striking into ruin the slender column, as, after its compression between the hedges, it sought to deploy upon the more open ground. Right here, too, it was that Cromwell and David Leslie, after their stubborn breasting of Rupert's fire, charged home upon the backs of the Cavalier centre, at the very moment when with their pikes they were thrust- ing into rout the Scots of Leven. "' Just here," said the old man, indicating with his hand a strip of plain before us, " many skeletons' have been ploughed up." Now and then a cannon-ball appears ; and often bul- lets, the lead covered with a white corrosion from a burial of two centuries and a half in the damp soil. It was the place where the " White Coats " had died in their ranks as they had stood, shouting with their last breath for God and the King. All was substantially as on that fateful eve, except that hedges now divide the Moor more frequently than then. I looked across to where the spire of Tockwith rose among the trees at the distance of a 2 26 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. mile. Pleasant green acres lay between, which in my fancy I peopled with a fierce confusion of clang- ing troopers, — long-locked Cavaliers, under a broad crimson banner, the sunset flashing on their corselets, swooping after the handsome prince in his cloak of scarlet, — clashing against them the torrent of Iron- sides, in their articulated steel, while Oliver, praying, entreating, shouting his war-cry, brandished in front of them his remorseless sabre. All lay, on the night of my visit, in the quietest peace. The deepening evening lent solemnity to the fields ; and to the shad- ows also of Wilstrop wood, close at hand, where the fugitives were cut to pieces, the trees of which, it is said, bore long in their hearts the Parliamentarian bullets. At the bottom of the White Syke, still good cover for resolute infantry and a dangerous obstacle to horse, ran a sullen black stream. How ghastly the stain with which that current had once been flushed ! I dismissed the cart and bade my guide good-night. The last load of. hay for the day. was going home out of the fertile field where the " White Coats " lay buried. I climbed over the White Syke as an old musketeer might have done, and as the twi- light grew deep, crossed the fields over which had advanced the King's left. Had his right advanced that evening to as good a purpose, Charles I would have regained his throne ! CHAPTER XI. NASEBY. At Marston Moor, although the success was great, the snake had merely been scotched, not killed. For a year longer the decision was doubtful. On the 2d of August, an entry in the " Commons Jour- nal " shows that Vane, quite worn out, was excused from his place " to go into the country for the recov- ery of his health, and to stay for a fortnight or there- abouts." In September, however, there was press- ing need of every good Parliament man, for on the ist of the month the King brought the Earl of Es- sex to surrender in the Southwest, and toward the end from Scotland came most alarming news. Mont- rose, the most meteoric of heroes, suddenly blazed forth in the King's behalf, — with a handful of wild Irishmen and Highlanders still wilder than they, making light of all natural barriers of flood, precipice, or distance, mocking the valor of opposing armies, until victory seemed pledged to him. In these days there was much to dispirit the Scots who had come to England to help the Parliament. To their morti- fication, only the horse of David Leslie and two or three regiments of Leven's foot had gained much credit at Marston Moor ; they were in sore trouble over the thunderbolt about to fall upon their homes 228 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. in their absence ; to crown all, their English friends were turning from them in a lamentable way. The tide of Independency was rising higher and higher, and Baillie is greatly afraid lest in the army " our silly, simple lads " may suffer from the infection. A few passages will make plain the situation. ^'■September 16, 1644. "While Cromwell is here, the House of Com- mons, without the least advertisement to any of us, or of the Assembly,^ passes an order that the grand Committee of both Houses, Assembly, and us, shall consider of the means to unite us and the Indepen- dents ; or, if that be found impossible, to see how they may be tolerated. This has much affected us. These men have retarded the Assembly these long 12 mos. Our greatest friends. Sir Henry Vane and the Solicitor [St. John] are the main procurers of all this ; and that without any regard to us, who have saved their nation, and brought these two persons to the height of the power they enjoy, and use to our prejudice. We are on our ways with God and men, to redress all these things as we may. We had much need of your prayers. The great shot of Cromwell and Vane is to have a liberty of all religions, without any exceptions." * " October, 1644. " We were here for some days under a cloud. The disasters lamentable in Scotland about St. Johnston and Aberdeen ; the prolongation of the siege of New- castle ; the scattering of Essex's army in the West ; 1 The Westminster Assembly of Divines. » Baillie, ii. 61 etc. 1 644] NASEBY. 229 Sir Harry Vane, our most entire friend, joining with a new faction to procure liberty for sects ; these and sundry other misaccidents, did much afHict us for a fortnight. . . . We have strange tugging with the Independents. . . . "... Sir Henry Vane, whom we trusted most, had given us many signs of his alteration ; twice at our table prolixly, earnestly, and passionately had rea- soned for a full liberty of conscience to all religions, without any exceptions ; had publicly, in the House, opposed the clause in the ordination that required ministers to subscribe the Covenant, and that which did intimate their being over their flocks in the Lord ; had moved the mustering of our army, as being far less than we were paid for ; had been offended with the Solicitor for putting in the ordinance the differ- ences about church government, and not only about free-grace, intrudiftg liberty to the Antinomians, and to all sects ; he, without the least occasion on our side, did openly oppose us. Always God has helped us against him and them egregiously to this day. We were much in prayer and longing expectation that God would raise us from our lowness, near to contempt, and compesce their groundless insolency." The Scots honestly thought themselves badly treated. Just as honestly had the Independents on their side by no means intended to suppress liberty of conscience : the dying words of Vane are enough to establish that point. The language of the Solemn League and Covenant did not at all call for such a sacrifice as that. He was denounced as a cheat by 230 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. those who had been his friends. What other defence needs to be made for him than that he did not in the least forfeit the love and respect of the best men of his time, who also are among the purest men of all times ! Roger Williams, who now returns to Amer- ica, had lived as it were in his bosom and wore him in his heart of hearts ; and John Milton was not less fervent. Independency was in fact sweeping all before it. Though not in majority in Parliament, yet the Inde- pendents were so much the more able that they con- trolled all. Still more significant it appeared that the rising General Cromwell, his invincible Ironsides, and all the best soldiers, stood on the same side. The leaders who had so far appeared (and here perhaps a parallel may be seen to our own civil war) were fight- ing in gingerly fashion too often, not wanting to treat with too much severity enemies With whom in a few months they might effect an accommodation. Crom- well had already sent a thrill through their minds by roughly declaring, if he met the King in battle he would as soon fire his pistol at him as at any other man. In the misfortunes of Essex the Independents rejoiced, — possibly, so some thinV connived; for though he was a brave and honorable soldier, it was felt that no substantial success could be achieved un- der him, and that it was well he should bring himself to disgrace. At length, at the time when Baillie was bemoaning the slighted Solemn League and Cov- enant, on the 27th of October was fought the second battle of Newbury, a fiercely contested field, where ^ Guizot, English Revolution, 262. i644-] NASEBY. 23 1 victory was sadly balked for the Parliament by the sluggishness of Manchester. Cromwell, who now vibrated between the saddle and his seat in Parlia- ment, riding equally rough - shod in either place, broke out against his leader at St. Stephens. " Ever since Marston Moor he is afraid to conquer, afraid of a great and decisive success. But now, when the King was last near Newbury, nothing would have been more easy than entirely to destroy his army. I went to the General ; I showed him evidently how this could be done. I desired his leave to make the attack with my own brigade. Other offipers urged with me ; but he obstinately refused, saying only, that if we were entirely to overthrow the King's army, the King would still be King and always 'have another army to keep up the war ; while we, if we were beaten, should no longer be anything but rebels and traitors executed and forfeited by the law." ^ But a great change was preparing. The famous Baxter, though an enemy of the Independents, may perhaps here be quoted.^ " Many honest and intelli- gent people indeed were now for new modelling the army, putting out the looser men and taking in those who were more strict and sober ; but Vane and Cromwell, joining together, outwitted and overreacht the rest, and carried on their own particular interest successfully." The method they took was by a "" Self Denying Ordinance^ Baxter continues : "Be- cause commands in the army had much pay, and Par- liament men should keep to the service of the House, ' Carlyle's Crotifwell,\. 156. History of his Life and Times, \\. " Abridgment of Mr. Baxter's 53, 54. 232 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. therefore no Parliament men should be members of the army." On the 9th of December, after a speech by Cromwell, in which a new step was hinted at, an obscure member of Parliament, Zouch Tate, moved " that no member of either House shall, during this war, enjoy or execute any office or command, civil or military, and that an ordinance be brought in accord- ingly." It was with design perhaps that an unknown man was selected to introduce so radical a measure, which might arouse in such a way a less decided op- position than if it originated with one of the chiefs, who^e every move was sure to be combated. The proposed measure, by a shrewd indirection, was de- signed to shelve effectually the old Generals without giving offen(5e. Vane seconded the motion of Tate, and in spite of a fierce debate, the Independents managed to carry it in the Commons. Precisely the course which matters took, it is difficult to follow. For some days the fate of the bill was in doubt, and on December 18 a solemn fast took place, when, to affect public sentiment, sermons were given at vari- ous points in London, and one at Westminster, at which both Houses were present. Immediately af- ter. Clarendon represents Vane in the Commons as making a speech as follows : * — " If ever God had appeared to them, it was in the ex- ercise of yesterday, and that it appeared, it proceeded from God, because (as he was credibly informed by many, who had been auditors in other congregations) ^ Clarendon, iv. 1826 etc. God- Empire, iii. 552) ; but Vane must win doubts the value of Clarendon's have said something similar to report {Hist, of Commonw. i. 395) ; this, so too, Brodie [Hist, of British 1 644-] NASEBY. 233 the same lamentations and discourses had been made in all other churches, as the godly preachers had made before them ; which could therefore proceed only from the immediate spirit of God. He repeated some things which had been said, upon which he was best prepared to enlarge ; and besought them ' to remem- ber their obligations to God and to their country ; and that they would free themselves from those just reproaches ; which they could do no otherwise, than by divesting themselves of all offices and charges, that might bring in the least advantage and profit to themselves ; by which only they could make it ap- pear, that they were public-hearted men ; and as they paid all taxes and impositions with the rest of the na- tion, so they gave up all their time to their country's service, without any reward or gratuity.' He told them, ' that the reflections of yesterday, none of which had ever entered upon his spirit before, had raised another reflection in him than had been men- tioned ; which was, that it had often been taken no- tice of and objected by the King himself, that the numbers of the members of Parliament, who sat in either House, were too few to give reputation to acts of so great moment as were transacted in their counsels ; which, though it was no fault of theirs who kept their proper stations, but of those who had de- serted their places, and their trusts by being absent from the Parliament, yet that in truth, there were too many absent, though in the service of the House, and by their appointment ; and if all the members were obliged to attend the service of the Parliament, in the Parliament, it would bring great reputation 234 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1644. to their numbers, and the people would pay more reverence, and yield a fuller obedience to their com- mands ; ' and then concluded, ' that he was ready to accuse himself for one of those who gained by an office he had ; and though he was possessed of it be- fore the beginning of the troubles, and owed it not to the favor of the Parliament (for he had been joined with Sir William Russell in the Treasurership of the Navy by the King's grant) yet he was ready to lay it down to be disposed of by the Parliament, and wished that the profits thereof might be applied to- wards the support of the war.' " Cromwell followed Vane in similar strain. On December 2 1 , the vigor and genius of the Indepen- dents forced the Self Denying Ordinance through the Commons, but it was obstinately opposed by the Lords. Of the men whom it would have the effect to supersede, like Essex, Manchester, the Earl of Denbigh, another military leader, and the Earl of Warwick, commander of the fleet, a large proportion were Peers. The measure, in fact, if carried would deprive the diminished House of Lords of almost all power, and their resistance cannot be wondered at. In favor of peace, petitions were circulated : to these, counter petitions were opposed, which found more fa- vor with magistrates and influential men, " Sir Henry Vane having diligently provided that men of his own principles and inclinations should be brought into the government of the city ; of which he saw that they should always have great need, even in order to keep the Parliament well bestowed." ' In January, how- 1 Clarendon, iv. 1824. i64S-] NASEBY. 235 ever, desperate over the situation, the peace party brought about a conference with Royalists at Ux- bridge, at which earnest efforts were made toward an accommodation. But the demands on both sides were most conflicting and violently pressed : bad temper increased : whatever tendency to yield the King had showed he suddenly suppressed. News had come of a great victory by Montrose in Scotland, and Charles, feeling that his skies were brightening, stiffened him- self against the rebels. The conference was broken off, and the Independents pushed their schemes with all possible tact and energy. The New Model v^zs de- vised.-^ The old Generals being got rid of by the Self Denying Ordinance, the different forces were to be combined into one army, at the head of which was to be put the brilliant soldier who had done so well on many a field of the North, and who now was gashed by the wounds of Marston Moor, Sir Thomas Fair- fax. In the nick of time came now from Scotland the Marquis of Argyle, a man of vast influence in his nation, whom Vane had come to know well when at Edinburgh the year before. The two men were friends. Argyle, though Presbyterian, was less hide- bound than his fellows, and believed in a vigorous pushing of the war. His weight with the Scotch com- missioners was decisive. Early in April the struggle was over. The old Generals were set aside ; the armies were combined and reorganized. The Scots stood separate in the North, besieging Newcastle ; but in the Midlands, the New Model, under Fairfax, prepared to offer to the King a style of warfare which he had not yet known. ' Commons Journals j Whitacre's Diary. 236 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. The Lords had reason to feel that for them the hand was writing on the wall. Cromwell had curtly thundered, " There would never be a good time in England till we had done with the Lords," ^ and had told Manchester that it would not be well till he him- self " were but plain Mr. Montague." The Indepen- dents were for the most part from the People and threw themselves upon the People. Vane thus pre- sents matters at Guildhall to the city, on the 4th of March, when the New Model is in the air : — " My lord Mayor, worthy Aldermen, and you Gen- tlemen of the Common Council: the Houses of Par- liament have in all matters of importance thought fit to make this city, and particularly this Council here, privy to their actions, as having found, (to their great contentment) the usefulness of their affections to the public ; when they have so done, at this time, (as you have already heard) they have sent us to you for a double end : The one, to give you a clear represen- tation of the candor of their actions and intentions in this late treaty, — the other, the firmness and faithfulness of their resolutions to live and die with you and the rest of the Kingdom, in the prosecution of this war upon the opposers of peace, until it shall please God to give them the happiness of a safe and blessed peace, which now they think the only means left them is, by a vigorous prosecution of the war. .... That which they find most considerable at this time for them, and for the good of the Kingdom, and indeed of both Kingdoms, is, to make you as sensible of the necessity of all your assistance and ^ Carlyle, i. 156. i64S-] NASEBY. 237 helpfulness to put a speedy force into the field ; God hath gone before us in it already ; and truly in such a miraculous way, so unexpected, and so immediately by his own hand, that it is an encouragement in every heart that hears it, to be following God in this work. . . . These foundations being thus laid, of encouragement to the Houses, and we hope to your- selves, they are very desirous at this time for to see fresh demonstrations of your love and affection to them and to this cause, by using all the endeavors that lie in your power for an advance of a present sum of money, considering that they have forces, which they are now moulding and framing, which they hope to have in a very good posture, in case that they can have money to make them take the field. They have done the best that lies in their power for enabling these moneys to come in, in a seasonable time, but not so soon as it will be useful to the publique. ... If it pleased God that we can be but betimes in the field, we may be able to com- pose these unhappy differences amongst ourselves. Therefore, it is earnestly recommended to .you, that in this great action that now'may be for the saving of the Kingdoms, that you'll be pleased to stretch forth your thoughts and endeavors." * The Earl of Northumberland, and the Scotchman Loudon, spoke at the same time, but the decisive address was that of Vane. The city responded gen- erously to the appeal. On the loth of March a re- port was made which insured the raising of the ne- cessary means " for the new army under Sir Thomas * Thomasson Tracts, cclxxii. 238 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. Fairfax," four citizens "offering £80,000 for its speedy advance." ^ The Self Denying Ordinance, as it passed the Lords at last, April 3d, was somewhat changed in form. All members of either House who had since November 20, 1640, been appointed to any offices, military or civil, should, at the end of forty days from the passing of the ordinance, vacate these offices, — a phrasing which we shall soon see led to important results. It is significant that the project of the New Model was made to originate in the Committee of Both Kingdoms,^ where the influence of Vane was so powerful. A majority of the Scotch Commission- ers must have concurred, a thing very essential to its success, and this concurrence must have been brought about by Argyle. Just before, Montrose in Scotland had utterly discomfited Argyle, who was then at the head of an army, but his prestige seems to have been unaffected. One is forced to believe that he did not at all perceive the full bearing of the new measures, and that the terrible Sectaries, "all from New England," as Baillie writes, would make them a means for bringing themselves still higher. Argyle was a good Presbyterian, but he was drawn to Vane and believed in vigorous war. Both he and Vane were of a subtle spirit. Says one of Vane's most earnest panegyrists : * "A genuine frankness upon some very interesting and momentous occa- sions cannot be affirmed of either ; and we shall not * London Post, Mar. 1 1 ; Mod- ' Godwin, History of Common- erate Intelligencer, Mar. 6 to 13. wealth, i. 404. ^ Whitacre's Diary. i64S-] NASEBY. 239 be likely to be erroneous, if we assert of Vane, that he did not at this crisis disclose to his noble friend everything that was passing in his mind on the sub- ject." It certainly will not be inappropriate to leave Vane for a time at Westminster, while we follow the fortunes of the New Model which he had done so much to set upon its feet, fortunes which he in- deed to some extent guided, for the Committee of Both Kingdoms now made their authority felt in the field as never before. Cromwell was on the point of resigning his commission in accordance with the Self Denying Ordinance. A few days, however, re- mained of the forty days of grace which had been allowed, and on April 22 Fairfax was ordered by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to send Cromwell on an important expedition. In two days he had won two noteworthy victories, routing three regiments of Rupert's horse, and capturing an important fortress. Such an arm could not be spared. Fairfax de- manded him, and by special ordinance of the Com- mons, he was retained for forty days longer, becom- ing second in command. And now as the New Model stands on the brink of one of the most mem- orable battles of history, let us look at it somewhat more closely.^ As Cromwell was Lieutenant-General to Fairfax, so next in rank, as Major-General, stood the tough leader of the London train-bands, Skippon, — well- 1 Authorities for Naseby : Sprigge, A ftglia Redimvay Whitelocke, Memorials ; Rushworth ; Markham's Fairfax, etc. 240 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. seasoned in war before his superior had ever drawn a blade, and a fighter of the stoutest ever since the Roundheads had been marshalled. Under these ap- peared, at the heads of regiments and troops, a crowd of forceful young officers, many of whom had risen from the ranks. Often they were of noble or gentle birth, like Colonel Algernon Sidney, Sir Robert Pye, brother-in-law of Hampden, and Montague, the brave boy of nineteen whom we saw on the brink of the White Syke ditch. Often, too, they were of humble origin. Pride was a foundling in a church-porch, and afterwards a drayman ; Hewson had been a cobbler ; Watson, Scoutmaster- General, head of the intelli- gence department, a goldsmith of Lincoln ; Okey, major of the " cuirassiers," a tallow-chandler and Ana- baptist. Notice in particular one among these men — a captain thirty-six years old, once a gentleman- commoner, of Trinity College, Oxford, afterwards barrister of the Middle Temple, Henry Ireton. Whatever differences in rank might exist in the New Model, a religious tone, stern to fanaticism, per- vaded it throughout. At the word of command, the most rigid discipline prevailed, each man holding himself ready to go through fire and water at the bidding of his officer. Once dismissed, however, distinctions seemed forthwith to disappear. All was levelled to an equality, and the preacher in the tem- porary pulpit, on a cannon, or an ale-house bench, or a tomb in a church-yard, now praying, now lead- ing the psalm, now improving some bitter Apocalyp- tic text until the exhortation became rant, might be a common trooper, a colonel, or Cromwell himself : i64S-] NASEBY. 241 if the preacher were but lively and painful, all else was overlooked. Few prophesied well of the New Model. The superseded Generals, whose swords henceforth were to rust in the scabbard, surveyed from their shelves, with great disgust, the changes, and felt certain of disaster. The King, to whom the Roundheads had now given the name " the man of blood," and his friends called the New Model the " New Noddle," and were sure that a single charge of Rupert would be enough to send flying the crop-eared, sanctimo- nious knaves who composed it. The opening events of the campaign of 1645 heightened these hopes of the Malignants, and de- pressed correspondingly the Parliament. Montrose, dashing from the Highlands with his tattered, unin- telligible horde, transformed by his genius into a warlike instrument of consummate efficiency, utterly prostrated the Covenanters at Kilsyth, and the Scots at once retired northward. The King at the same time swept through the Midlands with a host light- hearted and enterprising, and on June ist stormed successfully the important stronghold of Leicester. Powder, guns, provisions, and a capital point of van- tage were gained: of the large garrison that fell captive that day a certain humble private was des- tined to a wider and nobler fame than any man per- haps at that time in arms, not even excepting Crom- well, — the ex - tinker John Bunyan. The cheerful King wrote to the Queen that his affairs had never been in so good a position. As Fairfax, directed from Derby House by Vane's committee, marched 242 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. northward, Charles came toward him in leisurely fashion, spending whole days in hunting. " If we peripatetics," he wrote to Oxford, his main headquar- ters, "get no more mischances than you Oxford- ians are like to have this summer, we may all expect a merry winter." As the New Model approached, the King retired, and Fairfax, reconnoitring during a dark rainy night, heard from close at hand the rumble of the wagons and tramp of the men, as the Malignants by their watch-fires broke camp and marched toward Pomfret. He was stopped on his return by one of his own sentries, and forgetting the pass-word was threatened with death if he advanced another step ; so he waited in the rain until the offi- cer of the guard appeared. On the 13th of June, Ireton, suddenly promoted at the request of Crom- well to be Commissary-General, surprised at midnight the King's rear -guard. That day, too, most fortu- nately, out of the eastern counties appeared Cromwell with the Ironsides, in full ranks and the finest heart. Following in the track of Fairfax as he sought the Cavaliers, the present writer rode through the rolling country, — now a tedious push of the tricycle up a steep pitch, then the exhilarating coast, from the crest into the hollow. The land gradually rose, until at length from a point six hundred feet above the sea-level rose a tall spire — Naseby, Navelsby, the centre of England. He passed between the rows of brick cottages that made up the village, and after dining at the inn with the beautiful horse-chestnut trees of the church-yard close by, turned northward, and was presently in a by-road between high haw- I64S-] NASEBY. 243 thorn hedges. A steep incline carried the rider from the plateau into low ground, through which flowed a brook, a slope down which he rushed with his hand on the brake, with the air singing in his ears. In the low ground was a gate at the roadside, opening which he followed a cart-path to the Broad- Moor farm. In a great field rising gradually toward the Naseby spire, to his left, as he made his way rather painfully along the rough track, he saw the Broad-Moor farmer and his men, pitching into cocks ready for the wagon the heavy windrows of hay which the August sun had just thoroughly cured. He went to the group through the stubble on foot : and the strong farmer, leaning on his pitchfork, re- ceived him well. He now stood in the centre of the battlefield of Naseby, on the declivity of Mill Hill ; a mile northward, the ground rose from the low land in an answering ridge. Dust Hill ; beyond which still another could be seen, Sibbertoft ridge. The names are all as on the battle-day, and the appear- ance of things quite unchanged, except that, as at Marston Moor, what was then partially waste land is now thoroughly cultivated, and a few hedges divide what was then quite unenclosed. On the morning of June 14, 1645, Fairfax, march- ing out from Naseby, saw from Mill Hill the flashing pikes and waving pennons of the King, just coming in sight over Sibbertoft ridge to the north. The Cavaliers were no longer in the mood for retir- ing, and presently were marching over Dust Hill, scarcely a mile off. The drums and trumpets, even the voices of men, must have sounded clearly across 244 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. the narrow valley, and Fairfax saw it was time to form his line. Withdrawing a furlong or so into a hollow behind Mill Hill, he made his dispositions. To the west, on his left flank, behind Sulby hedge, (the name and the hedge are still there) he put the Anabaptist major of cuirassiers, Okey, who led a force of excellent troops, dragoons, for the time being dismounted, but with the horses close by in charge of the odd man of each troop. We may imagine the stout "lobsters," in steel curiously jointed, with sharp antenuce in the way of half-pike and sword- blade. Next to him, going eastward from the hedge, ran the left wing under Ireton, quondam scholar and lawyer, one of the best brains and bravest hearts in England, Cromwell's favorite, afterwards his son- in-law, for the first time in high command on that day, promoted from a captaincy over the heads of many older soldiers; the rapid advance, however, quite justified by his merit. In front of the centre was a " forlorn hope " of musketeers, arranged as skirmishers, behind whom stood five regiments of foot under the stout and genial old Skippon, grizzled from campaigns in the Low Countries, whose cheer- ful, honest shout to his men seems to „ peal heartily out of the long past time even now. " Come, my boys, my brave boys ! let us pray heartily and fight heartily ! I will run the same fortunes and hazards with you. Remember, the cause is for God, and for the defence of yourselves, your wives, and your children." Two of Skippon's colonels, in the front line, were the boys Pickering and Montague, beard- less veterans from Marston Moor. In the reserve. i64S.] NASEBY. 245 Pride the drayman, and Hammond a gentleman and Oxford scholar, impetuous fighters both, stood shoulder to shoulder. The right wing, to the east, was formed of the Ironsides,^ six regiments, of which Cromwell held two in reserve. It is worth while so far to particularize as to say that the one this day specially noticeable was "led by Whalley, afterwards the regicide who fled for his life to New England, — the hero of one of the most familiar and picturesque of colonial traditions, — the saving of Hadley in the Connecticut valley from Indian attack near the time of King Philip's war. The baggage was in the rear of Ireton, to the west of Naseby, guarded by a thin line of match-lock men, ranged round it in a circle. As to the King's array, against Ireton stood Ru- pert, his force in three brigades, one of them com- manded by his younger brother Maurice, just such another young hawk, but weaker in pinion and talon. Sir Jacob Astley led the centre, a fine type of the better Cavaliers, trained by the great Gusta- vus, his ardor not at all extinguished under his gray hairs, a sleepless, honorable captain, the same who made the trooper's honest prayer at Edgehill. The left wing was under Sir Marmaduke Langdale, a thin, serious Yorkshireman, full of enterprise, which, however, was tempered by judgment, — one of the King's best soldiers. He had, however, the draw- back of a hasty temper; and now as the armies were on the point of joining, high words were exchanged ^ This name, given by Rupert to Cromwell, was extended to the sol- diers whom he commanded. 246 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. between him and his subordinates, a want of union most ill-timed, when the points that glinted on the hillside opposite were those of the Ironsides. His command, the northern horse, it is said, had wished to march northward, and were on the point of mu- tiny because prevented/ The forces were in number scarcely half as large as those engaged at Marston Moor; on both sides, however, the troops were bet- ter, and led with the finest courage. So the armies stood in the middle of that beauti- ful June fprenoon, solid English masses on both sides, scarcely distinguishable except that the Cavaliers wore in their hats a green sprig, and the Roundheads a badge of white. The Puritan ensign is said to have displayed five Bibles upon a ground of black : the standards of their opponents were of coiirse far gayer and more numerous. At the centre burned the crimson banner of the King embroidered in gold with a crown and lion. One troop bore the streamer of the Queen, of white silk, while another displayed a flag of flowered damask. On the right wing flew a sky blue color, that of Rupert, who in this way replaced the one lost the year before at Marston Moor. As the writer read on the field the story of the battle, which he had brought with him, he could trace narrowly the position of the two lines. Prince Rupert's lodge, an old farm-building which tradition makes to have been his temporary head-quarters, was half a mile off on the opposite rise. Down the gentle descent before it one could follow with the eye the 1 S. R. Gardiner, in a private letter to the author. 1 645] NASEBY. 247 track of his horsemen, when, thinking Fairfax was retreating as he withdrew behind the Mill Hill to form, the Prince rode impetuously forward, breaking the King's line. Just here to the right it was that Charles, that day every inch a King, in complete ar- mor, with fine horsemanship, galloped along his front. " Soldiers, will you fight for me .? " he called. " All — all ! " was the enthusiastic cry, mixed with shouts of " Queen Mary ! " the battle cry, as the solemn ranks of Fairfax, amid their prayers and psalms, shouted, " God with us ! " It was between ten and eleven that Fairfax, at length thoroughly ready, reappeared upon Mill Hill in sight of Rupert, who had paused in the hollow for the remainder of the line to come up. The cannon- ade that had preceded the close grapple at Marston Moor had been found to produce srhall effect ; this day there was little booming of heavy guns on either side. Rupert came on at once with all his extraor- dinary gallantry, and the ranks of Ireton rushed to meet him with a shout. As the mad tide of Cava- liers swept with a heavy thunder of hoofs along Sulby hedge, the dragoons in ambush among the hawthorn poured in a heavy flanking fire, which, however, the horsemen little minded. Okey declared afterward that he saw, as he peered through the leaves, the King himself, at the head of a troop in the second line, bearing himself most valiantly. The contest lasted but a few minutes. The Roundheads gave way, the colonels struggling desperately to hold their men as they were mercilessly overridden and sabred. The dragoons alone behind the hedge were cool and un- 248 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. yielding, the steady barrels pouring a side fire upon the melee, the horses close at hand, to be mounted on the instant when a fit time should come. They gave themselves up for lost, however, when the Cava- lier blades flashing as they turned in the sun, and the rearing chargers, passed rapidly southward, driv- ing before them the rout of fugitives. But, as al- ways, Rupert went too fast and too far, drawing rein first at the baggage-train beyond Naseby. An eye- witness who sat there within the circle of match- lock men has given a vivid picture of the riding up of the troopers, the Prince in front in a red Spanish cap. The commander of the baggage train, suppos- ing him to be Fairfax, asked him, hat in hand, how the battle was going. He was asked in turn if he would have quarter, whereat the musketeers trained their sights upon the intruders, who straightway turned back. How fared it elsewhere, meanwhile ? Sir Marma- duke Langdale, as brave as Rupert, had spurred with his troopers against the Roundhead right ; but Crom- well launched at them the regiment of Whalley, who met them in full career, and again were the Malig- nants given as stubble to the swords of the Ironsides, The ground was here difficult for the horse of the Parliament, but they broke through everything, till the scene on the west was repeated on the east with the parties reversed, except that Cromwell never went too fast and too far. At the centre, the foot stood till close upon noon in the fiercest conflict, — mutual volleys, then a rush- ing forward into push of pike and clubbing of mus- I645-] NASEBY. 249 kets. Gray Sir Jacob Astley holds the King's men sternly to their work, till the Parliamentary line wav- ers and gives ground. Skippon, while bringing up Pride with the reserves, finds his armor broken and his side pierced by a bullet, but he shouts that " he will not stir so long as a man shall stand." Pride drives ruthlessly against the advancing line. Ireton from the left, rallying a party of his routed men, smites in upon the flank, hip and thigh : his horse is shot, his leg pierced with a pike ; a halbert thrust gores his face in ghastly fashion. Thus maimed and blood-stained, he is taken prisoner. Watchful Okey now, his dragoons in an instant mounting, forsakes his hedge, gallops across the vacant position of the King's right, and repeats the blow. Fairfax, too, dashes in with his life-guard from the east ; and soon Cromwell, having trampled out Sir Marmaduke, is upon the rear with the terrible Ironsides. Under the hot noon sun the death - grapple goes on till the Roundheads beat everything to the earth before them. Astley, unhelmed, makes his way with difficulty from among the hoofs of the horses, and the war-cry " Queen Mary," becomes a cry for quarter. Only Loughborough's blue regiment stands like the White Coats in the White Syke Close. Fairfax's life-guard charge them twice in vain. Struck in front and rear simultaneously, they melt before the smiting arms, disdaining to be spared, until the Roundheads meet in the centre, Fairfax himself seizing their en- sign and slaying its bearer. Now, Rupert, returning at a leisurely pace, draws up upon Mill, Hill, and casts a glance over the battle 250 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. which he has supposed was gained. The horses are blown and the ardor of his men relaxed. He might have come to the help of the routed centre ; but as he passes downward, suddenly out of the battle-smoke a troop of Ironsides charges his flank, and all is con- fusion. " Face about once more," cries Charles to his reserve. " Give one charge more and recover the day ! " At the same time he sets spurs to his horse and is in the act of dashing forward. The troops are fresh and might possibly have accomplished something: but the Earl of Carnewarth, a timid Scotch courtier, suddenly lays hand upon the King's bridle : " Will you go upon your death in an in- stant t " he says. Before Charles can prevent, his horse swerves, and word runs through the troops that they are to wheel to the right. The unfortu- nate King seems to set an example of flight : a sud- den panic seizes all, and a mad rout tears northward. The implacable squadrons of Cromwell are at once upon them, and the roads are strewn with slaugh- tered fugitives. — What frenzy of the war-horse ! what fierce exulting of the fanatic rider, shouting the war-cries of Gideon and Joshua, his weapon heavy as a weaver's beam ! How the long - locks are sweat through and dishevelled — the fine scarfs and em- broidery rent and blood-stained in the death agony of that long summer afternoon ! " Fools, your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts were gay and bold, When you kissed your lily hands to your lemans to-day. And to-morrow shall the fox, from her chamber in the rocks. Lead forth her tawny cubs to howl above the prey. 164S-] NASEBY. 25 1 " Where be your tongues that late mocked at heaven and hell and fate, And the fingers that once were so busy with your blades, Your perfumed satin clothes, your catches and your oaths, Your stage-plays and your sonnets, your diamonds and your spades ? " Down, down, forever down with the mitre and the crown, With the Belial of the court, and the Mammon of the Pope. There is woe in Oxford halls : there is wail in Durham's stalls : The Jesuit smites his bosom : the Bishop rends his cope. " And she of the seven hills shall mourn her children's ills, And tremble when she thinks on the edge of England's sword ; And the Kings of earth in fear shall shudder when they hear What the hand of God hath wrought for the Houses and the Word ! " I The King drew rein first about thirty miles from the field : his power was utterly broken : thenceforth, says a Cavalier writer, " like a wounded partridge," he only flitted from one castle to another. His army was in great part slain, and of those left, who shall tell how many bore to the grave the scar of Roundhead lance and bullet ! There was booty of fifty-five col- ors and all the cannon, — of baggage heavy with the plunder of Leicester. Here was found the King's private correspondence. The knightly Fairfax re- fused to look at it ; he had refused, just before the battle, to read a letter from Goring to Charles, which had been intercepted. Judged by the usages of war, he was quite too punctilious, but how finely honora- ble ! A Parliamentary committee, in spite of the General's opposition, read the letters, and found them full of evidence of the King's duplicity. They were made public, and may still be read in the old collec- tions.^ The hearts of the people became steeled against a prince whose soul was full of treachery. ^ Macaulay's " Naseby." ^ Harleian Miscellany, vol. v. 252 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. I had brought the tale of the battle with me, and had it at hand as I stood talking with the Broad Moor farmer there, two hundred and forty years afterward, upon the ground held by the Roundhead centre. The farmer leaned on his fork ; the horses caught from the windrow a few mouthfuls of hay, as the transatlantic stranger was entertained. Here Astley had advanced with his levelled pikes, as the Round- heads gave ground. Just here it must have been that Skippon staggered : from the thorns back there Pride must have come with his succor. I saw that when I came down the hill with a rush, the air sing- ing in my ears, I was precisely in the track of the Iron- sides when they flung themselves upon Sir Marma- duke. One of the laborers came forward with two corroded bullets in his palm. He showed me where he found them on the ground of the Roundhead right. I bought them for a shilling. They whistled once in Cromwell's hearing. Did they> perhaps, come from the pistol of Rupert t To-night they are my paper-weights, at all events. Bidding the farmer good-bye, I pushed with some difficulty, clear across the field through the stubble to the western verge. A boy who guided me pointed out three or four de- pressions on the declivity of Mill Hill, still traceable, and with a rank growth of weeds about. They were the pits in which had been buried the slain men and horses. The officers were buried under the spire of Naseby church. A gate let me through Sulby hedge to the high-road. From the ambush of the dragoons here I took my last look in the light of the late after- noon, peering like those bronzed and moustached 1 645-] NASEBY. 253 warriors in their steel caps, through the interstices in the hawthorn. That sod had been dinted by the hoofs of Rupert's war-horse and drunk the blood of Ireton. All lay in deepest peace. No spears glinted over Sibbertoft ridge ; — a heavy load of hay was passing through the field where the poltroon hand balked that last charge of Charles which might have brought him to an honorable death. How narrow for the Roundheads was the chance of victory ! For three hours it was a most doubtful fight. Defeat would have been utter destruction for them ; the In- dependents were in the minority ; the rest of the na- tion were about ready to overlook all and restore the King. Victory for the Cavaliers would have been the death of freedom in England, and not in Eng- land alone. I remember the Broad-moor farmer told me the fork on which he leaned was of American make, and I believe the grass had been mowed by an American machine. America has reaped another harvest from the field of Naseby. Of the slain at Naseby it may be truly said : " They died that gov- ernment of the People, by the People, and for the People might not perish from the earth." From a distant hill I caught a last glance of the Naseby spire rising above the dust of the dead fighters. Naseby the centre of England ! In the whole history of the English-speaking race, few events are more central than Naseby battle ! . ' CHAPTER XII. THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. After Naseby it was short work for the New Model to beat down the opposition of the King. He tried to make head against his adverse fate, rally- ing his beaten forces, intriguing for reinforcements of Papists from Ireland, and Catholic mercenaries from the continent, and striving hard to join hands with Montrose in Scotland, who by the brilliant vic- tory at Kilsyth seemed to have subdued the Low- lands as he had before done the Highlands. The King's luck, however, had gone. The reading of his letters captured at Naseby, to the London citizens at Guildhall, made plain to the nation his perfidy, farther proof of which appeared as the fall advanced. David Leslie, the best soldier of the Covenanters, hurrying northward with the Scottish horse, on Sep- tember 13th, caught napping the lithe panther him- self ; Montrose was annihilated at Philiphaugh. One by one the scattered Royalist bands were tracked and beaten, and on March 22, 1646, the last tough remnant that still held out was broken to pieces. It was a band under the stiff old trooper Sir Jacob Astley, the same who made the naive prayer at Edgehill, and so nearly brought Skippon to grief at Naseby. Says an old account : " Sir Jacob Astley, i64S.] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 255 being taken captive and wearied in the fight, and be- ing antient (for old age's silvery hairs had quite cov- ered over his head and beard) the soldiers brought him a drum to sit and rest himself upon ; who, being seated, he said (as I was most credibly informed) unto our soldiers : ' Gentlemen, ye may now sit down and play, for you have done all your work, if you fall not out among yourselves.' " ^ But what all this time of American ideas ? The story we are trying to follow has but a far away in- terest for us except as it can be made clear that these strivers were brothers of our own. We have, traced the coming up of the Independents : their own generation believed that they drew their origin from America ; as has been seen the idea is not without reason. Roger Williams, in close commun- ion with Vane, scheming through the cold winter of 1643-4 to help the London poor to fuel in the dearth which the war had caused, thinking out and publish- ing the " Bloudy Tenent," had gone back to his forest home on Narragansett Bay. We have seen what downright blows the Independents had for Rupert and old Sir Jacob; how cleverly they man- aged to set aside the respectable but slow-going mil- itary chiefs who desired to have the cannon roar with something of the softness of the sucking dove, that no very serious harm might be done to their friends, just now unhappily estranged but next year probably to be reconciled. For the time being now all was in Independent hands, and elections being ' Old Parliamentary History, under date. 256 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. ordered to fill the places in Parliament made vacant by those who had gone over to the King, in the course of a few months two hundred and thirty-five new members, " Recruiters " they were called, ap- peared at Westminster, a large part of whom were Independents. It was especially fortunate for these, that among the " Recruiters " came the vigorous soldiers who had cut their way "to fame, Fairfax, Skippon, Ireton, Ludlow, Blake, noted now for the brave defence of Taunton and whom we shall know well hereafter, Algernon Sidney, the pure-minded Colonel Hutchinson whose " Memoirs " by his wife is .such a well-known book, a high-hearted hero named Thomas Scott, and Fleetwood, a future son-in-law of Cromwell. One hears little henceforth of the Self Denying Ordinance. The idea of taking Oliver from the head of the Ironsides was not to be thought of. The measure had served its purpose, and in the quiet to which all now looked forward, it was al- lowed to pass that spurred and sworded men dis- mounted from their war-horses to sit on the benches at St. Stephens. Still the Presbyterians were by no means prostrate : though disconcerted at the prosperity of the secta- ries, Denzil Holies, Glyn, Maynard, Stapleton, and many another, with the Scotch Commissioners, blocked as they could the innovating spirit, and ever and again, as the balance shifted in the uncertain times, came uppermost. Most picturesque and bitter among these anti-tolerationists was William Prynne, " That grand scnpturient paper-spiller, That endless, needless margin-filler, So strangely tossed from post to pillar," i64S-] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 257 whom the reader will find most graphically hit off by Masson.^ For his contumacy, he had been under Laud shockingly mutilated on the pillory, and he was worn with imprisonment. There was something pre- ternatural in his vitality and industry — "a ghoul-like creature with a scarred and mutilated face, his twice cropped ears hidden under a woolen cowl or night-cap, lonely among his books and papers at Lincoln's Inn, having no regular meals, but now and then munch- ing bread and taking ale." 'He had already written fifty-five books and pamphlets toward the two hun- dred "that were to form the long ink-track of his total life." Of the different shades of belief which the anti- tolerationists had now to combat, Edwards, ^ one of their number, enumerates as many as one hundred and seventy-six. Nothing could be wilder than some of these notions, and it is curious to see how much modern speculation was anticipated in the vagaries. Not a note in the gamut of possible beliefs which some harsh exhorter did not strike ! They possessed among themselves scarcely any common ground but liberty of conscience. Among these sectaries, the most untamable was a certain John Lilburne, a come- outer so utterly pugnacious, that, as Henry Marten said, " if only John Lilburne were left in the world, then John would quarrel with Lilburne and Lilburne with John." Desperately honest and earnest, utterly impracticable, heroically intrepid, obstinate to the last degree, his almost unceasing vociferations through ^ Life of Milton, iii. 140. * Gangraena, Thomasson Tracts, ccxlvii. 258 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. the whole time of the Civil War are discord thrice over among all the discord. When scarcely more than a boy he had been whipped at the cart's tail, by command of the Star Chamber, then pilloried. While on the pillory he had harangued and distributed tracts until gagged and bound ; then he stamped with his feet. His brother became later one of Cromwell's famous officers : still another brother had died on the field among the Ironsides : John himself had fought his way up to be lieutenant-colonel of dragoons at Marston Moor, where he was very brave. Cromwell urged him to take a command in the New Model, but he preferred a position outside of everything, a sleepless, implacable fanatic. We shall see him as contumacious before Cromwell as he had been before Laud. Doubtless the Independents had many misgiv- ings, as this multitude of discordant fancies, some- times so uncouth and repulsive, came floating up to the surface of the disturbed time, as Toleration be- gan to have sway. How could society exist, if such an Anlinomian menagerie were allowed to bellow and cavort according to its own wild will ? Doubt- less they took anxious council together at the house of Vane in Charing Cross, the meeting-place of the wiser men among these free souls, and it is impos- sible not to believe that the gentle-spirited, heroic apostle from New England had not laid before them that solution of the embarrassment which he after- wards gave in the beautiful letter to his own town of Providence. " There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and i64S-] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 259 woe is common, and is a true picture of a common- wealth or a human combination and society. It hath fallen out sometimes that both Papists and Protes- tants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship; upon which supposal I affirm, that all the liberty of conscience that ever I pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges — that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks, be forced to come to the ship's pray- ers or worship, nor compelled from their own partic- ular prayers or worship, if they practice any. I further add that I never denied that notwithstanding this liberty, the commander of this ship ought to command the ship's course ; yea, and also command that justice, peace, and sobriety, be kept and prac- tised, both among the seamen and all the passengers. If any of the seamen refuse to perform their services, or passengers to pay their freight ; if any refuse to help, in person or purse, towards the common charges or defence ; if any refuse to obey the com- mon laws and orders of the ship, concerning their common peace or preservation ; if any shall mutiny and rise up against their commanders and officers ; if any should preach or write that there ought to be no commanders or officers, because all are equal in Christ, therefore no masters nor officers, no laws nor orders, nor corrections, nor punishments ; — I say, I never denied, but in such cases, whatever is pre- tended, the commander or commanders may judge, resist, compel, and punish such transgressors accord- ing to their deserts and merits. This, if seriously and honestly minded, may, if it so please the Father of Lights, let in some light to such as willingly shut 26o YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. not their eyes. I remain, studious of your common peace and liberty, Roger Williams." ^ Though crop- eared Prynne and his party battled, the -air was now full of the spirit of Toleration. The ancient Puritan- ism felt that the robe which should be seamless was about to be rent into a thousand' fragments, each little knot of sectaries to set up who could tell what soul-killing extravagances of creed. If Independency was an American idea, side by side with it we now begin to observe others, as char- acteristically American. While Charles after Naseby, the weapons struck from his hands, sought to play a shrewd game between the two parties into which his opponents had become split, paltering with each in a double sense, now professing friendship for one, now for the other, and at the same time intriguing east and west for new means and new forces to make head against them both, the rank and file of those extraordinary Ironsides were beginning to ask : " Why dally with this King ? Why have a King at all, unless some one by election ? Why have an es- tablished church ? We have determined to let each conscience choose a faith for itself. Why tolerate the privileged class of nobles ? Let each man stand according to his own deserts. What but this is the true polity, — an assembly made up of repre- sentatives chosen by the untrammelled votes of all the reputable men of the land, — government of the People, by the People, for the People .? " Not yet was there any public expression of such 1 To the Town of Providence, Jan., 1655. Narragansett Club Pub- lic., vii. 278, etc. l64S-] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 26 1 extreme ideas, but in their camps, as rumors came now of their being sent to unwelcome service in Ire- land, now of disbandment without satisfactory assur- ance that a suitable accommodation could be made, now of the unlikelihood of receiving arrears of pay, there was much serious talk among those grave men. Sitting on drums by camp-fires in the cool fall nights, binding up the cuts from the swords of the men of Rupert and Sir Marmaduke, giving rest to feet blistered in marching after Hop ton and Sir Jacob Astley, — in the respite from arms there was leisure for counsel, and what the outcome was to be was ere long revealed. Our garrulous friend Baillie before Naseby is full of depreciation of the New Model, and just after by no means in a happy frame of mind. June 17, "I have myself been much fashed in my own mind." He has said something about a tampering with the King by the Independents, and, " some of the Inde- pendents hearing of it presently complain to the Committee of Both Kingdoms. Harry Vane and the Solicitor exaggerate the matter and report it to the House of Commons." News from Naseby hav- ing arrived, " we hope the back of the Malignant party is broken. Some fear the insolency of others, to whom alone the Lord has given the victory of that day, . . . the Independent party, albeit their number in Parliament be very small, yet being prime men, active and diligent, and making it their great work to retard all till they be first secured of a toleration of their separate congregations, etc."^ Still later, * Letters, ii. pp. no, 117, 183. 262 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1645. when Baillie has returned to Edinburgh,^ he de- scribes the high and bold design of the sectaries, which they follow drawn on by the course of affairs and the light heads of their leaders. " Vane and Cromwell, as I take it, are of nimble hot fancies for to put all in confusion, but not of any deep reach. St. John and Pierpont are more stayed, but not great heads. Say- and his son^ albeit wiser, yet of so dull, sour, and fearful temperament, that no great achieve- ment in reason could be expected of them. The rest, either in the Army or Parliament, are not on their mysteries, and of no great parts, either for counsel or action so far as I could ever observe." These fellows, however, continues Baillie, are " abso- lute masters of all." How much was won by boldness and how much by indirection in these days, it is impossible to say. Baxter declares ^ that " Vane and Cromwell used the Army to model the Parliament," and with deep cun- ning stirred up the House to pass offensive votes, that the Army might become enraged. Such evi- dence counts for little, but that the Independents could be very devious, their best friends are forced to admit. In November, a curious episode of the session was the creation of Peers, four Dukes, two Marquises, five Earls, four Barons, and one Viscount, — creations which the King was to confirm, in case peace was made. Among the Barons was old Sir Harry Vane. The Independents, thinks Godwin,* ' ii. 258-9. Parliamentarian, known as " Young ''■ Nathaniel Fiennes, a failure Subtlety." as a soldier, witness his surrender ' Life, 54. of Bristol, in 1643, but a shrewd * ii. 87, etc. i64S-] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 263 certainly managed this, and what can have been the motive ? The great majority of those thus honored were Presbyterians, only five being from their own party. Was it a trap for their adversaries ? " There was a great deal of deep and indirect policy in the Independent leaders," and Godwin conjectures that the design was to throw discord into the camp of the opposition by raising some above others. Those not honored would be jealous of those who were, A few names from their own number were in- cluded that the other side might be blinded. One can only speculate upon what was intended by this strange move at this time on the part of these men who in a very short space were to stand forth as the opponents of all privilege. Peace with Charles never came, so the creations could never be con- firmed. With the King it was fox against fox. Too crip- pled to fight, while he intrigued abroad and in Ire- land, he approached also the Presbyterians ; and while he dealt with them, he sought, as he had done when his affairs were less desperate, to touch hands, through Vane, with the Independents. Two letters are preserved written to Vane by order of Charles.^ Sir Edward Nicholas to Sir Henry Vane the Younger. " You cannot suppose the work is donn, though God should suffer you to destroy the K : the mis- eryes which will inevitably follow are soe plaine in view, that it is more than necessary some speedy 1 Evelyn's Memoirs, Bray's ed. v. p. 158. Clarendon, State Papers, ii. 226, 227. 264 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1646. expedient be found for their prevention." He thinks Spain and France will combine against England. " The only remedye is . . . that the K. may come to London upon the termes he hath offered ; where if Presbytery shall be soe strongly insisted upon as that there can be noe peace without itt, you shall certainly have all the power my master cann make to joyne with you in rooting out of this kingdome that tyran- nicall government ; with this condition, that my mas- ter may not have his conscience disturbed (yours be- ing free) when that easy work is finished. . . . Waigh it sadly." [At bottom] " This atrew Coppie of what was sent to Sir Hen. Vane the Younger by my com- and. C. R. Mar, 2, 1646." A second letter enforces the first, the King in his earnestness speaking for himself. " By all that is good, I conjure you to dispatch that curtoysye for me with all speed or it will be too late, I shall perish before I receive the fruits of it. I may not tell you my necessities, but if it were necessary soe to doe, I am sure you would lay all other consid- erations aside, and fulfill my desires." [At bottom] " This a true Copie of what was sent by Jack Ashe- burnham and my comand, to Sir Henry Vane the Younger. C. R." [undated.] " Gentlemen, you have done your work and may now go play, unless you fall out among yourselves." Astley, sitting on the drum, chatting good-naturedly with the Roundheads who had just made him pris- 1646.] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 265 oner, as he wiped the sweat, of the battle from his face, his white head, unhelmeted, receiving the cool breeze, had struck right at the weakness of his ene- mies. More and more they were falling out among themselves, and Charles, finding the sword utterly beaten from his hands, trusting so to his shrewdness, and yet always overreaching himself instead of his enemies, concluded to put himself into their hands, believing he could play among them, as a prisoner, a cunning game for his own advantage. He forsook Oxford April 27, so often gay even in the war-time with Cavalier riot, and in a few days came riding into the ranks of the grim Scotch Covenanters, as they lay on their arms in the North. He brought to bear upon them the personal charm he could always ex- ercise, — was affable with old Leven, and discussed gravely and ably with Henderson the questions of the Church. The Scots besought him to sign, or at least to acknowledge the Covenant, without which they could not admit him beyond the border. But he was faithful to his Anglicanism ; though they were embarrassed, he felt easy in his situation. In the eyes of all parties a, glamour surrounded him, as he knew; and evenly balanced as they were, he felt sure that by casting his weight at the proper time with one, that must straightway become paramount, bringing him at the same time happily to enjoy his own again. The Scots could do nothing with him. There was no reason why they should stay longer in England. Skippon with a strong detachment conducted to their camp a convoy of thirty-six creaking wagons, 266 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1647. containing a million dollars, half of the subsidy in cash which was due them, and they joyfully marched home, January, 1647, with pockets jingling in a man- ner rare enough to Scotchmen of those days. The King was surrendered to Parliament, and all now looking toward peace, the Presbyterians were upper- most, discredit falling upon the Army and its favor- ers. Many of the Recruiters, who at first had acted with the Independents, inclined now to their oppo- nents. The Presbyterians, feeling that none would dare to question the authority of Parliament, pushed energetically their policy as regards the Army, of sending to Ireland, disbanding, neglecting the pay- ment of arrears, and displacing the old officers. But suddenly there came for them a rude awakening. On April 30, 1647, Skippon, whom all liked, whom the Presbyterians indeed claimed, but who at the same time kept on good terms with the Army and Inde- pendents, rose in his place in St. Stephens and pro- duced a letter, brought to him the day before by three private soldiers, in which eight regiments of horse expressly refused to serve in Ireland, declaring that it was a perfidious design to separate the sol- diers from the officers whom they loved, — framed by men who, having tasted of power, were degenerat- ing into tyrants. Holies and the Presbyterians were thunder-struck, and laying aside all other business summoned the three soldiers to appear at once. They came without delay and without fear, giving their names as Edward Sexby, William Allen, and Thomas Sheppard. " Where was this letter got up 1 " inquired the Speaker. " At a meeting of the i647-] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 267 regiments." " Who wrote it ? " "A council of del- egates appointed by each regiment." " Did your offi- cers approve of it } " " Very few of them knew any- thing about it." " Do you know that none but Roy- alists could have suggested such a proceeding ? You yourselves, were you ever Cavaliers } " " We entered the service of Parliament before the battle of Edge- hill, and have remained in it ever since." One of the three stepped forward : " I received once five wounds ; I had fallen ; Major-General Skippon saw me on the ground, and gave me five shillings to get relief. He can contradict me if I lie." " It is true," said Skip- pon, looking with interest at the soldier. " We are only the agents of our regiments : if the House will give us its questions in writing, we will take them to the regiments and bring back the answers." ^ A violent tumult arose in the House. The Pres- byterians declared that the three sturdy Ironsides standing there, with their buff stained from their corselets, ought to be at once committed ; to which it was answered, that if there were to be commitment, it should be to the best London tavern, and sack and sugar provided. Cromwell, leaning over toward Lud- low, who sat next to him, and pointing to the Pres- byterians, said that those fellows would never leave till the Army pulled them out by the ears. That day it became known that there existed an prganiza- tion, a sort of Parliament, in the Army, the officers forming an upper council and the representatives of the rank and file a lower council. Two such repre- sentatives stood in the lower council for each squad- > Rushworth, vi. 474. Parliamentary History, under date. 268 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1647. ron or troop, known as " Adjutators," aiders, or " Agi- tators." This organization had taken upon itself to see that the Army had its rights. Far above every limited or selfish motive, moreover, it proposed to see that the upheaval should not have been in vain, but that England, in religion and politics, should gain a noble freedom. At the end of a month, there was still greater occa- sion for astonishment. Seven hundred horse sud- denly left the camp, and appearing without warning, June 2, at Holmby House, where Charles was kept, in charge of Parliamentary commissioners, proposed to assume the custody of the King. A cool, quiet fellow, of rank no higher than that of cornet, led them and was their spokesman, Joyce. " What is your authority .? " asked the King. The cornet simply pointed to the mass of troopers at his back. The King no doubt remembered that he had seen those stern ranks before, and in that same neighborhood, for over a few intervening ridges lay the hamlet of Naseby. The Parliamentary guard fraternized with the new-comers ; the King made little objection. He rode off, indeed, in good spirits, with his new guard to the Army headquarters, telling Joyce laughingly that he deserved to be hanged, but letting him know very plainly that he had taken a fancy to him. Charles, in fact, was weary of the Presbyterians, and glad to try his fortune among the Independents. He had no reason to complain of want of respect from the Army men. The chiefs disclaimed Joyce's seiz- ure : Fairfax, dismounting, kissed his hand, and Crom- well and Ireton appeared before him hat in hand. 1647-3 THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENT. 269 He was soon installed in his old palace of Hampton Court, and although the very trustiest of the Iron- sides, under Whalley, kept him under surveillance, his old friends were freely admitted to him, and he had almost the state of a real Sovereign. So bold a step as the seizure of the King made necessary other bold steps on the part of the Army. Scarcely a fortnight had passed, when a demand was made for the exclusion from Parliament of eleven Presbyterians, the men most conspicuous for extreme views. The Army meanwhile hovered, ever omi- nously, close at hand to the north and east of the city, paying slight regard to the. Parliamentary prohi- bition to remain at a distance. The eleven members withdrew, and as an indication that the balance is now inclining to the Independents again, the name of Vane is at once found on a list of commissioners sent out to confer with the Army chiefs. But if Parliament was willing to yield, Presbyterian London and the country round about were not, and in July broke out into sheer rebellion ; apprentices, water-men, train-bands, people high and low, crowd- ing round the houses in Palace Yard by thousands, swarming in the corridors, showing displeasure by casting stones, kicking at the doors, and bursting in upon the sessions with their hats on. The more fa- natical Presbyterians thought of a new civil war at once, and projected the raising of a new army, which, with the help of London, might make head against the army of Fairfax and Cromwell. But the best wisdom and resolution were elsewhere. The Speak- ers of the Lords and Commons, at the head of the 270 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1647. Strength of the Parliament, fourteen Peers and one hundred Commoners, betook themselves to Fairfax, and on August 2 they threw themselves into the protection of the Army at Hounslow Heath, ten miles distant. A grand review took place. The con- summate soldier, Fairfax, had his troops in perfect condition, and they were drawn out twenty thousand strong to receive the seceding Parliament. The sol- diers rent the air with shouts in their behalf, and all was made ready for a most impressive demonstration. On the 6th of August, Fairfax marched his troops in full array through the city, from Hammersmith to Westminster. Each man had in his hat a wreath of laurel. The Lords and the Commons who had taken flight were escorted in the midst of the column ; the city officials joined the train. At Westminster the Speakers were ceremoniously reinstalled, and the Houses again put at work, the first business being to thank the General and the veterans who had recon- stituted them. The next day, with Skippon in the centre and Cromwell in the rear, the Army marched through the city itself, a heavy tramp of battle-sea- soned platoons, at the mere sound of which the war- like ardor of the turbulent youths of the workshops and the rough watermen was completely squelched. Yet the soldiers looked neither to the riorht nor left ; nor by act, word, or gesture was any offence given. Vane, who, as the Independents were recovering power, was again in the foreground, at once on August 6th, after the- Parliament was reconstituted, brought before the House a form for an agreement with the King, at which a glance must be thrown. 1647.] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 27 1 It was known as the Heads of Proposals,-^ and had been borne before the army as it marched through the city. It was Ireton's work, and had been by him laid before the King, a document memorable as a sincere and temperate effort at an agreement, the last effort of the Independents to make peace with Charles. There were to be biennial Parliaments ; the Parliament was to control the militia for five years, with a voice in subsequent arrangements, and no pub- lic trust was to be exercised for five years by persons who had borne arms against the Parliament. Omit- ting unessential details, as regards the important mat- ter of an ecclesiastical arrangement, it was left free whether Episcopacy or Presbyterianism should . be established ; it was only stipulated that in any case there should be liberty of dissent ; it was even hinted that Papists and Jesuits might be left to themselves, except in so far as they should conspire against the order of the state. Most interesting of all, perhaps, was the manner in which the Commons were to be elected. Representation was to be equalized, all counties to have a number of members proportioned to the taxes they paid toward the burdens of the king- dom. The abuse of " rotten boroughs," the admis- sion of Burgesses, namely, for decayed or insignificant places, was to be remedied, and the number of mem- bers for such counties as had fewer than their proper proportion was to be increased. The King was to be restored to safety, honor, and freedom, with no limitation of his royal power beyond what was properly due to Parliament. 1 Rushworth, vii. 731-736. 272 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1647. If Charles had accepted the proposals, a polity would have been given to England quite similar to that which has existed since the Reform Bill of 1832. A reasonable Sovereign, one thinks, would certainly now, after so thorough a beating in the field, have receded from his claims, and been glad to accept an accommodation which left him unimpaired dignity. Cromwell, Ireton, and Vane had hopes that the King might be won. Charles, however, spurned the prop- ositions, entertained those who made them with bitter discourses, and repeated often : " You cannot do without me ; you will fall to ruin if I do not sus- tain you." It was not until after the rejection of these overtures, that in the Commons and the higher council of the Army Republicanism became pro- fessed, as something to which they were forced. The proper constitutional balance of King, Lords, and Commons, the leaders would have been satisfied with : but now Vane, Ludlow, Haselrig, Marten, Scott, Hutchinson, Sidney, scarcely answered when they were charged with wishing to do away with kingship. They were coming fast to speak of it with contempt. The sovereignty of the People, speaking through one assembly, was rising more and more within their thoughts, as the end toward which they must tend. Cromwell and Ireton persisted long. They were the real Army leaders, for Fairfax, though superb in the field, plays but a secondary part in every other sphere. The good qualities of Charles imj^ressed them strongly. There is a fine picturesque story of how the tears rolled down the cheeks of Cromwell at the sight of I647-] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 273 the meeting at Hampton Court between the captive Charles and his children. Why could not bitter experience teach the King that he must lay aside his arrogant claims ? How attractive was the thought of a settlement in which, since there was to be little disturbance of the old order, all parties might be expected soon to acquiesce, and in which the King, as a duly limited Sovereign, might clothe his position with the graces and virtues which he was really so capable of showing ! All the courtesy, all the ten- derness, were unavailing, and while the leaders la- bored, the rank and file grew more and more revolu- tionary. At length the position of the chiefs became one of the greatest danger. The regiments mutinied against them, as treacherous to the Army and com- mitted to the King. It required all the tact and boldness of Cromwell to crush out the danger. Rid- ing up to the most violent, he entered their ranks, and caused fourteen of their number to be dragged forth. Three of these were at once tried for their lives, and one promptly shot. Discontent was re- pressed though not smothered, but just here the incurable treachery of Charles became in a singular way revealed. The leaders forsook him, and took sides with the men. The picturesque story which follows has been thought mythical, but there is no good reason for doubting it. At the Blue Boar Inn, in Holborn, when the lead- ers had long besought the King, and the soldiers were murmuring heavily, two stout troopers in buff, with high boots and hats slouched over weather- beaten faces, strode into the inner court, sat down in 274 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1647. the tap, and called for tankards. So they remained through the evening, the London boosers about them looking with some interest at the stalwart fel- lows, who plainly had had a part on the great fields of the war. Toward ten o'clock, a courier, about de- parting for Dover, came through the crowd of drink- ers with the saddle on his head, which he was about to strap around his horse. As he left the room, the troopers followed him into the darkness of the court, seized suddenly the saddle, and, declaring that they had orders to search everything, ripped it open. In the lining lay a letter ; this they took, giving the saddle then to the frightened messenger. Patting him good- humoredly, they told him he was an honest fellow to whom they meant no harm. The troopers were none other than Cromwell and Ireton in disguise, who hav- ing learned that the King that night would dispatch a letter in this way to the Queen, disclosing his real intentions, took this means to intercept it. " When the time comes," wrote the King, " I shall very well know how to treat these rogues, and instead of a silken garter I will fit them with a hempen halter." ' A sudden change took place in the treatment of the King. His friends had been allowed to flock to him without restriction. He had been suffered to visit at the country-seats in the neighborhood, and except that there was never far off some stout sentry, armed and watchful, there had been little in his con- 1 The story comes from Lord But see Walford's Antiquarian, Broghill, afterwards Earl of Or- March and May, 1887, for a dis- rery. Mr. S. R. Gardiner expressed cussion of its probability, which to me in conversation the opinion takes an unfavorable view, that this tradition may be admitted. i647-] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 275 dition to suggest imprisonment. A strict severity was now maintained, and the King formed a resolu- tion, which possibly the Army chiefs for a deep pur- pose of their own, by some cunning management, suggested to him. On a dark night in November, he escaped, struck southward, and guiding his little party himself through the New Forest, which he knew well through his hunter experience, he reached at length the coast, and crossed to the Isle of Wight. Here he was to remain a year, not leaving it until, in the fulness of time, his victorious foes should con- duct him to his trial and his doom. November though it was, as he stood in the streets of Newport, a young girl gave him from her garden a beautiful crimson rose. The air was soft almost as summer, and the hearts of the people were loyal and tender toward him. Moreover, the governor of the island, young Colonel Hammond, though a son-in-law of Hampden and a favorite of Cromwell, and though at Naseby he had stood by the side of Pride, marching forward to save the day at the most desperate rao- rnent, when Skippon was wounded and the centre was giving way, was at the same time the nephew of Dr. Hammond, the King's chaplain, and could not stand in the royal presence without receiving impres- sion. The King's home was at beautiful Carisbrook Castle, in the midst of one of the loveliest of English landscapes. Here, exercising on the bowling-green, discussing books, religion, philosophy, with congenial companionship, according to the superstition which few men of the time were without, and which influ- enced him much, dipping into astrology, and watching 276 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1647. carefully the flickering of the wax-taper, always burn- ing in a silver basin at his bedside, he spent the days. Though outwardly so calm, so gracious, so marked with traits of royal majesty, his mind was from first to last busy with intrigues, quite conscience- less as to what oaths he might break, what friends disappoint, what treachery spin, so long as the end could be furthered, of which he never for a moment lost sight, the regaining of a sovereignty whose pre- rogatives should be utterly without trammel. His first days in the Isle of Wight were marked by an intrigue which came near making real for him all his hopes. It was frustrated only by the aston- ishing energy and abiHty of the men with whom he had to cope, and being frustrated, there was nothing left for him but the scaffold. Parliament, which had again become reactionary, sent commissioners to the King with propositions so moderate it was felt he must surely accede. At the same time commission- ers from Scotland came to Wight. The Parliament men with their message the King spurned. With the Scots, however, on the 26th of December, he made, a secret treaty. He bound himself on the word of a King to confirm the Covenant for such as had taken it, or might take it ; to confirm Presbyterian Church government in England for three years, reserving for himself and his household the Anglican Liturgy; and to suppress the Independents and all other sects and heresies. The Scots in return were to send an army into England to restore "him, on these conditions, to the throne. Thus at length, after long hesitation, came a decisive step. Charles threw his weight with 1647-] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 277 the Presbyterians and the Scots, granting all they asked. He felt certain, however, that in the event of success, " there would be nobody to exact all these particulars, but everybody would submit to what His Majesty should think fit to be done." ^ The treaty was to be kept secret as death. It was wrapped in lead, and buried in a garden, while the Scotch com- missioners hurried northward to prepare for war. The strait of the Independents was now great in- deed. They were, however, coming to an understand- ing one with another, dressing up with a united front, although as yet they knew not how threatening the foe was whom they must presently face. When the mutiny of the Army in October had been so promptly subdued, the mutineers had worn in their hats a paper which had been drawn up and printed among the Agitators, the lower council of the Army. It was called the " Agreement of the People : " at this, and at another manifesto of the Army, " The Case of the Whole Army," it is now time for us, trying as we are to trace American ideas in this great upheaval, to cast a glance. It was not unnatural, perhaps, that, seeing their Generals on such intimate terms with the King, who lived in splendor while the world did hom- age to him, the soldiers should have suspected them of lukewarmness, or indeed treachery, as regarded things the soldiers felt to be essential. This they express, and at the same time they declare to their General as follows, — sentences which certainly no American can read without wishing to press those stubborn Ironsides to his heart as his sworn brethren : ^ Clarendon, v. 2219. 2/8 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1647. " We presume that your Excellency will not think it strange, or judge us disobedient or refractory, that we should state the case of the Army, how declined from its first principles of safety, what mischiefs are threatened thereby, and what remedies are suitable. For, sir, should you, yea, should the whole Parliament or Kingdom exempt us from this service, or should command our silence and forbearance, yet could not they nor you discharge us of our duty to God, or to our own natures. ... If our duty bind us when we see our neighbor's houses on fire, to waive all forms, ceremonies, or complements forthwith (not waiting for order or leave) to attempt the quenching thereof, without farther scruple as thereunto called of God, . . . then much more are we obliged and called, when we behold the great mansion-house of the Common- wealth, and of this Army, on fire all ready to be de- voured with slavery, confusion, and ruin, and their national native freedom (the price of our treasure and blood) wrested out of their hands, as at this present appeareth to our best understandings, &c."^ This letter was dated at Hempstead, October 15, 1647, and signed by the Agitators, for the regiments of horse of Cromwell, Ireton, Fleetwood, Rich, and Whalley, — the core of the Ironsides ! Though prolix, it con- tains no cant or superstition. Is there not, indeed, much beauty and pathos here? And now let us see what is recommended in a paper of propo- sals, received in Parliament, November i, from the Army : — 1 From the letter to Fairfax, Whole Army." Rushworth, Hist, accompanying " The Case of the Coll. vii. 846, etc. I647-] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 279 " Having by our late labors and hazards made it appear to the world at how high a rate we value our just freedom ; and God having so far owned our cause as to deliver the enemies thereof into our hands, we do now hold ourselves bound in mutual duty to each other, to take the best care we can for the future, to avoid both the danger of returning into a slavish con- dition, and the chargeable remedy of another war. . . . That hereafter our Representatives [Parlia- ments] be neither left to an uncertainty for the time, nor made useless to the ends for which they were in- tended, we declare, i. That the people of England being at this day very unequally distributed by coun- ties, cities, and boroughs, for elections of their depu- ties in Parliament, ought to be more indifferently [impartially] proportioned, according to the number of inhabitants." The clause goes on to demand the arrangement of this before the end of the present Parliament, which, in the 2d article, the soldiers re- quest may take place in September, 1648, to prevent the inconvenience arising from the long continuance of -the same persons in authority. After providing in the 3d article that Parliament shall be chosen bi- ennially, every second March, we find in article 4 a most significant declaration : " That the power of this and all future Representatives [Parliaments] of this nation is inferior only to theirs who chuse them, and extends, without the consent of any other person or persons, to the enacting, altering, and repealing of laws, to appointments of all kinds, to making war and peace, to treating with foreign states, &c ; " with the following limitations, however : " i. That matter 28o YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1647. of religion, and the ways of God's worship, are not at all intrusted by us to any human power, because therein we cannot admit or exceed a tittle of what our consciences dictate to be the mind of God, with- out wilful sin : nevertheless, the public way of in- structing the nation, so it be not compulsive, is referred to their discretion." Other limitations ar6, that there shall be no impressing of men for service,, that after the present Parliament no one is to be ques- tioned for anything said or done in the late disturb- ances, that laws are to affect all alike, and to be equal and good. " These things we declare to be our native rights," the document concludes, and we are compelled to maintain them, " not only by the exam- ple of our ancestors, whose blood was often spent in vain for the recovery of their freedoms, suffering them- selves through fraudulent accommodations to be still deluded of the fruit of their victory, but also by our own woful experience, who, having long expected and dearly earned the establishment of those certain rules of government, are yet made to depend for the set- tlement of our peace and freedom, upon him that intended our bondage and brought a cruel war upon us." ^ This manifesto was signed by nine regiments of horse and seven of foot. Bravo, Ironsides ! The completest Republican- ism, thorough government of the people ; the finest spirit of toleration and charity! Had Roger Wil- liams and Samuel Adams put their heads together ; could the outcome have been better ? " The power 1 Rushworth, vii. 859, etc. 1647-] THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 28 1 of this and all future Parliaments of this nation is inferior only to theirs who chuse them, and extends, without the consent of any other person or persons, to the enacting, altering, and repealing of laws, to appointments of all kinds, to making war and peace, to treating with foreign states ; " no exception to be made but in the matter of religion, — that to be in- trusted to no human power, but each man to choose as his conscience may dictate. Who the man was who formulated so finely these American utterances no one can say. They came from the rank and file: under some one of those steel headpieces worked the brain that outlined this noble polity, in which there was no place for King, Lord, or Prelate, because the People was to be Sov- ereign. The leaders felt uneas5\ Cromwell could not yet go so far ; Ireton now rejected it with indig- nation.^ At a meeting convened in November to establish harmony between chiefs and soldiers, when the latter rejected a statement in which the name and essential prerogatives of a King were provided for, Ireton abruptly departed, declaring that such a matter must not be touched upon. Vane, too, no doubt at this time was appalled at such extreme ideas. Both Court, Presbytery, and Prelacy were hateful, but Royalty and an Upper House seemed too potent and deeply rooted to be disturbed. How un- tried and chimerical the scheme of a Republic, in which all precedents were to be disregarded and tra- dition to be sacrificed ! From whom, too, did the ideas emanate } From men of no social importance, ^ Godwin, ii. 451. 282 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1647. from Levellers, fanatical, haughtily insubordinate, discountenanced by every class in society hitherto held to be respectable ! But at such times men think quickly. The lead- ers took the ideas of the rank and file, and before the year ended the chiefs and the soldiers were one. December 22, the shortest day of the dark English winter, a public reconciUation took place amid fasting and prayer. Together they sought the Lord from nine in the morning until seven at night, Cromwell and Ireton among others praying fervently and par thetically. The assembly came forth hand in hand, and the condition of union was that Charles Stuart, that man of blood, should be called to account. PART III. AMERICAN ENGLAND. 1648-1653. CHAPTER XIII. THE IRONSIDES^ TAKE THINGS IN HAND. When Parliament heard, on the 3d of January, 1648, of the rejection by the King of their proposi- tions, a scene occurred similar to that in which, in 1645, the Self Denying Ordinance was moved. As at that time the obscure member Zouch Tate was put forward to make the motion, in that way, per- haps, less likely to be opposed than if made by a chief, so now a certain unknown Sir Thomas Wroth, suddenly rising, moved " to lay the King by and to settle the kingdom without him." As Vane on the previous occasion had at once seconded Zouch Tate, so now Ireton seconded Wroth, and the Indepen- dents carried it. The public ferment, however, was immense both in and out of Parliament, and Crom- 1 Since the entire Army now, Cromwell, it is no abuse of a term under the Independent chiefs, had whose application is very vague become pervaded by the spirit of to call them all Ironsides. 284 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. well, perplexed in the confusion, tried manfully to reconcile the jarring factions. Getting together the Presbyterian and Independent leaders, clerical and lay, he sought vainly to establish some common ground. Failing here, he convened privately the civil Independent chiefs and the Army officers, — to us a memorable meeting, for here it was that Vane for the first time took square Republican ground. Ludlow reports ^ that with Hutchinson, Sidney, and Haselrig, Vane, too, was loud in reject- ing all idea of monarchy as condemned by Bible, reason, and experience. Fairfax and Cromwell were more cautious. They were pledged to the soldiers, indeed, to bring the King to account, but were hardly ready to commit themselves to a government without monarchy. The embarrassments were in fact terrible, and led to curious manifestations. On the present occasion, the discussion growing warm, and Cromwell being pressed to declare himself till he could no longer evade it, he suddenly rose, and with a forced jest rushed out, flinging, as he went, a cushion at Ludlow's head. Ludlow threw one in re- turn, " which made him hasten down-stairs faster than he desired." We shall come upon similar inci- dents hereafter : it would be wrong to interpret them as mere unseemly mirth. With the departure of the Scots the Committee of Both Kingdoms, of course, came to an end, and on January 3d Parliament constituted as its executive a fresh committee, which contained all the English members of the old, and enough new men to replace 1 Memoirs, 183. 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 285 the departed Scotchmen. As now constituted, the committee contained twenty-one members, seven Lords and fourteen Commoners, among whom the leaders were Cromwell, Vane, St. John, and Hasel- rig. It was strongly Independent; and as Crom- well presently took the field, we may be certain that the powerful mind of Vane was at the centre of its influence. It met, like its predecessor, at Derby House, Canon Row, close by St. Stephen's, the house at which Pym had died, and was called the Derby House Committee. Here the most weighty affairs were arranged beforehand, coming afterwards before the Houses ; the authority of the Derby House Com- mittee was almost dictatorial, and it was to play a great part in the tremendous events of the year. Threatening indeed was the tempest which the Independents had now to breast. The treaty of the Scots with the King soon became known. Forty thousand Scots under the Duke of Hamilton were to march southward as soon as might be. They were Covenanters, and just before had been in arms against all Prelatists. At present, however, they hated nothing so much as " that impious toleration settled by the Two Houses contrary to the Cove- nant," and were prepared to strike hands with any or all who believed in putting that down, relying upon the King's uncertain word for security that a proper Presbyterianism for England should be the outcome. At the news the English Presbyterians were at once up in arms : still more, the broken Cav- aliers appeared, horsed and sworded ; and behind 286 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. these, again, Papists, at home and abroad, were on the alert, ready to fight once more for Charles, each faction feeling sure that advantage to itself would ' in some way come out. London was in an uproar. In spite of the vigor of Vane and St. John in head- ing off plots, the cry, " For God and King Charles ! " rang into the ears of Parliament from the streets of Westminster, and the mob was only put down by stern charges from two regiments quartered in the city. Close at hand in Kent, Dorset, Essex, Surrey, Hertford, Nottingham, the Royalists were rising, putting at their head the old chiefs that had been beaten at Marston Moor and Naseby. Word came that the North was aflame, and that Sir Marmaduke Langdale, the " long, thin Yorkshireman," had seized the frontier fortresses, Berwick and Carlisle, that the invading Scots might have easy entrance. In Ire- land, the strongest Parliamentary supports went over to the King. Eastward, the Prince of Wales block- aded the mouth of the Thames with nineteen ships, while the Parliamentary fleet revolted and put their Admiral ashore. No part of the kingdom had been so prompt in the rising as Wales. Before winter had ended, the King's standards were vigorously ad- vanced there, and almost at once the Parliament had no standing room. If Parliament had been a unit against all this danger, it would have seemed less ap- palling. It had dwindled until less than a hundred were present. Before April was ended, however, absentees came back, more Presbyterians than Inde- pendents, until the tone of Parliament became weak, and at last reactionary. 1648.3 THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 287 Fortunately the Derby House Committee at the centre remained under the control of the Indepen- dents. It faced the perils with all possible intrepid- ity and force, and in the Army, Ironsides now to a man, it possessed perhaps the most fearful instru- ment of warfare which the world has ever seen. What the temper of the Army was in these days we may know from an affecting account that has come down to us, from one of those prayerful, un- bending soldiers,-^ of a great meeting at Windsor, on the eve of the wonderful campaign of the summer, in which rank and file and Generals, kneeling and weeping together, beating their breasts and crying aloud to the Lord, became transfused with a spirit- ual energy that seems almost supernatural. Indeed, .though the opposition was so general and terrible, its strength was more apparent than real. Many Presbyterians could not bring themselves to strike hands with the Cavaliers. In Scotland, too, discord paralyzed to some extent the effort for the King. But with every deduction, men have seldomed faced a storm more overwhelming than those Indepen- dents of 1648. Well did they need to steel their spirits from whatever source power could come ! " In the year Forty-seven, you may remember," says Adjutant Allen, " we in the army were engaged in actions of a very high nature ; leading us to very untrodden paths, both in our contests with the then Parliament, as also conferences with the King. In 1 Adjutant Allen's Memorial in England at Windsor Castle, in of that remarkable Meeting of 1648, Somers Tracts, vi. 499-501. many of the Officers of the Army 288 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. which great works, wanting a spirit of faith, and also the fear of the Lord, and also being unduly sur- prised with the fear of man, which always brings a snare, we to make haste, as we thought, out of such perplexities, measuring our way by a wisdom of our own, fell into Treaties with the King and his Party ; which proved such a snare to us, and led into such labyrinths by the end of that year, that the very things we thought to avoid, by the means we used of our own devising, were all, with many more of a far worse and more perplexing nature, brought back upon us. To the overwhelming of our spirits, weakening of our hands and hearts ; filling us with divisions, confusions, tumults, and every evil work ; and thereby endangering the ruin of that blessed Cause we had, with such success, been prospered in till that time. " For now the King and his Party, seeing us not answer their ends, began to provide for themselves, by a Treaty with the then Parliament, set on foot about the beginning of Forty^eight. The Parlia- ment also was, at the same time, highly displeased with us for what we had done, both as to the King and themselves. The good people likewise, even our most cordial friends in the Nation, beholding our turning aside from the path of simplicity we had formerly walked in, and been blessed in, and thereby much endeared to their hearts, began now to fear, and withdraw their affections from us, in this politic path which we had stepped into, and walked in to our, hurt, the year before. And as a farther fruit of the wages of our backsliding hearts, we were also filled 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 289 with a spirit of great jealousy and divisions amongst ourselves; having left that wisdom of the word, which is first pure and then peaceable ; so that we were now fit for little but to tear and rend one an- other, and thereby prepare ourselves, and the work . in our hands, to be ruined by our common enemies. The King and his Party prepare accordingly to ruin all by sudden Insurrections in most parts of the Nation : the Scot, concurring with the same designs, comes in with a potent Army under Duke Hamilton. We in the army, in a low, weak, divided, perplexed condition in all respects, as aforesaid : — some of us judging it a duty to lay down our arms, to quit our stations, and put ourselves into the capacities of private men — since what we had done, and what was yet in our hearts to do, tending as we judged to the good of these poor Nations, was not accepted by them. " Some also even encouraged themselves and us to such a thing by urging for such a practice the ex- ample of our Lord Jesus ; who, when he had borne an eminent testimony to the pleasure of his Father in an active way, sealed it at last by his sufferings ; which was presented to us as our pattern for imita- tion. Others of us, however, were different minded ; thinking something of another nature might yet be farther our duty ; — and these therefore were, by joint advice, by a good hand of the Lord, led to this result ; viz.. To go solemnly to search out our in- iquities, and humble our souls before the Lord in the sense of the same ; which, we were persuaded, had provoked the Lord against us, to bring such sad per- 2gO YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. plexities upon us at that day. Out of which we saw no way else to extricate themselves. " Accordingly we did agree to meet at Windsor Castle about the beginning of Forty-eight. And there we spent one day together in prayer ; inquir- ing into the causes of that sad dispensation, coming to no farther result that day but that it was still our duty to seek. And on the morrow we met again in the morning ; where many spake from the Word and prayed ; and the then Lieutenant-General Crom- well did press very earnestly on all there present, to a thorough consideration of our actions as an Army, and of our ways particularly as private Chris- tians : to see if any iniquity could be found in them ; and what it was ; that if possible we might find it out, and so remove the cause of such sad rebukes as were upon us (by reason of our iniquities, as we judged) at that time. And the way more partic- ularly the Lord led us to herein was this : To look back and consider what time it was when with joint satisfaction we could last say to the best of our judg- ment. The presence of the Lord was among us, and rebukes and judgments were not as then upon us. Which time the Lord led us jointly to find out and agree in ; and having done so, to proceed, as we then judged it our duty, to search into all our public actions as an Army, afterwards. Duly weighing (as the Lord helped us) each of them, with their grounds, rules, and ends, as near as we could. And so we concluded this second day, with agreeing to meet again on the morrow. Which accordingly we did upon the same occasion, reassuming the consid- 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 29 1 eration of our debates the day before, and reviewing our actions again. " By which means we were, by a gracious hand of the Lord, led to find out the very steps (as we were all then jointly convinced) by which we had departed from the Lord, and provoked Him to depart from us. Which we found to be those cursed carnal Conferences, our own conceited wisdom, our fears, and want of faith had prompted us, the year before, to entertain with the King and his Party. At this time, and on this occasion, did the then Major Goffe (as I remember was his title) make use of that good Word, Proverbs First and Twenty-third, Turnyou at my reproof : behold I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Which, we having found out our sin, he urged as our duty from those words. And the Lord so accompanied by His Spirit, that it had a kindly effect, like a word of His, upon most of our hearts that were then pre- sent ; which begot in us a great sense, a shame and loathing of ourselves for our iniquities, and a justi- fying of the Lord as righteous in His proceedings against us. " And in this path the Lord led us not only to see our sin, but also our duty ; and this so unanimously set with weight upon each heart, that none was hardly able to speak a word to each other for bitter weeping, partly in the sense and shame of our in- iquities ; of our unbelief, base fear of men, and carnal consultations (as the fruit thereof) with our own wisdom, and not with the Word of the Lord — which only is a way of wisdom, strength, and safety, and all 292 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. beside it are ways of snares. And yet we were also helped, with fear and trembling, to rejoice in the Lord, whose faithfulness and loving-kindness, we were made to see, yet failed us not ; — who remem- bered us still, even in our low estate, because His mercy endures for ever. Who no sooner brought us to His feet acknowledging Him in that way of His (viz. searching for, being ashamed of, and willing to turn from, our iniquities,) but He did direct our steps ; and presently we were led and helped to a clear agreement amongst ourselves, not any dis- senting. That it was the duty of our day, with the forces we had, to go out and fight against those potent enemies, which that year in all places appeared against us. With an humble confidence, in the name of the Lord only, that we should destroy them. And we were also enabled then,, after serious seek- ing His face, to come to a very clear and joint reso- lution, on many grounds at large there debated among us. That it was our duty, if ever the Lord brought us back again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for that blood he had shed, and mischief he had done to his utmost, against the Lord's Cause and People in these poor Nations. " And how the Lord led and prospered us in all our undertakings that year, in this way ; cutting His work short, in righteousness; making it a year of mercy, equal if not transcendent to any since these Wars began ; and making it worthy of remembrance by every gracious soul, who was wise to observe the Lord, and the operations of His hands — I wish may never be forgotten." 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND- 293 Promptly obedient to the Derby House Committee, Lambert — whom we saw deserted by his recruits at Marston Moor, and who since then had devel- oped into a brilliant soldier, like Ireton bred to the law, ready witted in council as well as brave and re- sourceful in action — was sent North to make head against the invading Scots. Fairfax, now Lord Fairfax, through his father's death, was less thoroughly an Independent than his fellow generals. As a noble, he could hardly have full sympathy with the children of the People. His wife was Presbyterian in her inclinations, a woman of force, who influ- enced him much. He was already shrinking from the bald Republicanism that was proclaiming itself into a reactionary course that was to carry him back before he died to the party of the Stuarts. As a soldier he was still most chivalrous and intrepid. He could not be spared, but it was thought well to put at his side Ireton, who almost as much as Crom- well was the heart of the Ironsides. By the Derby House Committee, Fairfax and Ireton, in May, were thrown upon the insurgents near London. They fell like a thunderbolt upon the gathering discontent. There was to be no quarter now, for the King was no longer present ; a far fiercer spirit than that of the earlier war prevailed. The flame of revolt was piti- lessly quenched in blood. Resistance ended at length except within the lines of Cqlchester in Essex. Before that obstinate stronghold, Fairfax and Ireton lay throughout the summer, its siege and final cap- ture forming a horrible incident even in that century of horrors. 294 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. But where, meantime, was Cromwell ? Distrusted by some as too violent, by others as having labored suspiciously to form a bond with the King, he felt that his prestige was departing. Wearied out with efforts at accommodation and dealing with civil prob- lems, we may be sure that the champion shouted gladly at length his war-cry, " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon," and assumed his helmet. Leaving the Derby House Committee to be guided mainly by Vane and St. John, it was his task, first to march with five regiments to recover Wales, and then to face what other dangers the summer might bring forth. He was impetuous, probably, as never before, his soul on fire with fanaticism (or shall we call it inspiration ?) as he swept with his perfect troopers through the smouldering rebellion to those outer re- gions which it was to be his part to subdue. The tramp of those squadrons was . merciless and swift ; but they had not beaten out resistance before upon the land burst the dreaded northern foe. One may still look upon the ancient walls of Car- lisle, rugged souvenirs of the times of blood and iron we have left behind us. They have fronted war in all the masks it has assumed for a thousand years. They have been swept of defenders by bolts from cross-bows, as well as breached by round-shot from cannon. They have seen the pomp and the terror that has attended the march of a hundred armies. The walls of Carlisle have never seen a gayer parade than that of the twelve thousand Scots who marched past them in July, the Duke of Hamilton, their leader, at the head of his life-guards, the trumpeters 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 295 riding first in scarlet coats set off with silver lace. Sir Marmaduke was at hand to join them with all the Royalist strength of the North, and the invasion rolled toward London unhindered, twenty thousand strong. The wary Lambert, with a handful of Iron- sides, hovered on the flank, not strong enough to at- tack, but dreadful to foragers, and cutting off every scout and courier. As the Scots approached, sedi- tion beset the Independent power at the very heart. Parliament was thronged with men who called the in- vaders brethren. The banished Holies came back to resume his seat, and steps were even taken for the impeachment of Cromwell. What men have fought to success against odds more enormous! On the nth of July Cromwell had won the day in Wales. On the 13th he set out with five or six thousand, worn already with the hardest marching and fighting. All seemed to have served, however, only to knit their vigor. " Send me some shoes," wrote Cromwell to Derby House, " for my poor tired soldiers. They have a long march to take." From western Wales he traversed almost all England with a rapidity unexampled, not finding his shoes until he reached Nottingham. He was waging a war in the name of Parliament, which at the moment Parlia- ment was doing all it could to stop. If leader ever fought, says Masson, with rope about his neck, it was he. He now pressed northward with even greater speed. His rude face was all alight, as on the march he passed ever from rank to rank, now storm- fully praying, now shouting scriptural war-cries, now joining from the saddle in the chanting of some fierce 296 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. psalm : and the men, as they sped on in the summer dust and heat, cried and prayed in response till their spirits glowed as if touched by a coal from the altar of the Lord. They, at least, felt that to be the qual- ity of their enthusiasm. In three weeks the march was over, from south- western Wales far eastward, then into the North. A junction was formed with Lambert, and now, eight thousand against twenty thousand, the battle was to be joined. Its story here would scarcely be in place. Vane, indeed, working at Derby House, making head, too, as he could in St. Stephen's against the overwhelming mass crying out for an ignoble peace, and demanding the head of the leader who was fight- ing to. bring about a. better destiny for England, had a relation close and important with all that was done in the field. But it was less close, perhaps, than in the case of Naseby and Marston Moor. It is enough to say that Cromwell struck the Scots at Preston, in Lancashire. Hamilton thought him per- haps still in Wales, and was proceeding in a long straggling line, his men on ill terms with the Eng- lish Cavaliers, his officers jealous among themselves. The Ironsides dashed upon him like lightning from a clear sky. Sir Marmaduke held them for four hours, bitterly breasting a second time the points which had thrown him into rout on the Broad Moor. All courage was vain. Each column was crushed, then each fugitive squadron hunted down and pul- verized. Nought was left but here and there a wretched Scot, fleeing toward the border, pretending to be dumb that his brogue might not betray him to 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 297 the enraged country people, holding out his hands pitifully for bread. Nearly at the same time Fairfax and Ireton brought Colchester to surrender. Eng- land was in the hands of the Independents, and those hands were stern. In these terrible weeks, what heart-sinkings must have beset the Independents in London, striving to make head against the hostility about them, pre- pared to leap upon them at the first sign of ill-suc- cess in the field ! In the Houses the majority was hopelessly against them, but how resolute was the Derby House Committee ! Under the secrecy to which the members were all sworn, how vigorous the administration ! they sent not only the shoes to Crom- well in which the Ironsides marched to Preston, but gathered recruits and money, powder and ball, pikes and breast-plates, horses, cannon, stores of every kind, so as to maintain at their highest efficiency those superb fighters. The present writer has care- fully studied the Order Books of the Committee, as Gualter Frost, the clerk, day by day, made note of the items of its business. The record is meagre, and as regards information about the particular work of young Sir Henry Vane, there is the exasperating em- barrassment already referred to. Old Sir Henry Vane is of the Committee, too, and though father and son are sometimes distinguished, frequently the reference is simply to " Vane," and the historian is quite at a loss which of the two is meant. During the spring months not more than six or seven of the twenty-one are usually present, and at the end of May, Frost is 298 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. instructed to secure a larger attendance. Of the faithful ones, we can make sure of young Sir Harry. On the 3d of June he is appointed to despatch pow- der to Bristol for Cromwell's use in Wales; just after he is to go to Fairfax, closing in on Colchester ; again " to go to the Lord General about the revolted ships." As one reads, he hears faintly, in fancy, the roar of insurrection all about the little group, and the more distant thunder of invasion along the border. In their places, they are as brave, perhaps in as much peril, as the men at the front. In July and August, young Sir Harry seems from the record to have been much absent, and a few years after this time, in a memorable letter to Crom- well, from whom he had become estranged, occurs the following passage : ^ " The message which in former times you sent me is in my memory still ; it was immediately after the Lord had appeared with you against Duke Hamilton's army, when you bid a friend of mine tell your Brother Vane (for so you then thought fit to call me) that you were as much unsatisfied with his passive and suffering principles, as he was with your active." Cromwell and Vane up to this time had .been in complete accord, and the words just cited contain the only hint existing that they now in any way differed. What precisely Crom- well criticised it is impossible to say. Can there have been any diminution of energy in Vane's work which Cromwell thought deserved rebuke ? At this 1 From a letter to Cromwell, in Question " in an old volume in the 1656, from Carisbrook Castle, British Museum, bound up with the " Healing 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 299 time he was somewhat broken down by illness : for that reason he may have shown a slackness which Cromwell misinterpreted. On August 25th, the day the victory at Preston was announced in the Com- mons, Vane receives permission " to go into the country for the recovery of his health." ^ There is no other evidence than his own words that his great companion censured him. Indeed there is evidence in the quoted passage and elsewhere that Cromwell held Vane at this time in warm affection. While his soul was growing calm from the tumult of battle, on 'September ist Cromwell wrote in a note to St. John : " Remember my love to my dear brother H. Vane : I pray he make not too little nor I too much, of out- ward dispensations." ^ Vane was not so crippled as to be prevented from being at work through most of the month of August. The constantly recurring topic of negotiations with the King again came up and was violently pressed, Vane and St. John heading the Independents in the Commons in strenuous resistance. It was, however, carried over their heads, and before the armies, pant- ing from their hard fighting, could make their will felt, new commissioners were appointed, to try once more to bring Charles to terms. Vane's stay in the country was a short one. On September ist he was appointed one of the fifteen commissioners to wait upon the King, and there was no man but him of the fifteen " who did not desire that a peace might be established by that treaty." ^ If his energy had ever relaxed, it was now restored. * ' Journal of the Commons. ' Clarendon, v. 2343. " Carlyle, ii. 453. 300 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [164S. The conduct of the King was more pitiable than ever. " This negotiation," he wrote in August, " will be derisive like the rest. There is no change in my designs."^ His real thought was to escape to Ire- land, form a league with the Catholics, and with the help of money and arms from France, continue ener- getic war. He was not shaken in this secret purpose by the tremendous defeats of the summer. Out- wardly, however, when the commissioners appeared, he seemed compliant. Misfortune had turned his hair gray, and deepened the lines of his face. The Presbyterian leaders threw themselves on their knees, and besought him weeping to make concessions ; and day after day throughout the fall he discussed elaborately the propositions offered, his heart mean- time secretly fixed on something far different. Vane stood with his fellow commissioners in the pres- ence of the plausible majestic Prince, bearing his part in the debates. Now, for the first time since his extreme youth, he came under that marvellous spell which Charles could exercise, and he seems to have felt its power. He declared they had been much deceived in the King; they had believed him to be a weak person, but they found him a man of great parts and abilities.^ Still Vane, probably alone of the commissioners, distrusted him utterly, and if any faith may be put in the report of enemies, met his cunning with cunning. " We have some here," wrote a Royalist, " who under a face of friendship do ill offices, and most of his Majesty's councils in pi'fv'ate are rifled before they come into public debate. It is to be feared that Lord Say and Sir 1 Guizot, 415. 2 Godwin, ii. 612. Echard, ii. 615. 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 3OI Harry Vane have appeared to some in the shape of angels. These two hate the Covenant as they do the Devil." ^ It is charged, too, that he persuaded the King " not to be too prodigal in his concessions, — that he had already yielded more than was fit for them to ask or him to grant: yet afterwards this most restless man did most fiercely and perfidiously inveigh," as if nothing substantial had been granted.* The long delay in the negotiations was also ascribed to him, that the Army, having time thoroughly to finish their work in the field, might be ready to interpose before any treaty could be made.^ It is quite possible that Vane's astuteness was at this time in full play ; the use of it, if ever venial, would be so against such an object as Charles, whose ways were never more crooked than now. On November 28th the conference was over, and the commissioners proceeded to report. The ability of the Independent statesmen fully kept pace with that of their Generals. While the management of the Presbyterians was poor, the other party,* " entirely led and governed by two or three 'to whom they resigned implicitly the conduct of their interest," maintained themselves wonderfully when things were dark for them, and immediately when fortune turned, drove toward what had become their great purpose with all possible force and skill. Though the Presbyterian plan of sending commis- sioners anew to the King had been carried out, care 1 Mercurio Volpone or the Fox, ' Echard, ii. 616. Burnet, i. 60, October 5, 12. Thomasson Tracts, 61. cccclxvii. * Clarendon, v. 2220. ^ Anthony a Wood, Athenae Oxoft., art. " Vane." 302 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. was taken that Vane should be among them to see that no harm should come from the negotiation. Meantime, in London, there was no waiting, but things were guided toward the consummation which the Independents wished. Thomas Scott was out- spoken in Parliament. Now that the popular feeling began to run in their favor, great petitions, engineered by the Independent chiefs, began to pour in from London and the country, denouncing the attempt to come to an agreement with the King, and announcing democratic principles. One which Henry Marten wrote proclaimed the House of Commons the su- preme authority in England, repudiated the idea that King or Lords had a right to stand against it, and declared that matters of religion should be free from the power of any authority on earth. Forty thou- sand in and near London, Presbyterian though the city was in tone, were found to sign this, and the people of the shires, taking example, pronounced themselves as emphatically.^ As the fall went on, the Army, getting breath from the struggle of the summer, caused it to be known that the ideas for which . they had fought must no longer be trifled with. Since for us the story of these times is interesting for the manifestation of Republicanism, the Grand Army Remonstrance of November must have our careful attention, as mark- ing another great step in advance. It has been seen ' that Republicanism first appears in 1647, in the lower council of the Army, among the Agitators who represent the rank and file. Next we find the great 1 Whitlocke : Memorials, ii. 413, 419, 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 303 civil leaders committing themselves to the idea,, in the beginning of 1648. According to Ludlow's ac- count of the meeting between civil and Army chiefs, in which the cushion-throwing was a feature, Crom- well was not then prepared, as were Vane, Marten, and Scott, for the utter laying by of the old order. Under their helmets, however, in the Lancashire smitings, and before Colchester, the revolutionary ideas ripened fast. With the fall, the captains stood thoroughly with their men, and with the chiefs at St. Stephen's. The Grand Army Remonstrance,^ written by Ire- ton, is the long and carefully prepared work of a scholar and lawyer. Though addressed to the House of Commons, it was intended to express to the nation the position of the Army, and the plan they meant to pursue. The attempt to treat with the King was solemnly denounced. " Though the Lord had again laid bare his arm, and that small Army which they had ceased to trust, and had wellnigh deserted and cast ofif, had been enabled to shiver all the banded strength of a second English insurrection, aided by Scotland, — even after the rebuke from God, were they not pursuing the same phantom of accommodation ? " The principle was laid down that the Representative Council of Parliament must be supreme, that any form of monarchy must be regarded as a creation of that freely elected Council, for special ends and within special limits, and that the Monarch, if in any way derelict, could justly be called to account. It was urged that Charles deserved to be so called to ^ Rushworth, vii. 1297-8, 1311-12, 1330. Whitlocke, ii. 436. 304 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. account. If there were any hope of amendment, he might be treated tenderly. " If there were good evi- dence of a proportionable remorse in him, and that his coming in again were with a new or changed heart, ... his person might be capable of pity, mercy, and pardon, and an accommodation with him, with a full and free' yielding on his part to all the aforesaid points of public and religious interest in contest, might, in charitable construction, be just, and possi- bly safe and beneficial." But the King had been utterly faithless, it was urged, and continued to be so. In a passage showing how thoroughly they pen- etrated the King's falseness, it was declared that even now, after his complete second ruin, he was plotting and prevaricating, while secretly expecting aid from the Irish rebels. " Have you not found him at this play all along, and do not all men acknowl- edge him most exquisite at it 1 " At length come the immediate demands : and first, that the King might be brought to justice ; that his heirs, the boys after- ward to be Charles II and James II, should return to England and submit themselves completely to the judgment of the nation ; and that a number of the chief instruments of the King in the wars should be brought with him to capital punishment. All obdu- rate delinquents were to undergo banishment and con- fiscation of property, and all claims of the Army to be fully satisfied. In the prospective demands with which the noble document ends, the Army require: I. A termination of the existing Parliament within a reasonable time ; 2. a guaranteed succession of sub- sequent Parliaments, annual or biennial, the franchise 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 305 to be SO adjusted that Parliament shall really repre- sent all reputable Englishmen; 3. the temporary disfranchisement of all who had adhered to the King ; and, 4. a strict provision that the Representative of the people should be supreme in all things, only not to re-question the policy of the Civil War itself, or touch the foundations of common right, liberty, and safety. In the polity indicated, the Kingship, if kept up, was to be a purely elective office, every successive holder of which should be chosen expressly by Par- liament, and should have no veto on laws passed by Parliament, — in other words, an American Presi- dent, — elected by Congress, however, instead of an Electoral College, and shorn of his great power of the negative voice. This document was formally presented on the 20th of November by a deputation of officers headed by a colonel, who bore a brief note from Fairfax, still Lord general of the Army and acting with it, ill at ease, however, between his energetic Presbyterian wife without and his own predilections, which by no means favored so clean a sweep of the old order. The Independents, of course, welcomed the Remon- strance, but the more resolute Presbyterians, conspic- uous among whom was stout-hearted, narrow-minded Prynne, with his twice-cropped ears, declared that '' it became not the House of Commons, who are a part of the Supreme Council of the Nation, to be prescribed to, or regulated and baffled by, a Council of Sectaries in arms." ^ Strange compound that he was of bigot, bore, and hero, one cannot refuse ad- 1 Parliamentary History, under date. 306 YOUNG^ SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. miration at this time to him ; for, full of magnanimous self-forgetfulness, he was the boldest of those now trying to block the path of the all-conquering Inde- pendents. He pleaded nobly for the man who had done him only injury. " All the royal favor I ever yet received from his Majesty or his party, was the cutting off of my ears, at two several times, one after another, in a most barbarous manner ; the setting me upon three several pillories, in a disgraceful manner, for two hours at a time, the burning of my licensed books before my face, by the hand of the hangman, the imposing of two fines upon me of ^5,000 apiece, the loss of my calling, . . . above eight years im- prisonment, &c." He defied the Army, now in the day of its power, the tumult of whose all-overwhelm- ing march as it poured itself into London must have rolled into St. Stephen's almost to the drowning of his own voice. His plea was for peace and an ac- commodation : the poor fellow, whom Charles and Laud had left scarcely more than a mere scrap of humanity, was exalted for the moment beyond him- self as he pleaded for his persecutors. The concessions which the commissioners, return- ing from Wight, reported that the King was willing to make, were no greater than those several times before rejected. In the vehement debate as to whether or no they should be accepted, a significant incident took place. A few nobles had kept pace all along with the most liberal avowals, but the bold- est among these now began to draw back. Nathaniel Fiennes, son of Lord Say and heir to his title, here- tofore thoroughly with the Independents, became now 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND, ■ip'] reactionary, advocated peace, and maintained that the King's concessions were sufficient. When the commissioners had left the King at Wight, Charles had put in a most shrewd word to the nobles among them : " My Lords, you cannot be ignorant that in my ruin you may already perceive your own, and that near at hand." Lord Say, it is believed, was affected by the remark, and Fiennes, remembering his title, recoiled from the levelling to which all were presently to be subjected. Cromwell had not yet returned from the North, but all the other great Independent chiefs were there in St. Stephen's, those early December days : St. John, Marten, Scott, Ireton, Blake, Dean, Ludlow, Hutch- inson, Haselrig, Harrison, Algernon Sidney. Pos- sibly in the gallery may have been John Milton, the pamphleteer, and his cousin Bradshaw, the famous lawyer from the Inns of Court, who was about to be called to play a memorable part. In the front of these as chief spokesman stood the man who at Wight, digging below the mines of the wily Charles, had run his counter-mines, and who, now that plain and downright utterance was in place, was determined that the word should be forceful. The acceptance of the treaty "was early pressed in Parliament by many. But Sir Henry Vane truly stated the matter of fact relating to the treaty, and so evidently dis- covered the design and deceit of the K's answer that he made it clear to us, that by it the justice of our cause was not asserted nor our rights secured for the future."^ Clarendon's picture is no doubt substan- tially correct. * Ludlow, i. 268. 308 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. " Young Sir Henry Vane had begun the debate in the highest insolence and provocation ; telHng them that they should that day know and discover, who were their friends, & who were their foes ; or, that he might speak more plainly, who were the King's party in the house, and who were for the people ; and so proceeded with his usual grave bit- terness against the person of the King, and the gov- ernment that had been too long settled ; put them in mind that they had been diverted from this old set- tled resolution and declaration, that they would make no more addresses to the King ; after which the King- dom had been governed in great peace, and begun to taste the sweet of that Republican government which they intended and had begun to establish, when, by an accommodation between the city of London and an ill-affected party in Scotland, with some small contemptible insurrections in England, all which were fomented by the city, the Houses had, by clamor & noise, been induced & compelled to reverse their former votes & resolution, and enter into a personal treaty with the King ; with whom they had not been able to prevail, notwithstanding the low condition he was in, to give them any secu- rity ; but he had still reserved a power in himself, or at least to his posterity, to exercise as tyrannical a government as he had done ; that all the insurrec- tions, which had so terrified them, were totally sub- dued ; and the principal authors and abettors of them in their custody, and ready to be brought to justice, if they pleased to direct and appoint it : that their enemies in Scotland were reduced, and that kingdom 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 309 entirely devoted to a firm and good correspondence with their brethren, the Parliament of England ; so that there was nothing wanting, but their own con- sent and resolution, to«nake themselves the happiest nation & people in the world ; and to that purpose desired, that they might, without any more loss of time, return to their former resolution of making no more addresses to the King ; but proceed to the settling of the government without him, and to the severe punishment of those who had disturbed their peace and quiet, in such an exemplary manner as might terrify all other men for the future from mak- ing the like bold attempts : which, he told them, they might see would be most grateful to their Army, which had merited so much from them by the remon- strance they had so lately published." * Clarendon continues that a certain murmur showed this speech was much disliked, and that many blamed "his presumption in taking upon himself to. divide the House, & to censure their affections to the public, as their sense & judgment should agree or disagree, with his own." Vane, indeed, did not prevail. The victory was to be won by other than Parliamentary means. The debate had lasted twenty -four hours: it was nine o'clock in the morning after the all day and all night struggle. Two hundred and forty-four members were still present, and it was resolved, 140 against 104, that the King's reply was an adequate basis for peace. The Independents now felt that the crisis was ter- rible. The King would be in London at once, and 1 Clarendon, v. 2375, etc. 3IO YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1648. free, and all that they had fought for would be lost. They met the danger by a most revolutionary step, in which Ireton seems to have been the leading figure. After a conference of Parliament with officers, in which if Vane was present his influence was over- ruled, the troops were put in motion by Ireton's orders, without Fairfax's knowledge. Only one day had passed since the decisive vote, but with all promptness two regiments, one of infantry, one of cavalry, took their station at the doors of the Par- liament, at their head rough Pride, foundling, dray- man, then the soldier who had saved the centre at Naseby with his prompt succor, and fought with the foremost to win the day at Preston. He held a list in his hand, and as the members gathered, he forbade entrance to all such as opposed the Army. Forty- one members were excluded the first day, still more the next, one hundred and forty-three in all. The famous " Pride's Purge " was accomplished. By mil- itary force the Long Parliament was cut down to a fraction of its number, and the career begins of the mighty " Rump," ^ so called in the coarse wit of the time because it was " the sitting part." On Decem- ber 7, after the Purge had been accomplished, Crom- well took his seat for the first time since the warfare of the summer. " God is my witness," he cried everywhere, " that I know nothing of what has been doing in this House ; but the work is in hand ; I am glad of it, and now we must carry it through." ^ As the Independents " carry it through," it will at once appear that it is no abuse of words to call the Eng- 1 Rushworth, vii. 1353-6- = Ludlow, 117. 1648.] THE IRONSIDES TAKE THINGS IN HAND. 31 1 land they sought to establish American-England. Those peerless soldiers and statesmen failed in what they sought. We shall see how insuperable the ob- stacles were which prevented the realization of their great idea. They died for their idea in multitudes, upon scaffold and battlefield. Their generation was not worthy of them ; but no cause has ever been maintained by more steadfast striving, or possessed a nobler line of martyrs. CHAPTER XIV. THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. " I CONFESS I was exceedingly to seek in the clear- ness of my judgment as to the trial of the King. I was for six weeks absent from my seat here, out of my tenderness of blood." So spoke young Sir Henry Vane long after this time.^ Pride's Purge and the trial and execution of Charles by which it was immediately followed, seemed to him unneces- sary violence. As to Pride's Purge, it is hard to see, at the present time, what other course it was possible for the Army to take in order to save their cause. Nothing can be finer at any rate than the manifestos of Army and Parliament at this crisis, for the composition of which Ireton must be especially credited. " We are not," it was declared, " a merce- nary Army, hired to serve any arbitrary power of the state, but called forth and conjured by the several declarations of Parliament to the defence of our own and the People's just rights and liberties ; and so we took up in justice and conscience to those ends, and are resolved ... to assert and vindicate them against all arbitrary power, violence and oppression, and all particular interests and parties whatsoever." These ' Speech, 9th February, 1659. l649-] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 313 men saw everything they had fought for endangered by the half-hearted and bigoted Presbyterians, and rather than lose all, they thought it best to resort to an irregularity. Vane could not go with them and withdrew from public life. Since Vane had no part in matters, there is no occasion here to give in detail the end of the King. The High Court was promptly constituted, with Bradshaw, a name new in state affairs, though famed then as a lawyer, as presiding officer. That Vane did not withdraw to a distance seems certain. " It was observed that young Sir Henry Vane, who had long absented and retyred himself by scruple of con- science as it was said, came again and sat in the House of Commons on Saturday, 20th of January, the day that the King was first brought to trial." ^ Vane was not alone in his position ; St. John was with him, so Fairfax. Algernon Sydney, too, writes : " I was at Penshurst when the act for the King's trial passed, and coming up to town, I heard that my name was put in. I presently went to the Painted Chamber, where those who were nominated for judges were assembled. A debate was raised, and I positively opposed the proceeding. Cromwell using these formal words, ' I tell you, we will cut off his head with the crown on it' I replied, ' You may take your own course ; I cannot stop you ; but I will keep myself clear from having any hand in this business.' And saying this, I immediately left them and never returned." No hesitation now. Hapless Charles is brought 1 Leicester's Journal (Blencowe), p. 54. 314 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. closely guarded to Whitehall. So utterly treacher- ous, so incapable of forming an idea of the people he had undertaken to rule, yet with all that, having so much of the spirit and accomplishments of a gentleman ! What need to tell how he died ! There is nothing in English history better known. He stepped from the window of his banqueting-hall upon the scaffold with a tread as heroic as that of Straf- ford. Those who slew him turned toward him ten- derly; the Independent heart, so steadfast, yet so gentle, voiced itself thus afterward in the verse of Andrew Marvell.^ " While round the armfed bands Did clap their bloody hands, He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene ; But with his keener eye The axe's edge did try : Nor called the Gods with vulgar spite To vindicate his helpless right ; But bowed his comely head Down as upon a bed." How Vane woijld have preferred to have the King disposed of, he did not leave on record ; but probably deposition seemed to him more expedient as well as more humane. It is not possible now to decide whether the execution was good policy, though modern writers in sympathy with the Independents have condemned it as a great mistake.^ The leaders were in a position of terrible embarrassment, and it is curious to trace a parallel between the conduct of 1 Panegyric on Cromwell. 2 May : Democracy in Europe, ii. 436. Godwin, ii. 691, 692. I649-] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 315 Cromwell and that of Abraham Lincoln, when sur- rounded by embarrassments of similar gravity. As Lincoln relieved the overpowering tension of brain and heart by conduct which often was sharply cen- sured as buffoonish, telling funny stories, slapping his comrades on the back, bursting into a backwoods- man's guffaw as he sat tilted back in his chair with his feet on the mantelpiece, so Cromwell relieved the strain upon him with coarse horse-play that from that day to this has been called brutal and heartless. His bout of cushion-throwing with Ludlow in the anxi- eties of the previous year has been described. So now when the King's death-warrant was signed by the Regicides, there was a curious smearing of one another's faces with ink, — a sort of terrible merri- ment in which Cromwell led the way with hysterical laughter that one feels might at any moment have become an outburst of bitter weeping. What dangers there might have been, if recourse had been had to deposition ! With what restless energy the King would intrigue, and how likely, in the swaying of the tumultuous time, that some top- wave would toss him into the throne again, how- ever strong his prison-bars ! No doubt all this was anxiously weighed. Among the Regicides, Thomas Scott was a spirit most eloquent and heroic, and long after this he set forth how the matter lay in the minds of that resolute band. " Had he [Charles] been quiet after he was deliv- ered up to us by the Scots ! . . . So long as he was above ground, in view there were daily revoltings among the Army, and risings in all places, creating 3l6 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. US all mischief, more than a thousand Kings could do us good, it was impossible to continue him alive. ... It was resorted unto as the last refuge. The Representatives in their aggregate body, have power to alter or change any government, being thus con- ducted by Providence. The question was whose [on whom] was that blood that was shed? It could not be ours. Was it not the King's, by keeping delinquents from punishment, and raising armies .? The vindictive justice must have his sacrifice some- where. The King was called to a bar below to answer for that blood. We did not assassinate or do it in a corner. We did it in the face of God and of all men. If this be not a precept, the good of the whole, I know not what is — to preserve the good cause, a defence to religion and. tender consciences."^ The beheading of the King might well seem to in- volve smaller risks to their cause than to suffer him to live ; but mark the result. Immediately a mighty revulsion of feeling took place in favor of Charles, so that he became forthwith a hero and a martyr, not merely to his own party, but to thousands who had been his enemies. The Eikon Basilike ap- peared at once, purporting to be the King's spiritual autobiography, one of the most influential of books, through which it came about that in the thoughts of millions Charles stood beatified, in an odor of sanctity scarcely less indeed than that which sur- rounded Christ. After eleven years Charles II came back amid enthusiasm so intense and creneral that he blamed himself as a fool for not havina: come back 1 Forster, Life of Marten, 385. i649-] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 317 before ; and in that interval of eleven years, after a short trial of the Commonwealth, no political arrange- ment seemed possible but an autocracy, supported on the pikes of the Ironsides, maintained only through energy and ability as remarkable as have ever been shown in human history. The execution was most disastrous to English free- dom ; but who can say that any other course would have been less disastrous ? Those who claim that if the King's life had been spared, the Stuarts need never have come back ; that England might have be- come a Republic, or if not a Republic, that monarchy would have appeared in a shape so modified as to make the change to popular government an easy one, are quite too confident. What was the best course to take it is impossible to decide now: it was just as hard to decide then. It was a crisis where the best heads might well differ. Here for the first time young Sir Henry Vane, and the great figure whom we have seen rise from such small beginnings until he dominates the period we are studying, stand op- posed to one another in judgment. Cromwell and Vane are, however, still friends. As the Commonwealth took the place of the mon- archy, it seemed to be felt that Vane could not be spared, and he was besought to come back. It was resolved at first to exact an oath from all in author- ity, approving of everything which had been done. Such an oath Vane refused to take ; Pride's Purge and the beheading of the King he declared to be melancholy blunders. In respect, however, to the polity which it was proposed to establish he was in 3l8 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. accord, and was willing to lend his abilities to carry it out. To gain such a helper, the oath w'as given up.-' Vane pronouncing openly his condemnation of the past, reappeared at Westminster February 26th, and soon stood in a position of influence more marked than ever before. What were the ideas with which this wonderful " Rump," still the Long Parliament, though purged, began its career .? It will be felt, as they are stated, that no ideas can be in a finer sense American. The 4th of January may be set down as the beginning of the new order of things. That day ^ it was resolved by the little company now left in the great empti- ness of St. Stephen's, for not only were the excluded members absent, but many timid ones, " That the Commons of England in Parliament assembled do declare, that the People are, under God, the original of all just power; and do also declare, that the Com- mons of England in Parliament assembled, being chosen by and representing the People, have the supreme power in this nation; and do also declare, that whatsoever is enacted or declared for law, by the Commons in Parliament assembled, hath the force of a law, and all the People of this nation are concluded thereby, although the consent and con- currence of the King or House of Peers, be not had thereto." A declaration was received from the Army on Jan- uary 15th, the day the charge was read against the King. The Army urged : " That having since the 1 Vane's Speech at trial. 2 Commons Journal. i649-] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 319 end of the last war waited for a settlement of the peace and government of this nation : and having not found any such essayed or endeavored by those whose proper work it was, but their many addresses and others in that behalf, rejected and opposed, and only a corrupt closure endeavored with the King on terms serving only to his interests and theirs that promoted it, and being thereupon . . . necessitated to take ex- traordinary ways of remedy, they have at last finished the draught of such a settlement in the nature of an Agreement of the People for peace among them- selves, it containing the best and most hopeful foun- dations for the peace and future well government of this nation, that they can possibly devise. And they appeal to the consciences of all that read it, to wit- ness whether they have therein provided or pro- pounded anything of advantage to themselves . . . above others, or aught but what is as good for one as for another ; not doubting but that those worthy patriots of Parliament will give their seal of approba- tion thereunto, and all good people with them. But if God shall suffer the People ... to be so blinded ... as to make opposition thereto, . . . they hope they shall be acquitted before God & good men from the blame of any further troubles, distractions, and miseries to the kingdom, which may arise through the neglect and rejection thereof."^ On .the 20th the " Agreement of the People " was formally presented. It has the name and many of the ideas of the manifesto of the Agitators, in the fall of 1647. It has become now a detailed and 1 Rush worth, vii. 1392. 320 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. definite scheme of government on which we can well afford to dwell. In 1647, Ireton, to whom the bold and masterly elaboration was for the most part due, had not been ready for so radical a step, and had left the council abruptly, as we have seen, at the suggestion of laying by the King; but in the Army now, rank and file and chiefs stood together. The paper consisted of ten articles. Art. I demands the dissolution of the present Parliament by the end of April, 1649. Art. II, assuming that the supreme power in England is thenceforth to be a single representative House, de- clares that every such future " Representative " shall consist of four hundred members, or not more, and distributes these with great care, among the shires, cities, and boroughs of England and Wales. York- shire is to send twenty members ; Devonshire, seven- teen ; Middlesex, fourteen ; Cornwall, enormously over-represented hitherto, eight ; and so on until we reach the small counties 6i Rutland and Flint, which have but one each. It is worth while to specify to some extent in order to see how remarkably the re- forms of 1832 were anticipated. Art. Ill gives the time of meeting arjd defines the qualifications of the electors and the eligible. The electors are to be all men of full age and householders, except paupers and (for the first seven years) armed adherents of the King in the late wars. The eligible are to be. those qualified as electors, with restrictions designed to keep out for the first few Parliaments the King's .partisans. Art. IV considers the matter of a quorum. Art. V is very important, requiring every Parliament, within I649-] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 32 1 twenty days of its first meeting, to appoint a Coun- cil of State, to be the acting ministry or government in cooperation with itself, and also in the interval between it and the next Parliament. Passing over Arts. VI, VII, VIII, as relatively unimportant, in Art. IX we find the relation in which the government is to stand to the Church. Christianity, it is hoped, will be the permanent national religion : Parliament may establish any form of church not Popish or prelatic ; dissenters are, however, to be tolerated and protected, the liberty nevertheless not " necessarily to extend, to Popery or Prelacy." Art. X defines treason and indicates what in the preceding articles shall be held as essential. Except the IXth article, relating to the religious establishment, which judged by modern ideas is nar- row, there is nothing here not most thoroughly American. Ireton himself, like Cromwell and Vane, was ready for the broadest toleration, including even Jews, Infidels, and Pagans; but even in the Rump there were prejudices that must be humored. On the 6th of February it was resolved : * " That the House of Peers in Parliament is useless and danger- ous, and ought to be abolished ; " and on the follow- ing day, " that the office of King ... is unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the People of this nation, and therefore ought to be abolished." The ^old order was thus completely swept away, and , England was to be a Republic, The English reforms already gained in the 19th century, and still in progress at ^ Commons Journal. 322 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. the present hour, were all anticipated : all, too, that is most essential in the American system had been formulated. The question now was, could the Re- public, the Commonwealth, be sustained. The case did indeed seem a desperate one. The Commonwealth had been set , up by about sixty men at the centre who never had more need to be Ironsides than then. Only two sevenths of the people of England could be counted upon to sus- tain them. The Presbyterians, who once had been so zealous against the King, hated the Sectaries at least equally. The Cavaliers — Episcopalians and Catholics — were, of coursb, bitterly hostile. This vast opposition for the time was smitten into silence by the Independent triumph of the preceding sum- mer, but all knew that it was waiting in sullenness for its opportunity. Fortunately the opposition, at bitter discord in itself, could not unite against its enemies. Not the smallest of the difficulties of the Republi- cans was one arising from the more violent members of their own party. In particular, trouble flowed from that most intrepid and uncompromising come- outer John Lilburne, and a picturesque account of a stormy scene comes down to us from his own hand, when he and three associates, equally uncompromis- ing, were brought before the Independent chiefs.^ " I marched into the room," he says, " with my hat on ; but looking, I saw divers of the House of Com- mons present, and so I put it off." He refused to acknowledge their authority, and when a prison was threatened, solemnly protested, " before the Eternal 1 Masson, iv, 46 etc. I649-] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 323 God of Heaven and Earth, I will fire it and burn it down to the ground if I possibly can, although I be burnt to ashes with the flames thereof. . . . After we were all come out, and all four in a room close by them all alone, I laid my ear to the door, and heard Lieut, general Cromwell (I am sure of it) very loud, thumping his fist upon the Council table till it rang again, and heard him speak in these very words, or to this effect : ' I tell you. Sir, you have no other way to deal with these men but to break them in pieces.' Upon which discourse of Cromwell's, the blood ran up and down in my veins, and I heartily wished myself in again amongst them (being scarce able to contain myself), that so I might have gone five or six storeys higher than I did before." Such was the state of things in England. How was it elsewhere ? In Ireland, the Marquis of Or- mond had succeeded in uniting the Catholic and Protestant Royalists, forming a power which rose most threateningly against the Independents. The Presbyterians, though not coalescing with Papists and Prelatists, were equally violent against the new order, and scarcely standing-ground was left in the island for the " Honest Party." In Scotland, matters were even darker. At the time of the King's execu- tion, Scotch commissioners had been sent to London, instructed by Argyle, who since the battle of Preston had been in the ascendancy, to take advice from friends in England. " Who those friends at Lon- don were, can be understood of no other men but Cromwell and young Sir Harry Vane, with whom 324 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. Argyleheld close correspondence."^ When the head of the King fell, however, all Scotland, with Argyle at the head, rose in horror. Whatever distractions had existed, there was a universal revulsion of feeling toward the Stuarts. Almost as soon as the news of the execution was received Charles II was pro- claimed, February 5, at the cross of Edinburgh, and invited to come to Scotland at once from his place of refuge in Holland. Such was the aspect of affairs at home, and abroad what could the Independents expect, but a world in arms ? No stouter battle has ever been fought in this world than that of this little knot of RepubHcan, one might say American Englishmen, against this enormous odds. A desperate unhesitating course was the only one possible, and it wag at once entered upon with a skill and vigor not surpassed in the annals of men. Pass in review for a moment the five or six giants who stand now at the guiding lines. That Cromwell was preeminent must be, of course, admitted, but it must be remembered that as yet he had by no means arrived at the fame which set him on a pinnacle. In these days Vane was scarcely less a name of might ; and the deep-thinking Ireton, his face seamed with the scar of Naseby, was a power. Sir Arthur Haselrig, who had led his " lobsters " in many a sharp field, served now in the saddle, now in command of a fortress; — again, with articulated shell and sword and lance-antennae laid aside, on the floor of Parliament, — a blunderer, but honest, forceful, and devoted. Noble champions from the field, also, • Clarendon, v. 2433. 1649] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 325 were Scott, Hutchinson, Blake, Dean, Ludlow, and Sidney. Devil-may-care Harry Marten, too, was never absent ; sometimes setting St. Stephen's in a roar, sometimes circumventing a difficulty by a dexterous expedient. This bright, indefatigable, in- trepid radical, the only one, except Cromwell, in this stern company in whom there stuck a trace of hu- mor, must have afforded by his companionship a relief most grateful and salutary under that dismal sky. " He was exceedingly happy in apt instances ; he alone hath sometimes turned the whole house. Making an invective speech one time against Old Sir Harry Vane, when he had done with him, he sayd, ' But for Young Sir Harry Vane ' — and so sate him down. Several cryed out : ' What have you to say to Young Sir Harry ? ' He rises up : ' Why if Young Sir Harry lives to be old, he will be Old Sir Harry,' and so sate down and set the whole House to laughing, as he often did."* To those men- tioned, the names of Whitlocke and Bradshaw must be added, lawyers of weight, the former of whom, though time-serving rather than heroic in nature, now rendered great service by helping to keep the legal traditions unbroken, while the latter, having been President of the High Court of Justice that condemned the King, was to play a prominent part in the years to come. How did the " Honest Party " set to work to main- tain themselves in the midst of their perils } Acting precisely in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln's homely proverb, that it is not well to swap horses while cross- * Anthony a Wood : Athena Oxon., art. " Marten," iii. 1243. 326 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. ing streams, they resolved to face their perils under the old order, deferring for the moment the carry- ing out of the idea of Ireton, the election of the new Parliament. The purged Long Parliament, the " Rump," was maintained, the expediency of the measure being wittily illustrated by Henry Marten in a parable in those days very famous.^ When the child Moses, he said, was found by the daughter of Pharaoh in the ark of bulrushes, and she wanted a nurse for it, to whom but the child's own mother was the office entrusted ! Better, then, that the baby Commonwealth should be nursed for a while by those who had brought it into being. But though the election of a new Parliament was for the present postponed, another important feature of Ireton's plan was at once adopted, — the Council of State. This was decided upon February 7. As at length constituted, it included forty-one members, of whom nine were a quorum, and its first meeting was on February 1 7, As Vane was drawn forth from his retirement, he at once was placed here. We first find his name in the record on the 23d, and thence- forth throughout the continuance of the Common- wealth, he, more than any other one man, was the soul of that body. How great was Vane's influence ap- pears in an early record of the Council, April 16, 1649. Though Cromwell, Fairfax, Ludlow, Marten, and other leaders are present, the business considered is comparatively unimportant, as if some one were waited for. Vane enters late, and at once the delib- erations take on a different character. A matter is 1 Masson, iv. 40. Godwin, iii. 117. Clarendon, vi. 2692. l649-] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 327 forthwith brought up of the utmost gravity, which led, in fact, in the end to a war with Spain. Probably the case had been referred to him to be reported upon : his weight is plainly seen.-' It must be carefully noted that Vane takes up Republicanism only hesitatingly : to the end of his career the traditions of England have power over him. Had he been able, he would have saved the Mon- archy, and in some form the House of Lords, estab- lishing some such order as that indicated in the !' Heads of Proposals," which, in 1647, he, with Cromwell and Ireton, had tried to induce Charles to adopt. King and Peers were obstinate, and there was nothing for it but to sweep them away. The People must be supreme: that had become Vane's fixed political faith : in virtue of that principle he was a Republican : the King to be servant not Sov- ereign, and with no title but the popular assent to his elevation ; the Peers, ministers of the People, in no sense their masters. Their necks were stiff, and there was no way but to trample them under foot ; but to his dying day Vane had a yearning for the ancient order, which at the present moment was so completely overswept and superseded. Since Vane stood in such relation to this famous Council of State, the career of which was destined to . be very glorious, we must study it somewhat closely. Now that the old state of things had disappeared, the whole executive government was represented by the one single word " Committee." ^ In those times 1 Bisset, i. 98 etc. * Calendar of State Papers, Mrs. M. A. E, Greene, Domestic series, 1649-50. 328 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. of danger, all were anxious to avoid responsibility, and apart from the Army and Navy, no man accepted office other than as a member of some committee. The Council of State, elected by Parliament annually, was virtually a great committee of the Rump, which bestowed upon it powers almost plenary. As Parlia- ment now had but eighty members, of whom not threescore were commonly present, the Council of State, with its forty-one members, all of whom were in Parliament but three, commanded a working mar jority of the House. The Council in fact was an expedient for combining in compact shape all that was ablest among the Independents for effective work. Though they refer perpetually to Parliament, it is not by way of appeal as to an independent gov- erning power, but from themselves as a newly con- stituted power, to themselves with some additions constituting the Long Parliament. The Council suc- ceeded the Derby House Committee, as that had succeeded the Committee of Two Kingdoms, and its first place of meeting was that same Derby House in Canon Row in which Pym six years before had died : soon after, however, Whitehall became the locality. Bradshaw became the presiding officer, and the secretary was the same Gualter Frost who had served in that capacity the Derby House Committee. For some unexplained reason Ireton was not a mem- ber ; in the early weeks Cromwell was of course the predominant figure. Besides Cromwell, Vane, and Bradshaw, we find on the Council men we have learned to know well, Fairfax, Skippon, Haselrig, St. John, Whitlocke, Hutchinson, Ludlow, Marten, and i649-] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 329 Scott. They met at different times from the Parlia- ment that the members might be present at each. They often came together at daylight, and one can imagine the serious figures so gravely weighted, walk- ing up under their steeple-hats from Whitehall to Westminster, through narrow King Street, then back again with little respite, after the session at St. Ste- phen's was over. At the Council there were often present but few more than the quorum of nine, and seldom as many as twenty-five. On the 1 5th of March, John Milton was appointed " Secretary for Foreign Tongues " to the Council, his work being to conduct correspondence in the Latin language, then the diplomatic medium, to which was afterwards added the preparation of controversial pamphlets. Milton was now forty years old, and had just published the " Tenure of Kings and Magis- trates," which the " Defensio Populi Anglicani " was soon to follow. He was the first Englishman of mark who had adhered to the new order, and his fine powers and accomplishments were now put to use. He was invited immediately by the Committee of Alliances, one of the several into which the Council was divided, and of which Vane was a member. Mil- ton's home at this time was in High Holborn, near Great Turnstile, the back of the house opening upon Lincoln's Inn Fields, still so quiet and pleasant there in the heart of London, as one makes his way through the lawyers' quarters to Fetter Lane ; and it is quite probable, thinks Masson, that it was Vane who sought Milton out here, with news of his appointment. This was the machinery then at the centre with 330 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. which a very extraordinary result was to be accom- pHshed. There has never been in the world finer leadership, never probably a finer military force, the forty-four thousand three hundred and seventy-three Ironsides, troopers and infantry seasoned in the fiercest campaigns. Without a moment's hesitation the work of firmly establishing freedom and toler- ance was taken in hand. Nothing was done for re- venge. A few of the leading friends of Charles, whose lives could not with safety be spared, followed their royal master to the scaffold within a few weeks, among them the Duke of Hamilton, who had marched so proudly past Carlisle to meet his doom at Preston. More interesting was Lord Capel, the first man who in the Long Parliament rose to com- plain of the grievances inflicted by the King, a figure worthy to be placed by the side of Falkland. Like Falkland, though at first in the party of freedom, he had chosen dispiritedly the side of the King, as the least of the two evils, had foiTght desperately in the defence of Colchester, and made it impossible for the Honest Party to spare him. " He behaved much after the manner of a stoiit Roman. He had no minister with him, nor showed any sense of death approaching ; but carried himself all the time he was upon the scaffold with that boldness and resolution as was to be admired. He wore a sad-colored suit, his hat cocked-up, and his cloak thrown under- one arm: he looked toward the people at his first coming up and put off his hat in manner of a salute ; he had a little discourse with some gentlemen, and passed up and down in a careless posture." * 1 Whitlocke, ii. t,i, Oxford edition, 1853. i649-] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 331 With the Levellers, the foes of their own house- hold, the Tolerationists dealt sternly but humanely. Whether or not they had in mind Roger Williams's parable, that though a ship's company may be al- lowed to pray as they like, they must not embarrass the working of the ship, and in case of danger must work manfully at the pumps, they acted in its spirit. Lilburne and his fellow-growlers were closely impris- oned ; and when in the Army a mutinous spirit exhib- ited itself dangerously, Fairfax, not yet retired, and Cromwell swept the discontent swiftly out of sight, with a little blood-letting and all possible tact. When the dangers close at hand were disposed of, the remoter perils were instantly faced. Twelve thou- sand horse and foot were made ready for Ireland, and Cromwell was put at the head. It had now become vital to have an efficient fleet ; but while the Army was so formidable, the Navy scarcely existed. The sailors generally were for the King. Many had re- volted and carried their ships across to Charles II in Holland, while in the crews that remained disaffec- tion prevailed dangerously. How was a front to be made ? Rupert, now turned sailor, and equally enter- prising whether at the head of a squadron of horse or of men-of-war, hung threateningly in St. George's Channel. Charles II in Holland had a formidable fleet, to which at any moment might be added power from France or Spain. Almost the first act of the Council of State was to appoint three tried warriors, generals of the fleet, Popham, Dean, and most im- portant of all, the brave defender of Taunton in 1645, Robert Blake. Upon Vane's coming into the Coun- 332 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. cil, he became, March 12th, a member of the Com- mittee for the Navy, and was at once the leading spirit, exhibiting forthwith a genius for administration which is perhaps the most impressive manifestation of his ability, and was a factor of immense weight in bringing about the most extraordinary triumphs re- corded in English history. Vane was also a member of the committee to " consider alliances," and hence- forth throughout the Commonwealth ^ was the fore- most man in all dealing with foreign powers, whether hostile or friendly. Another immensely important piece of work which Vane was set to do, was to determine the time when the babe could be taken out of its mother's keeping, when the fostering care of the Rump could be dis- pensed with, and the new constitution be committed to the guidance of a new Parliament ; to determine also the details of the new order, which in Ireton's " Agreement of the People " had been only generally outlined. After some preliminary discussion, which Vane seems to have initiated and guided, on the 13th of May, Vane, Ireton, Scott, Rich, Sidney, and four more were made a standing committee to " pre- sent heads to the House " propter for deliberation. Wednesdays and Fridays were the days set for their sessions, and henceforth through the Commonwealth this committee is anxiously at work, with Vane for chairman. Evidence abounds that he was constantly uneasy at the anomalous condition of affairs, and ' The Commonwealth, strictly Cromwell made himself autocrat speaking, may be regarded as ter- and established the Protectorate, minating April 20, 1653, when 1649J THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 333 anxiously looked forward to the time when the power could be given freely and fully to the People. Ireton was soon absorbed by service in tha field at a distance. Vane, at the centre, was always present at the meetings of the Committee, and the dominant mind beyond all comparison. Following the Journal of the Commons and of the Council of State, one gets an idea of the intense and well applied energy of these resolute and able Com- monwealthsmen. The Commons' Journals are printed : the Order-Books of the Council of State remain still in manuscript in the Record Office in Fetter Lane in the handwriting of Gualter Frost, the secretary, the " draft " containing his jottings during the ses- sions, made while the discussions were sounding in his ears, — the " fair " containing his careful reduc- tion of the first notes, made at leisure after the ses- sion was concluded. It is, to be sure, but a meagre record, a noting of the orders, with little hint of the debates by which they must have been accompanied. But an air from the ancient rooms in Derby House and in Whitehall seems to blow upon the searcher, out of the books. The hand that wrote the faded lines had just before touched those of Cromwell, of Vane, or of Milton, — majestic presences sitting close at hand during the writing. The eyes of those men must have often followed down these pages, as they refreshed their memories upon points of past business. As regards these Order-Books of the Council of State, the searcher is freed from one embarrassment that besets him in the case of the Order-Books of the Derby House Committee and 334 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. that of the Two Kingdoms. There is now but one Sir Harry Vane. Old Sir Harry Vane, though still in Parliament, and bustling there, is no longer of the select Council. One must not forget, in speaking of these Order-Books, to mention the service to the searcher of the " Calendars," carefully prepared ab- stracts of the records, which give the clue to all that is most important in them. Attempting now to get some clear and close idea of young Sir Harry's life in these days, let the reader note the following things in the records of Parliament and Council, with a scrap now and then from elsewhere. On the 22d and 29th of January, 1649, young Sir Harry Vane's name occurs as appointed on Parliamentary committees, and his name occurs also several times after, during the early days of February.^ His own declaration that he was absent from the House for six weeks, has been quoted. Must we think that his colleagues still counted him, though absent, as one of them, and as- signed him business in anticipation of his return .? On the 2d of March, names of commanders for sev- eral ships are reported by him, among them that of Ascue, a farhous officer afterward, and on the 5th, laws for the government of the Navy. On the 7th of March,- the act for the abolishing of the King- ship, which though introduced earlier, as has been seen, had not yet been acted upon, is referred to a committee of which he is first ; and on the 24th of March, in the absence of the Speaker, Vane presides.^ While thus activfe in Parliament, Vane is also con- * Journal of Commons, under dates. ^ Order-Book. i649-] THE RUMP .AGAINST THE WORLD. 335 stantly present at the Council of State. His first appearance is on February 23d, and he is hence- forth almost unremitting, his record as to attendance being surpassed by only three others out of the forty-one members. On the 27th, with Cromwell, Marten, Jones, ajtid Scott, he is appointed to arrange Army matters before the impending Irish Campaign, that all may go efficiently there, and at the same time be safe at home. On March 5 th, he, with the Committee for the Affairs of the Admiralty and Navy, is to consider the expense of preparing the "St. George," "James," "Vanguard," " Swiftsure," " Rainbow," " Henrietta Maria," " Unicorn," and " Lion," iand to see how soon they can be ready, " the generals of the fleet [Blake, Dean, and Pop- ham] to meet the Committee to-morrow for settling the above-mentioned affair." March lizth, comes the formal appointment of the Committee for the Navy, Sir Henry Vane, Colonel Warton, and Alderman Wilson being named " to sit daily on these affairs and to report to the Council." March 13th, Vane, Whitlocke, and others are constituted the Commit- tee on Alliances. Vane is mentioned as reporting the state of preparation of the ships, " with particu- lars wheire they were and when they would be ready ; also .an estimate of the charges." At the end of March we find him on the Committee for Irish busi- ness, second on the list, with Cromwell third ; and on the 27th of April, with his old colleague Sir William Armyne, of the days of the Solemn League and Cov- enant, also with Cromwell, and Lisle, he is " to con- sider in what condition we stand in reference to 336 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. Scotland." April 9, Cromwell, Vane, and Alderman Wilson are appointed to treat with the Common Council of London for borrowing £ 1 20,000 for the Irish Campaign.* April 23d, he is on a committee to confer with the Parliament concerning the export of gold and silver. May i8th, no doubt as leading member of the Committee on Alliances, he reports from the Council to Parliament the murder at the Hague of Dr. Dorislaus, the ambassador sent by the new government to Holland, who was stabbed at once upon arriving by refugee Royalists, at the Swan Inn. Again, on committees always, he sits " on the riots at York," on " the distemper at Oxford," " to consider how the price of coal for the poor may be brought down," " to consider as to the best manner of searching the lodgings of thieves." On July 28th, it is ordered " that the Trust formerlie exercised by ye M° of ye Ordnance of England bee putt into a Comittee of ye Councell [Vane one] and they are to use all possible dilligence to provide Armes, Amuni- con, and all other necessarie provisions of warre at equall and reasonable prices at Convenient dayes of payment for the service of this Comonwealth, and they are to consult with whom they shall think fitt for the better carrying on of this service," August 23d, a note is dispatched to certain tardy agents; " Sir Harry Vane wonders you should boggle in cutting elm timber in Theobald's park, as you are empowered thereto by Parliament, and wishes you to go in hand with speed." By reading on the yellow page such abbreviated * Whitlocke, iii. 11. I649-J THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 337 jottings, one gets some notion of the energy with which the stout hearts set to work at their task^ and sees in the thick of everything Vane, busy about things large and small: the management of finances, the fitting out of hosts, as well as the sanitary con- dition of Oxford, — the hostile attitude of Scotland, Holland, and Ireland, as well as searching the lodg- ings of London thieves ; above all he is busy with the making of a great Navy. Meantime, in July, the only man in the group to whom he stood second in power and influence,' Cromwell, departed with Ire- ton and his 12,000 troops for Ireland. They reached it in August. The story of that terrible campaign would here be out of place. Cromwell " showed' no quarter in the name of ultimate mercy." ^ Royalism was dashed into insensibility as by a Titan's mace. For the Commonwealth the case was desperate, and they fought like desperate men. All was sharp and sudden as by a bolt from heaven. The mighty Oliver was at home again in the following May, with his arm bare for further smiting. While the result of the Irish campaign was doubt- ful through the summer and fall, a heavy weight of anxiety hung over the little band whose post was at Westminster. It was rare for more than twelve to be present at the Council of State, and some- times there was barely a quorum : Parliament, too, dwindled ; but both Parliament and Council increased and put on a bolder face as good tidings came in at last. In October, an " Engagement" was drawn up 1 Ranke : History of England, iii. 75. Godwin, iii. 31. ' Masson, iv. 11 2. 338 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1649. as follows : " I do declare and promise that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England as the same is established, without a King or a House of Lords." This was at first intended only for Parliament, but was extended until, from the be- ginning of the new year, its acceptance was required of all, as that of the Solemn League and Covenant had been required in the years before. The Com- mittee on Alliances, undeterred by the fate of Doris- laus, made constant effort to establish friendly rela- tions with foreign powers. For the ambassadors it was perilous employment; and Ascham at Madrid also fell under the daggers of Royalist refugees. Men, however, were found to go ; among others Charles Vane, a younger brother of Sir Harry, whose post was at Lisbon. To the great Committee for the Admiralty and Navy other members had been added, but Vane was more than ever here the guid- ing mind. I copy from the " draft " of Gualter Frost the following entry of December 4, which I decipher with some difficulty, as his pen tries to keep pace with the tongues of the Council busily wagging about him. "4 December 1649. That a Itr bee written to Coll. Blake to lett him know that this Council hath pitcht upon him as ye person whom they intend to send against P. Rupert which they have resolved here to ye end yt by their staying for their meeting together either in London or any place delayes may not be occasioned to let him know that hee is to re- side at Plymouth untill all things shall bee readie for his setting forth, and ye meane time ye Irish I649-] THE RUMP AGAINST THE WORLD. 339 squadron may doe service in ye Station to which they are appointed." Blake, as we have seen, had been selected for sea service, together with Dean and Popham, almost at once after the constituting of the Council. Since then he had been getting his sea-legs, an acquisition not exactly easy for him, one imagines, fifty-years-old landsman as he was, who never until now had set his foot upon a deck. His opportunity had not yet come, but was now not far off. Ever and anon in the midst of business immedi- ately pressing comes a hint that the work of settling the nation upon a better foundation is by no means forgotten. The committee, at the head of which stood Vane, charged to furnish " heads for discus- sion " with regard to what should be the constitution of the new Parliament, when at length the long wished -for time should arrive at which the Rump might safely lay down its responsibility, met often, though the notes of deliberations are unfortunately lost. As yet, plainly, the time had not come when a change could be made. So this first year of the Commonwealth, the lead- ing occurrence of which, after the beheading of Charles, is the great Irish campaign, draws to an end. England was under the Rump and the Coun- cil of State. " Two very compact bodies, but they grasped a world of business. In the MS. Order- Books of the Council of State for the period, and in the printed Journals of the Commons, what a mass of considering, debating, and deciding meets one, and over what a miscellany of topics ! Commu- 340 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [i6jo. nications with Cromwell, and constant care for sup- plies to him, in the first place; but how much be- sides! Private Bills and Public Bills; ist, 2d, and 3d readings of each. . . . Acts and Resolutions ranging over every possible subject, from the Propa- gation of the Gospel to the Customs of Sugar, Silks, Pepper, and Tobacco, and the protection of the home-trade in Hat-bands : such is the amazine medley. Always one sees Parliament in front and facing the public, but always the Council of State at the back, managing through manuscript and by re- ports and recommendations conveyed to the House." ^ At home, disaffection was everywhere : abroad, there was no quarter of the compass from which storm did not threaten. With knitted brows and lips compressed the Independents faced it all. Milton having finished the " Tenure of Kings, and Magis- trates," wrote in his new office the " Iconoclastes," the image which he tried to break being the " Eikon- basilike," — that and the noble " Defensio Populi Anglicani." At the heart of all the effort, second only to Cromwell in power and prestige, is young Sir Harry Vane. * Masson, iv. 1 14. CHAPTER XV. DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. The 1 2th of February and one or two days follow- ing were occupied with the nomination of the new Council of State. Things were to continue under the old order. On the gth of January, Vane, as chair- man of the Committee for determining the succes- sion of Parliaments, had reported a reform bill, recommending that the new House should be consti- tuted substantially upon Ireton's plan. Possibly he himself was ready to try the experiment of a change ; * but after a debate of some days, the House resolved that the infant Moses must still be nursed by his own mother. Of the former Council, thirty-seven were re-elected, to whom five new names were added. One hundred and eight members were present in the House, the largest number since the execution of the King. The name of Old Sir Harry Vane was pro- posed, but he failed of election, — a fact over which the present biographer, mindful of the confusions sure to come about in Gualter Frost's record, desires to express his joy. February 23d, the oath of se- crecy was taken by the new Council, each in turn rising and reading the oath for himself in an audible ^ Forster, Life of Vane, 307 etc. / 342 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1650. voice, while the rest sat uncovered.^ Though the successes in Ireland had increased somewhat the at- tendance at Parliament, adherents to the present order came in slowly. The sailors, in especial, were ill-affected, only retained, so many thought, by high pay ; and it was regarded as very doubtful whether Blake and his fellows, who had blockaded Rupert in Kinsale, on the Irish coast, then afterwards followed him to the shore of Portugal, could ever bring their crews to fight the " revolted ships." Bradshaw de- clared that " with all the fair and foul means they could use, not one Cavalier was heartily converted to them ; " and according to the report of a Royalist which apparently had been intercepted on its way to the continent, Vane said to some one with whom he dined, " that they were in a far worse state than ever they have yet been ; that all the world was and would be their enemies ; that the Scots had left them, that their own Army and Generals were not to be trusted, that the whole kingdom would rise and cut their throats upon the first good occasion, and that they knew not any place to go to be safe." ^ The untrustworthy General whom Vane had in mind may be believed to have been Lord Fairfax, who, always lukewarm since the coming in of the Rump, withdrew this year to await in private life the return of the Stuarts. What danger impended from the north, we must now consider. March 26th, the Council orders' that Sir Henry Vane and others " confer with the Lo. Generall about 1 Green's Calendar, preface. * Order-Boaks : Draft. * Ibid., May 10. 1 l6so.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 343 the present state of affairs and It him know what in- formations are received from Scotland, and of their readiness to invade England, and to comunicate to him what resolutions have been taken for a force to be ready to take the field. And to consider with his Lsp what place he may best be with some pt of these forces in order to look to the saftee of ye Comon- wealth against all impressions from any place what- soever that may be made upon it, and they are to ac- quaint him with what intelligence the Comonwealth has from any place concerning those affairs." " The committee that meets with the Lord generall " is full of business as the spring advances, at length on the 3d of May causing the Council to order the preparation of an army of 15,000 men for the Scotch Campaign, to consist of horse, foot, and dragoons. Through- out the month the jottings of Gualter Frost are fairly sulphurous with " Amunicon," " Backs, breasts, and potts ^ " are provided for a vast host of troopers : also, twenty thousand horse-shoes ; while " bandoleers, snaphances, pikes, and bullets," in adequate numbers are to be made ready for the foot. As Vane is first on the Army Committee of the Council, so he is first on the Navy Committee, which with equal particular- ity provides for the fleet and watches over all its action. " We appointed six new frigates to be built this summer, and for furnishing them with guns, have treated with Mr. Brown, the gun-founder, to furnish one hundred and eighty guns of such kind as upon Conference with the carpenters of those frigates and others, we have thought fitting." " The ' Headpieces. 344 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1650. "Hart "frigate, being at Harwich, and most of her offi- cers being on shore, the company cut the cable and carried away the ship, which they are Uke enough to make use of to infest the seas and interrupt trade. We look upon this negligence as a very great breach of duty, for which they deserve to be proceeded against with all severity, for prevention of like at- tempts." An order follows to pursue and punish the mutineers. The sailors look to Vane's commit- tee to stop abuses. Popham writes to. him from before Lisbon, where he is watching Rupert : " Our provisions fall out to be extremely b^d ; of eight months beef and pork in this ship, there was not a fortnight's meat fit to eat: the 'Andrew' is the same, and that part of the victuals that was last provided at Plymouth. The victuallers send word they very much fear it, as it was saved in so hot a season of the year. I hope we shall make our provisions hold > out as long as we shall be able to stay here, for we ride in the open sea just as we did at Kinsale, and when the winter comes on we must expect to be forced from hence. There is scarce a ship here but complains of some great defect or other, — masts, sails, and rigging, spent or wrong, and many of ex- traordinary leakage ; but the Lord, I hope, will carry us on through the work."- ^ How could the prospect have been darker! In the nation, the vast majority secretly hostile ; in the Army, disaffection in the ranks and coolness in the high places; in the Navy, mutinous crews upon un- seaworthy and ill-provisioned ships ; in the outside * Green's Calendar. i6so.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 345 world no friendly voice or hand ! If however in men like Vane and Bradshaw the heart sinks, it is not to a submergence under discouragement, but to a new level of stubborn resolution. Naturally, the friends of the young King saw little unpropitious in the skies, in spite of the victories at Dublin, Drogheda, and Wexford. Ireland for the time was lost to them, but Scotland was enthusiasti- cally Royalist. It had proclaimed Charles at once upon news of his father's death. Since then, Scottish emissaries had constantly besought him to trust him- self to them. June 23, he arrived in Scotland with a brilliant and hopeful retinue. Before landing, he won all by signing the Covenant, more than had been asked or expected of him. The Scottish Parliament appointed a great executive committee, at the head of which was Argyle, once the intimate of Cromwell and Vane, but now their foe. An army of 23,000 was put in the field, at the head of which nominally was that same Earl of Leven who had fled so pre- maturely from Marston Moor. The real commander, however, was David Leslie, the splendid soldier who had saved Cromwell at the White Syke, and ruined Montrose at Philiphaugh. Cromwell was in Eng- land May 31. His army was ready for him, thanks to the Council of State. Backs, breasts, and potts were not wanting to the troopers. Bandolier, snap- hance, and pike were at hand for the foot. Before June had ended the twenty thousand horse-shoes were clattering northward, the infantry close at hand, the whole force pervaded with Cromwell's fierce enthusiasm. 346 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1650. On July 22, the border was crossed, and the 1 1,000 Ironsides faced 23,000 Scots. It was really far worse than at Preston. The odds, in the two cases, against the Independents were about equally great. Now, however, there was no such discord in the opposing host as had crippled Hamilton; and David Leslie, able and cautious in strategy as he was vigorous in actual battle, was as formidable an opponent as the world could then furnish. Luckily for the good cause, he was impeded in his action by a committee of the Scottish Parliament and Kirk, whose wisdom in warfare was not at all proportioned to their zeal. Whoever goes northward to Edinburgh, following the coast, traverses the scene of this very memorable campaign. The train takes you now quickly by Copperspath, a gorge then difficult, which Leslie blocked behind Cromwell, skilfully cutting off his retreat by land. From Arthur's Seat along the shore of the Frith of Forth to the ocean, the armies manoeu- vred, the crafty Scot, with headquarters in what is now the new town of Edinburgh, adhering to strong positions and refusing to be tempted to battle, while the invaders wore themselves out in vain marches and consumed their provisions. The Fabian policy was most effective; and at the beginning of September, Cromwell, cooped up in Dunbar on the coast, depen- dent on ships in the oiifing for food, with the exulting Scots, more than twice his number, on advantageous ground close at hand, his own men dropping fast through sickness, had scarcely a foothold in the coun- try he had'come to subdue. If he fell, the cause must fall. His great soul was never wrapped in deeper i6so.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 347 shadow. Out of the gloom he thus wrote to Hasel- rig, not now at Westminster, but with sword on thigh at Newcastle, in command of the friendly garrison nearest to the men in danger. " To Sir Arthur Haselrig, Governor of Newcastle : ^ These. " Dunbar, 2d September, 1650. Dear Sir — We are upon an engagement very diflficult. The Enemy hath blocked up our way at the Pass at Copperspath, through which we cannot get without almost a miracle. He lieth so upon the Hills that we know not how to come that way with- out great difficulty ; and our lying here daily con- sumeth our men, who fall sick beyond imagination, I perceive, your forces are not in a capacity for present release. Wherefore, whatever becomes of us, it will be well for you to get what forces you can together ; and the South to help what they can. The business nearly concerneth all Good People. If your forces had been in a readiness to have fallen upon the back of Copperspath, it might have occasioned sup- plies to have come to us. But the only wise God knows what is best. All shall work for Good. Our spirits are comfortable, praised be the Lord — though our present condition be as it is. And indeed we have much hope in the Lord ; of whose mercy we have had large experience. Indeed do you get together what forces you can against them. Send to friends in the South to help with more. Let H. Vane know what I- write. I » Carlyle. 348 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [i6jo, would not make it public, lest danger should accrue thereby. You know what use to make hereof. Let me hear from you. I rest, Your servant, Oliver Cromwell." " Let H. Vane know what I write." Vane, then, was the one man in England to whom Cromwell could turn at such a time to rally forces for his suc- cor; or, in case of his destruction, to gather what strength remained for another effort. Who can read the story of Dunbar, Carlyle has told it for all time, without a quicker drawing of the breath ! The fatal coming of the Scots from the high Doon Hill into the low ground, watched by Cromwell and Lambert from the garden of Brocks- mouth House : the hasty counselling between them and Monk, as darkness comes on : the perception of the mistake which Leslie declared was due to the meddling of the civilians by whom his action, was hampered : the resolve to profit by it with the first gray of dawn : the waiting through the night, while " the hoarse sea moans bodeful, swinging low and heavy against those whinstone bays ; the sea and the tempests are abroad, all else asleep but we, and there is One that rides on the wings of the wind." The moment arrives. " The moon gleams out, hard and blue, riding among hail-clouds; and over St. Abb's Head, a streak of dawn is rising. . . . The trumpfets peal, the cannons awaken all along the line : ' The Lord of Hosts ! The Lord of Hosts ! ' On, my brave ones, on ! " Lambert led the headlong charge. Monk i6so.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 349 had his share, and sturdy Pride purged in his own fashion a good bit of Scotch hillside till it was as clean of Presbyterians as the benches of the House of Commons. Whalley, with his horse slain, and cut in the wrist, was in the fore-front; so, too, the man destined afterward to be his companion in his Amer- ican exile, the Regicide Goffe, who, this day, led Cromwell's own regiment of foot, and bore himself valiantly. More total overthrow was never known. Three thousand were slain ; ten thousand captured, thirty cannon, two hundred colors, fifteen thousand arms. Cromwell declared in his report to Parliament, " I do not believe we have lost twenty men." " The Lord-general made a halt and sang the CXVIIth Psalm, till our horse could gather for the chase. There we uplift it and roll it strong and great against the sky. ' O give ye praise unto tlie Lord, AH nati-ons that be ; Likewise ye people all, accord His name to magnify. For great to-us-ward ever are His loving kindnesses ; His truth endures for evermore : The Lord O do ye bless.' " The two hundred banners, dispatched to London, were hung in Westminster Hall, by the side of the banners taken at Preston. As the anxious watchers in Parliament and in the Council, with the mob of London scarcely held down about them by Skippon, received and hung up the trophies, won not simply by the prowess of the soldier, but by the work of the administrators who had recruited, trained, armed, 350 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1650. and fed him, who will deny to them the right to feel exultation, and to claim that they, too, had a part in the glory of the almost miraculous field of Dunbar ! Vane was in Cromwell's thoughts in his joy as well as his distress. September 4th the glorious soldier wrote to his wife : " My Dearest, I have not leisure to write much. But I could chide thee that in many of thy letters thou writest to me, that I should not be unmindful of thee and thy little ones. Truly, if I love you not too well, I think I err not on the other side much. Thou art dearer to me than any creature ; let that suffice. The Lord hath showed us an exceeding mercy : who can tell how great it is ! My weak faith hath been upheld. I have been in my inward man marvellously sup- ported ; — though I assure thee I grow an old man, and feel infirmities of age marvellously stealing upon me. Would my corruptions did as fast decrease! Pray on my behalf in the latter respect. The par- ticulars of our late success Harry Vane, or Gilbert Pickering will impart to thee. My love to all dear friends. I rest thine. Oliver Cromwell." ^ The note implies that Vane was intimate in Crom- well's home. Pickering was his associate in the Council of State, and both would thus be in posses- sion of the full tidings which had been sent from the field. One can suppose the countenance of Vane, so severely grave in his portrait as if it seldom had anything to face but terrible peril and difficulty, soft- ening into smiles as he talked with the wife of his dear friend about the marvellous deliverance which the Lord had granted to her husband and the cause. 1 Carlyle. i6so.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 351 In spite of Dunbar, it was far from being the case that all danger was over. The defeated chiefs of the Scots withdrew northward with the wreck of their army and the young King. Though they left the Lowlands to the invaders, they held the North, and with true Scotch grit strengthened and reorganized their force for further resistance. In the winter Cromwell fell ill, remaining disabled for the most part until June, his condition being such at times that the gravest fear was felt. The wars had devel- oped a company of splendid captains. Though Fair- fax was in retirement, Ireton was in Ireland ; old Skippon still was well able to cope with disaffection in London ; Harrison with fine capacity kept Eng- land in order; while with Cromwell himself, Lambert, Monk, and Fleetwood were as intrepid and skilful as the lieutenants who at a later time surrounded the great Corsican, perhaps the only peer of the Puritan hero. All felt, however, that Cromwell could not be spared. The strong man, sick wellnigh unto death at Edinburgh, was the object of heart-felt praying in the ranks of the Ironsides and everywhere among the Honest Party, All was likely to go wrong if he were lost. Though Dunbar had made impression abroad, no substantial friends were as yet won. Friendship with Holland was especially desired. In a portion of Holland sympathy with the Independents was strong. There, too, toleration was cherished — there, indeed, it had been born ; there, too, was a Republic, and aspirations for popular freedom were ardent. The Stadth older, however, was son-in-law of the 352 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1651. beheaded Charles ; and he and his party, the Orange faction, were hostile to the Commonwealth, shelter- ing Charles II, and suffering Holland to be used as the base whence England might be assailed. Just here the Stadtholder died, and the Commonwealth, believing the time favorable, sent a magnificent em- bassy tp the Hague,'^in the hope of making a close bond with their neighbor state.^ Cromwell and Vane had early entertained as bold a thought as this, of making a firm union between the two countries. " Faciamus eas in gentem unam" was a phrase used in their intimate communications with the Dutch leaders. St. John, now chief justice of the Common Pleas, who had taken little part in public life since 1648, was selected to be the principal figure of the mission, and the public resources were strained to produce an imposing effect. St. John and his asso- ciate, Strickland, in the spring entered the Hague with a train requiring twenty-seven coaches, while two hundred and forty-six attendants followed on foot. Everything possible was said and done to conciliate friends. There was no good result: the coaches were hooted in the streets, the windows of the Englishmen were broken, scuffles took place be- tween their servants and the people. The envoys themselves feared assassination. Refugee English Royalists were, indeed, the leaders, but the Orange party abetted them ; and even the Republican Dutch were not ready for an alliance which should unite the two countries. After three months' effort the envoys left in June, St. John declaring ominously : ' Godwin, iii. 372 etc. i6si.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 353 " He saw they were waiting to see how Scotland would come out. Cromwell would soon finish that ; then they would be sorry at having rejected the offers." Cromwell was indeed once more in the saddle in June, and things were pressed ; but the young King, at bay in the North, could not be reached. A stout army encircled him, and among the chiefs were not only David Leslie, but other good soldiers, Cavaliers, as well as the Covenanters who in the earlier time had won fame fighting for the Houses. At length, while Cromwell was working hard to get at them from the flank, a bold move was put into execution by the Scots which apparently surprised him, and which perhaps only he could have successfully met. Breaking sud- denly from his fastness, the King with all his host rushed southward for England, leaving Cromwell far behind. War was to be carried into Africa. It was the last day of July, and in less than a week a great force, far more dangerous than the army of Hamilton three years before, was pouring past Car- lisle by the old road into Cumberland, Westmore- land, and Lancashire. Far and wide the country was summoned to the side of the King. A thrill went through the heart of each old Cavalier, — of every stubborn Presbyterian also, who hated the rule of the Sectaries witji its toleration inspired of the Devil, — of every Catholic, who saw in Charles the son of the Catholic Henrietta, and could reason- ably hope that a turn in the King's favor would bring out good for Rome. From the North the King swept fast into the Midlands. There was no power to resist him. The King had " come to enjoy 354 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1651. his own again." The disaffection, held down only through fear, was seething everywhere. On August 2 2d, three weeks only from distant Stirling, Charles, 20,000 strong, marched into the city of Worcester. But the King's host had anxieties. Down through the same summer landscape, how- ever, by parallel roads, swift as if their feet were winged, had poured the Ironsides. Through Ber- wick, southward, a pause beneath the walls of York, past Nottingham, till the three spires of Coventry pricked the sky before them ; then at Warwick cut- ting the road along which the Roundheads nine years before had marched to Edgehill. The King had been in Worcester but a week, when the pickets reported Cromwell at hand with 30,000 men. It was well that Cromwell's host was strong, for the Council of State had word at this time that a force in aid of the King from Holland, under the Duke of Lorraine, was expected on the coast of Suffolk.^ On the eve of the " Crowning Mercy " of Worcester, let us look again at the Order Books 6f the Council of State. In a struggle so earnest as that which the Inde- pendents were waging, one naturally wonders whence came the sinews for such a war. The Common- wealth was a liberal paymaster. From Cromwell, who in the Irish campaign demanded ;^8,ooo besides the usual Lord Lieutenant's salary, down to the crews of the fleet, the Council took care that all useful ser- vants should be handsomely salaried; and the man- agement of the finances was, as always, a matter of ^ Bisset, vol. ii. 183 etc. i6si.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 355 the highest moment. The sources of revenue, be- sides the ordinary taxes, and the excise which had been established by Pym, were the compositions of Royalists, and sequestrations of property owned by them and by the Church. Malignants were fined heavily, and in the case of obstinate Cavaliers, whole- sale confiscation took place. The Crown lands, those belonging to other members of the royal family, the lands and revenues of Bishops, Deans, and Chapters, were unsparingly taken. Small respect was shown to the Cathedrals : their roofs were stripped of lead and copper, and if the stones could have brought a price, the Puritan would have been restrained as lit- tle by any regard for art, as he was by any sentiment of reverence, from levelling them all to the ground. The timber of the royal parks went into the hulls that Vane was building for Blake ; and the parks themselves, if Vane could have had his way, would have gone, as we shall see, to help the cause. The exactions of resources from dissentients was often rude enough : in the circumstances, however, it can- not be charged that there was rapacity, and there is little evidence of a misappropriation of means to private ends. Vane, from the opening of the Commonwealth, seems to have been scarcely less at the front in finan- cial management than elsewhere. Business was al- ways done by committees, the wish being, as has been before stated, to avoid in such critical times per- sonal responsibility. In connection with any impor- tant financial act, several names are given in the Order Books with that of Vane ; but knowing, as the 356 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1651. reader does by this time, how the leadership of the man always asserted itself, in whatever circle he stood, no one can doubt that here, too, his influence was paramount. At once upon the formation of the Council, April 23, '49, he is one of the committee to confer with Parliament about the exportation of gold and silver ; and he goes, as we have seen, to the city to negotiate a loan for the Irish exigencies. Next year, April 1 3th, when the campaign of Dunbar is preparing, Vane reports to Parliament the want of money for carrying on the weighty affairs of the Commonwealth, and desires as a thing absolutely necessary an order for its provision, to supply the present strait ; again, in August, he is deputed to stir up Parliament for a supply of money for Cromwell, and is constantly active in the sequestration of Church lands. For the Ordnance and for the Army Vane is also in the foreground ; thought, too, is given to small affairs, the bringing of water from Hyde Park to White- hall, and the restraining of the resort of people to the houses of ambassadors, to hear mass. Before Wor- cester, the Order Books give evidence of much anx- iety in the Council, and during the long period when Cromwell lay ill, of careful provision against danger from Charles, still unconquered in the North. Vane is at the front, in fact, in all management of martial affairs, his committee, on January 1 3th, taking " speedy account of the militia in England and Wales before danger from the North," and February loth, being ap- pointed to confer with Harrison, commanding south of the border, " concerning the suppression of those i6si.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 357 in arms in Yorkshire." March ist, he is not only first on the Naval Committee, but also first on that " for the affairs of Ireland and Scotland : " on the 3d he is added to the " Committee which meets with the offi- cers of the Army ; " and on the 1 5th receives a report from Larhbert, apparently conveying secret intelli- gence. April 7th, " So much of the Ld generall's let- ter to Sir Hen. Vane as concerns the draught-horses and a further supply of hay, referred to the Irish and Scotch Committee." On the 13th of June, Vane, for the Council, writes a grateful message to " Dr. God- dard, for the care by him shown in Cromwell's sick- ness ; " and on August 1 3th, he receives a letter from Cromwell, then on his forced march southward after the King. Just before the battle of Worcester the Council is all alive with preparations, plainly in great fear of a general rising in the King's favor, which no doubt was thoroughly well-grounded. A somewhat curious scrap of correspondence be. tween Vane and Cromwell belongs to these disturbed days, which indicates that although Sir Harry's grap-» pie with the sternest facts was at this time so fierce and constant, yet he found time for the abstruse mus- ings of which he was fond — a strange predilection in one who had such a grasp of the practical, a side of his character which must be hereafter illustrated. Cromwell seems to have been dazed, like his contem- poraries generally, and like the after-world, in fact, by Vane's unintelligibilities. Calling Oliver " Brother Fountain," and himself " Brother Heron," names as- sumed for their familiar intercourse, while Cromwell is in the midst of the fret and sweat of his forced 358 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1651. march, after the Scots had eluded him/ Vane writes, August 2d. " Brother Fountain can guess at his brother's meaning," he says, referring to troubles in the Council of State, and begging him not to believe ill-natured reports as to Brother Heron. Be " assured he answers your heart's desire in all things, except he be esteemed, even by you, in principles too high to fathom ; which one day, I am persuaded will not be so thought by you, when by increasing with the in- creasings of God, you shall be brought to that sight and enjoyment of God in Christ which passes knowl- edge." For a short time there is little mention of Sir Harry in the records, and we may suppose that he was overcome by illness, as in the summer of Preston. How much his presence was missed, this note of the Council shows, of August 18 : "In the present state of affairs, your presence and assistance would be very useful. Repair hither with what speed you may." His absence cannot have been long, for on the 2 2d *he is sent by the Council, with Whitlocke, to the wife of Popham, " to condole with her on the loss of her husband," who had died while in service ; and September ist, he reports to Parliament "letters con- taining news and intelligence." How stern was Vane's fibre is indicated by an event of this summer. Evidence was discovered in "Scotland of a correspondence between the King and certain London Presbyterians, ministers and laymen, most prominent among whom was the Rev. Chris- topher Love, the young and popular minister of St. * Milton Papers, by NickoUs, pp. 78, 79, quoted by Masson, vi. 22. 1 65 1.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 359 Lawrence Jewry. They were at once arrested by the Council of State, and condemned to death. Love's case excited great interest : he was eloquent and de- voted, and the most moving petitions poured in for his life. He had been active in the conspiracy, hi's house having been the meeting-place ; but Parliament was nearly equally divided. To the strong disposition to treat leniently the pulpit favorite, was opposed the conviction that in some way the Presbyterian clergy must be struck with terror, and of this sentiment Vane was the leader. Upon a division as to whether he should have a respite for a month. Vane was a teller for the negative, a fact showing his interest in the matter. By a narrow majority the respite was granted, but Vane pressed the necessity of severity. Cromwell was strongly urged to intercede, and Vane, about July 22d, writes to oppose it. He is daily con- firmed in his opinion that Love and his brethren " do still retain their old leaven," disingenuously working on the weak side of the government to escape with- out any pledge to the Commonwealth, and to be at full liberty still to treat it as an unlawful magistracy. They are calculating much on Cromwell, making sure' that he will cast his influence on the side of clemency against " brother Heron who is taken for a back friend to the Black Coats." Vane's policy, prevailed. Love was executed August 2 2d, the very day the King entered Worcester. The great figure in all these scenes is the mighty Oliver no doubt. His sword lightens and smites, and the foe is scattered. But even to an Oliver are necessary those behind, who shall prepare and store 360 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1651. the power which he is to discharge, and in the fore- front of these always and everywhere is Vane. After the hot Rights we have witnessed, Worcester, Sep- tember 3d, anniversary of Dunbar, was but child's- play. There was no general uprising, for woe thrice- told was threatened by the Commonwealth, ranked and pitiless: the Scots were disheartened and out- numbered ; the day was shortly decided. For the last time on English soil that day the Ironsides smote in wrath. Here and there a fugitive, one of them the young King, escaped. For the most part, at nightfall the invaders were slain or captive. The host of the Duke of Lorraine, expected from Hol- land, never appeared. What private message may have gone from Vane to his heart's brother in that hour of triumph, that " Crowning Mercy," which established the good cause, we do not know. That Vane poured out his soul may well be believed, and also that he sought Elizabeth, Cromwell's tenderly loved wife, with all the splendid details of her hus- band's triumph. On September 9th, as leader of the Council of State, he reports for the commissioners sent by Parliament to the Lord General, the follow- ing instructions : ^ — " You are, in the name of the Parliament, to con- gratulate his lordship's good recovery of health, after his dangerous sickness ; and to take notice of his unwearied labors and pains in the late expedi- tion into Scotland, for the service of this Common- wealth ; of his diligence in prosecution of the enemy, when he fled into England ; of the great hardships ^ Commons Journal. I65I-3 DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 36 1 and hazards he hath exposed himself unto, and pai> ticularly in the late fight at Worcester ; of the pru- dent and faithful managing and conducting through- out this great and important affair which the Lord from heaven hath so signally blessed & crowned with so complete and glorious an issue : of all which you are .to make known to his lordship, the Parlia- ment have thought fit by you, to certify their good acceptance and great satisfaction therein : and for the same you are to return in the name of the Par- liament and Commonwealth of England, their most hearty thanks : as also to the rest of the officers and soldiers, for their great and gallant services done to this Commonwealth. You are likewise to let his lordship know, that since by the great blessing of God upon his lordship's and the army's endeavors, the enemy is so totally defeated, and the state of affairs as well in England as Scotland, such as may very well dispense with his lordship's continuance in the field, they do desire his lordship for the better set- tlement of his health, to take such rest and repose as he shall find most requisite and conducing thereto : and for that purpose to make his repair to and resi- dence at, or near this place ; whereby also the Par- liament may have the assistance of his presence in the great and important consultation for the further settlement of the Commonwealth which they are now upon." While Cromwell had been gaining the victory of Worcester, Monk, whom he had left behind in Scotland, had so thoroughly subdued the enemies of the Commonwealth left in the North, that no foe 362 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1651. remained in Great Britain. Ireton in October, by the capture of Limerick, demolished the last Irish strong- hold. The Commonwealth was embarrassed with its good fortune. What to do with the thousands, of prisoners, among whom were the most distingaished of their opponents, was a question difficult to settle. Magnanimity was at once shown. But three were executed ; and although some of the soldiers were sent as convict laborers to the collieries and fens, and, still harder, to the West Indies and West Afri- can coast, most of these, as well as of those higher in station, were suffered at last to return on easy conditions to their homes. Measures were taken to incorporate Scotland with the Commonwealth, a committee of eight being appointed to adjust the details, among whom, beside the brilliant soldiers Lambert, Monk, and Dean, who under Cromwell had been the main instruments of the subjugation, were St. John and Vane. It was no small conde- scension, thinks Godwin,^ that Vane and St. John were on this committee. The Order Books show that Vane was placed September i6th on the committee " to have power to dispose to plantations all the pris- oners and field officers;" and also, October ist, on the committee to report on what footing the Army should be placed. Before the Commissioners to Scotland could depart, there was other important business that must be noted. Let the reader recall here Ireton's " Agreement of the People," that admirable summary which, antici- pating so remarkably the reforms already gained and * Hist, of Common, iii. 319. l6si.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 363 Still in progress in England, and also all that is most essential in the American system, gave voice there in the seventeenth century to the Republicanism that had at last fought its way to the top. Just here, in the hour of triumph, Ireton, ablest and most stal- wart of the Ironsides, died of the plague in Ireland. We saw him first breasting Rupert's charge at Naseby till crippled by desperate wounds. Since then he has become Cromwell's confidant, adviser, bosom-friend, at last the husband of his daughter Bridget, and entrusted with the most difficult com- mand except that which Oliver reserved for himself. To speculate on what might have been is always futile, but it is reasonable to think that if Ireton could have survived Cromwell, his fine powers and immense authority among the Puritans might have brought to pass a better consummation than the Restoration. His death, in the midst of magnificent services, in the prime of his manhood, was a great blow to the Commonwealth, which he had such an influence in shaping. The house of Ireton, at Highgate, in North London, remains largely as he left it. Crom- well is said to have built it for him, and the apart- ments are curiously marked with the Cromwellian impress. Martial emblems stand out in relief from ceiling and chimney-piece, but finest is the massive staircase of oak in the centre of the house. The dark timbers are ruggedly hewn in various places with the symbols of war, and each post of the bal- ustrade is surmounted by a figure representing a Roundhead soldier. Pikeman, musketeer, and drummer, — trumpeter and dragoon, — ensign and 364 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1651. halberdier, — there stand the Ironsides, capped and corseleted, booted and spurred, carved out of their kindred oak under the eye of the mighty leader who called them into being. ,In the home thus decorated, Cromwell is said often to have sojourned with his daughter, and the man who is believed to have been the closest neighbor to his purpose. Upon Ireton's sumptuous interment in Westminster Abbey, rugged Ludlow poured out above him a comrade's • tribute in terms which have something of the heavy roll of a volley of honor. " If he could have foreseen what was done by them, he would certainly have made it his desire that his body might have found a grave where his soul left it, so much did he despise those pompous and expensive vanities, having erected for himself a more glorious monument in the hearts of good men, by his affection to his country, his abilities of mind, his impartial justice, his diligence in the public service, and his other virtues, which were a far greater honor to his memory than a dormitory amongst the ashes of Kings."* The great matter of doing away with the anoma- lous government and committing the country to a new Parliament, constituted on the general scheme of Ireton's Agreement of the People, had never been lost sight of. Vane had been all along the leading spirit of the committee, constituted at the outset of the Rump, for considering how Moses might best be 1 Memoirs, i. 384. Ludlow succeeded Ireton in the command in Ireland. i6si.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 365 taken out of his mother's care and put upon his own feet. On January 9, 1650, he makes the commit- tee's first report, but, as we have seen, it was felt that in the midst of so turbulent and deep a stream, horses could by no means be swapped. In the year that followed, the committee met more than fifty times, nothing decisive being done. September 16, 165 1, Cromwell appeared in Parliament for the first time for two years, and at once announced his ear- nest desire for a new Parliament and popular rep- resentation. In this, some writers^ think he acted with great duplicity, having already determined for a selfish purpose upon making himself supreme ruler. Others hold ^ that his sincerity here was perfect, as always, but that Vane's committee from the begin- ning had weakly paltered. A truer interpretation of the case is, that Vane and his friends were thor- oughly in earnest, and did all that at the time could be done, — that Cromwell too was equally honest and earnest. The committee invited the help of the great soldier whose weight now was so potent,^ and all cooperated most heartily in trying to reach a decision. The outcome, November 18, after much debate, was, that " the time for the continuance of this Parliament, beyond which they resolve not to sit, shall be the 3d of November, 1654." There should be no haste ; the disturbed country should be fully settled ; the jarring parties should be concil- 1 Forster, Vane, 310. Godwin, Vane's instructions to the Com- iii. 304, 305. mittee for congratulating the Lord 2 Carlyle, ii. 7. General after Worcester, p. 361. * See concluding sentence of 366 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1652. iated to each other; the details of the new polity should all be carefully arranged ; — all this before the great step was taken. Next day, for the third time, a Council of State was elected, the term of the Council for 1651 ex- piring by agreement December i, instead of going on until February. Cromwell was elected unani- mously, Vane nearly so. Robert Blake, now grow- ing famous, was among the twenty new members among the forty-one. Bradshaw, for three years President, ceased now to be so, it being arranged that henceforth no member should be president for more than one month. This having been accom- plished. Vane departed with his fellows for Scotland, one hopes finding some relief and recreation in the northern journey. The business of incorporation was managed with humanity and wisdom. Many of the Scotch acquiesced with cordiality in the meas- ure as the best issue practicable out of the troubles ; but most, probably, felt with the Rev. Mr. Blair of St. Andrews : " As for the embodying of Scotland with England, it will be as when the puir bird is embodied into the hawk that hath eaten it up."^ March 1 6th, Vane, evidently just returned, reports to Parliament the proceedings of the committee.^ In the Council of State, seven great standing Com- mittees performed the business : Ordnance, Admi- ralty and Navy, Ireland and Scotland, Examinations and Informations, Conference with Army-Officers, Law, and the Mint. The prominent men served on two or more of these Committees. We have seen I Masson, iv. 363. a Journal of Commons. l6S2.] DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 367 that in the previous years Vane's activity was not at all circumscribed : so at present. The Order-Books show that there was no direction in which his aid was not rendered. Parliament still continued small, the Long Parliament diminished to scarcely more than a tenth of the five hundred who had gathered at Westminster in 1640, though upon occasions of unusual interest more than a hundred could be con- vened. One may trace an uneasy feeling in both Council and Parliament under the great overshadow- ing personality that was now always close at hand. Cromwell's work as a soldier was done, one of the most extraordinary accomplishments of the sword since the world began. For the time being he min- gled little in 'public business, moving about White- hall, sometimes in soldier's dress, more often as an ordinary citizen in dark doublet and breeches and gray worsted stockings. If he looked into the Coun- cil Chamber, or sat down for a time " in an ordinary place as was his wont," in St. Stephen's, there was a flutter of deferential courtesy at his coming and going. He did little more than observe, while others acted. February 25th, a general amnesty was pro- claimed for all treasons committed up to the date of the battle of Worcester, the sole condition being the signing of an engagement " to be faithful to the Commonwealth as now established without King or House of Lords." Before such magnificent successes accompanied by such leniency, even Royalists began to doubt whether the Stuarts were essential to Eng- land, and adhesions to the Commonwealth became numerous. 368 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1652. Victory made vast impression abroad as well as at home. The Independent cannon had been heard on sea as well as land : Blake had shattered Rupert and shown himself with threatening broadsides in many a foreign port. The northern powers, Sweden at the head, had grown obsequious : Portugal became deferential, and Spain sought alliance : France, weak- ened by the Fronde, deprecated hostility : Holland felt the force of St. John's threat at the close of his unsuccessful mission of the previous year, followed up as it soon was by a noteworthy act of aggression, presently to be described. In the lull of conflict, attempts at a better order were made by Parliament in various directions. Law reforms were under- taken. The Army in particular, as Whitlocke puts it, had a " peek " at lawyers, and found a blunt spokes- man in old Pride, who had been heard " to wish, and almost to hope, that the lawyers gowns might all be hung up beside the Scots colors yet [the Preston and Dunbar trophies in Westminster Hall], and the lawyers selves, except some very small and most se- lect needful remnant, be ordered peremptorily to dis- appear from those localities and seek an honest trade elsewhere ! " ' Very interesting was the scheme presented by Independent ministers in February for a State Church, much less formal than Presbyterianism, and with a limited toleration for dissenters. That there should be any limitation to toleration, or any State Church, anything but absolute Voluntaryism, seemed to some an outrage, among others to Cromwell and * Carlyle, i. 471, 472. THE GREAT SEAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH, Note. This seal presents as Sovereign of England, not the figure of a King, but the Parliament in session in St. Stephen's. The design and motto are said, upon the authority of Whitlocke, to have been furnished by Henry Marten. i6s2.J DUNBAR AND WORCESTER. 369 Vane, the former of whom declared, " he had rather that Mahometanism were permitted among us, than that one of God's children among us should be per- secuted." A protest was made against the plan for a State Church, liberal as it was as compared with all previous schemes, and this protest is believed^ to have been written by no other than the American, Roger Williams. He was now again in England, much with Vane at his house in Charing Cross, and hand in glove with him and all th^ more advanced spirits of the time. His " Bloudy Tenent " ten years before had been one of the first announcements of the Tolerationists. At this time he followed it up with the " Bloudy Tenent yet more Bloudy by Mr. Cotton's Endeavour to wash it clean &c," and the " Hireling Ministry." Charles Vane, Henry's younger brother, also a noted man in those days, was prominent in making the protest. We find young . Sir Henry himself trying to shield the Catholics ^ from persecution, and also Unitarians.' His own strange, unintelligible faith, hereafter to be referred to, was as far from the one as the other, but liberty of conscience had become with him more than ever a cardinal principle. 1 Masson, iv. 397 note. . ' Lingard, xi. pp. 137, 179. ' Case of Biddle, Godwin, iii. CHAPTER XVI. BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. The lull in the battle-storm was but short. The Commonwealth was to test its strength in a foreign war, a wrestle of the fiercest, to which we must now turn. St. John, returning unsuccessful from Hol- land, was the main agent through whom Parliament was induced to pass the " Act of Navigation," a fa- mous measure which affected English history for two hundred years, and which had an important re- lation to events in our own Revolutionary War. The provisions of the act briefly were that all products from foreign lands should be conveyed to England either in British ships or ships of the country pro- ducing the merchandise. It was a heavy blow at the commerce of Holland, which at that time, while pro- ducing little, possessed the carrying trade of the world, an important part of which was the conveying to Eng- land of foreign merchandise. Not unreasonably the Commonwealth preferred to take into its own hands its own trade, out of the power of the neighbor, which, although nominally Republican and to some extent sympathizing with the Independent struggle, had so far, for the most part, offered aid and comfort to the Stuarts. The Dutch sought to arrive at some I6S2.] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 37 1 accommodation, and obsequious negotiators appeared in London, whose tone toward the Commonwealth was in marked contrast to the superciliousness with which the young Hercules had been treated before he had strangled the snakes about his cradle. But while the diplomats conversed, the nations drifted into war in spite of them. The sailors on both sides were full of fight. The sea of those days was a do- main which knew little of law. Isolated ships 'came to blows. Courtesies punctiliously exacted on the one side, the dipping of the ensign, or backing the top sail, were purposely neglected on the other. Blake at length fell into collision, off Dover, with Van Tromp, the Dutch champion, two squadrons heavily cannonading one another. Efforts at peace became hopeless. From the green-table at White- hall, discussion was adjourned to the broad blue field, where the voices were to be more thunderous. In this war of giants, Vane really more than any other is the central figure. Nothing in English story is more marvellous; not elsewhere in his career did Vane give such extraordinary evidences of power. Let us take a careful glance at these mildewed Order-Books, and see what help they will afford in giving definiteness to his image in this time. Immediately after the election of the third Council of State, Vane, December 2d, the day of organization, is put at the head of a large committee for manag- ing the affairs of Ireland and Scotland, and is also on committees to consider the obstructions of the Mint, to take care for preserving timber, and to con- sider the matter of giving audience to the ministers 372 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1652. of foreign princes. December 4th, he is put at the head of the Admiralty and Navy Committee as be- fore, and December 1 7th placed on a Committee for Trade and Foreign Affairs. Upon his return from his absence in Scotland, he is soon, April 2d, added to the Committee to meet the Dutch ambassadors, and to that on French affairs, and on May 14th he is on that charged with sending an ambassador to Turkey. On the 1 7th of May, Vane is chosen " to be Presi- dent of the Council until this day month." During that period he was the official head of the nation. It cannot be regarded, however, as a distinction, for as the year went>forward, obscure members of the Council are to be found in the same position, some- times twice over. The time of Vane's presidency was an important one. In that month fall Van Tromp's attack upon Blake in the Downs (the an- chorage between the Goodwin Sands and the coast of Kent), and the extraordinary embassy sent by the States General of Holland to make a last attempt at peace. June 8th, authority is given to receive the ambassador with great splendor and ceremony, which is accordingly done. The embassy is without result. The records now become filled with preparations for a tremendous war, every line giving evidence of the careful watch kept by the Council of State upon the affair, and the determination to guide all movements so far as possible from the centre. June i8th^ Blake is addressed : " We wrote you last night that we ap- proved of your fitting out the three Dutch men-of- war brought in by you ; and we now hear there is a fourth. We approve of that being fitted out also." 1652.] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 373 Blake is also commanded, a little later : " A constant correspondence is to be held between you and the Council, and between yourself and other parts of the fleet, by small vessels to be constantly sent between to give intelligence." Powder, cannon, provisions, stores of all kinds are cared for as the struggle deep- ens, the naval business absorbing the record almost completely. Vane's committee orders in August the " Sovereign," " Antelope," " Lion," " London," " Lit- tle President," and " Renown," fire-ship, to hasten away forthwith ; and in case they are not ready to sail, sharply examines the reasons. Men from In- goldsby's regiment at Dover are put on board the " Sovereign " to man her. Money from the sale of delinquents' estates is appropriated to the paying off of crews. Vane himself goes down to the fleet in October, we may suppose making his way on the ebb by sail and oar to Gravesend, to confer personally with Blake, and see with his own eye the craft to which the honor and safety of England are entrusted. As the war grows more terrible, through Vane's com- mittee thousands of soldiers are sent to the fighting- ships to take the place of the destroyed crews. Merit is promoted, inefficiency cashiered. The Admirals after battles write to Vane about the condition of their squadrons ; the recruiters report the tricks re- sorted to by men to avoid the sea service ; the sur- geons give evidence of the severity of the actions. After an engagement at which we shall presently look particularly. Surgeon Dan Whistler writes to Sir Henry Vane, Junior : " The scattered quarters, of the sick and wounded makes a difficulty. If some capa- 374 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1652. cious place, with good air, water, and convenience of landing, were procured, it would prevent their long exposure before they are received anywhere." Of Blake, who had been wounded. Whistler writes : " Gen. Blake, I hope, mends, but my hopes are checked by the maxim, ' De senibus non temere sperandum^ I trust the great physician's protection may be on him, and on all public instruments of our safety." Where in the rush of the war there is mention in the records of other business. Vane is found promi- nent as well as in the conduct of hostilities. Novem- ber 8th, he reports to the House a state of the several treasuries of this nation as represented to the Coun- cil. November 26th, he is to present to the House to-morrow the estimate of the charge of the land as well as the sea forces in the service. At the coming in of the new Council, at the beginning of December, to which he is elected nearly unanimously, his name stands first on the Committee for Ireland and Scot- land as well as for the Admiralty. He is prominent too in the management of Trade and the Plantations, of Diplomacy, and of Finance. No doubt the Generals and Admirals on the spot deserve the chief credit when great victories are gained. But who does not know that General and Admiral would be paralyzed if there were not be- hind them the energetic administrator ? What would Wolfe have been without the elder Pitt, what Nelson without the younger ? What Turenne and Luxem- bourg without Louvois and Colbert — what the mar- shals of a later time without Carnot } So in these years behind Blake stood Vane, as he had before i6sa] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 375 stood behind Cromwell. Back of all the shipbuild- ing, recruiting, cannon-founding, provisioning, stands at the centre, in the great days of the Common- wealth, Vane's committee. By their orders Blake, Dean, and Monk go to sea : the forests are felled : tar and cordage, powder and guns and canvas, are seized wherever they are to be had: merit is pro- moted, inefficiency cashiered, captains and crews that show the white feather sternly disciplined. Those were the most brilliant years of English history, and the great administrator of the period should have his place beside the sworded heroes, those who led the troop, and those who trod the deck. Vane's first biographer, Sikes, who had known him well, was but a purblind character, managing with ex- traordinary skill to avoid the mention in his account of all that is most interesting in the career of his hero. He does, however, contrive to assert ^ Vane's sagacity, energy, and self-sacrifice at this great pe- riod, and evidence abounds that he makes no exces- sive claim. " That he could conjecture and spel out the most reserved consults and secret drifts of for- eign Councils against us (which they reckoned as tacita, concealed till executed) the Hollanders did ex- perience to their cost." He had " a most happy dex- terity at making a war." He " heartily labored to . prevent a war with Holland," but being in " set him- self to make the best of it. . . . With five others he was appointed by Parliament to attend that affaire. • 1 Sikes, Life and Death of Sir lent me from the Harvard Library Henry Vane, Kt., p. 96 etc. The by Mr. Justin Winsor, belonged copy which I have used, kindly formerly to Carlyle. 376 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1652. Hereupon he became the happy and speedy contriver of that successful fleet that did our work in a very critical season, when the Hollander vapoured upon our Seas. . . . His report to the House as to the War-ships by him recruited, ordered, and sent forth in so little time, to find the enemy work, seemed a thing incredible." At the beginning of the war he resigned the Treasurership of the Navy, the recognized yield of which to the incumbent, in war-time, Sikes de- clares would have been ^20,000 a year.. " Parlia- ment gave him an inconsiderable something in lieu thereof, without his seeking." Sikes hints that he was at this time embarrassed. At the time of the Self-denying Ordinance he refunded half of his re- ceipts as Treasurer of the Navy. From first to last he showed the most perfect integrity and unselfish- ness, and was completely above bribes. Sikes is by no means alone among his contempo- raries in high praise of Vane. Ludlow is not less strong.-' By far the grandest testimony, however, is the sonnet of Milton, sent Vane, July 3d, which is given here, punctuation, italics, and capitals, pre- cisely as first printed. " Composed by a learned Gentleman, and sent him, July 3, 1652." VANE, young in years, but in sage Counsel old, Than whom a better Senatour ner'e held The helme of Rome, when Gowns not Arms repell'd The fierce Epeirot and the African bold. Whether to settle peace or to unfold The drift of hollow states, hard to be spell' d. Then to advise how war may best, upheld, Move by her two main Nerves, Iron and Gold 1 Memoirs, ii. 439. a Sikes, pp. 93, 94. I6S2.] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 377 In all her equipage : besides to know Both spiritual power and^civil, what each meanes, What severs each, thou hast learn't, which few have done. The bounds of either sword to thee we owe ; Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leanes In peace, and reckons thee her eldest Son." So spoke for Vane the man " whose soul was like a star and dwelt apart," now not recognized, for his finest splendors were as yet reserved. To the world he was the fierce pamphleteer by whose fulminations " more than anything else except the battle of Wor- cester, the foreign world had been awakened to the claims and strength of the Commonwealth, and Kings and other powers had been brought to it al- most on their knees." ^ The sonnet to Vane is con- temporary with the one to Cromwell, and though in the latter Cromwell is " our chief of men," the lan- guage applied to Vane is scarcely less strong. What impressive testimony that Milton, observing close at hand the transactions at the heart of things, sees in Vane such purity of character and magnificence of endowment ! It is worth while to spend a few mo- ments in analyzing the sonnet, especially since its long-drawn music, adapted to a generation thrice sifted and seasoned, makes it not altogether clear to the short-winded comprehension of our less stalwart time. Like the sonnet to Cromwell, that to Vane was immediately occasioned by the deep interest felt by Milton in the defeat of the plan for establishing a State Church. Note has been made of the measure and of the protest against it, penned perhaps by 1 Masson, iv. 428. 378 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1652. Roger Williams, and presented February loth of this same year. Milton in one sonnet adjures Crom- well to give his help here, and in the other recog- nizes with all admiration Vane's clear adhesion to Voluntaryism, the principle, the American principle it may be said, that State and Church must be dis- tinct, — that no sect should be privileged, — that the civil magistrate must lay no trammels upon religion. In the enthusiastic apostrophe with which the sonnet opens, the man of forty is invested in our eyes with that glamour of youth, which, circumstanced as he was, surrounded him long after the time when for most men youth has faded ; and in comparing him to the Roman senator a picture is suggested of the re- pelHng of force by dignity and moral strength rather than by weapons. " Thou hast learned, as few have done, what spiritual and civil power mean, and how they must be kept apart. To thee we owe the draw- ing of a clear line between the secular and the reli- gious, and therefore a discrimination of the bounds of either sword." As the verse proceeds, the great war-administrator falls under the poetic light, the pro- vider of iron and the provider of gold : we find em- phasized, too, that matchless astuteness (to which Milton takes no exception, however others may some- times hesitate) through which now the scheming of petty plotters is so effectually circumvented, now the underhand policy of great nations. H'ow beautiful the immortality to which Vane in the concluding line is uplifted, as the eldest son and the mainstay of Religion ! I6S2.] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 379 The biographer of Vane may be spared the labor of giving the details of the ocean war with Holland, but can properly afford his readers a glimpse of blue water. How could foreign nations look otherwise than askance upon a sight so portentous as the rise of the English Commonwealth ? France had never had more than the faintest semblance of popular govern- ment : it had been crushed out in Spain two hundred years before : it had disappeared in Italy with the Hohenstauffen in the thirteenth century : Germany, which the Thirty Years' War had left scarcely more than an ash-heap full of skeletons, was given over to brutish tyrants : Denmark was hostile : from the ec- centric Christina of Sweden no countenance could be expected. In Holland, indeed, there was sympa- thy, and it seemed hard enough that the Common- wealth should be forced to wage its first and hardest fight with Holland. It came about in this way. The stadtholder of Holland, the young William of Or- ange, who had married the eldest daughter of the beheaded Charles, not only ofifered an asylum to his brother-in-law, Charles II, but to a crowd of fugitive Royalists. The Orange or aristocratic party was too strong for the Republicans. When, therefore, the Commonwealth proposed a close league if not union with the Dutch, the idea was rejected. When it passed the Act of Navigation designed to take Eng- Hsh commerce out of the hands of the Dutch, Hol- land was greatly incensed. When, moreover, the English refused to allow to Holland such an empire of the sea as that they should not be recognized as masters in their own waters, war broke out, and 380 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. ' [1652. nothing more terrible has ever been seen upon the sea than the naval struggle which now ensued. The war broke out in May, 1652, and was entirely upon the ocean. Holland was then at the height of her power, by no means a laud of dull-witted, vege- tating people, as Americans too often suppose, bas- ing their notion upon the injurious caricatures of Washington Irving, but the glorious race which had made itself beyond all rivalry master of the deep. Cooped up in their little corner of Europe, beset both by nature and man, holding their hard- won ter- ritory against the waves by dikes, against man by hearts and arms as stout as ever belonged to heroes, they possessed more ships than all the rest of Europe put together, had founded colonies at the ends of the earth, and had the carrying-trade of the world. They had just baffled and brought to naught the might of Spain, though Spain was almost mistress of two hemispheres. What wonder that they entered into the conflict with the new-born power which the Ironsides had set up, with the highest hopes of success ! The face of the deep in . the seventeenth century was fraught with terror and mystery. To this day sailors are the most superstitious of men. Then, an uncanny population of dragons, monsters, and chi- meras dire filled earth, air, and ocean. Sands, shores, and desert wildernesses had their airy forms that syllable men's names. Every sailor " Learned when, beneath the tropic gale. Full swelled the vessel's steady sail, And the broad Indian moon her light Poured on the. watch of middle night, — i6s2.] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 38 1 What gales are sold on Lapland's shore, — How whistle rash bids tempests roar, — Of witch, of mermaid, and of sprite, And of the dread St. Elmo's light : Or of that phantom ship, whose form Shoots like a meteor through the storm ; When the dark scud comes driving hard, And lowered is every top-sail yard, And canvas wove in earthly looms, No more to brave the storm presumes ! Then mid the war of sea and sky, Top and top-gallant hoisted high, Full spread and crowded every sail. The Demon Frigate braves the gale ; And well the doomed spectators know The harbinger of wreck and woe ! " * The ocean too had other than phantom dangers. Laws which on the land had sway had little force upon the sea. Most sailors were more or less light-' fingered, taking with little ceremony wherever in their rovings they encountered those weaker than themselves ; and professed pirates abounded every- where. By every frequented Indian cape and strait lay the Malay proas. The Barbary freebooters roved the Mediterranean unchecked, and went far beyond the straits of Gibraltar. The western waters had their buccaneers, burying their booty upon des- olate sand-keys, then murdering upon the spot some negro or captive Spaniard, that his ghost, haunting the place, might frighten off all searchers. Old pic- tures give the seventeenth-century sailor a strange garb — a sort of kilt or petticoat like a Highlander, a striped shirt, a crimson cap, a knife always at his girdle, if not cutlass and pistols. Daring vagabonds they were, venturing with Frobisher and Hudson into * Rokeby, Canto II. 11. 382 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. Arctic ice, breasting tropic hurricanes, and coasting the lee-shores of far-off dangerous waters in the track of Drake and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, — their craft sonxetimes only half decked, scarcely larger than the launch which the modern liner carries housed upon her quarter, believing in but defying phantom perils, — at each headland and island, watchful of necessity against robbers. How rough, how lawless, how pic- turesque the race ! This life and character so wild must be taken into account, in order to understand the astonishing tenacity and fierceness of the fight- ing in the war now to be considered. The theatre of the war was what is known as the " Narrow Seas," — the English Channel and the Ger- 'man Ocean. After a stormy winter voyage, on the 8th of February, once, as the present writer came, weak with seasickness, upon deck, he found the sun warm and bright as May almost, driving before it the heavy fog. The sea at last was smooth ; beyond it to the northward rose, dim, a fine bold line of shore, towards which the heart turned with a double long- ing. To a sea-tired man, it was the first land ; to a son of the Anglo Saxon race, it was the old home. The cape was the Lizard, the southwest point of England, at the entrance to the English Channel. Soon the Lizard grew fainter as we steered eastward ; the land receded on the left until the gazer almost, felt that, Ixion-like, he had embraced a cloud. But as the forenoon proceeded, the shore rose again, this time into Start Point, close by Plymouth. Once more there was a trend of the shore inward; once more, in front, beyond the sea, now sail-dotted, rose a r653-] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 383 high, bold bluff, this time the Bill of Portland. Then, after the moon rose, it was St. Albans Head, and at last the Needles, at the western end of the Isle of Wight. Thus, all day, we shot from cape to cape across the bays, with far-off glimpses into Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Hampshire. Even then upon the fields there was a tinge of spring green ; once, over a hill, a rainbow hung in a cloud of vapor. The blue line inland was soft and undulating; the great capes rose bald and bleak, their storm-worn ledges beating back the surf like doubled knuckles. So the majestic brotherhood, the headlands of the Channel, passed us on, one to another, until we were sheltered in the Solent. On deck betimes the next morning, it was revealed that we were just between Dover and Calais. Southeast the eye could make out distinctly a high, wavy coast-line — France. Nearer, to the north and west, was the white shore of Albion. The wind blew bitter cold out of the North Sea. One thought of Lear and Edgar, as the Shakespeare Cliff looked through the air sharp as ingratitude. The white beacon now was on the South Fore- land, the crowded anchorage in front the Downs, the light-ship, rocking on the combing wintry sea, marked the Goodwin sands where the carcasses of more tall ships lie buried than on any other wrecking-ground of the world. All to seaward was black with storm ; the air was clear, however, and a far-extending line of craft could be seen, — the white bellying mass, lean- ing threateningly over from the careening hull, — all shouldering heavily through the tossing surge. At sunset we were off the Haider ; at ten at night, the 384 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. light on the Texel was made out, the beacon of Am- sterdam, low, faint, and steady as one peered for it in the harsh head wind. We passed it, following north- ward the ancient path of the Vikings toward their retreats in the fiords. How do old associations crowd upon the mind in such scenes ! Phoenician ships, on the lookout for amber and tin, — galleys laboring over the strait with the legions of Csesar, — red-bearded robbers, Saxon, Norse, and Dane, William and his Normans, — Plan- tagenets ploughing past to fields of conquest in France, — the Spanish Armada vexed by Drake and Howard, a whale fighting with a sword-fish, — Howe, and Hood, and Nelson, patrolling here in towering 74s, to keep off Napoleon, — how fine the sequence of historic figures that since gray antiquity have seen rise, as we saw them rise, those beaked and windy promontories, forever surf-lapped ! Of all events, however, of which the English Channel has been the scene, what ones more worthy to hold the thoughts of Americans than the struggles here of the Com- monwealth.?. Popular liberty was the aim. Had those struggles failed, America as well as England might have bent to the sceptre of an autocrat instead of to the ballot of the freeman. On February 18, 1653, the English Channel and its shores looking, we may suppose, as in the Febru- ary view just described, a fleet of seventy sail lay off the Bill of Portland, pigmies, for the most part, no doubt, compared with our modern craft, though a few ships were of fair size, and the naval architec- ture of the time was such that even small ships were i6s3.] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 385 sometimes imposing. The " Sovereign of the Seas," at this time the crack ship of the British navy, was of nearly 1,700 tons burden, elaborately painted and gilded. For sixty years she was the famous fighting- ship, earning the sobriquet of " The Yellow Devil." ^ That day, however, the " Triumph," of sixty-eight guns, was the flag-ship, and in the lookout, high up the mast, hung Robert Blake of Bridgewater in Somersetshire, a man of fifty-three, short, thick-set, his broad face much bronzed by campaigning on land and sea. He was of the same station in life as Crom- well, of Oxford training, with a pedantic foible for quoting Latin, curious enough in an old sailor. He had risen to fame as a colonel of horse. When for- eign foes were to be met, he was sent to the fleet, though he was fifty years old and had scarcely ever been on shipboard. Strangely enough, such inexperi- ence was regarded as but a slight objection. He had bestridden the war-horse to good purpose, therefore he could ride the waves well ; the sequence in those days was thought logical, and seemed often to be thoroughly justified. Not only Blake but many an- other tough trofper, on each side, — Rupert, for in- stance, and Monk and Dean, — were not less dashing and effective on the surf than on the turf. It is chronicled that these fine old horse-marines some- times became confused in battle, roaring out to the sailors commands appropriate for cavalry : but it did no harm. With surprising power of adaptation the chanipions of that time appear, with foot now in the stirrup, now on the shrouds, equally efficient with either brace. ^ She was the first English three-decker. 386 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. That February morning Blake had been three years at sea. He had been broken in in waters that are now very familiar to the tourist. How many a traveller to Europe has looked with all his eyes upon the Fasnett Light, that beacon upon its splinter of lonely rock so far at sea, the first firm bit of the old world which you encounter. Close back of the Fas- nett lies the old port of Kinsale, where Rupert lay for months with a fleet when the Stuart cause, lost on land, could only be maintained on the sea ; and Blake's first service was in a long blockade of that stretch of Irish coast than which no shore in the world is more storm-beaten and perilous. Wrote the servant who waited upon him, to whom in spite of the proverb he seems to have been a hero : " He prayed himself aboard ship, with such of his men as could be admitted to that duty, and the last thing he did after he had given his commands and word to his men in order to retire to his bed, was to pray with his servant. Then he would say, ' Thomas, bring me the pretty cup of sack,' which he did with a crust of bread ; he would then sit down and give Thomas liberty to do the same, and inquijj^ what news he had of his Bridgewater men that day, and talk of the people and affairs of the place." We have now to see how this noble old Puritan earned the fame of being the greatest of English sailors after Nelson. In the beginning of 1653, things were critical for the Commonwealth. Van Tromp, the Dutch admi- ral, had in the fall crushed the English fleet, and all winter had patrolled the Channel with a broom at his mast-head to signify that he couW sweep the seas. i6s3-] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 387 Every English port was under blockade, or in dan- ger of it. The peril was understood. The Council of State, under the lead of young Sir Henry Vane, recalled all scattered ships, raised the force at sea to thirty thousand men, and seized hemp, tar, and tim- ber wherever they could be found. Night and day the ship-yards rattled ; the list of captains was se- verely scrutinized, and merit and incompetency got each its just deserts with the strictest impartiality. Blake went aboard not alone. He had as subordi- nates the skilful seamen Penn, fath-er of Sir Wm. Penn, and Lawson, lately raised from before the mast, one of the most original of naval commanders. Dean, a well-known soldier, was on the " Triumph " with Blake; and black-browed Monk, famous as Crom- well's right hand in Scotland, and destined to a more questionable fame in years still far ahead, as the re- storer of Charles II, went aboard ship with a great force of land-troops at a day's notice. What fast-sailing frigate it was, whether the " Con- stant Warwick," the "Antelope," or the "First," " Second," or " Tenth Whelp," that first brought news of the approach of Van Tromp, we cannot say. It was made known, however, that he was on his way eastward from the Lizard, and the Admirals off Port- land Bill, Lawson in the " Fairfax," Penn in the " Speaker," and Monk in the " Vanguard," lay in his track. The Dutchmen had seventy-six ships of war, and a convoy of three hundred merchantmen, craft from all parts of the world with rich cargoes, to be guarded to port through these dangerous Narrow Seas. Van Tromp himself is a bluff, picturesque 388 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653- figure. No suspicion of a horse-marine character attached itself to him, for he had been a sailor from boyhood; and was the son of a sailor. He had seen his father killed in action by the English, and had been himself for two years and a half a prisoner to the English, serving as a cabin-boy. He had brought the Spaniard to grief. He h^d fought the English in battles drawn and battles gained, and now stood on his quarter-deck, grizzly with fifty-six years, an old salt almost web-footed. As he led his vast array, fighting-ships and convoy, from headland to head- land, along the shores, one wonders whether the broom was still spliced to the main-truck of the " Brederode," his flagship of ninety guns. Of Van Tromp's lieutenants, perfect seamen and doughty fighters, but one can be mentioned here, De Ruyter, destined later to a fame greater even than that of his Admiral, — that day a young commander pushing on to the niche he was at last to occupy, as the best sword and the best sailor of his heroic sailor race. Blake had a few more ships of war than the Dutch, — at first sixty, reinforced later by twenty more from Portsmouth. The English, moreover, were one in spirit, Ironsides to a man, while the Dutch were rent with factions : Van Tromp himself was of the Or- ange party, and lamely seconded on that account by some of his captains. The Dutchman, moreover, had to look out for the safety of his great convoy, the loss of whose cargoes would ruin half Holland. One feels that he was considerably overmatched. , Blake himself, from the lookout of the " Triumph," high up the mast, saw the Dutch approaching on I6s3-] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 389 February 18, the innumerable sails white in the bril- liant sunrise. Van Tromp had the wind and bore boldly down upon him with the men-of-war, while the merchantmen kept well in the rear. Blake's own line was not yet formed : one squadron lay toward Portsmouthj another westward, toward the Start. Not an inch, however, was yielded, Blake with his few ships meeting at first the whole force of the Dutch, who came on well together. The battle be- gan at eight, and it was late in the forenoon before the succoring ships, baffled by the wind, could beat up to his help. Van Tromp, with the favoring breeze, might easily have carried his convoy past, but with what grace could he bear his broom if he left his enemy behind him .? As the " Brederode " came up, the " Triumph " lay first in her path, receiving Van Tromp's broadside when within musket-shot. The " Brederode " tacked instantly, sending in an- other broadside close under the sails, with a splinter- ing and carnage that may be imagined. But the " Triumph " gave gun for gun. In a few minutes the little English squadron was enveloped by enemies, and a cannonade roared over the sea that could be heard from Portland to Boulogne. When two hos- tile ships approached, there would be a ramming with prows, a grappling of hulls, then a cry on both sides for boarders. How pike and cutlass clashed in the port-holes; how the sailors climbed, clinging to every projecting bit of carving, running along boom and yard, leaping at a venture from one tossing deck to another among a crowd of enemies, the hot cannon meantime at rest, because in the mSl^e, friend was 390 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. no less likely to suffer than foe, — the old histories give data for the whole terrible picture. De Ruyter boarded the " Prosperous " and drove her crew to sur- render. He was driven off : he captured her again and was driven off again, — the shattered decks of the ship strewn four times with the awful wreck of the combat. Here was a ship on fire, — there a ship went down with all on board, her wounded captain flourishing his hanger defiantly as she disappeared. On the " Triumph," more than a hundred of her crew, half her complement, were slain outright, and scarcely a man remained unhurt. Blake himself was sorely wounded in the thigh by a flying splinter, which same splinter, says the conscientious chronicler, " tore a large hole in the breeches of Admiral Dean." Almost every English ship engaged was dismasted, and the sea was strewn with ruin. Blake's remain- ing ships at last came up, and the scale turned in his favor. Amid the obstinate fighting it was necessary to tow the " Speaker " out of the line, utterly helpless. Others crept through the Solent to Portsmouth, just able to make sail ; and still others were so crippled as scarcely to float. The Dutch, however, had lost eight ships. What riddled and gore-stained trophies ! One, when visited, was found to have no living soul on board. Such was the battle of the first day. As dusk fell, Van Tromp withdrew, protecting his merchantmen, who, while the men-of-war grappled, had diligently made their way onward, and were now well eastward toward home. The breeze fell at night, and the fleets drifted slowly past the southern shore of the Isle of Wight, the unsleeping crews i6s3-] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 391 making ready for a new conflict on the morrow. The battered " Triumph " with her wounded commander managed in some way to keep with the rest, destined to play a further part in what Clarendon calls this "very stupendous action." The 19th there seems to have been no engagement, but on the morning of the 20th a light breeze gave the fleets the opportunity anew. Van Tromp changed his tactics. Spreading his men-of-war in a wide crescent, like the protecting wings of a mother-bird, he gathered the merchant- men within the hollow, and sped up the Channel. The heavy-laden craft made slow way. At noon, that astonishing " Triumph," under jury masts we may suppose, was upon the Dutch rear within gun-shot, and soon after the bow-chasers of the remainder of the English ships were in full play. The signals flew from the " Brederode " to the traders : they were to make their best speed, hugging close the French coast by Calais and Dunkirk. He himself with the fighting-ships tacked about with the finest courage against the English, now concentrated and outnum- bering him. De Ruyter was in especial danger. Lawson, in the " Fairfax," was especially brave. The English began to have the upper hand, but Van Tromp fell back toward his convoy, " contesting every wave." Faction, however, was rife upon the decks of the Dutch, and when night came at last, clear and cold, what with treachery within and such foes without, the redoubtable Hollander was glad of a respite. ' " Still," as Penn said afterwards, remembering those three days, " a Dutchman is never so dangerous as 392 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. when he is desperate." On Sunday morning, the 2ist, the mother-bird was seen as laefore with her chickens protected by her wings, but now sadly plucked and lamed. For a third time there was the fiercest contest, this day where the strait is nar- rowest. How, as the cannon boomed off Dover, the population, even from the interior, must have for- saken the churches and gathered upon the cliffs, peering at the distant battle through the wintry air ! Penn at last broke through Van Tromp's encircling guard and captured fifty merchantmen. The bat- tered " Triumph," with Blake on the quarter-deck in spite of his wound, dashed on after the main body, not regarding the craft which, reckless of themselves, threw themselves in her way. His fleet streamed after him, the cannon never silent, while the crippled masts bent under the press of sail. More than half of the Dutch men-of-war became prizes, and Blake felt sure of capturing the entire fleet. But as pur- suers and pursued swept out into the- North Sea, a night of storm set in : when morning came. Van Tromp had vanished as if he had been the Flying Dutchman himself. In their flat-bottomed craft made for shallow seas, knowing now every inlet and current of the home waters, the Dutch had fled over and through the dangerous bars, close in shore, where the English dared not follow. The clutch of Blake had been eluded after all. The greater part of the convoy flocked into the Texel toward Amsterdam, bark and cargo safe ; while the fighting craft, dimin- ished but defiant, backed now by dangerous shore batteries, offered to the foe their still unconquered broadsides. i6S3] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. ' 393 Never was battle closer or more tenacious. Never have English sailors been so fairly matched, except perhaps in those frigate duels, such small affairs in comparison with this mighty encounter, when Yankee and Briton gave blow for blow. Remember the cause those formidable Puritan sailors had at heart. Blake was a thorough Republican ; so that day were all his captains, however some of them afterwards may have used their swords in behalf of arbitrary power. The cause that day was that of the freedom of the People, as much as upon any field of our Rev- olution or Civil War. Truly, as an American sails through the Channel from the Lizard until at last the North Foreland sinks out of sight, there is no association of those memorable waters so worthy to be recalled as that great three days' conflict, which reverberated over the long leagues almost from end to end. Already, it must be remembered, the war had raged for nine months, when Blake and Van Tromp sighted one another off Portland Bill ; nor did the indecisive action which has just been described end it. Van Tromp was in the Downs again early in June with one hundred ships, this time unencum- bered by a convoy. Blake's wound kept him inac- tive, but Lawson broke the Dutch line after the fash- ion of Rodney lagainst De Grasse, and Nelson at Trafalgar. Poor Dean, the hero of the torn breeches, that day lost his life by a chain-shot, and Monk showed himself a capital commander. The " Brede- rode " herself was boarded and on the brink of cap- ture. At the critical moment a light was thrown, 394 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. it is said by Van Tromp himself, into the magazine. The decks roared into the air with all the English intruders and a great part of the Dutch defenders. Van Tromp, it was thought, was of course lost, but coming from somewhere, from the air, or the sea, or some fragment of the flagship which the explosion spared, invulnerable as a phantom, he was seen after the briefest space on the deck of a fresh, fast-sailing frigate, careering along his shattered and yielding line to rally them to a new encounter. The day, however, clearly went against him ; nor was fortune kinder in July. In a conflict fiercer than ever, a musket-ball stretched Van Tromp dead upon his deck, and the cause of Holland was lost. That day alone five thousand men were slain, and in the whole war the Dutch admitted a loss of one thousand one hundred vessels. Though Vane was soon to be laid aside, we may trace briefly the subsequent course of the superb Navy which he did so much to call into being. After the contest with the magnificent Dutch, it was found the merest child's play to encounter any other naval power. Denmark was awed into respect. In the Mediterranean, where the might of England had never been felt, Blake's guns woke the lands far and near to a sense of the island power. The persecuted Vaudois peasants, " The slaughtered saints, whose bones lay scattered on the Alpine mountains cold," in whose behalf Milton invoked the vengeance of the Lord in verse inspired with noble wrath, found in Blake the instrument of that vengeance. i6s3-] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 395 From Piedmont in the north to Sicily in the south, Duke, Pope, and Viceroy became submissive before him. He humbled the Barbary pirates, a hundred and fifty years before Preble and Decatur. To abase France was then no great task, for France was weakened at home by the war of the Fronde. Blake's greatest feat, after the conquest of the Dutch, was his discipline of Spain, then far along in her deca- dence but still formidable. Incongruous as were the Puritan and the Span- iard, relations on the surface friendly long subsisted between them. On the high seas, however, their ships were often fighting. When at last the demand was made that trade to the West Indies should be free to English ships, and that the Inquisition should let alone Bible-reading merchants and sailors in Spanish harbors, the Spanish minister declared that these were his master's two eyes, which the English proposed to put out at once. War therefore came. Ever since the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro the treasure-ships had come in periodical fleets from America. The wealth they brought was various, and long in gathering from points far distant from one another. The Philippines sent rich burdens across the Pacific to Acapulco, whence they went to Panama, being here met by the products of Peru brought up from the south. To oriental spices and Peruvian silver, Panama added pearls ; and the whole, packed upon long trains of mules, crossed the isth- mus to be loaded into great galleons. These were manned, for the most part, by Basques, the best sail- ors of Spain, and by picked bodies of soldiers. At 396 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656. Havana and St. Domingo the heavy cargoes were still further increased by the yield of the West Indies. The silver, in great ingots like sugar-loaves, and the gold, were piled beneath "the captain's cabin, while in the holds and about the decks were heaped the bales of less costly produce. ' In those uncertain times every precaution was taken. Though the gal- leons sometimes carried sixty cannon, they dared not venture alone over the pirate-haunted seas, but made the homeward voyage in great fleets. How imagi- nation, and also cupidity, then were kindled by the thought 1 The riches of the new world, dug from mines, plundered from pagan temples, wrung from tawny, feather-decorated native princes, at who shall tell what cost of blood and sweat and death, moving in those great argosies across the waters to maintain the decaying power of Spain ! How Blake and his captains met the plate-ships in sight of Cadiz, the long dangerous voyage as the Spaniards thought ended, when they were saluting with their cannon the home forts at the mouth of the harbor, the terrible Englishmen winning a booty of several millions, cannot be told here : nor his won- derful battle in the harbor of Santa Cruz in the Canaries, beneath the peak of Teneriffe. Clarendon wrote of the latter : " The whole action was so mi- raculous, that all men who knew the place wondered that any sober men, with what courage soever en- dowed, would ever have undertaken it. . . . The Spaniards comforted themselves with the belief that they were devils and not men, who had destroyed them in such a manner." i6s6.] BLAKE AND VAN TROMP. 2)97 But Blake's time had come. He was fifty-six years old, decrepit through wounds, worn out with weary tossing, winter and summer, upon desolate seas. He yearned for his beloved Somersetshire, and with the early summer of 1656, his battered flagship, the " George," crossing the Bay of Biscay, made at length the Lizard, at the opening of the Channel. Home was at hand, but the Admiral lay dying. The ship spread all her canvas, that at least he might die ashore. Her progress, however, was slow, crippled as she was through much service, like her commander; and off the Start, two hours before they could cast afichor in Plymouth roads, his spirit fled. Heroic Ironside that he was, he prayed as he fought, whether in the saddle or on the deck, and the rugged mariners who obeyed him lifted up their voices in company. Nor was he with- out the finer and gentler traits. He loved his old neighbors and his home, and like Hampden, Sidney, and Vane, while combatant in the fiercest conflicts, had the graces of a scholar and a gentleman. He believed in government of the People, and wore him- self out in its vindication. His last battles, indeed, were under arbitrary power, the Protectorate of Oliver ; but he probably felt, as it may be believed Oliver himself felt, that the arbitrary power was but temporary, the stern time making necessary the one strong hand for the moment, but only for the mo- ment. May we not say that this champion in his ideas was an American ! The bold headland of the Start fronts the sea as of old, the pleasant fields of Devonshire behind, the 398 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656. surf at its base, the battle-hallowed waves of the Channel tossing before. How it is dignified, as the thought rises in the mind of him who looks upon it, that it saw the death of Blake ! ^ ^ Among the authorities for the and Hannay ; and Le Clerc : His- Dutch war and the hfe of Blake toire des Provinces Unies des Pays have been the biographies by Dr. Bas. Samuel Johnson, Hepworth Dixon, CHAPTER XVII. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP. In the midst of his power, while " young " was still appropriately prefixed to his name (he was but forty- one), in the midst of services as splendid as a states- man has ever rendered to his country (one potent voice, however, that of Carlyle,^ has been raised to belittle his work), Vane was suddenly laid on the shelf, and during five of his best years had nothing to do with the government. The circumstances are very memorable and deserve to be carefully studied. No one felt satisfied to have the Rump continue. It was a temporary arrangement, to be suffered no longer than was absolutely necessary ; and the chiefs of the Honest Party, who from the death of Charles to the battle of Worcester and after had been a unit, had, as we have seen, never lost sight of the matter of having the Rump dissolved as soon as possible. In spite of the successes of the Commonwealth, the Rump remained a mere rag of an assembly, a large proportion of those recognized as members very seldom showing their faces. A House of seventy was a rarity, and fifty was a good number. It made little headway moreover in the settlement of impor- 1 Cromwell, ii. 6. 400 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. tant matters ; how could it when the hour so pressed ? but the Army, which not unnaturally felt that it had earned the right to criticise, was not slow in finding fault. August 13, 1652, a petition from important Army men was handed in, urging Parliament to alacrity on many matters. Parliament was not pleased at the interference; and authorities of the time,^ as well as modern writers, assert that Vane and the Parliament men were glad to behold the rise of Blake, and fostered the Navy while they diminished the Army. It would be salutary, they thought, to have a great reputation to balance somewhat the enormous prestige of Cromwell : the soldiers too, from colonel to corporal, were disposed to assume much : the civil power ought to be supreme: how to deal with this uncomfortable self-confidence? It is possible that Vane and his friends were think- ing of something else besides making a good front against Van Tromp, in many of their measures. Through turning soldiers into sailors by the whole- sale, as was done when entire regiments were sent on shipboard, the Army was weakened. When Vane was preparing the fleet of eighty ships with which Blake was to fight the great three days' battle of the Channel, he initiated measures for raising ;^ 1 20,000 a month for war expenses, and at the same time proposed the selling of Hampton Court, Wind- sor Park, Hyde Park, the Royal Park at Greenwich, Enfield Castle, and Somerset House. As regards the latter scheme, he may have had a deeper design 1 Ludlow, ii. 450. Clarendon, vi. 2691. i6S3-] THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP. 40I than to raise money. If the parks and seats were disposed of, appurtenances as they were of sovereign state, the temptation to any person high in authority to seize upon supreme power might be diminished. However the Rump leaders felt, they pushed with alacrity, whenever time could be found, the work they had never laid down, that of arranging for the Parliament that was to succeed them. Ireton's " Agreement of the People " still remained the gen- eral plan, but the same difficulty presented itself as before. An election so free as was contemplated by that document would be likely to return a Parlia- ment in which their enemies would preponderate, and in that case all the political and religious freedom which had cost such a bitter struggle, would be cer- tain to be sacrificed. Cromwell was much oppressed by the difficulties of the situation. In his idea the Rump must come to an end, and yet the election of the new Parliament must be postponed. The plan he finally hit upon as the most feasible, was that of a new Council, of " well-affected " men, to consist of forty, like the present Council of State, but not ne- cessarily to consist of the same men, and not to de- rive their power from the Rump. Such a provision was quite unconstitutional, but was declared by Crom- well to be •' no new thing when the land was under the like hurly-burlies." This arbitrary Council, in the Lord General's thought, should take care temporarily of the public safety, and engineer as speedily and pru- dently as possible the much desired new Parliament. Whence was the power of the projected new Council to be derived 1 From the Army ; and since the 402 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. Army had no thought or feeling but according to its great chief, from Cromwell. The plan which the leaders of the Rump came to favor was this : to have the new Parliament elected as Ireton had provided, but with two very important amendments, designed to make secure the suprem- acy of the Honest Party, ist. All the Rump mem- bers were to continue in place without reelection. 2d. A committee of the Rump was to superintend the elections and judge of their validity or fitness. Antagonism now began to develop itself strongly between the two knots of men, at the head of which, respectively, were Cromwell and Vane. To Vane, with whom stood Haselrig, Scott, Marten, Sidney, Whitlocke, the plan of Cromwell seemed a perilous departure from constitutional ways, to be opposed as he had opposed the purge of Pride. To Cromwell, with whom stood St. John and the soldiers Lambert, Harrison, Fleetwood, Desborough, etc., the plan of Vane seemed simply one for the perpetuation and recruitment of the Rump, which must be got out of the way at any cost. November 3, 1654, had in the fall after Worcester been fixed as the date beyond which the Rump should not continue. Vane and his friends became eager for dissolution, and wished afterwards to fix the date for November 3, 1653. The spring of 1653 had now come with its successes. What better time for a dissolution than now, the Rump began to think, when the magnificent victory in the Channel, due to Blake and Vane, had given the Rump a splendid popularity ! In the elections they might count that the country would send many I6S3-] THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP. 403 of their friends to the new Parliament. Cromwell probably was not pleased with such a prospect. For one in his position it would be only human to look askance upon the rise of such a rival as Blake. Would it not be well to take some decided step, be- fore Blake's skill and courage had put him up an- other round ? " Ought he to permit an appeal to the country when Blake's victories, and the necessity of more of them to end the war, would be used as the electioneering cries of Vane and the Rump ? " -^ The split between the groups widened rapidly. Vane and his friends pushing with all vigor, side by side with care for the tremendous war, the bill for the dissolution and the election of the new Parliament. The records of the committee meetings have not been preserved, and the bill itself, as we shall pres- ently see, disappeared in a memorable way, but it is quite possible to know what were its essential pro- visions. They had hardly varied, except in the way of definiteness, from Ireton's plan. Fifty years ago Forster investigated the matter most carefully,^ elu- cidating all details necessary for a full understanding of the bill. He discovered that it anticipated re- markably, sometimes even in minute particulars, the great Reform measures of the era of 1832. The Parliament was to consist of four hundred members. In the case of the boroughs which had so lost their population as to become insignificant, the "rotten boroughs," the representative was taken away, while to larger towns that had risen to importance repre- sentation was given. Amongst the shires an equi- ' Masson, iv. 409. ^ Life of Vane, 316. 404 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [l6s3- table distribution of representatives was made, those less important having their number reduced, while the more important received their due weight. As regards qualification, the franchise in towns was to belong to all housekeepers of a certain low rental ; and in the shires. Vane pressed earnestly the neces- sity of extending the franchise, urging the danger of vesting it " in those tenants whose tenure of estate subjected them to perpetual control." It is distinctly to be noticed that the scheme of Vane was not revo- lutionary. He wanted nothing not " consonant to the principles which have given rise to the law and monarchy itself in England." In those days the origin of English institutions was scarcely less well understood than in our own time.^ He recognized in Parliament the supreme authority, descended from the ancient assemblies which in their time had had the supreme authority. He wished to connect the franchise with a fixed though a low amount of prop- erty, feeling apparently the expediency of requiring that the voters should have " some stake in the coun- try," in order to quicken their patriotism. While the reform in Parliament which' he favored tended to an increased preponderance of the middle class, he yet wanted no sweeping change. As has_ been seen, his 1 See a remarkable book on the eral interpretations of the consti- '^ Laws and Government of Eng- tution from the same period may land, collected from some manu- be found in Somers Tracts, vol. iv. script notes of John Selden by Na- ''The form of Government of the thanlel Bacon," in which substan- Kingdom of England;' and " A tially the same account of the short Treatise on the Laws of British Constitution is given as England," by W. Mantell'. Tho- by Gneist, Stubbs, Freeman, and ixiasson, xlii. Other modern writers. Other lib- i6s3-J THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP. 405 Republicanism, like that of Ireton and Cromwell, had been a very gradual growth. He was at first not at all an enemy to the King. Only because the King was in his arbitrary notions so utterly incor- rigible was he gradually led into the thought that it would be better to do away with a King, at any rate, in the old sense of the word. Let it be always re- membered that in the bill of 1653 for the dissolution of the old and the election of the new Parliament, the principle of the sovereignty of the People was not to be fully carried out : the Rump was to re- main as a part of the new assembly, and the Rump was to manage the new elections — this that there might be security that the Commonwealth would not be swamped by the Royalists and Anti-tolerationists who formed a majority of the nation.-' Thus, then, the two factions stood in April. Both were eager for dissolution, — the group of which Vane was the centre desiring dissolution with the bill, — the group of which Cromwell was the centre desiring it without the bill. April 1 3, the bill was last before the House, and it was to come on again April 20. On the 19th a meeting took place at Whitehall between Cromwell and his friends and the chiefs of the Rump, in which a last attempt was made to come to an agreement. So far as can be ascertained from the speech of Cromwell a few days after,^ and from Whitlocke's report,^ the Rump men 1 Bisset, History of Common- further his own aims. For what a/^a/M,- ii. 410, 462, finds no proof may be said pro and con, see that the bill provided for the per- Masson, iv. 409. petuation of the Rump, and thinks ^ Carlyle, ii. 43. that Cromwell spread this idea to ^ Whitlocke, under date Apr. 20. 406 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. hinted that if the bill, the thing which separated them, were dropped, the only alternative was the continuance of the power of the Rump ; upon which Cromwell urged his scheme for the select Council of some forty " well-affected " men, which he insisted on as at least " five times better than theirs." The wrangle went on until late at night, the most that the Rump men would promise being that they would consider and consult with friends, two or three un- dertaking at the last to " endeavor to suspend farther proceedings about their bill," until there had been further discussion. " They told us, they would take time for the consideration of these things till to- morrow; they would sleep upon them and consult some friends : ' some friends,' though, as I said, there were about twenty-three of them here, and not above fifty-three in the House. And at parting one of the chief [Sir Harry Vane] and two or three more, did tell us, that they would endeavor to suspend fur- ther proceedings, until they had another conference with us." * Next morning, while a few of the Rump men and officers,, with Cromwell, were resuming the discussion, word was brought that the bill was on in the House, and that it was being hurried through its last stages. All unnecessary formalities were being neglected with regard to it, and it was on the point of becoming law. Cromwell, feeling that the agree- ment of the night before had been broken, hurried to St. Stephen's, and the scene took place, one of the most dramatic, picturesque, and critical, in his career and also in that of Vane. ' Carlyle, ii. 44. That Vane was ised to suspend action is a suppo- the " one of the chief " who prom- sition of Carlyle's quite gratuitous. 1653.] THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP. 407 Let US call up a picture of the beautiful chapel of St. Stephen's that 20th of April, the spring morning sun coming in through the great eastern window, shining upon the canopy over Speaker Lenthall's chair, then striking the long rows of benches. These, made to accommodate a company of five hundred, are for the most part quite empty, well covered with dust we may suppose, while a little company, scarcely a sixth part of the great Long Parliament which gathered in November thirteen years before, sit grouped on the lower seats, about the table with its mace. Vane is on his feet, still young Sir Harry (for in the Rump close by him sits his inevitable father), forty-one years old, with a presence full of extraordinary energy, his every word received with the deepest respect. What a share he has had in guid- ing events during the twelve tremendous years just past ! and he still remains the administrative colossus upon whom mainly rests the burden of the vast war, which demands every man, gun, and timber which the Commonwealth can raise. No one can fathom his serpent-wisdom ; no one define like him the " bounds of either sword," in the political perplexities, assigning each to its due sphere, the temporal and the spiritual. It is a serious company — in steeple-hats and sad-colored doublets, the strong countenances sobered by familiarity with peril and responsibility, and the discipline of the severe Puritan faith. These men are listening to him on whose firm hand Reli- gion leans as upon that of an elder son. Let us take the report of Ludlow.^ ' Memoirs, ii. 455 etc. 408 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. " The Parliament now perceiving to what kind of excesses the madness of the Army was Hke to carry them, resolved to leave as a legacy to the people the government of a commonwealth by their represen- tatives when assembled in Parliament, and in the* in- tervals thereof by a Council of State, chosen by them, and to continue till the meeting of the next succeeding Parliament, to whom they were to give an account of their conduct and management. To this end they resolved, without any further delay, to pass the act for their own dissolution; of which Cromwell having notice, makes haste to the House, where he sat down and heard the debate for some time. Then calling to Maj. Gen. Harrison, who was on the other side of the House, to come to him, he told him that he judged the Parliament ripe for a dissolution, and this to be the time of doing it. The Maj. Gen. answered, as he since told me : ' Sir, the work is very great and dangerous, therefore I de- sire you seriously to consider of it before you en- gage in it.' ' You say well,' replied the General, and thereupon sat still for about a quarter of an hour, and then the question for passing the bill being to be put, he said again to Maj. Gen. Harrison, ' This is the time, I must do it ; ' and suddenly standing up, made a speech, wherein he loaded the Parliament with the vilest reproaches, charging them not to have a heart to do anything for the public good, to have espoused the corrupt interest of Presbytery and the lawyers, who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression, accusing them of an intention to perpet- uate themselves in power, had they not been forced i6s3-3 THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP. 409 to the passing of this act, which he affirmed they de- signed never to observe, and thereupon told them, that the Lord had done with them, and had chosen other instruments for the carrying on his work that were more worthy. This he spoke with so much passion and discomposure of mind as if he had been distracted. Sir Peter Wentworth stood up to answer him and said, that this was the first time that ever he had heard such unbecoming language given to the Parliament, and that it was the more horrid in that it came from their servant and their servant whom they had so highly trusted and obliged ; but as he was going on, the General stepped into the midst of the House, where continuing his distracted language, he said, ' Come, come, I will put an end to your prating ; ' then walking up and down the House like a madman, and kicking the ground with his feet, he cried out, ' You are no Parliament, I say you are no Parliament; I will put an end to your sitting; call them in, call them in.' Whereupon the sergeant attending the Parliament opened the doors and Lieut. Col. Worsley with two files of musketeers entered the House ; which Sir Henry Vane observ- ing from his place, said aloud, ' This is not honest, yea, it is against morality and common honesty.' Then 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.' Then looking upon one of the members, he said, ' There sits a drunkard ; ' and giving much reviling language to others he commanded the mace to be taken away, saying, ' What shall we do with this bauble .? here, 4IO YOUNd SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. take it away!' Having brought all into this dis- order, Maj. Gen. Harrison went to the Speaker as he sat in the chair and told him, that seeing things were reduced to this pass, it would not be convenient for him to remain there. The Speaker answered that he would not come down unless he were forced. ' Sir,' said Harrison, ' I will lend you my hand ; ' and thereupon, putting his hand within his, the Speaker came down. Then Cromwell applied himself to the members of the House, who were in number between eighty and one hundred, and said to them : ' Its you that have forced me to this, for I have sought the Lord night and day that he should rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this work.' He or- dered the guard to see the House cleared of all the members, and then seized upon the records that were there and at Mr. Scobeil's^ house. After which he went to the clerk, and snatching the Act of Dis- solution, which was ready to pass, out of his hand, he put it under his cloak, and having commanded the doors to be locked up, went away to Whitehall." Ludlow, though in Ireland at the time, had most diligently collected the facts, and may be relied upon almost as if he were an eye-witness. The other im- portant authorities for this great scene are the Earl of Leicester,^ father of Algernon Sidney, and Whit- locke. Sidney was present, and the Earl reports in his journal what he had heard from his son. Some details may be here gleaned which lend interest to 1 The clerk. Sidney papers, edited by R. W. 2 Leicester's Journal, in the Blencowe, pp. 139, 140, 141. i6S3-] THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP. 41 1 the account. Cromwell, for instance, comes " in plain black clothes, with grey worsted stockings." When he began to speak, he at first commended Parlia- ment, at last changing his tone into denunciation, his anger rising as he stamped up and down the hall with his hat on. In the two files of musketeers with whom Worsley ^ entered there were twenty or thirty men. Speaker Lenthall had before this shown him- self stout-hearted in maintaining the dignity of his place, confronting Charles in 1642, when Charles strode in upon that same floor to arrest the Five Members, as he now faced the wrath of Cromwell. Algernon Sidney sat next to Lenthall, and Crom- well said to Harrison, " Put him out." Sidney re- fusing to go, Cromwell thundered again, " Put him out ! " whereupon Harrison and Worsley put their hands on his shoulders to force him out. The ex- clamation to Vane stands in Leicester's Journal altogether different from Ludlow's report. " At the going out the Generall 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." These words do not at all necessarily imply that at this time Cromwell and Vane were seriously estranged. As to the charge of being " a juggler," 1 Worsley became Major-Gen- skeleton of Worsley, — that of a eral, was a great favorite with tall man, with well -formed head Cromwell, and was even thought and teeth fresh and bright, the of as his successor in the Protec- larger ligatures of the body still torate. He died, however, at thirty- traceable. A curious reappear- five, in 1656, and was interred in ance of one of the heroes of the Henry VHth's Chapel. In 1868 Dissolution of the Rump ! Stan- Dean Stanley, searching for the ley's Memorials of Westminster coffin of James I, unearthed the Abbey, p. 674 etc. 412 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. Oliver may have had in his thought • some of young Sir Harry's theological disquisitions, by which Oliver, like men in general, found himself completely dazed. As to Vane's want of " common honesty," Cromwell might well have had in mind the conference of the previous evening, and what he then understood to be the agreement, that the pressing of the Act of Dis- solution should be postponed until there had been further discussion, — an agreement which no doubt, judging by events, some other Rump man than Vane assented to, and by which Vane, therefore, did not feel bound. After this time, efforts were made, as will be seen, to induce Sir Harry to take part in the new order, — just as in 1649, when he had withdrawn displeased by Pride's Purge and the execution of the King. In this second exigency he declines to return to public life, but implies in his language that he a;nd Cromwell are still friends. Cromwell's excla- mation at the Dissolution of the Rump was, no doubt, an outburst of momentary passion. Probably no grave estrangement between the friends came about until the time of the " Healing Question " and Vane's imprisonment, in 1656. No touches can be added to those of the old writ- ers to make the scene more vivid. Cromwell strode off to Whitehall, with the Act of Dissolution under his cloak. Soon after a paper was found posted on the door of the Parliament House : " This House to be Let, now Unfurnished." Later in the day the Council of State was also summarily dismissed, Brad- shaw signalizing himself by spirited behavior. Hence- forth for five years the will of Cromwell was abso- lute in England. I6S3-] THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP- 413 Both old and new writers, Royalist and Repub- lican/ have seen nothing but selfish ambition in this seizure by Cromwell, through military force, of auto- cratic power. Since Carlyle gave to the world the letters and speeches of the wonderful man, the candid have judged differently. He had abundant human limitations without doubt; but one cannot read those strange outpourings, so unstudied, so incoherent, so artless, full of such devotional fervors, such up- wellings of fine aspiration, of pathos so deep that the page seems almost to bear the stain of tears, without feeling that he was nobly patriotic, and that with utter sacrifice of himself he took upon his great shoulders his bleeding country with no desire but to save her. In forsaking the Republicanism for which he had fought so long and gloriously, and usurp- ing the sceptre, he thought he was taking the only means possible to save the country from terrible dis- aster. The Rump seemed to him inadequate: the land must not be left in the hands of those who had never fought for it : he had perhaps a foreboding that his own influence would decay. What he had done for his country entitled hitn to be looked upon as its father almost. He loved it like a father, — in proud self-confidence felt that he could judge as no other could for its welfare. Ought he not to strike before his prestige had sunk? His reasoning was like that. The moment of decision came, and he roughly stamped out what he thought had lasted too long. He meant that his dictatorship should be 1 Clarendon, Ludlow, Echard, Hume, Whitlocke, Godwin, Forster, etc. 414 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. only temporary, intending to give power to the na- tion as soon as the nation could bear it. Though the ' Barebones ' or Little Parliament was appointed by himself, he caused a Parliament to be elected, fol- lowing narrowly the provisions of the Act which he had snatched from the clerk on that memorable 20th of April. This Parliament acted, in his view, un- wisely, and he sent it home unceremoniously. Again at a later stage he caused still another Parliament to be elected in a similar way : this, too, he presently dismissed as foolish and inadequate. The day never came when Cromwell felt he could cease to be a despot. With almost miraculous ability he sustained himself, ability no more conspicuous in dealing with foreign and open enemies than against the constant plots of secret foes. His old mother at Whitehall shivered whenever she heard the report of a gun or an unusual crash, through fear that some assassin had at length found the heart of her son, — and it was no foolish fear. Dividing England up into mili- tary districts, over each one of which he set a Major General, a grim Ironside whose sword was absolute, he ruled with an unconstitutional tyranny compared with which that of the Stuarts was mere child's play. When at last his mighty hand relaxed, nothing was possible but the Restoration. His rule brought to England glory and prosperity, but as helping toward freedom no failure was ever more complete. Would the plan of Vane — that for the perpetu- ation and recruitment of the great Long Parliament until the nation could safely be trusted with the man- agement of itself — have served any better purpose ? I6S3-] THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP. 415 Probably not: nor can it be believed that success would have followed a third possible course, the sur- rendering of power into the hands of a free Parlia- ment, elected on Ireton's plan immediately after the battle of Worcester. The world was in truth not ready ^ for the ideas of the Honest Party. Prejudices were too inveterate : prescriptions and traditions would not loose their hold. A noble Toleration, a doing away with Monarch and privileged class that a Commonwealth might come to pass in which each reputable citizen should have an equal voice — these were ideas for which the world could be only slowly prepared. Only after a hundred years and under American conditions could such ideas become prac- tical. The Rump went down to the great grief of many, though Cromwell said, " We did not hear a dog bark at their going." It was not safe to speak loud. The fleet,, which in particular it had created and fostered, hastened with a melancholy eagerness to thank Cromwell for delivering them from " the intolerable oppression and tyranny of Parliament." ^ To this manifesto tlie names of Dean, Monk, and many cap- tains were affixed. Blake is believed to have seen the downfall regretfully, though he told his sailors it was their business to face the foreign foe, and not concern themselves with changes at home. Even Milton was among the calumniators of the Parlia- 1 Gneist : Geschichte und heutige Gestalt der Aemter in England,' 226 etc. ^ Godwin, iii. 478. 41 6 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. ment. As the world now looks back to those four years, it is seen that in all English history there is no other such spot of light. Quite within bounds are the words of Algernon Sidney : ^ " When Van Tromp set upon Blake in Folkestone Bay, the Par- liament had not above thirteen ships against three- score, and not a man that had ever seen any other fight at sea, than between a merchant-ship and a pi- rate, to oppose the best captain in the world. But such was the power of wisdom and integrity in those that sat at the helm, and their diligence in choosing men only for their merit was attended with such success, that in two years our fleets grew to be as famous as our land armies, and the reputation and power of our nation rose to a greater height than when we possessed the better half of France and had the Kings of France and Scotland for our prisoners." Still more significant is the testimony which God- win quotes from Roger Coke, a Royalist, " a bitter and scornful enemy." " Thus by their own merce- nary servants, and not a sword drawn in their defence, fell the haughty and victorious Rump, whose mighty actions will scarcely find belief in future generations ; and to say the truth, they were a race of men most indefatigable and industrious in business, always seeking for men fit for it, and never preferring any for favor nor by importunity. You scarce ever heard of any revolting from them ; no murmur or com- plaint of seamen or soldiers ; nor do I find that they 1 Godwin, iii. 465. See also the tributes of Ludlow and Mrs. Hutch- inson. 1659.] THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP. 417 ever pressed any in all their wars.-^ And as they ex- celled in the management of civil affairs, so it must be owned they exercised in matters ecclesiastic no such severities as either the Covenanters or others before them did, upon such as dissented from them ; nor were they less forward in reforming the abuses of the common law." We have heard the regicide Thomas Scott defend the execution of the King. It is worth while to hear how Scott defended the " fag-fend of the Long Par- liament," in years long after its great work was done.^ " The Dutch war came on. If it had pleased God and his highness Oliver to let that little power of a Parliament sit a little longer (when Hannibal is ad portas, something must be done extra leges) we in- tended to have goner off with a good savor, and pro- vided for a succession of Parliaments ; but we stayed to end the Dutch war. We might have brought them to oneness with us. Their ambassadors did desire a coalition. This we might have done in four or five months. We never bid fairer for being masters of the whole world — not that I desire to extend our own bounds. . . . That gentleman says the Parlia- ment went out, and no complaining in the streets, nor inquiry after them. That is according to the company men keep. Men suit the letter to their lips. It is as men converse. I never met a zealous assertor* of that cause but lamented it to see faith broken and somewhat else." 1 This can by no means be al- 2 Forster's Henry Marten, p. leged. 385. 4l8 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. Noble years, indeed, are they, and in the landscape of the time three figures range far above their com- peers — figures then not far from equal in the eyes of men, though one was destined to tower afterwards much higher — Cromwell upon the war-horse, Blake upon the deck of the " Triumph," and Vane at West- minster, the heart of Parliament and of the Council of State. PART IV. TO TOWER-HILL. 1653-1662. CHAPTER XVIir. THE HEALING QUESTION. For the first time in thirteen years Vane was in retirement, if we except the few weeks just before and after the execution of the King. He went with- out doubt to the noble home of the Vanes, Raby Castle in Durham, where we may suppose he was al- most a stranger ; for his absorption in the perils had given him scarcely opportunity, since the opening of the Long Parliament, to go so far from his place at Westminster. Raby Castle, bought by old Sir Harry after it had been long the seat of the Nevilles, is still thoroughly maintained and preserved though por- tions of it go back to the Danish invasions, the lordly place to-day of Vane's descendant, the Duke of Cleveland. As the present writer rode toward it, on a fine clear day at the end of summer, the highway passed over low hills, moor-land, and rich fields on which grazed the cattle that have made the shire famous. The fine mass of Raby Castle appeared at 420 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. last in the distance, across the broad park where herds of deer were feeding. It is substantially as it was in the time of the Civil War, except "that the wall, thirty feet high, which then surrounded it, has been for the most part removed. From the gateway on the east the eye follows an outline picturesquely broken, keep, curtain of masonry, tower, and inner portal, all battlemented and darkly grim, as when young George Vane, brother of our Sir Harry, held it stoutly against more than one cavalier siege. From within the court, where many a war-like troop has gathered, the clash of their arms echoing loudly from the high enclosing walls, one enters the great struc- ture, passing through crypt and corridor, into cham- bers with windows cut through thick masonry, then from the high Barons' HalP down the broad stair- way where a regiment might march almost without breaking ranks. There were nooks whose rugged strength had been gained from trowels and hammers that wrought in the days of Canute. Upon a beau- tiful pedestal elsewhere stood Powers's Greek Slave, the original statue. So one went from the eleventh century to the nineteenth, and there was no age be- tween of which some curious carving, some strangely framed timber, some antique press, or contorted piece of iron work, did not bear witness. All ancient rude- ness, however, was softened away or made to minis- ter to modern elegant comfort. The loop-hole from which the men-at-arms of the Border Wars had dis- * " Seven hundred knights, retainers all Of Neville, at their master's call Had sate together in Raby's hall." Wordsworth, White Doe of Rylstone, Canto III. i6s3.] THE HEALING QUESTION. 42 I charged their crossbows holds now, as in a frame, before the outlooking visitor a lovely glimpse of the park : the culverins that roared defiance in the days of the Henrys lend picturesqueness to the little ter- race among the flowers : in the castle kitchen are still the cavernous fire-place, the cranes, the great spits of the ancient cooks, but a range of the most modern fashion serves for the present housekeeping, the old appurtenances adapting themselves to the changed order : there is still water in the moat, but it is the swimming-place now of the Duke's swans. In the Barons' Hall and the rooms near by, a long line of portraits running back to ancient armored knights presents the masters of Raby, finest in the series the grave face of the man whom Cromwell, Republican, wore in his heart of hearts, — from whom Cromwell, despot, prayed that the Lord would deliver him. Among all the stately homes of England there is scarcely one statelier. Hither came Vane dismissed. He had sprung, let it be remembered, from the inner circle of the privi- leged class of his land. His ancestor had received the accolade from the sword of the Black Prince on the field of Poictiers ; the Vane arms proudly bore the dexter gauntlet of the captive King of France, given to that ancestor in token of submission ; and in the generations since, traditions had accumulated of the favor of Sovereigns- and of all the splendor that attends high rank. What a mark of greatness that one so fathered and so circumstanced should yet have become so thoroughly a man of the People, the representative of ideas so thoroughly American I 422 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1653. One wishes that a glimpse into Vane's domestic life were recoverable. We shall come before long upon evidence, amid scenes of great sadness, that he was a loving husband and father, but no picture can now be given of his life with his wife and children/ Dur- ing his public career his absorption had been so great that Only transient intervals of domestic quiet, at his house in Charing Cross, and his seat ' Belleau,' in Lincolnshire, can have been possible to him. The family of Lady Vane were people of force and influ- ence. Her father, Sir Christopher Wray, was a mem- ber of the Long Parliament, capable sometimes of spirited conduct, as were also her brothers.^ Of Lady Vane herself, however, we know nothing except what may be inferred from such a connection. Roger Williams dedicates to her one of his books, and seems to have held her in respect.^ Of children there were seven sons, five of whom died before their father,* and five daughters. Vane's line descends from his youngest son Christopher, born in 1653. Of Sir Harry's brothers we already know Charles, as serving the Commonwealth boldly and skilfully in the character of envoy to Portugal, and as having a creditable prominence while supporting Voluntary- ism in 1652, in opposition to the State Church and the somewhat limited toleration which the more ^ The Duke of Cleveland, while ' " I have received a large and authorizing me to inspect Raby pious letter from Lady Vane." Castle, informed me that no man- R. W. to Joh. Winthrop, Jr., Oct. uscripts or documents remained 25, 1649. Narragansett Papers, in the family which could be of vi. 187. any use to the biographer. * Burke's Peerage, art. " Vane." ^ Gardiner, Great Civil War, »• 357- i6S3] THE HEALING QUESTION. 423 timid favored. Mention has been made of George, who seems to have remained at Raby, and who de- fended it against the Cavalier attacks. Old Sir Harry is still upon his feet and at the front. As com- pliant as his son was uncompromising, he pocketed his principles serenely at the coup d'etat of Crom- well, sitting presently in his old place in Parliament. From a member of the Long Parliament he became a supporter of the despotism, as at a former time he had come to the Long Parliament from the right hand of the King. Had his life been prolonged, it is reasonable to suppose that another somersault would have landed him at the Restoration, once more at the side of a Stuart. He found, however, no more opportunities. He died in 1654, and our Sir Harry ceased to be " young." As we dismiss the father, let us treat him with no unkindness. In times of revolution excellent men become turn-coats. For every change the old ex-courtier made, a good rea- son could be given, and in every change he had com- pany of the best. By the side of his towering son he stood dwarfed to a point almost pathetic, but there is abundant evidence that while not conspicu- ous for elevation of character he was yet a trusted and useful public servant. His knowledge of for- eign tongues and diplomatic experience made him . often important. His " bustling " was often to good purpose. That he must have been respected is plain from the responsibilities with which he was entrusted, for " he was in commission with the greatest men of the nation and at the head of all affairs." ^ Father * Colli ns's Peerage, iv. 302. 424 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1654. and son seem always to have been on the best terms, excepting for the short space in 1641, when young Sir Henry revealed, against Strafford, the secrets of his father's " red velvet cabinet." The leisure in which Vane now found himself he spent probably more at Belleau than at Raby Castle. In a letter belonging to this period he lends a hand, from his Lincolnshire seat, to his friend Roger Wil- liams, sorely tried by his motley crowd at Providence. " Lovinge and Christian Friends : I could not re- fuse this bearer, Mr. Roger Williams, my kinde friend and ancient acquaintance, to be accompanied with these few lines from myself to you, upon his returne to Providence Colony ; though, perhaps, my private and retired condition, which the Lord, of his mercy, hath brought me into, might have argued strongly enough for my silence ; but indeed, something I hold myself bound to say to you, out of the Christian love I bear you, and for his sake whose name is called upon by you and engaged in your behalfe. How is it that there are such divisions amongst you ? Such headiness, tumults, disorders and injustice } The noise echoes into the ears of all, as well friends as enemies, by every returne of shipps from those parts. Is not the fear and awe of God amongst you to re- straine t Is not the love of Christ in you, to fill you with yearninge bowells, one towards another, and constrain you not to live to yourselves, but to him that died for you, yea, and is risen again.? Are there no wise men amongst you } No public self- denying spirits, that at least, upon the grounds of I6S4-] THE HEALING QUESTION. 425 public safety, equity and prudence, can find out some way or meanes of union and reconciliation for you amongst yourselves, before you become a prey to common enemies, especially since this State, by the last letter from the Council of State, gave you your freedom, as supposing a better use would have been made of it than there hath been? Surely, when kind and simple remedies are applied and are inef- fectuall, it speaks loud and broadly the high and dan- gerous distempers of such a body, as if the wounds were incurable. But I hope better things from you, though I thus speak, and should be apt to think, that by Commissioners agreed upon and appointed in all parts, and on behalfe of all interests, in a generall meeting, such a union and common satisfaction might arise, as, through God's blessing, might put a stop to your growinge breaches and distractions, si- lence your enemies, encourage your friends, honor the name of God which of late hath been much blasphemed, by reason of you, and in particular, re- fresh and revive the sad heart of him who mourns over your present evils, as being your affectionate friend, to serve you in the Lord. H. Vane. Belleaw, the 8th of February, 1653-4." To this, in a letter signed " Gregorie Dexter, Towne Gierke," which has much of the spirit and manner of Roger Williams, Providence replied : ^ " We were in complete order until we were greatly disturbed and distracted by the ambition and covet- 1 Rhode Island Colonial Records, vol. i. 285. ^ Ibid. 287. 426 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1654. ousness of some, who, wanting that public and self- denying spirit which you commend to us in your letter, occasioned our general disturbance and dis- traction. Possibly some of ourselves are grown wanton and too active ; for we have drunk of the sweet cup of as great libertie as any people that we can hear of under the whole heaven. We have not only been free from the iron yokes of wolfish Bi- shops, but have sitten quiet and dry from the stream of blood spilt by the Civil War in our native Coun- try. We have not felt the new chains of the Pres- byterian tyrants, nor consumed by the over zealous "fire of those called godly Christian magistrates. We have almost forgot what tythes are, yea, and taxes too, — either to Church or Commonwealth. We have also enjoyed the sweet privileges, and such you know are very powerful to render the best of men wanton and forgetful. We hope you shall have no more occasion to complain of the men of Providence town or Providence colony, but that when we are gone and rotten, our posterity shall read in the town records your pious and favourable letters and loving- kindness to us, and this our answer and real endeav- ours after peace and righteousness." Vane was no doubt glad to lay down public life. " There is none that know the frame of his spirit," wrote an intimate friend,^ " but can bear me witness that if the cause of God and the good of his people among us did not prevail mightily upon him he had rather enjoy a retiredness under the immediate ' Stubbe : Malice Rebuked. A Vindication of Sir Henry Vane, 1659, P-5S- i6ssO THE HEALING QUESTION. 427 teachings of God's spirit than be taken up with dis- tracting employments in Parliaments and Councils." Interesting proofs are preserved which indicate that Cromwell and Vane, in the years after the Disso- lution of the Rump, yearned for one another in spite of their differences. Thurloe, Who had been St. John's secretary in Holland, had come to stand in the same relation to Cromwell. He was a great figure among the Cromwellians now, and has put posterity under a special obligation by ' his " State Papers," a collection of bulky tomes, in which many valuable documents are treasured. Toward the close of 1655, Cromwell seems to have written Vane a most friendly note enclosed in one from Thurloe, to which Vane responds from Belleau, December 20, 1655.^ "The enclosed I have received. . . . I desire not to be insensible of the civility intended mee in it by the first hand, which accordingly I desire you to represent in the fittest manner you please, from one who upon those primitive grounds of publick-spirit- edness and sincere love to our country and the godly party in it, am still the same as ever, both in true friendship to his person, and in unchangeable fidelity to the cause so solemnly engaged in by us." Before this time, Roger Williams speaks ^ of Vane as " returned into Lincolnshire, yet daily missed and courted for his assistance : " and still earlier, June 3d, 1653, a letter from a Royalist spy in London, intended for the Hague but intercepted, says : ' " Young Sir 1 Thurloe, State Papers, iv. 329. * Letter to Winthrop, July 12, 1654, Narragansett Papers, vi. 260. * Thurloe, State Papers, i. 265. 428 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656- H. Vane, notwithstanding the affronts he received at the dissolution of the Parliament, was invited, being in Lincolnshire, by a letter from the Council : which invitation he answered by a letter extracted out of that part of the Apocalypse, wherein the reign of the saints is mentioned, which he saith he believes will now begin : but for his part he is willing to defer his share in it until he come to heaven, and desired to be excused in yielding to their desires." But however it may have been with Ci"omwell, the feeling of his party toward Vane may be inferred from some sentences of Henry Cromwell, Oliver's second son, an able man, now in high command in Ireland. Writing to Thurloe under date February 6, 1656,^ he complains of the Quakers as making trouble among the soldiers, " our most considerable enemy. ... I wish they be not too much slighted in England. Sir H. Vane and such like, who are as rotten in their principles, can make good use of such delusions as these, Fifth Monarchy and the like, to carry on their designs." Some one has written " that Sir Henry Vane goes up and down among those peo- ple and others, endeavoring to withdraw them from their submission to the present government. . . . His expression concerning him is, that if he be not pre- vented he will be a sad scourge to England. I hope you will send none of the breed of him into Ireland." - When Henry Cromwell speaks of Vane as using " delusions, Fifth Monarchy and the like," and when the spy declares that the Knight of Raby believed that the reign of the saints was now about to begin, * Thurloe, iv. 508, 509. i6s6.] THE HEALING QUESTION. , 429 it can by no means be said that there were no grounds for such representations. There was in fact a strange side to the character of Vane, of which heretofore some mention has been made, and which now must be more fully described. While he was ever astonishingly effective in all the practical work of statesmanship, — while in speech he could be so terse and direct, and while he was magnanimously tolerant of all beliefs, interposing no bar to any aberration, provided only the good order of society were not disturbed, he himself became devoted, as his life advanced, to wild speculations. Now, in his retirement, his active mind relieved itself in preaching and writing, his deliverances being often of a strain which confused many of his contemporaries, and are confusion thrice over to the modern reader. The so-called " Fifth Monarchy " ideas, — that after the domination in the world of the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires, the reign of Christ for a thousand years was at last about to begin, — ideas which occupied much the fanatical minds of that time, possessed a strong attraction for Vane. Mention must be made here of a book, " The Retired Man's Meditations," strangely profitless to a modern reader, written by Vane at this time, the concluding passage of which will give some idea of its character : " To be more particular in describing the state of things, as to the change which does respect the whole creature, during this thousand years, will be needlesse ; considering that the general expressions are so clear and full, that it shall be a glorious, pure, incorrupt state unto the whole of creation, which 430 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656. shall then keep a holy Sabbath and rest unto the Lord, a seventh part of the time of the world's con- tinuance, in which there shall be no sowing of the field nor pruning of the vineyard, nor exacting any labour from the creature, but what in voluntary ser- vice it shall performe by way of homage and worship unto for the use of his saints, during the 1,000 years, who are yet in their corruptible natural body, expecting their great change. Even so, come Lord Jesus, come quickly." The following extracts from works written a few years later than this imply a belief in an immediate and literal second coming of Christ, and the Fifth Monarchy : " What then remains for the recovery and restitu- tion of that good old Cause and Way, but such a rea- sonable and signal appearance of God, (as aforesaid) in the valley of Jehoshaphat .? What, but the taking things immediately into his own hands, for adminis- tration of Judgement, and giving the last and final decision.? Especially, since what was foretold by Daniel is remarkably accomplished among us, to wit, that the visible Power of God's People should be broken and scattered, so as that they should have no might remaining in and with them, to go against the Multitudes, that design and resolve their ruin. There is not any remedy left to them, wherein they may ex- pect success, but from such a signal day of the Lord's immediate appearance in Judgement on their behalf. For their sakes therefore O Lord, return thou on high (Psalms 7. 7) take thy Throne of Judicature, that righteous Judgement, which thou hast seemed I6S4-] THE HEALING QUESTION. 43 1 for a season to have suspended, upon wise and holy ends best known to thyself." * " By whom was this people (upon whom the name of God was called) brought under, persecuted and suppressed, but by those who were foretold by Dan. chap. 2, and most lively represented and described by the great image, which was the subject of Nebu- chadnezzar's dream, that none but Daniel could re- hearse and interpret, signifying the persons and their successors, that should be found possessing the uni- versal empire, and command of the world, during the continuance of those known four monarchs, that have followed successively one after another according as they were foretold and charactered out some thou- sand years ago, and are now standing upon their last legs, and time drawing on apace, when the spiritual seed of the same Abraham shall be made heirs even of the world, by faith ? and what was done by Abra- ham, in figure and type as to his conquest over the four kings, (Gen. 14,) must have its accomplishment in reality and truth, by those of his seed that are the true Israel in spirit, who by the spirit of life entering into them at the appointed time, together with the charge committed to them of pouring out the seven vials of the last plagues of God, shall bring the final downfall and destruction of those four monarchs, and in and with it of the kingdom of the beast and of antichrist ; and bring home again and receive the true Lots that have been sojourners in the Sodom of this world." ^ 1 From a piece called " The their biographies of Vane express Valley of Jehoshaphat" an estimate of his theological writ- * Epistle to the Scattered Seed ings very different from mine. of Christ. Forster and Upham in 432 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1654. The following squib aimed at Vane by some ill- wisher contains without doubt among its poor wit some grain of truth. The catholicity of Vane's spirit appears even in the unfriendly picture. " At Raby, being my mansion ... I became my own chaplain, where I edified my congregation so powerfully in my principles, as the most of those hear- ers in my synagogue at Raby grew most heterodox- icall Rabbles A Fifth Monarchy was our object ; and who those Regents should be we had positively voted, yet was it ever intended that this government should have its gradations. . . . There was neither Ar- minian, Socinian, Famulist, Anabaptist, Independent, nor Fanatick, whose acquaintance I admitted not, and with whose assertions for the time I complied not. These I over-wrought, won, and made mine own." * To this may be added the following story, signifi- cant as showing how Vane in his latter days came to stand in the popular fancy. John Davenport writes to John Winthrop, Jr., from New Haven, the ist day of the 6th month, 1 660 : ^ " Brother Streete re- porteth a strange passage which he heard at Boston, which, it may be, will minister some matter of laugh- ter unto you, as it doth of indignation unto me. It is this. A company being mett somewhere in England, he thinckes they were Fifth Monarchy Men, and Sir Henry Vaine with them, it was propounded that, seeing Christ was not yet come, they should thinck of some one that should be cheife among them til he 1 Sir Henry Vane's /"((///zV/tj «r 1661, p. 11 etc. Thomasson Tracts, his Cases of Conscience, lately MDCCCXLIX. found in his Cabinet at Arabic, 2 Winthrop Papers, Mass. Hist. Coll. vii. 515 (4th series). i6s4-] THE HEALING QUESTION. 433 should come, and that being consented to, it was considered whom they should choose, and it was con- cluded with common consent, Sir Hen : Vaine : therefore one rose up with a viol of oile which he poured on Sir Hen : Value's head and called him King of Jerusalem. Sit fides penes authorem." Davenport plainly thinks this mere calumny, and we may be certain there was exaggeration in such a report. Much of Vane's writing at this time, how- ever, is incoherent and superstitious, and it is quite probable that he showed in his conduct a corre- sponding extravagance. Such things, to be sure, be- longed to that day, and yet there is ample evidence that the men even of that time were dumfounded that a character who in one field was the embodi- ment of sense and strength should be in another an associate of those whom even they thought crazy extremists. We have seen that Cromwell, while his close friend, found him " in principles too high to fathom," and at length bursts out upon him as " a juggler." Cromwell was by no means alone, and Vane's political influence in his latter years seems to have been impaired by a distrust of his judgment. So much for the weakness of the strong man. It is pleasant to turn now to a memorable exhibition of his power, to an act of his life, namely, which perhaps more than any other is of interest to Americans, — his exposition of the idea of a Written Constitution} 1 In the account which follows writer has been greatly aided by of Vane's connection with the a number of legal friends, among idea of a Written Constitution, the them, Dr. Wm. G. Hammond, 434 YOlTNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656. The only unique feature of the American polity, as compared with the polities that preceded it, is the provision within it for a Written Constitution. The prpblem of the fathers was, as Lowell says, " to adapt English principles and precedents to the new condi. tions of American life," and the system which they formed for the United States is but a modified ver- sion of that of Great Britain as it existed between 1 760 and 1787. The President is the British King of the eighteenth century — a magistrate elected, to be sure, for four years, instead of inheriting his position for life, but with powers and functions very similar to those of George III. A still closer resemblance exists between the House of Representatives and the House of Commons. The Senate and the House of Lords are less nearly analogous, but the former is nevertheless plainly foreshadowed in the latter. De- scending from these great central features to the lower ranges of administration, it is found that the entire apparatus throughout the States for the ren- dering of justice and for local self-government in town and county has come down almost unchanged from the colonial period, constructed after the mod- els of the mother land.^ In the midst of this mass of traditions and imita- tions is imbedded one innovation, — the provision as regards each State and as regards the United States for a carefully formulated instrument to be Dean of the St. Louis Law School, of the St. Louis Bar, and Arthur Professor J. B. Thayer of the Har- Lord, Esq., of Plymouth, Mass. vard Law School, F. N. Judson, ^ See Sir Henry Maine : Poptt- Esq., and L H. Lionberger, Esq., lar Government, chapter on the American Constitution. i6s6.] THE HEALING QUESTION. 435 drawn up by an assembly of representatives of the people distinct from the legislative assembly, — an instrument to be interpreted by a supreme tribunal specially empowered for that purpose, — an instru- ment by which the whole work of lawmaking shall be imperatively controlled. No such controlling instrument has guided the de- velopment of Great Britain, or of any other land, De Tocqueville declared : " En Angleterre, la Constitu- tion peut changer sans cesse ; on plutot elle n'existe pas." The English lawmakers are completely un- fettered. Says Blackstone : ^ "If the Parliament will positively enact a thing to be done, ... I know of no power . . . vested with authority to control it ; " upon which passage Christian, called by Dr. Francis Lieber, the ablest commentator on Blackstone, re- marks -."^ "If an act of Parliament should, like the ^ Commentaries, \. gi. 118.) Coke's remark is said " not ^ Lieber's Hermeneutics, Ham- to be extravagant, but a very rea- mond's ed. p. 161. See also Dicey, sonable and true saying," in the Law of the Constitution, p. 357, case of the City of London vs. 2d ed. One may find, to be sure, Wood (12 Mod. 687). Lord Justice in (?/i^ English law-writers the idea Hobart declares an act of Parlia- that there are fundamental princi- ment to be void, if " against natu- ples superior to Kings and Parlia- ral equity, — as to make a man ments. Coke, in his famous con- judge in his own cause." (Day vs. flict with James I, declared, follow- Savage, Hobart, 87.) These au- ing Bracton, Bk. \. ch. viii. sec. 5, thorities are somewhat in conflict that the King was " non sub with Blackstone and Christian as homine, but sub Deo and lege" quoted. The doctrine of the ab- (Campbell, Lives of the Ch. Jus- solute supremacy of Parliament is, tices, vol. L ' Coke.') Again, he in fact, a modern one only gradu- declared : " Common law doth ally adopted. Jeremy Bentham control acts of Parliament and ad- proclaimed that nothing was supe- judgeth them void when against rior to legislation, and that is the common reason and right." (Dr. theory of to-day. Bonham's case, 8 Coke's Reps., 436 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656. edict of Herod, command all the children under a certain age to be slain, ... it could only be declared void by the high authority by which it was ordained." The Written Constitution as part of the polity of a people appears for the first time in America. It is the most distinctive feature of our system, and, more- over, that probably which has most value. "We have not yet," says Dr. W. G. Hammond,^ " fully learned the vast importance and momentous consequences of the new element that has been intro- duced into the science of government by . . . the recognition of two distinct and unequal grades of law (even though both derive their authority from the same supreme power, the People) one of which al- ways controls and limits the other, and cannot be changed or limited by it or by any of the ordinary processes of legislation : and consequent upon this the securing of the fundamental maxims of the gov- ernment, and its main features, against attacks of the persons in authority, while they are yet endowed with the powers necessary for the conduct of affairs." The Fathers put as many obstacles as they could contrive (to use again a phrase of Lowell's) " not in the way of the People's will, but of their whim : " '' above all is the Written Constitution a bridle upon popular whim. By this the People have shorn them- selves of a measure of their power, making themselves safe from themselves, and thus is imparted to govern- ment the highest practicable and desirable stability. No American estimate, however, can have such 1 Western Jurist, April, 1869, p. 65 etc. ^ Democracy, p. 24. i6s6.] THE HEALING QUESTION. 437 weight as the testimony of observers who look at things from outside. Of such witnesses, one of the latest and most authoritative, Sij: Henry Maine, speak- ing of England, declares : ^ " Of all the infirmities of our constitution in its decay, there is none more serious than the absence of any special precautions to be observed in passing laws which touch the very foundations of our political system. The nature of their weakness, and the character of the manifold and elaborate securities which are contrasted with it in America," Sir Henry Maine illustrates carefully, reaching " the surprising result that before a consti- tutional measure of gravity could become a law in the United States, it must have at the very least in its favour the concurring vote of no less than fifty- eight separate legislative chambers, independently of the Federal Legislature, in which a double two-thirds majority must be obtained. The alternative course permitted by the Constitution of calling 'separate special conventions of the United States and of the several states, would prove probably in practice even lengthier and more complicated. The great strength of these securities against hasty innovation has been shown beyond the possibility of mistake by the act- ual history of the Federal Constitution. . . . The provisions of the Constitution have acted upon the country like those dams and dykes which strike the eye of the traveler along the Rhine, controlling the course of a mighty river which begins amid mountain torrents, and turning it into one of the most equable water-ways in the world. . . . The signal success of * Popular Government, chapter " The American Constitution." 438 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656, the Constitution of the United States in stemming evil tendencies . . . may well fill the Englishmen who now live in faece Romuli, with wonder and envy." What is history of the Constitutional Idea ? Al- though in its developed form it is not to be traced until the establishment of America, the beginnings of the notion must be sought far earlier. Possibly a germ may be found in Magna Charta, where it is or- dained that all things done afterwards violating in any way its provisions shall be null and void. An- other germ may be found in the charters by which the guilds of the Middle Ages were constituted.^ Each corporation found its grant of privileges ac- companied by a code of obligations, to which it was forced to conform under penalty Of losing those privileges. The English settlement of America was made by great trading corporations, the charters of which, originally nothing more than grants made to guilds in true mediaeval fashion, ' perverted ' into instruments of government, stood behind the colonial assemblies, like the Constitutions behind the Legis- latures, State and Federal, of the American Union. An essential part of an American Constitution, however, is that it comes from the People. The People thus save themselves from themselves. Where and how enters into the idea this element of noble self-restriction ? Magna Charta, extorted, while as yet the People were voiceless, from John by the barons and churchmen, is in form a grant of 1 Brooks Adams : Embryo of a Commonwealth, Atlantic Monthly, November, 1884. i6s6.] THE HEALING QUESTION. 439 privilege and imposition of duty by the King. The charters of the mediaeval guilds are, in like manner, grants and impositions by the over-lord, — King, noble, or monastery, — the people as yet having no agency in the matter. For the entrance of the People upon the scene we must wait until a later day. The Social Compact on board the " Mayflower," and the similar agreement of the settlers of Rhode Island in 1637 — instruments in which English ex- iles bind themselves into a body politic — have been much insisted on as Constitutional beginnings. The men, however, are so few and their agreement couched in terms so brief and simple, that it is easy to overrate the significance of the documents. More important is the action of the three towns of Con- necticut, Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor, in 1639. As Prof. Johnston has just made plain,^ the emigration from Massachusetts Bay, led by Thomas Hooker, to the Connecticut Valley was a democratic secession, the partakers in which had no sooner es- tablished themselves than they formed a Constitution precisely in the modern fashion. The freemen came together in convention and formulated an elaborate code, by which the Legislature, when assembled, found its course narrowly prescribed. Undoubtedly it would be wrong to underestimate all this founda-. tion work, but when was the thing first done upon a national scale t Here we have only little groups of pioneers, as yet on shipboard or living from hand to mouth in the forest, framing systems that will an- swer the simple needs of a handful of human beings. 1 History of Connecticut, p. 63. 440 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656. The matter of Constitution-building on a great scale, for a populous country, with all its complicated ex- ternal and internal relations, was first undertaken by the men of the English Commonwealth. At the deserts in this field of these prime heroes, we may well at this time afford to take a glance. In the fall of 1647, we have seen that while the leaders hesitated, the rank and file of the Ironsides demanded that King and Lords should be laid aside ; that, each reputable man in the land casting his vote, representatives of the people should be chosen who should convene in a legislature ; that over this legis- lature nothing should have power but the People who elected it, and that there should be no limitation of this power except as regarded liberty of conscience — there, no man should undergo restraint. A year afterwards, at the time of the execution of the King, all this was carefully formulated. The leaders, civil and military, now stood with the men, and Henry Ireton prepared an " Agreement of the People " which was, in all substantial respects, a draft for an American Constitution. It never took effect be- cause, in spite of almost miraculous prowess, two- sevenths could not prevail over five-sevenths. A blind and perverse generation turned back to Stu- art rule, abandoning the achievement of popular gov- ernment to another time and another land.^ But be- fore the nascent freedom was quite overswept, there came, in 1656, from one of those mighty strivers, an ex- position of the whole matter of Constitutional theory 1 The " Instrument of Govern- in no way from the People, but ment " of the Protectorate came from a military Council. i6s6.] THE HEALING QUESTION. ^/[l — the first ever made, and yet one to which succeed- ing ages have made Httle essential addition. It was the work of young Sir Henry Vane. Cromwell, long his bosom-friend and fellow- Republican, discouraged, had seen at last no way out of embarrassment but to make himself, through power of the sword, absolute. After he had thus ruled three years, opportunity came to Vane, disgraced and in retirement, to plead with him for an attempt at a different establishment. On the 14th of March, 1656, Cromwell, still ill at ease over the state of things, issued a declaration, calling upon the people to observe a general fast, in the hope that some better way might be revealed. As the call was phrased, the people were to apply them- selves " to the Lord to discover the Achan [Joshua vii] who had so long obstructed the settlement of these distracted kingdoms." Vane took occasion now to break the long silence which he had observed as to public matters, preparing "A Healing Question propounded and resolved upon Occasion of the late public and seasonable Call to Humiliation in order to Love and Union amongst the honest Party, and with a Desire to apply Balm to the Wound before it be- come incurable." Vane sent the " Healing Question " to Cromwell by Fleetwood, the latter's son-in-law, but when a month had passed the document was returned to him. Whether Cromwell had read it is uncertain, but Vane now caused it to be published. The Healing Question is filled from first to last with that spirit of freedom which we have already found, and which we shall continue to find in the declarations of Vane. It is also an overture toward 442 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656. reconciliation with Cromwell, the tone being ear- nestly, even affectionately respectful. During the three years of his government there had been " great silence in Heaven, as if God were pleased to stand still and be a looker-on to see what his people would make of it in England. And as God hath had the silent part, so man, and that good men, too, have had the active and busy part, and have like themselves, made a great sound and noise like the shout of a King in a mighty host." He naturally finds fault with the course his old friend has pursued, and de- mands that the Parliamentary method shall be again restored. " That branch of sovereignty which chiefly respects the execution of the laws " he thinks may be " entrusted into the hands of one single person, if need require. . . . And all disobedience thereunto or con- tempt thereof, be taken as done to the people's sov- ereignty." He is apparently willing to have Crom- well remain at the head of affairs, but there must be a new arrangement for the government of England, which must no longer rest upon the mere will of the Army or its General ; and here he makes a recom- mendation which, if carefully weighed, must be re- garded as one of his best titles to great fame. He urges the calling of a convention for the drawing up of a Written Constitution, giving in clear terms what may be taken to be the first setting forth ever made of the Constitutional Idea, — the first setting forth, yet wanting little as to completeness. He recom-. mends that " a restraint be laid upon the supreme power before it be erected, in the form of a funda- mental Constitution," and considers how this " funda- mental Constitution " shall be established as follows : 1656.] THE HEALING QUESTION. 443 " The most natural way for which would seem to be by a general council or convention of faithful, honest, and discerning men, chosen for that purpose by the free consent of the whole body, . . .by order from the present ruling power, considered as general of the army. Which convention is not properly to exercise the legislative power, but only to debate freely and agree upon the particulars that, by way of fundamental constitutions, shall be laid and inviola- bly observed, as the conditions upoti which the whole body so represented doth consent to cast itself into a civil and politic incorporation. . . . Which condi- tions so agreed . . . will be without danger of being broken or departed from, considering of what it is they are conditions, and the nature of the convention wherein they are made, which is of the People repre- sented in their highest state of sovereignty, as they have the sword in their hands unsubjected unto the rules of civil government, but what themselves, orderly assembled for that purpose, do think fit to make. And the sword upon these conditions sub- jecting itself to the supreme judicature thus to be set up, how suddenly might harmony, righteousness, love, peace, and safety unto the whole body follow hereupon, as the happy fruit of such a settlement, if the Lord have any delight to be amongst us ! " Under a Constitution so established Vane believes that Englishmen " may be well assured that light will spring up among them more and more unto the perfect day," — that the troubles of the land " will prove as shadows ready to flee away before the morn- ing brightness of Christ's heavenly appearance and 444 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [i6j6. second coming, to the bringing in that Kingdom of his that shall never be moved." ' The " Healing Question " is hard reading, as the prose of Milton is hard. Like the utterances of " the god-gifted organ voice of England," so the periods of Vane, often full of a certain long-drawn music, do not readily yield up their content to the somewhat decrepit comprehension of our less masculine age. Across the thought drift obscurities, dimly and sol- emnly luminous from fanatic heats that glowed deep within the soul of the Puritan enthusiast. A great idea, however, is clearly outlined — the presentment, perhaps, gaining impressiveness from the vague rhapsodizing by which it is here and there attended, as a peak, draped in vapor which is aglow from un- seen volcano fires, grows sublime. In the midst of such circumstances, for the first time in the history of the world, the Constitutional Idea finds exposition. ' It may be thought that no garding a statute which conflicts exposition of the Constitutional therewith, . . . seems to him to Idea can be called complete be a novel and brilliant invention, which contains no mention of a instead of a mere instance of a Supreme Court for the interpre- general doctrine of English law tation of the Constitution. But adapted to States partially subor- really cannot this be regarded as dinated to a Federal Government." a necessary corollary from such a (Bryce : Joh. Hop. Univ. Stud, in statement as Vane's ? De Tocque- Histor. and Polit. Set. 5th Series, ville and others have incorrectly No. ix. p. 26.) This function of regarded the idea of the Supreme the English Courts Vane, no doubt, "^ Court as a brilliant American in- knew, and he may well have felt vention. " Much which is really that his scheme presupposed, as a English appears to De Tocque- matter of course, that the judiciary ville to be American or Demo- should decide in doubtful cases, cratic. The function of the See also Brooks Adams : Atlantic judges, for instance, in expound- Monthly, November, 1884, " Em- ing the Constitution, and disre- bryo of a Commonwealth," at end. i6s6.] THE HEALING QUESTION. 445 One wishes that Cromwell and Vane might have come together again. How fine is Carlyle's picture of Cromwell as he assumes the Protectorate, Decem- ber 16, 1653. '"His Highness was in a rich but plain suit ; black velvet, with cloak of the same : about his hat a broad band of gold.' Does the reader see him ? — a rather likely figure, I think. Stands some five feet ten or more ; a man of strong solid stature, and dignified, now partly military car- riage : the expression of him valor and devout intel- ligence, — energy and delicacy on a basis of simpli- city. Fifty-four years old, gone April last ; brown hair and moustache are getting grey. A figure of sufficient impressiveness ; — not lovely to the man- milliner species, nor pretending to be so. Massive stature ; big massive head, of somewhat leonine as- pect ; — wart above the right eye-brow ; nose of con- siderable blunt aquiline proportions ; strict yet copi- ous lips, full of all tremulous sensibilities, and also, if need were, of all fierceness and vigors ; deep lov- ing eyes, call them grave, call them stern, looking from under those craggy eye-brows as if in life- long sorrow, and yet not thinking it sorrow, think- ing it only labor and endeavor; on the whole, a right noble lion-face and hero-face, and to me royal enough." One can imagine for Vane a presence not less touching and dignified. He stood then in his best years, his fine features stamped with manly gravity, a shadow from the perils and labors of that long period of revolution, which only a soul of the most heroic mould could have borne. The abundant 446 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656. golden hair of his youth may well have grown gray and thin. What could one have seen in those steady brown black eyes ? a far-away look, as of one fond of losing himself in deep and intricate speculations ; — or the clear glance of a man of affairs, of the finest organizing faculty and keenest practical discrimina- tion ? There were strange contradictions in his char- acter: which of the two so different men that dwelt within him, must we suppose looked forth in the countenance ? So they stood, so long and in such peril the clos- est friends, now not far apart, and yearning we may believe for one another. Were they never again to be joined ? In the portraits of Cromwell and Vane by Hou- braken, fine specimens of that great engraver's skill, Oliver is given as Carlyle describes him, a face of tenderness and yet of power, a fit front for the Protector of a nation languishing and peril-begirt. Upon the countenance of Vane, too, sit a noble strength and dignity, — refinement also and a certain majesty, as if, man of the People though he had be- come, his high birth would still assert itself. In each case the old artist, somewhat quaintly, has set the figure in the midst of emblems,* pointing at the ca- reer in which he became illustrious: for Cromwell the sword and helmet ; for Vane an olive wreath that perhaps hints at peace, and the folds of a heavy sweeping curtain suggestive of the stately circum- ' In the frontispiece to this vol- ture, but it has been found neces- ume the face and figure of Vane sary to omit the adjuncts described are given after the Houbraken pic- in the text. 1 662.] THE HEALING QUESTION. 447 stance of Parliaments and Councils. In each case, however, there lurks among the emblems a symbol ominously terrible — the axe of the headsman ! Its helve lies side by side with the sword of Oliver : it protrudes, half concealed by the falling drapery, be- neath the form of Vane. How solemn the commu- nity here brought to mind ! In their great striving through so many years they had been united as brothers: their hearts had beat in unison: in the judgment of each the same end had seeriied desir- able, the same means expedient for securing it. A short estrangement, but in death the two men were to come together yet again. The head of Cromwell, struck off from his dead body, was to moulder upon a pole above the gable of Westminster Hall. Vane was to feel the sharp edge while yet in fullest life. For each headless victim a grave of dishonor, — a name overwhelmed by the meanest contumely ! ^ 1 Cromwell's latest biographer, " constitutional limit " upon the Mr. Frederic Harrison {Cromwell, " elected House." Since in his Macmillan, i888) thinks that Crom- view the People alone were su- well and not Vane had "the fixed preme, he would, without doubt, idea of the founders of the United have said that they could, if they States of America," claiming for chose, make Executive and Legis- his hero that he alone recognized lative co-ordinate. He had no ob- the value of a Written Constitu- jection to a " Single Person," but tion, and that he believed in an he must derive his authority from Executive co-ordinate with, not the People — noPfrom the Army, subordinate to, the Legislative not from himself. Vane, of course, power: whereas "the fixed idea of had no recognition of the expedi- Vane . . . was to establish the ency of the balance between the autocracy of an elected House, su- Executive, the Legislative, and the preme over the Executive, and free Judiciary : that came in with Mon- from any constitutional limit, just tesquieu, a century afterwards, as we see it [in England] to-day." from whom our constitution-mak. (p. 196.) No reader of the Heal- ers learned it. But so far as Vane's ing Question can believe that Vane thought went it was so.undly Amer- failed to recognize the value of a ican. CHAPTER XIX. Richard's parliament. Thurloe writes to Henry Cromwell, June i6: "We are yet very much troubled with the Fifth Monarchy men and the Levellers, who have their constant meeting to put us into blood. By the Lev- ellers I mean those who pretend to a republique or popular form of government. Sir H. Vane hath lately put forth a new form of government plainly laying aside thereby that which now is. . . . At the first coming out of it it was applauded, but now upon second thoughts it is rejected as being impracticable, and arguing in truth at setting up the Long Parlia- ment again. But all men judge that he hath some very good hopes, that he showes so much courage. His name is not to it but he doth acknowledge it to be his. It is certain it doth behove us to have a watchful eyffupon that interest."^ Vane was summoned before the Council by a curt writ. He at once went to London, and from his house at Charing Cross, August 20, wrote a manly letter^ denying their authority to compel him to appear, but expressing his willingness to do so. On the 2 1st he was under examination, where, says 1 Thurloe, v. 122. 2 Ibid. v. 328. i6s6.] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 449 Thurloe to Henry Cromwell,^ " he owned the writ- ing of it [The HeaHng Question] but in termes darke and misterious enough, as his manner is." He was laid under bonds of £5000 to do nothing against the Protector's government. To this he dedined to submit, declaring that the " Healing Question," which they call seditious, " asserts the principles, spirit, and justice of the cause we have professed and fought for in our late Warre . . . nor can I but ob- serve how exactly those that have made this order do tread in the steps of the late King." Writs for a new Parliament had been issued July 10, and Vane had tried in three places to be elected for it.'* Whalley and Lilburne, Major-Generals in the North, watched him narrowly, reporting to the centre what they discovered.^ " If anything inable him to be chosen," wrote the former, " I fear it will be his being at this juncture of time sent for." Instead of a seat in Parliament, Vane's fate was to fall into prison. September gth he was committed to Caris- brook Castle, the governor being charged to let no one speak to him except in presence of an officer. In receiving Oliver's condemnation he was in good company ; — Harrison, Bradshaw, Ludlow, Lawson, the soldiers Rich, Okey, Alured, and others who had done manful work in the Honest Party, were dealt with at the same time. In the circumstances it can- not be said Vane's treatment was severe. No plots that beset the Protector were more dangerous than those of Republicans, and who could say how much aid and comfort the " Healing Question " might 1 Thurloe, v. 349. " Ibid. v. 349. « Ibid. v. 296, 299. 450 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE, [1656. afford those who engineered them ! It was read and pondered widely. Vane signalized his arrival at Carisbrook by an outspoken warning to Cromwell, of which the follow- ing strong sentences are a portion : — " My Lord : Having something in my mind to speak by way of more peculiar address and concern- ment to your Lordship than the rest of your com- pany, I have chosen to do it by these lines, as the testimony which upon this occasion, I desire to speak before your own conscience in the sight of God. ... I am as little satisfied with your active, and j-^^establishing principles, in the lively colours wherein daily they show themselves, as you are or can be with my passive ones, and am willing in this to joyn issue with you, and to beg of the Lord to judge between us and to give the decision according to truth and righteousness. " And having named truth and righteousness, surely it may but too truly be said, that amongst us remains nothing but the name, the power and life thereof seems to be ceased from our land, and is banished from the societies of most men. Yet, my Lord, it is that whereby the actions and practice of all men are to be ruled, as well of Governours as of the governed. Governours themselves are neither to be nor make themselves more than what in truth and righteous- ness they are and ought to be. . . . That which in truth of fact you were is visible enough to every eye, that is to say, under the Legislative Author- ity of the People Represented in Parliament, duly chosen and rightly constituted : You and the force i6s6.] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 45 1 under your command are the nation's strength and formed military power, kept up by a derived authority from them, at a settled pay to be imployed for the Na- tion's use and service and theirs only ; and over this military body you are by them placed as the head. " This then is the power which duly and properly you are, and more than this, I am not satisfied in my conscience, is in truth and righteousness appertain- ing unto you ; to use this power lawfully, is your honour, your duty, your safety, as well as their wel- fare, and preservation, for whom it was raised and is still paid. To use this unlawfully, as evidently you doe, is to become like that one sinner, which (Eccles. 9. 19,) is said to destroy much good. " And although your own conscience cannot but consent to the truth of what is here told you, in the name and fear of the Lord, yet being strong and trusting to the power of your sword, which is flesh and not spirit, is man and not God, your heart is lifted up, if you speedily repent not, unto your destruction. ... In reference as well to Christ, your heavenly head, as to the good people of this nation in Parlia- ment assembled, and rightly constituted who were, and ought to be your earthly head ; you lift up your heel, and harden yourself every day more than other, in a fixed resolution not to become subject, as is your duty, nor to hold and keep yourself in your due sta- tion allotted to you in the body ; but are arguing at the throne in spirituals as well as temporals ; and to set up yourself in a capacity of not holding your head either in the one consideration or the other. . . . Take then in good part before it be too late, 452 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1656. this faithful warning and following advice of an an- cient friend, but is now thought fit to be used and dealt with as an enemy." ^ Vane was released December 31st, after an impris- onment of four months. No traditions of him linger at Carisbrook. The fine old castle rises in the centre of the Isle of Wight more beautiful, no doubt, in its ruin than ever in its strength. Through all the epochs of English history it has been a stronghold. The barrows of the Britons rise by the side of the later walls, and the spade uncovers Roman tessel- lated pavements in the immediate neighborhood. The yellow ruins are hung thick with ivy, and within, staircase and floor so far remain that one can go from room to room, getting hints from the wide chimneys, the deep window-seats, the utensils and carving, how life has gone on there in former days. The memory of Charles I it is that beyond every- thing haunts the pile. On that beautiful lawn he played at bowls ; here on the parapet, looking off over the pleasant fields of Wight which even the winter can scarcely rob of greenness, he disputed in his grave kingly way with ministers and politi- cians ; in this room he wove treacherous plots ; through this grated window he tried to escape. That Vane moved in these same spots is forgotten ; and yet to the English-speaking world of to-day how vastly more significant his figure ! Imprisoned for the " Healing Question," a demand for perfect tolera- 1 This letter is bound up with Question, preserved in the British an ancient copy of the Healing Museum. i6s7.] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 453 tion, for complete popular sovereignty, for a shaking off of old shackles, — an anticipation of the best political thought of to-day, a foregleam of all that is finest in the American polity ! How masterful he was in ways of which the King knew nothing ! If impracticable, what a prophet of a great time to come ! Henceforth, through what remained of Cromwell's life, there was a thorough break of friendly relations. The Protector no doubt thought Vane incorrigible, while Vane, who after a while was allowed to live as a recluse at Raby, believed his old friend selfishly ambitious, and beyond hope of conversion. •Ludlow declares ^ that Vane became the subject of a petty per- secution, his title to certain " forest walks " near Raby being disputed, while he was privately informed that all proceedings should cease if he would only comply. Ludlow is an honest witness, but Vve cannot call him unprejudiced. He was in the same boat with Vane, in no mood to do justice to Oliver. If the story were true, it would reflect little credit upon either the Pro- tector's sagacity or magnanimity, and few men have ever surpassed him in either. We find Vane writing in his quiet a letter to Har- rington, whose " Oceana " was in those days a famous book, " A Needful Correction or Balance in Popular Government." Also a theological work, " Of the Love of God and Communion with God," containing overmuch of the obscurity which always, in his writ- ings of this kind, causes the despair of a modern reader. Meantime the great Oliver went forward, 1 II. 594- 454 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [i6s7- prayerful, sincere, heroic, beneath his vast burden so splendid and yet so onerous. He had tried re- peatedly to surrender the nation into the hands of its own representatives sitting in Parliament, reserving to himself, however, authority to step in, if need were, and guide the land, with fatherly purpose, through the perils that encompassed it : in his devout Puritan soul he felt that the Lord had made him his instru- ment, and that the people should recognize the fact. Each time, however, there had been a questioning of matters which he thought should not be touched, and so each time, at the autocratic word, St. Stephen's had emptied itself, leaving all to the Protector's sword. The title of King had been put aside, but a rule more absolute than that of any English King prevailed, — no more arbitrary, however, than it was beneficent; and under ihe influence of blended power and gentleness, sullen Cavalier and Presbyte- rian, uncompromising Quaker also, and outrageous Leveller, were gradually sinking into acquiescence. Looking abroad, to what quarter of the civilized world did not the arm of Oliver extend, as potent to beckon into life all things great and good, as it was to dash into ruin all things that made for ill ! Who that follows that wonderful career, that reads those letters and speeches, stammerin'g, incoherent, but so charged with all manly worth, will abate a word from Milton's great panegyric } ^ " He was a soldier disciplined to perfection in a knowledge of himself. He had either extinguished, or by habit had learned to subdue, the whole host of 1 Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano; translation. i6s7.] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 455 vain hopes, fears, and passions which infest the soul. He first acquired the government of himself ... so that on the first day he took the field against-the external enemy, he was a veteran in arms. . . . The whole surface of the British empire has been the theatre of his triumphs. The good and the brave were from all quarters attracted to his camp, not only as to the best school of military talents, but of piety and virtue. His soldiers were a stay to the good, a terror to the evil, and the warmest advocates for every exertion of piety and virtue. While you, O Cromwell, are left among us, he hardly shows a proper confidence in the Supreme, who distrusts the security of England. We all willingly yield the palin of sovereignty to your unrivalled ability and virtue except the few among us who do not know that noth- ing in the world is more pleasing to God, than that the supreme power should be vested in the best and the wisest of men. Such, O Cromwell, all acknowl- edge you to be ; such are the services which you have rendered as the leader of our councils, the gen- eral of our armies, and the father of your country. Continue your course with the same unrivalled mag- nanimity : it sits well upon you. To you our coun- try owes its liberties, nor can you sustain a character at once more momentous and more august than that of the author, the guardian, and the preserver of our liberties. Hence you have not only eclipsed the achievements of all our kings, but even those which have been fabled of our heroes." Vane could not have joined in such praise ; and to Milton, in these days, Vane had become one of those 456 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1658. " who are either ambitious of honours which they have not the capacity to sustain, or who envy those which are conferred on one more worthy than them- selves, or else who do not know that nothing in the world is more pleasing to God than that the supreme power should be vested in the best and. wisest of men." Great hearts were they all, long together, now severed, the little rift of alienation becoming gradu- ally a wide chasm : partly it was misunderstanding of one another's thought, partly a real difference of view. The time had come for a change. Cromwell, in the summer of 1658, watched, broken-hearted, by the deathbed of his favorite daughter. Lady Claypole, at Hampton Court. He followed her to her grave in Henry Vllth's chapel at Westminster, then sank himself. He was seen once more among his troopers. " Before I came to him," writes the Quaker, George Fox, " as he rode at the head of his life-guard, I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against' him; and when I came to him, he looked like a dead man." A few days more and the great, simple, devout soul muttered from his couch his dying prayer : ^ " Lord, though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with thee through grace, and I may, I -will, come to thee. For thy people thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and thee service; and many of them have set too high a value upon me, though many wish and would be glad of my death. But, Lord, however thou dost dispose of me, continue and go on to do good to them. Give them consistency ^ Carlyle, ii. 409. i6s8.] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 457 of judgment, one heart, and mutual love ; and go on to deliver them, and with the work of reformation ; and make the name of Christ glorious in the world. Teach those who look too much on thy instruments to depend more upon thyself ; pardon such as desire to trample on the dust of a poor worm, for they are thy people, too ; and pardon the folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ's sake ; and give us a good night, if it be thy pleasure." The Lord gave the great, sweet soul its good night September 3d, the day of Dunbar and Worcester. The death of Oliver was the signal for the return of Vane to public life, though the opportunity did not come at once. Richard Cromwell, who in some indistinct way was believed to have been nominated by his father on his deathbed, succeeded to the Pro- tectorate, and for five months the state ran smoothly under the impetus given it by the great hand that was now mouldering. Among the adherents of the dead Oliver, however, factions soon began to form destined to develop ere long a perilous discord. There was a dynastic party, the Cromwellians, who cordially recognized Richard as his father's successor, and sought to retain him in all the power which his father had possessed. Another company, however, composed for the most part of Army officers, desired a diminution of the Protector's power. They wished to have Fleetwood, Cromwell's son-in-law, com- mander-in-chief, and in a measure co-equal with Richard in the administration. The meeting-place of this knot of men was Wallingford House close by 458 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. Whitehall, the residence of Fleetwood, whence they came to bear the name of the Wallingford-House party. At length writs were issued for a Parliament, and here a remarkable retrogression was to be no- ticed. Whereas the two Parliaments of Oliver's Pro- tectorate (the Barebones Parliament, as made up of mere nominees of Oliver, does not merit the name) had been elected according to the reformed plan, pro- posed originally by Ireton in the "Agreement of the People," and supposed to have been a feature of the act which Oliver had caught into his own hands at the Dissolution of the Rump, there was a return now to the old methods. The disfranchised boroughs received their old privileges, the new distribution of members was forsaken. All reverted to the ancient time-honored way. It was done at the instance of the lawyers, and the nation received it without re- monstrance. This Parliament assembled on the 27th of January, 1659, Westminster overflowing with legislators as it had not done since the time of the assembling of the Long Parliament. There was an Upper House, con- stituted of Richard's Council and the Lords whom Oliver had made : here, probably, the Cromwellians and the Wallingford-House party had not far from equal weight. Five hundred and fifty-eight members formed the Lower House, of whom twenty-five sat for Wales, thirty for Ireland, and twenty-one for Scot- land. The Irish and Scotch members were almost to a man government nominees. Of the English members some fifty were pure Republicans, and we find the old leaders among these, who had either been i6s9'] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 459 in retirement since the coup d'etat of 1653, or had figured in Oliver's time in opposition more or less definite to his autocracy. Bradshaw, Scott, Haselrig, Ludlow, and others, were there, and among these sat once more Sir Henry Vane. He had been elected not without difiiculty. Though fairly returned, it is said, by his old constituency of Kingston-upon-Hull, the choice was thrown out. He tried at Bristol with similar ill fortune, succeeding only after a third at- tempt, at Whitchurch in Hampshire. The large body of Cromwellians was led by Thurloe, a man bold and adroit, while the most conspicuous representa- tive of Wallingford-House was John Lambert, now and henceforth a character much in the foreground. Although but just forty years old, he had been con- spicuous since Marston Moor, where the raw recruits whom he commanded refused to stand before the charge of Goring. Of Oliver's pupils and lieuten- ants none had had a more brilliant record in the field. At Preston he was Cromwell's right arm, and many believed that he saved his master at Dunbar. Like Ireton he was bred a lawyer, and though with- out Ireton's weight of intellect and character, he was brilliant and versatile, and sometimes displayed a most attractive magnanimity. He once allowed six captive soldiers condemned to death to cut their way through his guard and escape.^ The idea of the Pro- tectorate is said to have been due to him. He was a prominent figure at Oliver's installation and stood al-. ways at his right hand. He never would submit that the Parliament should be over the Army. His wife, > Ranke, iii. 261. 46o YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. a lady of good family, was an ardent Vaneist, as the religious followers of Sir Henry were called. A mar- riage had been proposed between his daughter and the young Duke of York, afterwards James II. Soon after this time we find a match talked of between a daughter of Lambert and a son of Vane, still an- other Henry, who died before reaching maturity. — Besides Cromwellians, Republicans, and Wallingford- House adherents, there sat in Parliament a consider- able number who, as all felt, were secretly Stuartists. Making allowance for partisan bias, we may be- lieve here the report of Clarendon, who says that this Parliament was governed by Vane and Haselrig, " the heads of the republic party, though of very dif- ferent natures and understandings. . . . Vane, who was much the wisest man, found he could never make that assembly settle such a government as he affected either in church or state : and Haselrig, who was of a rude and stubborn nature and of a weak understanding, concurred with him in all the fierce counsels which might more irrecoverably disinherit the King and root out his .majesty's party: in all other things relating to the temporal or ecclesiastical matters, they were not only of different judgments, but of extraordinary animosity against each other." *. Haselrig " believed the Parliament to be the only government that would infallibly keep out King and Bishop, and his credit in the House was greater than the other's ; which made Vane less troubled at the violence that was used, (though he would never ad- vise it) and appear willing enough to confer and 1 p. 2954 etc. I6S9-] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 46 1 join with those who would find any other hinge to hang the government upon : so he presently entered into conversation with those of the Army, who were most like to have authority." In " Burton's Diary," ^ we have the means of fol- lowing, in something like the minuteness of modern reporting, the speeches and actions of Richard's Par- liament. Vane's first great speech was given on the 9th of February upon the matter whether the Pro- tectorate existed of " undoubted right," based as it was upon the " Petition and Advice," an instrument devised in Oliver's latter days as a foundation for his power. Here are significant passages from this speech : " Consider what it is we are upon — a Pro- tector in the office of chief magistrate. But the of- fice of right is in yourselves. . . . You may have the honor of giving or not giving, as best likes you. . . . Give not by wholesale, so as to beg again at retail. . . . Look well about you that it slip not from you without considering what is your right and the right of the People. ... I observe a variety of opinions as to what our state of government is. Some conceive that it is in King, Lords, and Commons ; that the principles of old foundations yet remain entire, so that all our evils, indeed, are imputed to our depart- ure from thence. It hath pleased God, by well- known steps to put a period and to bring that gov- ernment to a dissolution." Vane declares his adherence, in the earlier time, to the time-honored form, and shows how he and his friends forsook it unwillingly, because they were 1 Edited by John Towill Rutt. 462 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. forced to take new ground. "There was then a declaration drawn in favor of it. I was one of that committee. [The allusion is to the Heads of Pro- posals of 1647.] * . . . But this encouraged the King, and brought it to that issue at last that he hardened his heart till it was resolved to make no more ad- dresses, but to bring him to judgment. But in the mean time applications were made to him, imploring him to be reconciled; and nothing was wanting in the House, that, if possible, he might have saved the government and himself with it ; but God would not have it so. . . . This House . . . were reduced to the necessity of doing that which is now the founda- tion of that building upon which you must stand. ; . . It was "declared by them that the taking away of the Kingship was the only happy way of returning to their own freedom. Their meaning thereby was, that the original of all just power was in the People, and was reserved wholly to them, the representatives. ... I confess I was then exceedingly to seek, in the clearness of my judgment, as to the trial of the King. I was for six weeks absent from my seat here, out of my tenderness of blood ; yet, all power being thus in the People originally, I myself was afterward in the business. ... It was then necessary, as the first act, to have resort to the foundation of all just power, and to create and establish a free state, to bring the People out of bondage from all pretence of superiority over them. It seemed plain to me that all offices had their rise from the People and that all should.be accountable to them." ' See pp. 270, 271. i6s9-] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 463 Thus explaining his own position, showing how gradually he had grown into his Republicanism, Vane now shows how fixed he had become in that faith, and how determined he was in opposition to any other sovereignty than that of the People. This Petition and Advice upon which Richard's authority was to be based, came not from the People, but from Oliver and his Council. " It is said," cried Vane, " the foundations are laid upon which we may build a superstructure of which we need not be ashamed. Now, shall we be underbuilders to supreme Stuart ? We have no need, no obligation upon us to return to that old government." In other words, to allow ar- bitrary power was only paving the way for a restora- tion of Charles II. " Lastly, at the dissolution of the Long Parliament, you lost your possession, not your right The chief magistrate's place was assumed without a law. . . . This Petition and Advice was . . . only a pair of stairs to ascend the throne ; a step to King, Lords, and Commons. . . . You are in the clear, rightful possession of this government, which cannot be disposed of but by your consent." Vane's party were beaten. ' Richard was admitted to a power based upon the Petition and Advice, and Vane now sought to limit the Protector's unconstitu- tional authority as much as he could. February 1 7, he declared, among other things, that the Protector should be denied " the negative voice," the veto power. " I would have him possess all things need- ful to his acting for the People . . . but not power to do them or you any hurt. ... It is therefore ne- cessary so to bind him as he may grow up with the 464 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. public interest. . . . Pronounce your judgment, that the chief magistrate shall have no negative upon the People assembled in Parliament. Do this, else I shall take it for granted that you will have no fruit of your debate, and that you intend nothing for the People." February 21, the matter under debate be- ing military proceedings, Vane's speech contains such sentences as this : " I see this affair all along man- aged but to support the interest of a single person, and not for the public good, for the People's inter- est." A few days later, in debates concerning the Upper House, which, it was urged, ought to stand also by the Petition and Advice, Vane's outbursts are full of eloquence and grandeur. " I understand not that objection that we are sinew-shrunk and manacled, and cannot proceed ; that we can effect nothing unless we transact with these men. . . . When the power of King or Lords is melted down into this House, it is in the People by the law of na- ture and reason. Death and tract of time may melt it and bring it down, but this shall never die. Where is then the anarchy, the sneaking oligarchy.? The representative body never dies, whoever die. . . . You set up a means to perpetuate an arbitrary power over you, to lay yourselves aside and make you for- ever useless — I may say odious forever ! . . . God is almighty. Will you not trust him with the conse- quences.? He that has unsettled a monarchy of so many descents in peaceable times, and brought you to the top of your liberties, though he drive you back for a while into the wilderness, he will bring you back. He is a wiser workman than to reject his own work." i6s9.] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 465 The effect of this speech was very great, nearly turning the scale against the Upper House, which is said to have been saved by the votes of the govern- ment nominees, the Scotch and Irish members. Against these, on March 9th, Vane impetuously turned. He told the House it was no House and " had been out of order ever since they sat," be- cause it contained members who were merely govern- ment nominees and not duly elected. " A greater imposition never was by a single person upon a Par- liament, to put sixty votes upon you." On March 23d, the case of the borough of Dartmouth being be- fore the House, whether the right to elect a member belonged to the people of the borough or to the cor- poration. Vane moved to assert the right of the peo- ple. " A fundamental right of the People cannot be taken out by any charter or corporation whatsoever." When at last the little knot of Republicans were quite overborne, Vane's terse, vehement denuncia- tions rung again and again over the tumult of debate. "In every step you have taken, you give away all. Do something that may make you appear trustees in- deed ; and not in one moment give away all you have fought for." April 5th, " Vane spoke very high as usual. ' You give away all at once, and may go home and say we have done for the single person's and others' turn, and nothing for the People.' " Vane is constantly on his feet, always the People's champion, always clear and forceful — frequently eloquent and most vehement, his outpourings presenting a strange contrast indeed to the cloudy sermonizing to which he sometimes saw fit to surrender himself. His most 466 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. memorable utterance in this Parliament seems to have been just at its close. The speech as we have it * has been modernized, but the power remains in it. It was given while the House was refusing to obey the Protector's summons to meet him in the House of Lords, the usher of the Black Rod press- ing meantime vainly for admittance. " Mr. Speaker : Among all the people of the uni- verse, I know none who have shown so much zeal for the liberty of their country as the English at this time have done: they have, by the help of Divine Providence, overcome all obstacles, and have made themselves free. We have driven away the heredi- tary tyranny of the house of Stuart at the expense of much blood and treasure, in hopes of enjoying hereditary liberty, after having shaken off the yoke of kingship ; and there is not a man among us who could have imagined that any person would be so bold as to dare to attempt the ravishing from us that freedom, which cost us so much blood and so much labor. But so it happens, I know not by what mis- fortune, we are fallen into the error of those who poisoned the emperor Titus to make room for Domi- tian, who made away Augustus that they might have Tiberius, and changed Claudius for Nero. I am sensible these examples are foreign from my subject, since the Romans in those days were buried in lewd- ness and luxury, whereas the People of England are now renowned all over the world for their great vir- tue and discipline, and yet suffer an idiot without courage, without sense, nay, without ambition, to have 1 Biographia Britannka, art. " Vane." I6s9-] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 467 dominion in a country of liberty ! One could bear a little with Oliver Cromwell, though contrary to his oath of fidelity to the Parliament, contrary to his duty to the public, contrary to the respect he owed that venerable body from whom he received his authority, he usurped the government. His merit was so ex- traordinary, that our judgments, our passions, might be blinded by it. He made his way to empire by the most illustrious actions ; he had under his command an Army that had made him a conqueror, and a People that had made him their General. But as for Richard Cromwell his son, who is he .? What are his titles^'' We have seen that he has his sword by his side; but did he ever draw it.? And what is of more importance in this case, is he fit to get obedi- ence from a mighty nation, who could never make a footman obey him.? Yet we must recognize this man as our King, under the style of Protector ! a man without birth, without courage, without conduct. For my part, I declare, Sir, it shall never be said that I made such a man my master." Before dismissing Richard's Parliament, we must glance at the figure of headstrong, well-meaning Haselrig, the schoolmate of Vane so long before at Westminster, his helper during all the terrible years, in these days his close associate and fellow-champion in the fight for the cause of the People. Though a stout soldier, he, unlike Lambert and many of the Army men, felt that Parliament ought to be supreme, carrying his ideas to a point, that, as we shall pres- ently see, separated him even from Vane. His vig- 468 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. orous manner made him now, as Clarendon hints in a passage already quoted, more influential even than Vane, who, perhaps, at this time fell under the sus- picion of being too much given to impracticable dreams. Says " Burton's Diary," under head of March 21: "It happened in the Council Chamber that some hot words passed from a member to Sir Arthur Haselrig. He told him [Sir Arthur] that all the laws made in the fag-end of the Long Parliament were not of force, and spoke very reproachfully of that Parliament ; and told Sir Arthur that it was he that endeavored to make himself and Sir Henry Vane the great Hogen Mogens, to rule the Common- wealth. The member that ruffled Sir Arthur was of no great quality. He [Sir Arthur] took it heavily out, and wished he had been hanged up, and three or four more, and their posterity rooted up, rather than have acted so highly, and now come thus to be re- proached. The great things of taking away king- ship, House of Lords, war with Scotland, Ireland, and Holland, and public sales were all in that time." In this passage we get a glimpse of the manner of the testy veteran : his coat of mail was laid aside, to be sure, but he flared up into as^ great wrath among the benches as if he were at the head of a troop, with Cavaliers to confront. Finer, however, than Haselrig is the figure of that other schoolmate of Vane, Scott, like Haselrig a soldier right from the field,^ a man far better re- strained, who could speak in the noblest fashion, and had a soul perfectly undaunted. We have more than 1 Lives of the Regicides, article " Scott." I6S9-] RICHARiyS PARLIAMENT. 469 once had example of his ability of speech : we shall hear him again under circumstances that show well his power and courage. Vane's public career is now close upon its end. After a few troubled months, England was destined to seek refuge from anarchy by rushing back to the old order ; but as yet the Republicans were not hope- less, and no heart was firmer than that of Vane. In Parliament, all went against them. Richard and the Other House were recognized, their title being some- thing different from the will of the People. The right of Government nominees, of the Irish and Scottish members, namely, to sit among the repre- sentatives of the People, was accorded, and a tolera- tion favored quite too narrow to suit men who saw in Voluntaryism the only proper ecclesiastical arrange- ment. The WjUingford-House Party, however, that powerful Army faction, was also dissatisfied with Par- liament, and at length a combination of the Repub- licans with Wallingford House brought Richard's Parliament to an end. In April all was in confusion. Fleetwood, Oliver's son-in-law, and Desborough, Oli- ver's brother-in-law, led the Army men, the latter tell- ing his nephew Richard, that if he would dissolve Parliament the officers would take care of him ; if he refused, they would do it without him, and let him shift for himself. Richard yielded on the 21st, and Parliament was dissolved. The matter of adminis- tration without a Parliament could perhaps have been managed, but there was great need of money for public uses, and how could that be raised except in the time-honored way.? Vane and the Republi- 470 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. cans pressed that the old Rump should be restored. The " Single Person" and the " Other House," they could not abide ; but in the strait what expedient could be better than the temporary revival of that purged Long Parliament, stamped out by Cromwell, but never legally dissolved? Wallingford House hesi- tated, and there was much discussion. Vane's house at Charing Cross was a meeting-place where Repub- licans and Army men sought to agree. The " Good old Cause " was a cry that now filled the air, the people shouting for a return to those days of the Commonwealth, before the autocracy had begun, and at length the Republicans prevailed. One hundred and sixty members were found to be still living of the Long Parliament as it stood from 1648 to 1653. May 7, forty-two of these were got together, and Lenthall, after difficulties which Ludlow^ relates amusingly, was prevailed upon to take his old place as Speaker. Henry Marten, who had been in jail for debt, was brought in in triumph, and St. Stephen's Hall became once more the home of a Parliament. There was difficulty at once as to whether members secluded by Pride's Purge should have a place. At the outset of things indomitable Prynne put in an appearance, and we have mention in the tracts,^ of what probably was an earnest scene. Haselrig meet- ing Prynne stormed at him as having no right there, and Sir Henry Vane said : " Mr. Prynne, what make you here .? You ought not to come into this House, being formerly voted out. I wish you as a friend * II. p- 649. Faithful Scout, June 10-17, 1659. * Weekly Post, June 7-14, 1659. Thomasson Tracts, 985. 1659.] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 47 1 quietly to depart hence; else some course will be presently taken with you for your presumption." Difficulties were, however, overcome ; all but genu- ine Rumpers were excluded, and the body set to work " to endeavor the settlement of the Common- wealth, without a Single Person,^ Kingship, or House of Peers." After discussion with the Army men, a Council was at length settled upon to be the execu- tive body, to consist of thirty-one members, of whom ten were to be taken from outside of Parliament. Vane now accepted the command of a regiment, and became one of a committee of seven to nominate, for approval by Parliament, officers to be commissioned. Fleetwood became Lieutenant General for England and Scotland. May 25th, came Richard's formal abdication. The army demanded good treatment for him and the family of Cromwell in general. Hand- some sums of money were bestowed upon Richard and his mother, " as a mark of the high esteem this nation hath of the good service done by our ever renowned General." Richard lived fifty-three years longer, an amiable, inoffensive man, who was quite able to fill respectably a private station. It was his misfortune to be forced by circumstances to appear in an exalted place for which he had no fitness. " Tumble-down-Dick " was his nickname in his time, and history has only contemptuous mention of him. In time the restored Rump amounted to one hun- dred and twenty-two in number, though never more than seventy-six were present. In the Council, Vane 1 By the Single Person the Re- cratic Protector, not a limited Ex- publicans now understood an auto- ecutive. 472 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. was of course a leading figure, standing at once, in- deed, in the same prominence which he had occupied in the days when Blake fought Van Tromp. Really it was a most false position which the Republicans now occupied, and one can imagine with what des- peration their souls must have been filled. Sover- eignty of the People without privileged class or Es- tablished Church was their principle, but the People themselves were determined not to be sovereign. Richard's Parliament just dissolved, though it had. the few government nominees, was in vast majority fairly representative of the England of that day, and it had declared for an autocratic Protector, a House of Lords, and a very narrow Toleration. The few Re- publicans were trying, as it were, to save the People from themselves. With an inconsistency that almost raises a smile, although the case is so pathetic, they had sought the arbitrary backing of the Army to force freedom on a People that did not desire to be free. In what sense did the Rump represent the England of 1659? Vane had been elected to the Long Parliament in 1640, and sat in the Rump by virtue of that election : his colleagues had all been sent by the constituencies of a time long before. Holding it, as they did, for their deepest theoretical tenet that there was no legitimate power in the land but the will of the People, how could they feel them- selves authorized to thwart that will, which chose to be restrained by masters rather than to be free ? The world was not ready for their ideas ; there was nothing to be done but at once to give up striv- ing. Still, they did not give up as yet, and civil war I659-J RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 473 was confidently expected between the Protectoratists and the restored Rump. The former might have been very formidable. Henry Cromwell in Ireland, many in Scotland, the army in Flanders which had startled the continent with its efficiency, and Mon- tague, the best of the admirals since Blake's death, with a good part of the fleet, — all these the Protec- toratists could have relied upon. For the Rump stood the army at the centre, commanded by Fleet- wood, Lambert, and Desborough. By the middle of June, however, this danger was plainly over. The foes of the Rump acquiesced, some of them sullenly^ in the new order of things, though Henry Cromwell signalized his retirement into private life by a letter so finely magnanimous and full of sense,^ that one wishes heartily the noble fellow might have had a chance to try his hand at helping his country. The Rump prevailed, indeed ; but secretly vast numbers, those high in place and the humble, began to turn their thoughts to Charles, in exile over the sea, as the only source whence could come peace and set- tled government. The hopelessness of their position brought to the energetic little conclave no paralysis. The needs of the hour were vigorously met. Fleetwood stood in chief command, with Lambert and Monk just below, while stout Ludlow was sent to Ireland, and Lawson in the fleet was set to balance the influence of Mon- tague. The Royalists attempted a rising in August, which Lambert promptly quelled by striking a party in Cheshire. The Rump were in high spirits, when, 1 Dublin, June 15. Thurloe, vii. p. 683 etc. 474 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. lo, their own Army again refused to submit kindly to the civil power! Not indistinctly in the future seemed to loom the form of a new Protector ; and the day seemed near at hand when in October the Rump was a second time driven out, — this time by the sword of Lambert, in a manner as peremptory as that of Oliver himself. In these distressed months change followed change with much confusion, the leading figures standing, now together, now far apart, in combinations strange and impossible to foresee. At this latest turn Vane is found no longer with the Rump, but with the Army men, a position one at first thinks strange enough for him, but it is not at all inexplicable. The Rump now, as we have seen, could only in a very extraordi- nary sense be regarded as a representative of the na- tion, and Vane, although until now the very soul of the Rump, began to feel that by working with the Army men a good result for the country could sooner be brought about. Already in the Rump he had led in measures looking to its dissolution and the election of a new and proper Parliament. So in his new relations he continued the desperate effort to contrive some frame which might be substituted for the existing anarchy, by which England might re- main free. Meantime the rag of a Rump persisted, guided by Haselrig, Scott, and a certain cool free- thinker Neville, backed by a figure who in these days began to loom up in the North in portentous propor- tions,. — that grim minion of Oliver in the subjuga- tion of Scotland, afterward the conqueror of Van Tromp, "silent old George," General Monk. He i6s9-] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 475 now took sides for the Rump against Wallingford House so emphatically, that, as winter drew near, Lambert was sent north to confront him with a pow- erful army. Government was then in the hands of a Committee of Safety of twenty-three, soldiers and civilians. Vane being one. As the two armies to- ward the close of the year faced one another on the border, a sub-committee of the Committee of Safety — Vane, Whitlocke, Fleetwood, Ludlow, Salway, and Tich borne — labored to fix a constitution for the fu- ture. Vane's influence was here paramount, and it was his last effort for his country. The Kingship of Charles Stuart was of course set aside as not to be thought of. The revival of any form of the Protec- torate was also forbidden, whether the man should be Fleetwood, Lambert, or Richard Cromwell re- stored. All were pledged to a government without a Single Person or House of Peers. It was resolved to call a new Parliament. Vane reported " That the Supreme Power delegated by the People to their Trustees, ought to be in some fundamentals not to be dispensed with," bringing up again his idea, ex- pressed before in the " Healing Question," of a Con- stitution. As finally arranged the outcome was as follows : the new Parliament was to be of a single House elected by the People, the franchise limited by certain qualifications for keeping out the danger- ous. A supreme Council of State, as heretofore, was to be the executive. In the matter of liberty of con- science Vane was overruled, for provision was made for an Established Church, accompanied by only a limited Toleration in which no countenance was to 476 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1659. be shown to the more extreme heretics, such as Quakers. The plan never went into fulfilment. The influence of Monk grew with every hour, and on the 26th of December the tough old Rump was a sec- ond time restored and proceeded at once to business. The Committee of Safety were overthrown by the desertion o'f their most trusted servants. Their own soldiers turned against them, and quite notably that part of the fleet upon which they had most depended. " That which broke the heart of the Committee of Safety," says Clarendon,* " was the revolt of their fa- vorite Vice-admiral Lawson, ... at least as much Re- publican as any amongst them ; as much an Indepen- dent, as much an enemy to the Presbyterians and to the Covenant as Sir Harry Vane himself : and a great dependent upon Sir Harry Vane ; and one whom they had raised to that command in the fleet, that they might be sure to have the seamen still at their devotion. This man with his whole squadron came into the river and declared for Parliament ; which was so unexpected that they would not believe it, but sent Sir Harry Vane and two others of great in- timacy with Lawson to confer with him." Lawson was deaf to the representations of his old friends ; Lambert, thwarted, lost all power and influ- ence ; Fleetwood became utterly week-kneed. In his difficulties his only resource was, " ' Gentlemen, let us pray.' He would put himself on his knees before them, and when some of his friends importuned him to appear more vigorous in the charge he had, . . . they could get no other answer from him than ' that 1 vi. 2967. i66o.] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 477 God had spit in his face and would not hear him.' " ^ The final word of Vane's public life was uttered when he stood on the deck of Lawson, pleading with the weather-beaten sailor to stand by the Committee of Safety. January 9, 1660, with Lambert, Desbor- ough, and others, he was summoned before the re- stored Rump, not more than forty or fifty strong, seated before old Lenthall about the central table. It was the last time he ever appeared in St. Stephen's. His old friends, now estranged, Haselrig, Scott, Nev- ille, St. John, Henry Marten, sat there to judge him. It was the Long Parliament still, but how strangely changed ! What a part he had had in the strivings which had made it illustrious, and now it sat in judg- ment upon him ! There was no severity, however. He was disabled from sitting longer, and ordered to Raby Castle to remain in private life. The Long Parliament went on to its last day, March 16, 1660. Monk made his memorable march to Lon- don, demanding upon his arrival a more severe rep- , rimand of the Committee of Safety, particularly of Vane and Lambert. How the eyes of men were fixed in those days upon that grim figure ! It is said he sometimes got drunk, that he possessed the Amer- ican accomplishment of tobacco - chewing, and was quite untouched by any religious earnestness, though he had fought with the Ironsides so many years, and to such purpose. He certainly is no heroic figure, and yet probably deserves for his conduct in this crisis no severe execration. He was faithful as steel to Oliver, and declared he would have been as faith- ' Clarendon, vi. 2969. 478 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. ful to Richard, " but Richard forsook himself." He believed the civil power should be above the sword, — a good principle, acting upon which he sustained, as we have seen him do, the Rump. As to his agency in bringing in Charles II, it was after all the only thing to be done. The nation in an immense major- ity had come to favor it, and Monk but yielded to the stream, providing shrewdly, meantime, for his own wellbeing. Few indeed, except the poor Regicides, who could hope for no mercy, remained at last to resist the Stuart. The Commonwealth was a failure. Only upon, another continent, and binder quite differ- ent conditions, could men of English stock make the idea successful. The most extraordinary genius, matchless military prowess, the extremest self-devo- tion had all been active for it, but to no purpose. In the troubled days at the beginning of the year 1660, there was a brief revival of Presbyterianism. The one hundred and forty-three members secluded by Pride's Purge in 1648, such of them as were left, flowed in upon the Rump, reconstituting the Long Parliament after the original fashion, and with an approach to the original numbers. Provision was made in this body for a new Parliament, which the nation, discarding all the innovations of the Com- monwealth, was to elect at once in the ancient fashion. How marked now the spirit of reaction had become appeared from the fact that just before the dissolution of the reconstituted Long Parliament, on March 12th, it was moved that the House should testify its abhorrence of the murder of the late King, a proposition which fearless Scott met by the fol- i66o.] RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 479 lowing outburst : " Though I know not where to hide my head at this time, yet I dare not refuse to own that not only my hand but my heart also was in that action ; " and he ended by declaring that he should consider it the highest honor of his existence to have it inscribed on his tomb : " Here lieth one who had a hand and a heart in the execution of Charles Stuart." In this intrepid cry the glory of the English Commonwealth leaped upward for a moment, then died away forever. The new Parlia- ment, known as the Convention Parliament, ass'em- bled in April. Charles was joyfully summoned, and on the 29th of May he rode into London upon a foal of the mare which had borne Fairfax at Naseby,^ through a welcome so enthusiastic that men seemed beside themselves. The King enjoyed his own again, and sovereignty of the People was appointed to await the fullness of time. ' Markham, Life of Fairfax, p. 384. CHAPTER XX. HOW VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. Vane had retired to Belleau, but upon the Resto- ration he came nearer London, to his seat at Hamp- stead, feeling confident that he might safely do so, since the King had promised an indemnity to all except such as had been concerned in the trial and death of Charles I. Vane, however, it was felt, was a character too dangerous to go at large, and early in July he was arrested and sent to the Tower. For two years his ultimate fate remained uncertain, dur- ing which his prison was several times changed, be- coming at length a lonely castle in the Scilly islands, thrust out from Land's End into the Atlantic. Of the men with whom he had striven, Scott, Harrison, Hugh Peters, and all such as had a hand in the King's execution, when seized, were put to death with horrible barbarities. Haselrig in some way escaped the scaffold, as did also Marten, who was imprisoned for life. Lambert, too, securing the King's mercy, lived on for twenty years, subsiding, curiously enough for a champion so masculine, into an enthusiastic cultivator of flowers, which he loved so much that he painted them, and even, if we may believe Mrs. Hutchinson,^ embroidered them. The ^ Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, p. 372 (Bohn ed.) l66i.] HOW VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 48 1 right arm of Oliver at Preston and Dunbar driving a needle through silk as it outlined the petal of a tulip ! The Parliament of Charles felt that the immunity promised had been too broad, and this ominous entry at length occurs : ^ " Mr. Thomas moved to have somebody die for the Kingdom as well as the King, and named Sir Henry Vane." During these months of uncertainty. Vane in his dungeon wrapped him- self in mystical contemplations, for the most part, though now and then, as in a piece called the " People's Case Stated," his unconquerable Repub- licanism found fiery expression. Now that nothing remains for the biographer but to narrate the closing scenes, a fit place has been reached for glancing at the estimates of Vane, made by men of various ages and views. Undoubtedly, it is in place to give some history of the fame which one's hero achieves, and the reader will not think his patience abused if a few pages are devoted to the eulogies and the diatribes of which Vane, from his own day to ours, has been the subject. In an early chapter of this book, abundant illustra^ tion was given of the widely differing judgments made of the American career of Vane, both by contempo- raries and authorities of later days. As regards his subsequent life the clashing is no less. To critics and historians he came— t o bring not peace but j , sword , and it is not often the case that before a great figure there is such a discord of estimate. The reader already knows to some extent what hand- ' Parliamentary History, iv. 108, 109. 482 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1661. ling he received in his own day from Cromwellian, Presbyterian, and Stuartist. Some further knowl- edge of their abuse will of course be a help in outlin- ing his traits ; his weak points, naturally, would be subjects of attack, and from the revilings, containing sometimes, no doubt, grains of truth, valuable illus- tration may be obtained of the limitations by which he was beset. Of Oliverian condemnation, we may select that of the excellent Maidstone, an officer of the Protector's household, and authority for interesting particulars concerning the later days of Cromwell. Writing to John Winthrop, Governor of Connecticut, in 1659, Maidstone says : " In this interim [just after the march of Monk from Scotland to London] the House dismisses Sir Henry Vane from sitting in it, as a person that had not been constant to Parlia- mentary privileges," and declares " that people were pleased with the dishonor put upon him, he being unhappy in lying under the most catholique prejudice of any man I ever knew." The Presbyterian view is given by Baxter : ^ " Sir H. Vane had a set of disciples who first sprang under him in New England. But their notions were then raw and undigested, and their party quickly con- founded by God's providence." Baxter's proofs of the divine disfavor visited upon the New England Antinomians are certain monstrous births which poor Mrs. Hutchinson and one of her female follow- ers brought forth, — a sad and disgusting recital. It marks notably the advance which the world has * Calamy's Abridgment of Baxter's Life, pp. 98, 99. i66o.] ffOlV VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 483 made in two hundred years, when we find good and intelligent men full of such melancholy superstition. Baxter continues, that Vane " proved in England an instrument of greater calamity to a sinful people. . . . He was the principal man that drove on the Parliament with that vehemence against the King. Being of ready parts, great subtilty, and unwearied industry, he labored, and not without success, to win others, in Parliament, city, and country to his way." After describing his agency in bringing about the condemnation of Strafford, Baxter declares : '' To most of the changes that followed, he was that within the House, that Cromwell was without. His gieat zeal to inflame the war and to cherish the Sectaries, and especially in the Army, made him above all men to be valued by that party. His unhappiness lay in this, that his doctrines were so cloudily formed and expressed that few could understand them, and therefore he had but few true disciples. The Lord Brooke was slain before he had brought him to ma- turity. His obscurity some thought was designed; some thought he did not understand himself He was able enough to speak plain when he pleased. The two things in which he had most success wer e his earnest plea for universa l liberty of _ conscien ce, and agai nst the magistrates intermeddling with re- ligionT" He taught his followers to revile the minis- try, call them blackcoats, priests, and other names savoring of reproach. Cromwell served him as his surest friend as long as he could. Cromwell dead, he joined with himself Haselrig, and got the Rump set up again and a Council of State, got the power 484 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. much in his own hands, and formed a model for popular government." Stuartist writers treat Vane to liberal showers of depreciation. Wrote the quaint Anthony a Wood : " When he saw Oliver gape after monarchy he be- came his great opposer and endeavored to his utmost to ruin him by siding with and preaching among Anabaptists and Fifth Monarchy men. He endeav- ored at the deposition of Richard to be one of the rulers of Israel, if the intended match between his son Henry and the daughter of Maj. Gen. John Lam- bert had not been spoiled by the restitution of the Rump Parliament by the generous George Monk." ' Says the " Biographia Britannica," somewhat later : "There appeared not in his composition that wis- dom, that judgment, ... for which he is extolled, — an unaccountable medley of enthusiasm and incom- prehensible nonsense. ... So much dissimulation and enthusiasm, such vast parts and such strong de- lusions, good sense and madness, can hardly be be- lieved to meet in one man. He was successively a Presbyterian, Independent, Anabaptist, and Fifth Monarchy man. In sum, he was the Proteus of his times, a mere hotch-potch of religion, chief ringleader of all the frantic sectarians, of a turbulent spirit and working brain, of a strong composition of choler and melancholy, an inventor not only of whimseys in reli- gion, but of crotchets in the state." ^ To this may be added Bishop Burnet's word: " For though he set up a form of religion in a way of his own, yet it consisted rather in a withdrawing > Athena OxOnienses, article "Vane." ' Article "Vane." i66o.] HOW VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 485 from all other fcrms, than in any new or particular opinions and forms; from which he and his party were called ' Seekers,' and seemed to wait for some new and clearer manifestations. In these meetings he preached and prayed often himself, but with so peculiar a darkness, that though I have sometimes taken pains to see if I could find out his meaning in his works, yet I could never reach it. And since many others have said the same, it may be reasonable to believe that he had somewhat that was a necessary key to the rest. His friends told me he leaned to Origen's notion of a universal salvation of all, both of devils and the damned, and to the doctrine of pre- existence." ^ ' . Clarendon's portrayals of Vane show all the skill of that matchless painter and are by no means un- candid. He has often been cited in these pages : here is a concluding touch : — " Vane was not to be described b_v.an3L-cli aracte r of religion, in which he had swallow £d.jome_o f the fancies o f ev ery sect or factio iL^nd was become . . . a ma n above ordinan ces, unlimited and iinrestrained by any rules or bounds prescribed to other men, b y reason ofhis jerfection. He was a perfect enthusi- ast, and without doubt, did believe himself inspired, which so far clouded his reason and understanding (which in all matters without the verge of religion was inferior to that of few men) that he did at some time believe hp was the person deputed to reign over the saints for a thousand years." ^ Elsewhere Claren- ^ Hist, of his own Time, i. 228 etc. London, 1809. ^ Clarendon, vi. 2957. 486 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. don declared of one of Vane's books, that in it he " found nothing of his usual clearness and ratiocina- tion, in which he used much to excel the best of the company he kept." Of the numerous squibs in which Vane figures more or less prominently, the one best worth not- ing is " Don Juan Lamberto, a Comical History of the late Times, by Montelion, Knight of the Or- acle." ^ This appeared in 1 661, said to be written by one Thomas Flatman, and is a lively burlesque on public men between the death of Cromwell and the Restoration, after the manner of the "Seven Champions of Christendom." Vane plays in this a great part, as " Sir Vane, the Knight of the most Mystical Allegories." In the sketch of his career, he, as a child, puts strife between his mother and the maids, and makes trouble at Westminster School by instigating the boys to break the master's neck. When caught, he interprets his advice to the boys allegorically : it was not the master's literal neck, but the neck of his pride which he wished to break. He is represented as cowardly, but through his cunning acquiring great influence. Lambert in particular, in the burlesque, is under his sway, to whose daughter, called the " Overgrowne Childe," Vane's son is rep- resented as about to be married. The Council of Safety, in which Vane's political career ended, is described in a note as a strange medley of persons arranged to gratify his over-refined and fantastic no- tions, which were much too curious for practical wear and tear. * Somers Tracts, vii. 104, etc. i66o.] HOW VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 487 A few stanzas may be given, too, from anonymous diatribes in doggerel. "VANITY OF VANITIES, OR SIR HENRY VANE'S PICTURE. {To the tune of the yews' Cor ant.) " Have you not seen a Bartholomew baby, A pageant of policy as fine as may be, That 's gone to be shown at the manor of Raby, Which nobody can deny ? " There never was such a prostitute sight. That ere profaned this purer light, A hocus-pocus juggling Knight, Which nobody can deny. " His cunning state tricks and oraoles. His lying wonders and miracles. Are turned at last into Parliament shackles, Which nobody can deny. " He sate late in the House so discontent, With his arms folded and his brows bent, Like Achitophel to the Parliament, Which nobody can deny. " Of this state and Kingdom he is the bane ; He shall have the reward of Judas and Cain, And twas he that overthrew Charles his wain. Which nobody can deny. " Should he sit where he did with his mischievous brain, Or if any of his Councils behind do remain. The House may be called the labor in Vain, Which nobody can deny."* The following stanzas are from a song belonging to the time of Vane's imprisonment in the Tower just before his execution. 1 Rump : or an Exact Collection relating to the Late Times. Lon- of the Choycest Poems and Songs don, 1662. (Reprint.) Vol. ii. p. 108 etc. 488 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. "A PSALM OF MERCY. [Usula reads and all the Sisters sing.] {To the tune of" Now thanks to the Powers below") [Sing it in tlie Nose.] " What a Reprobate crew is here, Who will not have Jesus reign ? But send all our Saints To Bonds and Restraint, And kill 'um again and again ? Let's rise in a holy fear, And fight for our heavenly King ; We will ha' no power But Vane in the Tower To rule us in anything ! Come Sister, and sing An Hymne to our King, Who sitteth on high Degree ; The Men at Whitehall, And the wicked shall fall, And hey, then up go We. A Match, quoth my sister Joyce; Contented, quoth Rachel too : Quoth Abigaile, yea, and Faith, verily. And Charity, let 't be so. " Our Monarchy is the Fift, Shall last for a thousand years; O' the wicked on earth, There shall be a dearth. When Jesus himself appears ! No mortal King nor Pj-iest, No Lord nor Duke wee'l have, Wee'l grind 'um to Grist And live as we list. And we will do wonders brave ; Come Dorcas and Cloe, With Lois and Zoe, Young Letice and Beterice and Jane, Phill, Dorothy, Mawd, Come troup it abroad, For now is our lime to reign. i66o.] HOIV VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 489 Sa, sa, quoth my sister Bab, And kill 'um, quoth Margery ; Spare none, cry's old Tib, nor quarter say's Lib. And hey ! for our Monarchy." * July 25, 1660, this epitaph for Vane was hawked about London : " Here lyes the body of Henry Vaine we know Was traytor both to King and Country too. Reproach and baseness he'l bring to this grave. He liv'd like a tyrant and dy'd like a knave. " Now let all traytors take a president by mee Where e'er they be, And know rebellion is a dangerous thing. Let peasants not be princes but obey the law, And stand in awe Of such a sweet & gracious loving King." ^ So much for the contemporary obloquy. The statesmen with whom he wrestled carp ; scholar and preacher have their fling; the mob of the street throws handfuls of mud. Truly, Vane in- his later years was, as Maidstone declared, " unhappy in lying under a most catholique prejudice." In every age, however, the prophets are stoned. For our ears all this condemnation is quite drowned by the pane- gyrics, already cited, of steadfast, high-hearted Lud- low, and of the inspired Milton. To their tributes we shall add here but one voice. Vane's close depen- dants and followers, if his earliest biographer Sikes may be taken as a fair example, are little worthy of notice. A certain Henry Stubbe, however, was a man of different pattern and well deserves a word. ^ The Rump : an Exact Collection, etc., vol. ii. 193 etc. 2 Thotnasson Tracts, MDCCCXLIX. 490 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. Anthony a Wood, though of such different ideas, is forced to praise him.^ His mother, a poor seam- stress, managed to send him, when a boy of ten, to Westminster School, where Vane became his patron, "frequently relieved him with money, and gave him liberty to resort to his house, and to fill that belly which otherwise had no sustenance but what one penny could purchase for his dinner: and as for his breakfast, he had none except he got it by making somebody's exercise. Soon after Sir Henry got him to be King's scholar." Stubbe grew up into a curious figure, with " a hot restless head (his hair being carrot- colored), his body macerated almost to a skeleton;" but Anthony a Wood speaks with wonder of his at- tainments and readiness, although he was an out- spoken free-thinker. He was voluble, had " a big, magisterial voice, and mind equal to it, and was of a high, generous nature. He scorned riches and the adorers of them." How worthy a disciple of Vane Henry Stubbe became, a passage or two will show, taken from his '.' Defence of the Good Old Cause," published in 1659. As to a proper polity he de- clares : ^ " The People are the efficient cause of mag- istracy, and from them is all power derived. Magis- tracy is not a paternal right, nor consequence thereof, either in Scripture or nature." Here, too, is a fine expression of tolerance : * "I should have become an advocate for those of the Episcopal divines, who ... in their prosperity were neither rash in defining nor forward in persecuting, soberly tender con- ^ Athence Oxonienses, iii. 1070 etc. " P- 4- ' pp. 131, 132. i66o.] HOW VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 49I sciences. ... In like manner, I should plead for such Catholicks as deny the Pope's power in temporals, to depose magistrates, to. dispose of lands, or the civil obedience of subjects. ... I do profess unto the world and acquit myself of any way contributing to their oppression." Stubbe was as grateful as he was free-minded and able. When the influence and reputation of his great friend began to wane, he took up the cudgels for him stoutly, belaboring" especially Baxter.^ "My youth and other circumstances incapacitated me from rendering any great services : but all that I did and all that I wrote had no other aim ; nor do I care how much any man can inodiate my former writings, so long as they are subservient to him." He declares that no good man is so vilified as Vane, " one whom not to have heard of is to be a stranger in this land ; and not to honor and to admire is to be an enemy to all that is good and virtuous. One whose integrity, whose uprightness in the greatest employments, hath secured him from the effects of their hatred, in whom his sincere piety, zeal for the public, and singular wis- dom may have raised envy and dread." A short space must suffice to show how Vane has fared at the hands of generations' later than his own. Writers of Royalist sympathies but echo the views of Clarendon, like Hume,^ who, while admitting that " he was celebrated for his Parliamentary talents and for his capacity in business," yet finds him in reli- gion and philosophy " absolutely unintelligible. No traces of eloquence or even of common-sense appear." 1 Malice Rebuked, etc., p. 7. ''■ vol. vi. p. 26. 492 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. Republicans, on the other hand, like Forster, Up- ham, and Wendell Phillips, praise him indiscrimi- nately, finding him matchless. and without spot, both in character and intellect. For such an estimate a name of great weight can be adduced. Sir James Mackintosh is said to have remarked that, "Sir Henry Vane was one of the most profound minds that ever existed, not inferior, perhaps, to Bacon. His works which are theological display astonishing- powers. They are remarkable as containing the first direct assertion of liberty of conscience," ^ Our list of conflicting judgments may well con- clude with the grotesque and belittling picture of Carlyle. " Doubtful, I think, whether without great effort you could have worshipped the Younger Vane. A man of endless virtues, says Dryasdust, who is much taken with him, and of endless intellect; but you must not very specially ask, How or Where ? Vane was the Friend of Milton: that is almost the only answer that can now be given. A man, one rather finds, of light fibre this Sir Harry Vane. Grant all manner of purity and elevation ; subtle high dis- course; much intellectual and practical dexterity: there is an amiabfe, devoutly zealous, very pretty man ; but not a royal man ; alas, no ! On the whole rather a thin man. Whom it is even important to keep strictly subaltern. Whose tendency towards the Abstract, or Temporary-Theoretic, is irresistible : ' North American Review^ Oc- himself and Mackintosh in Lon- tober,.i832; report by A. H. Ev- don, in 1817. erett of a conversation between i66o.] . HOW VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 493 whose hold of the Concrete, in which lies always the Perennial, is by no means that of a giant, or born Practical King ; — whose ' astonishing subtlety of in- tellect' conducts h^m not to new clearness, but to ever- new abstruseness, wheel within wheel, depth under depth ; marvellous temporary empire of the air ; — wholly vanished now, and without meaning to any mortal. My erudite friend, the astonishing intellect that occupies itself in splitting hairs, and not in twist- ing some kind of cordage and effectual draught- tackle to take the road with, is not to me the most astonishing of intellects ! and if, as is probable, it get into narrow fanaticisms ; become irrecognisant of the Perennial because not dressed in the fashionable Temporary ; become self-secluded, atrabiliar, and per- haps shrill -voiced and spasmodic — what can you do but get away from it, with a prayer, ' The Lord deliver me from thee ! ' I cannot do with thee. I want twisted cordage, steady pulling and a peaceable bass tone of voice; not split hairs, hysterical spas- modics, and treble ! Thou amiable, subtle, elevated individual, the Lord deliver me from thee." ^ In such a summary of opinions as has been pre- sented, we have what may be called a history of the ■ fame of Vane. Is it quite impossible to reach a satis- factory knowledge of the man ? Few names more authoritative can be found in the whole great com- pany of English writers than several that have been cited. How could the lack of unanimity be greater ! The biographer ■ would show indeed a very strange ^ Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 6. 494 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. • [1660. temerity who did not feel a grave shrinking of the spirit as he added his own judgment to the long series. Summoning such wisdom as he can, the present writer faces the problem. • How one can ponder the story which has been told without recognizing in Vane a statesman of the first class, it is quite impossible to see. What finer political achievement has the world ever seen than the establishment and maintenance for so long a period of the English Commonwealth ; and what can be more plain than that next to Cromwell, the principal agent in founding and maintaining it was Vane .'' From the death of Pym and Hampden in 1643 through the ten great years to 1653, he was un- mistakably the civil leader, — as his enemy Baxter declared, that in the State which Cromwell was in the field. These pages have presented the great crises that signalized the uprising of the magnificent struc- ture of the Independents, — the Solemn League and Covenant, the Self-Denying Ordinance, the New Model, the establishment of Liberty of Conscience, the proclamation of the principle of the Sovereignty of the People, the unequalled struggle in which two sevenths of England vanquished five-sevenths and besides, Ireland, Scotland, and the first naval power of Europe. If we except Cromwell, the conspicuous figure in each one of these great moments is Vane. Always, he either originates, or speedily adopts and becomes a main upholder. Moving ever in the midst of a fierce whirlwind of war, though never with sword in hand, yet the fleets could not sail nor the armies march without his fiat. What better qualities do the i66o.] HOW VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 495 intellect and character of man possess than those richly illustrated in his career, — astuteness , enter - prise , persistence, fortitude, i ntrepidity , eloquence, self-abnegation ! Like all things human, his actions are not exempt from moral blame. His keenness be- comes sometimes too much like craft ; but it is to cir- cumvent bigots or unearth the wiles of cheats. Like all things human, his ability was not infallible, and his party sometimes forsook him as wanting in judg- ment ; yet, really, it cannot even now be said that he was wrong and they right. Who can be sure that Pride's Purge was not, as he believed it to be, an outrage upon thfe Long Parliament as unnecessary as it was arbitrary ; that the execution of Charles was not, as he believed, a terrible blunder ; that the dis- solution of the Rump was not, as he believed, a blow most fatal and most unnecessary to all for which the Independents had striven ? As to practical states- manship, this book has been written to no purpose if it does not show that there has never been a higher aptitude in adapting means to ends in the heavy pressure of a difficult hour. Again, in the field of political theory, no mind has ever grasped more strongly the principles of Anglo-Saxon liberty or outlined more clearly the foundations upon which popular government must be constructed. If the Written Constitution be, in our American system, the one unique feature, and if such a bridle upon the too variable popular" will must always be indispensable to the happy issue of a free polity, what finer title to a great fame can be shown than for the man who made the first clear exposition of the Constitutional Idea.? 496 ■ YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. If we look at the relative rank of Vane among the Republicans of his time, Marten, Bradshaw, St. John, Scott, Haselrig, Ireton, Ludlow, Lafnbert, the figures in the midst of whom we have seen him, plainly, in that group he was allowed precedence, except when in desperation before their dangers, the judgments of these men became clouded ; and in the historical per- spective, however great and useful they may have been, their forms grow small in the presence of the young Knight of Raby. Pym and Hampden died before the great day, — proto-martyrs of freedom ; no one can say into what they might have matured. In Ireton, too, there was a promise that portended the ,very noblest development, but it was blasted before the unfolding. And now as to Vane and Cromwell. There is no room to quarrel with the estimate which puts Crom- well, among the heroes of the Commonwealth, into a class by himself. Was he the greatest man who ever lived ? Perhaps. At any rate, no man of his time gives such evidence of marvellous power, and in proportion as one penetrates, by means of his letters, speeches, and prayers, into the secrets of his spirit, he feels that there was a commensurate nobility of soul. No one in our time is likely to adopt the view of Forster,^ that Vane and Cromwell were in reality men of equal mark, and that it was mainly the ab- sence of the spur of personal ambition in the former that secured to his yoke-fellow a position in the eyes of the world so superior. If Cromwell did not sur- pass all other characters of history in his mastery of * Life of Vane, p. 283. i66o.] HOIV VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 497 circumstances, he had no peer in his own generation, at least, and those that know best the secrets of his heart have least to say about the presence there of an evil craving for fame and power. And yet, up to the year 1653, t];iere is no absurdity in placing Crom- well and Vane nearly side by side. No doubt the name of the soldier was more in the mouths of men. In the eyes, of the unthinking mass nothing fasci- nates like the flash of a sword ; no titles to fame are so valid as to face a battery or charge with a troop. Wise men, however, knew that Marston Moor and Naseby were really no more the triumphs of the man that broke Rupert and Sir Marmaduke, than the man who brought David Leslie over the border, and engineered the shelving of the incapables, — that even Preston and Dunbar would have been impos- sible but for the careful contriving at Derby House and Whitehall. When Blake at last arose, almost out- thundering from his fleet the triumphs of Cromwell himself, the administration behind was not over- looked which had created the fleet out of nothing, given it guns and men, and at last put Blake in com- mand upon the quarter-deck of the flagship. How Cromwell and Vane stood, in the judgment of the best minds in those great years, we may know best from the testimony of Milton,. one of the ablest of his kind, in his Latin secretaryship in daily contact with the men, and privy to all that they achieved. In the two memorable sonnets, the spirit of Milton ut- tered itself almost at the same moment, and it can scarcely be said that the tribute is stronger in the one case than the other. Indeed it was not until the 498 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. Protectorate that the true kingly quality of Oliver became manifest to his generation. We gravely err when we suppose that almost from the convening of the Long Parliament his was the dominating figure. He rose, in fact, but slowly upon his age. He receives to-day credit for much that really should be ascribed to humbler names. At Marston Moor, Naseby, and in the campaign of 1648, he was scarcely superior to Fairfax, either in valor or conduct.^ It was not until those five final years when, subduing to his hand a multitude of unwilling forces, he guided England to the leadership of the world, that he can be said to have fairly vindicated for himself a place among the supreme men of all time. But while a high position is claimed for Vane as a civil leader, it must be distinctly said that his limita- tions were no less marked than his abilities. Says Masson : " With all his astuteness, clearness and shrewdness in business matters, he carried in his head a mystic metaphysics which he found it hard to express." Even in his youth he had a love for vapory theorizing. It was that, no doubt, that attracted him in Massachusetts to Mrs. Hutchinson, and he plunged into the hair-splitting of the dismal controversy of which she was the centre, with a genuine zest. The absorptions of his active years must have made necessary to him a very sparing indulgence of his visionary tastes. With his retirement, however, in 1653, his mind became curiously clouded with fanati- cal dreams, and anything more profitless than much > Markham's Life of Fairfax contains interesting suggestions on this point. i66o.] HOW VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 499 of the elaborate rhapsodizing of his later life can scarcely be imagined. Says Mr. Peter Bayne of the "Retired Man's Meditations":^ "In the forenoon, under the influence of strong tea, and with an alarm clock to go off at your ear every twenty minutes, you might make something of it. I have been too sig- nally defeated to try again." The present writer knows of no stimulant capable of spurring his own power of attention through a tangle so perplexed. What were really Vane's ideas was a puzzle to his contemporaries ; and it is quite useless now to at- tempt to outhne them. As one reads, he encounters fancies from Antinomian sources, from the Ana- baptists, from the Fifth Monarchy men, with much that we must think unique. When liberty of con- science was proclaimed, there was a wonderful open- ing of flood-gates, the human spirit pouring itself out with an impetuosity that made the stream to the last degree turbid. Fancies most wild, often most un- clean, floated to the surface, and it cannot be won- dered at, that when quiet men contemplated such a picture of them as Edwards, with no extraordinary exaggeration, presented in the " .Gangraena," they were horrified, and felt that no restraint of Prelate or Presbyter would "be so hard to bear as the free course in society of such a torrent. For a time, the pros- pect was certainly alarming to all except such strong and wise minds as knew that, if things were left to themselves, the hard sense of Englishmen would at length bring order out of the extravagance. One does 1 Quoted from Contemporary Rev. in LittelPs Living Age, CXVII, P- 338. * 500 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. not like to find Vane touched by these fanaticisms, but there is no doubt that he was much overcome by them. He appears to have had enthusiastic fol- lowers, known as the " Vaneists," whom he entertained from the pulpit with the vagaries which he after- wards committed to paper. These superstitious maunderings contrast remarkably enough with the terse outbursts of the great Republican leader of Richard's Parliament and the magnificent sentences in parts of the " Healing Question," uttered at the same period. How could two men so different be wrapped in the same skin, — one possessed of the clearest-eyed discernment, the readiest possible hand for action, a capacity for expression quite unsur- passed, — the other moon-struck even in an age of simpletons, a coryphaeus in the dance of cranks ! Such inconsistency as that of Vane is, however, by no means without parallel. As we study anti- quity, we are often called upon to wonder how strong- hearted heroes in the. midst of great achievements can allow their spirits to be suddenly overcast with childish awe, as they turn aside because the sacred chickens refuse their corn, or tremble with fear be- cause it thunders on the left. In our own day think of a Faraday surrendering himself in the field of sci- ence only to star-eyed guidance, but in the field of re- ligion to that of the purblind Robert Sandeman ! In the days of the Commonwealth sense and nonsense were often bedfellows after the strangest fashion. Harrison could in one hour debate with cool political wisdom the settlement of the State, or guide the move- ments of a host like a cansummate commander; and i66o.] HOfy VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 50I in the next rave to a congregation, wild as a Pytho- ness, upon her tripod, of the immediate breaking by the seven angels of the vials of wrath over the earth, the gathering of the whole world to battle in the place called Armageddon, the going forth amid lightning and earthquakes of Death upon the pale horse, — the instant and literal accomplishment of the terrors threatened to John in Patmos. As to the Lord Gen- eral himself, indeed, if we imagine a modern auditor transported to his presence, — hearing him harangue the Ironsides from the saddle on the march to Pres- ton, or improve the occasion at some prayer-meeting of the Council of officers at Whitehall, — it would no doubt seem rather the outburst of a Bedlamite, than of the matchless master of circumstances. — There were rationalists and agnostics in those days as cool and critical as in our own, Selden treated the religious heats and passions of the hour with refined mocking. Harry Marten made light of them almost with the frankness of a Robert G. IngersoU, and with more good- nature. In the later days of the Commonwealth the Republican Neville becomes prominent, a free-thinker so far advanced as not to hesitate at the assertion that he found more to help him in Cicero than in the Bible. With men of the latter type, Vane in his religious phase had no part, but he entertained toward them a perfect tolerance. With his cloudiness and nar- rowness, he managed to reconcile in some way that noble candor which allowed to each conscience the right to decide for itself. When Neville, confessing himself more Pagan than Christian, was accused of 502 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [i66o. blasphemy in the House, he found in Vane a de- fender.^ " When they could accuse our Saviour of nothing else," he exclaimed, " they brought in blas- phemy," and he made light of the charge. He had, thought Vane, a right to his faith or no-faith, and should be protected in it. Just so he was ready to protect Catholic, Unitarian, and Jew. Strangely incongruous he was, and yet by no means in a way witho'ut parallel, — in his pohtical ideas identical with the most enlightened modern states- men of England or America, — in his religious thought overhung by a strange mist of mediaevalism, — in one sphere a man of the broadest practical, sense, of the highest executive ability, of the most far-reaching intellectual grasp, — in another an ex- pounder of vague and unreasonable dreams. Let it not be thought, however, that his writings in religion and philosophy are quite without wisdom. The " Meditations concerning Life, penned in his Prison State," is noteworthy, in which the idea of forgive- ness of enemies and the patient bearing of ills, is developed clearly, and in a spirit finely Christian. MEDITATIONS CONCERNING MAN'S LIFE, ETC. " In reference to our enemies we must take care, not to meditate revenge. Yet in some sense, we may account it an excellent and worthy revenge, to slight the work they can do, whereby we take away the pleasure which they think to have in vexing us. We must, in suffering injuries, have respect to our- selves and to him that offends us. Touching ourselves, we must take heed that we do nothing 1 Burton's Diary, Feb. i6, 1659. l66o.] HOW VANE HAS BEE^N JUDGED. 503 unworthy or unbecoming us, that may give the enemy advantage against us. As to him that offends us, we should be wise as serpents to ware his assault, till our hour is come, and we can gain and conquer by dying. " It is a weakness of mind not to know how to con- temn an offence. An honest man is not subject to injury. He is inviolable and unmoveable. Invio- lable, not so much that he can not be beaten; but that being beaten, he doth neither receive wound nor hurt. We can receive no evil but of ourselves. We may therefore always say with Socrates, ' My enemies may put me to death, but they shall never enforce me to do that which I ought not.' " Evils themselves, through the wise overruling Providence of God, have good fruits and effects. The World would be extinguished and perish, if it were not changed, shaken and discomposed, by a variety and an interchangeable course of things, wisely ordered by God, the best Physician. This ought to satisfy every honest and reasonable mind, and make it joyfully submit to the worst of changes how strange and wonderful soever they may seem, since they are the works of God and Nature, and that which is a loss in one respect, is a gain in another. " Let not a wise man disdain or ill resent anything that shall happen to him. Let him know those things that seem hurtful to him in particular, pertain to the preservatior^, of the whole Universe, and are of the nature of those things that finish and fill up the course and office of this World." ^ * Sikes, Life of Vane, p. 125. 504 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. In the " People's Case Stated," Vane gives, in a somewhat tangled exposition, a philosophy of human nature and of politics, which is exceedingly noble. At this time, at any rate, his thought is not at all' Calvinistic. If patiently read, the passage will be found to contain an idea which, if accepted, justifies perfectly the Republican polity, — that trust in the " plain People " in which Abraham Lincoln believed, but no more fully than the high-born master of Raby. " Every man hath that in himself which by God is made a proper and competent judge ; for as to all sin against God and the righteousness of his law, the light of conscience, that is to say, the work of the law in and upon the mind or inward sense, and in conjunction with it, doth lighten every one that Cometh into the world, accusing or excusing, if it be but hearkened unto and kept awake. And for all such actings as tend to the ruin and destruction of man in his outward and bodily concerns, and as he is the object of magistratical power and jurisdiction, every man hath a judgment of common sense, or a way of discerning and being sensible thereof. . . . This inferior judgment in man, when it is conjoined with and confirmed by the judgment of his superior part, is that which we call rational, or the dictates of right reason, that man hath a natural right to adhere unto, as the ordinary certain rule which is given him by God to walk by, and against which he ought not to be compelled, or be forced to depart from it by the mere will and power of another, without better evidence : that is, a higher, a greater, or more certain i66o.] HOW VANE HAS BEEN JUDGED. 505 way of discerning. This, therefore, in scripture, is called man s judgment or mans day in distinction from the Lord's judgment and the Lord's day ; and this is that in every individual man, which in the collective body of the People, and meeting of head and mem- bers in Parliament, is called the supreme authority, and is the public reason and will of the whole king- dom, the going against which is in nature as well as by the law of nations, an offence of the highest rank among men ; for it must be presumed that there is more of the wisdom and will of God in that p.ublic suffrage of the whole nation, than of any private per- son or lesser collective body whatsoever. . . . For man is made in God's image, or in a likeness, in judg- ment and will unto God himself, according to the measure that in his nature he is proportioned and made capable to be the receiver and bearer thereof. Therefore it is, that the resisting and opposing either of that judgment or will which is in itself supreme, and the law to all others, is against the duty of any member of that society, as well as it is against the duty of the body of the whole society to oppose its judgment and will to that of the supreme lawgiver, their highest sovereign, God himself. . . . " That common consent, lawfully and rightfully given by the body of a nation, and intrusted with dele- gates of their own free choice, to be exercised by them as their representatives (as well for the welfare and good of the body that trusts them, as to the honour and well-pleasing of God, the supreme Legislator), is the principle and means, warranted by the law of nature and nations, to give constitution and admis- 506 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1660. sion to the exercise of government and supreme au- thority over them and among them : agreeable here- unto, we are to suppose that our ancestors in this kingdom did proceed, when they constituted the government thereof, in that form of administration which hath been derived to us in the course and channel of our customs and laws ; among which, the law and customs in and of the Parliaments are to be accounted as chief." CHAPTER XXI. THE TRIAL BEFORE THE COURT OF KING's BENCH. As the second year of Vane's imprisonment drew toward a close, he sent, March 7, 1662, a letter from his dungeon in the Scilly Islands to his wife, the sentences of which, full of affection and trustful piety, appeal far more powerfully to the heart than many of his more elaborate writings. " My dear Heart, The wind yet continuing con- trary, makes me desire to be as much in converse with thee as the providence of God will permit. . . . It is no small satisfaction to me in these sharp trials, to experience the truth of those Christian principles, which God, of his grace, hath afforded you and me the knowledge, and imboldened us to make the pro- fession of. Have faith and hope, my dearest. . . . This dark night and black shade which God hath drawn over his work in the midst of us, may be, for aught we know, the ground color to some beautiful piece that he is now exposing to the light. . . . Out of love and faithfulness I am made to drink of this bitter cup to help forward that necessary work in me wherein consists the glorious liberty of the sons of God." Contemplating the probable confiscation of his 508 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. means, he says : " The Lord grant me and mine to be content, if he deny us to live of our own, and will bring us to the daily bread of his finding, which he will have us wait for, fresh and fresh from his own table, without knowing of it beforehand. Peradven- ture there is a greater sweetness and blessing in such a condition than we can imagine until we have tried it. . . . They that press so earnestly to carry on my trial, do little 'know what presence of God may be afforded me in it. . . . Nor can they, I am sure, im- agine how much I desire to be dissolved and be with Christ, which of all things that can befall me I ac- count best of all. ... If the storm against us grow higher and higher, so as to strip us of all we have, the earth is still the Lord's and the fullness thereof. ... I know nothing that remains to us but, like a tossed ship in a storm, to let ourselves be tossed and driven by the winds, till He that can make these storms to cease and bring us into a safe haven, do work out our deliverance for us. I doubt not but you will accordingly endeavor to prepare for the worst." Shortly after, he was removed to the Tower of London, and on June 2d arraigned as a " false traitor," before the Court of King's Bench, in Westminster Hall. He stood without counsel, opposing the attor- ney-general, the solicitor-general, and four other law- yers ; among these were Glyn and Maynard, who had also taken part against Strafford. As strong Pres- byterians, these men had figured in the Long Parlia- ment against Charles I ; but in the changes they had come to stand again upon the side of the Stuart, showing a hardness that shocked even the Cavaliers, i662.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 509 and which has earned for them a Hudibrastic immor- tahty : — " Did not the learned Glyn and Maynard To make good subjects traitors strain hard ? " Vane came forth from the Tower among his ac- cusers like Samson from his dungeon among the Philistines. His bodily strength was not touched by his incarceration, nor had his mind become wasted, although busy to such an extent with incoherent dreams. His ability was never more memorably ex- erted than during his trial. There were times when he seemed to have within his grasp the very pillars of the Stuartist power, shaking them almost to their fall. No wonder that Charles and his counsellors felt he was too dangerous to be allowed to live. A profound impression of the significance of the occasion weighed upon his mind. In the course of the trial he declared : — " In general, I do affirm of this case, that it is so comprehensive as to take in the very interests of heaven and earth : ist, of God, the universal Sover- eign and King of Kings, 2d, that of earthly sover- eigns, who are God's vice-gerents : as also the inter- ests of all mankind, that stand in the relation of subject to the one or the both those sorts of sover- eigns. This in general. More particularly : within the bowels of this case is that cause of God that hath stated itself in the late differences and wars that have happened and arisen within these three nations^ and have been of more than twenty years' continuance." -^ 1 state Trials (Howell), vi. 180. ment writ by the prisoner but re- " Reasons for an Arrest of Judg- fused to be heard by the Court." 5IO YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. He cared little for his own life, but in him the great cause, whether the People had a right to gov- ern themselves, was set up for judgment, and he exerted all his powers. Sometimes lie urged before his judges the eternal principles of liberty; some- times with all his old subtlety he plagued them with technical objections ; sometimes, when they were in- solent, he overwhelmed them with his authoritative personality, prisoner though he was, until the court seemed to shrink in the presence of the giant who had come down from the Commonwealth among the dwarfs of the Restoration. June 2d, at the arraignment, the indictment was read, which charged him with " traitorously imagining and intending the death " of Charles II, and " trying to overturn the ancient government of England-." In answer to the indictment, he urged that as the offences charged in it were committed by him as a member of Parliament, or as acting in obedience to it, no inferior court, but only Parliament itself, ac- cording to long-established usage, was qualified to sit in judgment upon him. He, therefore, objected to pleading either guilty or not guilty, as that would be recognizing the jurisdiction of the tribunal. " It may be better," he said, "to be immediately de- stroyed by special command, without any form of law. It is very visible beforehand that all possible means of defence are taken and withheld. Far be it from me to have knowingly, maliciously, or wittingly offended the law, rightly understood and asserted ; much less to have done anything that is morally evil. ... If I can judge anything of my own case, the i662.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 51I true reason of the present difficulties and straits I am in is because I have desired to walk by a just and righteous rule in all my actions, and not to serve the lusts and passions of men, but rather to die than wittingly and deliberately to sin against God and transgress his holy laws, or prefer my own private in- terest before the good of the whole community I re- late unto, in the Kingdom where the lot of my resi- dence is cast." Vane said much more than this in a strain of similar exaltation. After much urging, and upon the promise that counsel should be assigned to him, " he not being versed in the punctilios of law writings and pleas," he at length was persuaded to plead not guilty, upon which he was sent back to the Tower, his trial beginning in due form four days later. Upon Vane's claiming the benefit of counsel, the judges told him " They would be his counsel." He had to fight his battle alone. The attorney-general. Sir Geoffrey Palmer, began by specifying the overt acts upon which the indictment was based. " Though he be chargeable for any crime of treason since the beginning of the late war, yet we shall confine the facts of which we charge him to the reign of his pres- ent Majesty." The counts were few and for the most part incontrovertible. The first was that on the day of the execution of Charles I, his hand and seal were found to a warrant to officers of the Navy about a summer's guard for the Narrow Seas. Vane in his defence solemnly avowed that he was at this time completely out of public life. Two witnesses, how- ever, swore to Vane's hand. Entries, in the Com- 512 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. mons Journals were then cited recording the estab- lishment of the Council of State, and its character, — that it was to suppress the attempts of any oae pre- tending to the kingship, whether the son of the late King or any one else. Palmer argued that an inten- tion was implied to destroy, if possible, the person of the young Charles, and do away with kingly govern- ment. The Journals were further cited to show the appointment of Vane upon this Council, February 14, 1649, that he had accepted and acted upon the instructions laid down for it, and that he had also been Treasurer of the Navy. It was proved that he had once been president of the Council, and that he was active on the Committee for Scotch and Irish affairs, where he was often in the . chair. As to Vane's later career, it was proved that he had be- longed to the Committee of Safety of 1659, and in that office maintained the Commonwealth, which was keeping out the King: moreover, that he had pro- posed a new model of government (his scheme, here- tofore given,^ was cited) of which one feature was a resolution declaring it destructive to the People's liberty to admit any King into power. It was proved, moreover, that he had been at the head of a com- pany of soldiers in Southwark. Excepting the first allegation, implying that Vane had a part in the government on the day of the death of Charles I, there was nothing in the list of charges not strictly true ; they were acts treasonable in Roy- alist eyes, but heroic to the Republicans. Vane de- manded delay, that he might summon witnesses on » See page 475. i662.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 513 his part, and prepare for a defence. This was denied him, and he was at once required to speak. He afterwards wrote out in prison the substance of what he said, from which the following abridged account is taken : — " The causes that did happen to move his late Majesty to depart from his Parliament and continue for many years, not only at a distance and in a dis- junction from them, but at last in a declared posture of enmity and war against them, are so well known and fully stated in print, not to say written in char- acters of blood on both parts, that I shall only men- tion it and refer to it. This matter was not done in a corner. The appeals were solemn, and the deci- sion, by the sword, was given by that God who, being the judge of the whole world, does right, and cannot do otherwise. By occasion of these unhappy differ- ences, most great and unusual changes, like an irre- sistible torrent, did break in upon us, not only to the disjointing that Parliamentary assembly among them- selves, but to the creating such formed divisions among the people, and to the producing such a gen- eral state of disorder, that hardly any were able to know their duty, and with certainty to discern who were to Command and who to obey. All things seemed to be reduced, and in a manner resolved into their first elements and principles. " Nevertheless, as dark as such a state may be, the law of England leaves not the subjects thereof, as I humbly conceive, without some glimpses of direction what to do, in the cleaving to and pursuing of which, 514 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. I hope I shall not be accounted nor judged an offender ; or if I am, I shall have the comfort and peace of my actions to support me in and under my greatest sufferings." Vane here entered upon a learned discussion, citing Hooker, Selden, Coke, Bracton, Fleta, Lambard, and especially Fortescue, the Lancastrian lawyer. " The law of nature," he declared at last, "is part of the law of England. This is the law that is before any judicial or municipal law, as the root and fountain whence these and all governments under God and law do flow. This agrees with that maxim, Salus populi suprema lex : that being made due and binding by this law which to the community, declaring their mind by their own free chosen delegates, appears profitable and necessary for the preservation and good of the whole society." He declared emphati- cally that Pride's Purge " made him forbear to come to the Parliament for ten weeks, from December 3d until near the middle of the following February, or to meddle in any public transactions." Here he denied the first count of the indictment. As regards the other counts, they could not be denied, but Vane proudly claimed that he had acted in all things either in Parliament, or as the servant of Parliament, and was amenable to no tribunal but Parliament. " Nor was it for any private or gainful ends to profit myself or enrich my relations. This may appear as well by the great debt I have contracted, as by the destitute condition my many children are in, as to any provision made for them; and I do publicly i662.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 515 challenge all persons whatsoever that can give infor- mation of any bribes or covert ways used by me, during the whole time of my public acting." As to the usurpation of Cromwell, which he calls " plucking up the liberties of the Kingdom by the very roots," he declares that " he opposed it, from the be- ginning to the end, to that degree of suffering, and with that constancy, that well near had cost me not only the loss of my estate, but of my very life, if he might have had his will, which, a higher than he hindered ; yet I did remain a prisoner, under great hardship, four months, in an island, by his orders." As to appearing in arms at any time. Vane showed that the business ,of his colonelcy in 1659 was simply " honorary and titular," and that he had never acted in other than a civil capacity. The defence of Vane has been thought to contain clear evidence that he was not a Republican.^ He declares his desire, " to preserve the ancient, well- constituted government of England on its basis and righteous foundation. I did count it the most likely means for the effecting of this to preserve it at least in its root, whatever changes and alterations it might be exposed unto in the branches. When by the in- ordinate fire of the times, two of the three estates have for the season been melted down, they did but retire into their root, and were not hereby in their right destroyed, but rather preserved, though as to their exercise laid for awhile asleep, till the season came of their revival and restoration." In Vane's view, as we well know, the will of the People uttering 1 Peter Bayne, Littell, cxvii. 332, 333. 5l6 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. itself through their representatives in the House of Commons, is the basis of the Government of Eng- land, — the will of the People and nothing else : but is it not here implied that the King and House of Lords, " preserved in their root during the inordinate fire of the times," have a place in that Government, and that a proper season may come " for their revival and restoration"? In Richard's Parliament, Vane, in i659i had said : " The wise providence of God has brought things, in these our days, to the state of government as we now find it. I observe a variety of opinions as to what our state of government is. Some conceive that it is in King, Lords, and Com- mons ; that the principles of old foundations yet re- main entire. ... It hath pleased God, by well- known steps, to put a period and to bring that gov- ernment to a dissolution." In 1659, then. Vane seems to have felt that King and Lords were gone. In 1662, he saw them restored, and appears to declare that they were never " in their right destroyed," and that he had all along wished to preserve them, being parts of " the ancient well-constituted Government of England." Must we deny to Vane the name Republican be- cause he seems, in 1662, to have approved for his scheme the institutions of King and Lords.? The truth is, few terms are more vague and shifting in their meaning than Republic and Republican.^ Any government, in the last century, which was without hereditary monarchy, was held to be a Republic ; whereas, to-day, the name is given to any government 1 Sir Henry Maine, Popular Government,'^. 210. i662.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 5 1 7 in which the rule of the many is substituted for that of one, or \hQ few. Poland was in the last century a Republic, its people Republicans, although it had a King in whose election only an oligarchy of nobles took part, the People having no voice. In the Re- publics of Venice, Genoa, the medieeval Italian cities, again, the many had little or no power, the rule being that of an oligarchy. To-day, England, though nom- inally a Monarchy, is perhaps, according to the sec- ond definition, more truly a Republic than even the United States. In England popular government is scarcely restrained, whereas in America, as Sir Henry Maine so well shows, it is controlled by certain powerful brakes.^ If to believe that power lies with the People is to be a Republican, no one was ever more so than Vane. The essential thing in his scheme always was that a polity must have for its only proper basis and righteous foundation that gen- eral judgment " which in the collective body of the People, and meeting of the head and members in Parliament, is called the supreme authority, and is the public reason and will of the whole Kingdom ; the going against which is in nature, as well as by the law of nations, an offence of the highest rank among men ; for it must be presumed that there is more of the wisdom and will of God in that public suffrage of the whole nation, than of any private per- son or lesser collective body whatsoever." ^ He cites repeatedly Fortescue as the authority beyond all others to be followed. The supremacy of 1 Sir Henry Maine, Pop. Gov., ^ People's Case Stated, see p. chapter on the " American Consti- 505. tution." 5l8 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. the national will is with Fortescue the cardinal prin- ciple.^ The King is simply minister, not master; the Lords in themselves have no right; the People alone is substantially sovereign. Whatever we call Vane, he was, first and last, for the sovereignty of the People — for the supremacy of manhood, " for Man is made in God's image, — in judgment and will like unto God himself, according to the measure that he is made capable to be the receiver thereof." As regards the Stuarts, the tone of Vane's defence is somewhat different from his tone in the earlier time. Speaking of his return to public life the month after the execution of Charles I, he said : " I did de- clare my refusal of the oath of abjuration, which was intended to be taken by all the members of Parlia- ment, in reference to kingly government, and the line of his own Majesty in particular. This I not only positively refused to take, but was an occasion of the second thoughts which the Parliament reas- sumed thereof, till in a manner they came wholly at last to decline it : a proof undeniable of the remote- ness of any intentions or designs of mine, as to the endeavoring any alteration or change in the govern- ment; and was that which gave such jealousy to many in the House, that they were willing to take the first occasion to show their dislike for me, and to discharge me from sitting among them. I utterly refused to approve the execution of the King and would not accept of a sitting in the Council of State on those terms, but caused a new oath to be drawn. ^ Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Anglim. See also Stubbs, Const. Hist. iii. 240 etc. i66z.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 519 " And whereas I am charged with keeping out his Majesty that now is, from exercising his regal power and royal authority in this his kingdom ; — through the ill will borne me by that part of the Parliament then sitting, I was discharged from being a member thereof about January 9, 1660, and by many of them was charged, or at least strongly suspected, to be a Royalist. . . . This I can say, that from the time I saw his Majesty's declarations from Breda, declaring his intentions and declarations as to his return, to take upon him the actual exercises of his regal office in England, and to indemnify^ all those who had been actors in the late differences and wars, ... I re- solved not to avoid any public question, ... as rely- ing on my own innocency and his Majesty's declared favor, as before said. And for the future, I deter- mined to demean m)^elf with that inoffensiveness and agreeableness to my duty, as to give no just mat- ter of new provocation to his Majesty in his govern- ment. All this, for my part, hath been punctually observed, whatever my sufferings may have been. Nor am I willing in the least to harbor any discour- aging thoughts in my mind as to his Majesty's gen- erosity and favor toward me, who have been faithful to the trust I was engaged in, without any malicious intentions against his Majesty, or his Crown, or dig- nity, as before hath been showed, and I am desirous for the future to walk peaceably and blamelessly." Let it be remembered that Vane in the summer of 1647, in concert with the Army chiefs Ireton and Cromwell, had done all he could to induce Charles I * To show indemnity to. 520 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. to accept the " Heads of Proposals," a form of settle- ment which would have given to England a polity very like that of to-day — a King, namely, a sover- eign in a dignified position, and a House of Lords, both, however, possessing only a derived power ; for it was arranged that a House of Commons, elected by a suffrage much extended, should be supreme, acting for the People whom it represented. Charles would have nothing to do with such a scheme ; and then it was that Vane accepted the more radical pro- gramme of the I'ank and file of the Army, antici- pating in his acceptance, according to the excellent testimony of Ludlow, both Cromwell and Ireton. Though Vane resisted Pride's Purge and the exe- cution of the King, nothing in his conduct or his speeches — from the time when he became a main pillar of the Commonwealth, in February, 1649, up to his discharge from public life by the restored Rump, in 1 660 — indicates that he had any feeling but hos- tility to the Stuarts, and that they must never be allowed to return to power. When in 1659 the estab- lishment of Richard Cromwell's power upon the Peti- tion and Advice seemed to Vane a step toward the old government, he spoke of the Commonwealth as a foundation " upon which we may build a super- structure of which we need not be ashamed. Now shall we be under-builders to supreme Stuart? We have no need, no obligation upon us to return to that old government." What do the words imply but that he then thought the Stuart race evil, and that their return to power would be a calamity ? So throughout those years he acted with the opponents i662.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 52 1 of the Stuarts, and no utterance of his can be found implying that the Stuarts were to be tolerated as rulers of England. — This being so, why, it may be asked, was he so careful in 1662 to explain to his Royalist judges that he refused in 1649 the oath of abjuration of Stuart rule ; that he brought obloquy upon himself by opposing those who wished to change the government; that in 1660 he was dis- charged from Parliament and suspected by his former friends of being a Royalist ; and that he intended in future to be inoffensive and agreeable to the restored Sovereign toward whom and his Crown and dignity he has had " no malicious intentions " ? We have heard the intrepid Scott exclaim when all was lost, speak- ing of the execution of Charles I, " Though I know not where to hide my head at this time, yet I dare not refuse to own that not only my hand, but my heart also was in that action," and end by saying that he asked for no higher epitaph than, " Here lieth one who had a hand and heart in the execution of Charles Stuart." Why, it may be asked, did not Vane make an avowal as decisive, an avowal that he had kept out the Stuart as long as he could } Instead of claiming that he had worked " without any malicious intentions against his Majesty, his Crown, or dig- nity," why did he not admit that he had done him all the harm in his power and that he held the Restora- tion to be a calamity ? It would detract immensely from the impressive- ness of Vane's bearing in these last solemn hours, if it appeared that he for a moment hedged, — shrank from his record, and tried to twist it into a shape less 52 2 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. objectionable to the hostile eyes that were so eagerly- scanning it. Throughout his trial, and in the dread- ful scene upon the scaffold to which we are about to proceed, his intrepidity was perfect, and it is quite absurd to suppose that there can have been even a momentary cringing. What explanation, then, can be given of declarations which seem not in accord with the utterances and strivings of his great j^ears } Vane, through all, was of a conservative spirit. Most unwillingly did he abandon the hope of saving the ancient triple polity of King, Lords, and Com- mons. Though the People must be supreme, accord- ing to what he believed the ancient way, yet King and Lords in their place, as ministers not masters, and not arrogating to themselves special privileges, — he. felt were useful functionaries. Forced by cir- cumstances, he tried faithfully to establish a consti- tution without a Single Person or an Upper House, but the failure was complete. It may easily have been the case that in his latter days, as he reviewed in prison " the inordinate fire of the time," in which so much had been melted down, and in whose flame he had been forced to move, he felt, as he had not felt before, how impracticable in the circumstances the effort was which the Commonwealth's men had made. Something less revolutionary, he may natu- rally have thought, was the only thing possible for England ; and, after all, was there not a hope that the young Charles, taught by his own bitter experience, and with the thought in his soul of his beheaded father, might prove at last that constitutional chief i662.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, 523 magistrate, who without arbitrary assumption would do the People's will ? Charles was good-natured and affable ; more than that, he was disposed to mercy. The Regicides, to be sure, were torn limb from limb ; but in that age it was not unusual cruelty. To all others Charles turned graciously ; and the world universally — not simply Cavaliers and Presbyte- rians, but Cromwellians, ancient Roundheads, even the grim remains of the Ironsides whom Charles had reviewed upon Black-heath — were ready to credit the young monarch with good intentions. Why may not Vane have been affected to some extent as the world in general were ? Perhaps he forgot how un- compromising he had been in past years in his oppo- sition : we, who have now his words and the detailed record of his deeds before us, are able to see that noth- ing could have been sterner. It is easier at any rate to believe that he forgot than that he hedged : it is easier to believe that when he spoke hopefully of a Stuart, he was quite unconscious that his words would seem incongruous with anything he had ever said or done before, than that for a single moment he showed insincerity, in the hope of obtaining mercy. His doom became inevitable when he declared in- trepidly the subordinacy of the King. By natural right and the best legal authorities he showed how "it may appear what superiors the King himself hath, — God, Law, and Parliament." He concluded by putting questions to the Court, of which the following are the essential ones, begging again that counsel might be assigned, to argue them : — 524 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. " I. Whether the collective body of the Parlia- ment can be impeached of high-treason ? " 2. Whether any person acting by authority of Par- liament, can, so long as he acteth by that authority, commit treason ? " 3. Whether matters acted by that authority can be called in question in an inferior court ? " 4. Whether a King de jure and out of possession, can have treason committed against him, he not being King de facto, and in actual possession ? " Vane's defence has been handed down by himself ; he wrote out immediately after the trial the substance of his plea, a memorandum preserved in the State Trials. He fought for his life for ten hours without refreshment. It is a noble address, but it was of no avail : the jury, after an absence of half an hour, brought in a verdict of guilty. In his cell after- wards he showed cheerfulness and no sign that his strength was exhausted. There was hope that even if condemned, his life might be spared. He was not one of the Regicides, and indemnity had been prom- ised to all but them. His prominence in the past, and the fear of his talents and dispositions, caused that he was brought to trial ; but Parliament, after much discussion, had agreed that if the jury con- victed him, the King should be petitioned for his life,^ and the King had signified that he would grant such a petition. Charles II, however, wrote now to Clarendon, the Chancellor, the following letter : — ^ Aug. 22-25, 1660; see Pari, of 1662, "more favorable to mon- Hist. iv. p, 103 etc., also p. 119. archy, applied for his trial and con- The Convention Parliament peti- demnation." Ibid. p. 255. tioned the King for Vane, but that 1 662.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KINGS BENCH. 525 " Hampton Court, Saturday, two in the afternoon. The relation that hath been made to me of Sir H. Vane's carriage yesterday, in the Hall, is the occasion of this letter ; which if I am rightly informed, was so insolent as to justify all he had done, acknowledging no supreme power in England but a Parliament; and many things to that purpose. You have had a true account of all ; and if he has given new occasion to be hanged, certainly he is too dangerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the way. Think of this and give me some account of it to- morrow; till when I have no more to say to you." Charles was understood in this note to withdraw his promise of pardon, an act which has been re- garded as one of the greatest stains upon his career. He was unquestionably much frightened. In the Stuartist conception, what could be more dangerous than the doctrines of Vane, and how formidable might such a man become if suffered to go at large } Magnanimity was not to be expected from the King. Vane was " too dangerous a man to let live," and on June nth he was again brought from the Tower to receive his sentence. When asked if he had any- thing to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he proceeded to throw every pos- sible technical objection in the way. He demanded to have the indictment read in Latin, since it was in- scribed in that language. How otherwise could it be told that the translation he had heard rendered it j^roperly? He claimed again counsel, to make ex- ceptions. This was denied ; whereupon he himself offered a bill of exceptions, staggering the judges by 526 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. bringing up in support of the proceeding an over- looked statute of Edward I : " That if any man find himself aggrieved by the proceedings against him before any justices, let him write his Exception and desire the justices to set their seals to it." After a sharp contest the judges, in spite of the statute, de- clined to receive the exceptions. " To the bystanders their chief reason seemed to be, that it had not been practised this hundred or two of years." Vane caused each judge to put himself, individually, upon record as denying him this right, — a responsibility which the bench undertook in some confusion. At last he reminded the court that there were certain questions of law to be settled before judgment could be passed, which he went on to state as follows : — " I. Whether a Parliament were accountable to any inferior court .'' " 2. Whether the King, being out of possession " — Here the Court broke in impatiently, "that the King was never out of possession," — whereupon Vane's instant rejoinder was, that in that case the in- dictment must inevitably fall to the ground, for the charge it alleged was '' that he endeavored to keep out his Majesty, and how could he keep him out if he were not out ? " He felt, however, that all was useless, and at length accepted his fate. The old reporter of the State Trials relates : — " But when he saw they would overrule him in all, and were bent upon his condemnation, he put up his papers, appealing to the righteous judgment of God, who (he told them) must judge them as well as him, i662.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 527 often expressing his satisfaction to die upon this tes- timony ; which KeeUng, one of the King's counsel, insultingly answered : ' So you may, Sir, in good time, by the grace of God.' The same person had often before showed a very snappish property towards the prisoner, and Sir Henry sometimes answered him according to his folly : for when he would have had the book out of the prisoner's hand, wherein was the statute of Westminster, 2d. c 31 ; Sir Henry told him, ' He had a very officious memory, and when he was of counsel for him, he would find him books.' Whereby was verified what was said to be spoken by him, at first, in answer to one of his brethren, on the Arraignment-day, ' Though we know not what to say to him, we know what to do with him.' " The execution was appointed to take place the 14th of June. The sentence was, that he should be hanged, cut down while living, his body cut open, and his bowels burned before his face; that his head should be severed from his body, and his body then quartered. The Chief Justice tried to persuade the King that he lay under no obligation to grant the petition of Parliament, saying, " God, though full of mercy, yet intended his mercy only for the penitent." The only favor shown the prisoner was to allow him at last to be beheaded, instead of undergoing the frightful death described above, a death which the Regicides had suffered. The bill of exceptions which Vane was not allowed to present he carefully prepared, and it has been pre- served. It is drawn with ability ; but a more inter- esting paper, as giving evidence of his serenity and 528 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. elevation of mind as he faced a death of torture and ignominy, is his " Reasons for an Arrest of Judg- ment, writ by the Prisoner, but refused to be heard by the Court." Its tone may be judged from the following : — " My Lords : If I have been free and plain with you in this matter, I beg your pardon : for it concerns me to be so, and something more than ordinarily urgent, where both my estate and life are in such eminent peril ; nay, more than my life, the concerns of thou- sands of lives are in it, not only of those that are in their graves already, but of all posterity in time to come. Had nothing been in it but the care to pre- serve my own life, I needed not have stayed in Eng- land, but might have taken my opportunity to with- draw myself into foreign parts, to provide for my own safety. Nor needed I to have been put upon pleading as now I am, for an arrest of judgment ; but might have watched upon advantages that were visible enough to me, in the managing of my trial, if I had consulted only the preservation of my life or estate. " No, my lords, I have otherwise learned Christ than to fear them that can but kill the body, and have no more that they can do. I have also taken notice, in the little reading that I have had of history, how glorious the very heathens have rendered their names to posterity, in the contempt they have showed of death, (when the laying down of their life has appeared to be their duty) from the love which they have owed to their country. Two remarkable ex- amples of this, give me leave to mention to you upon 1 662.] BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 529 this occasion. The one is of Socrates, the divine philosopher, who was brought into question before a judgment-seat, as now I am, for maintaining that there was but one only true God, against the mul- tiplicity of the superstitious heathen Gods ; and he was so little in love with his life upon this account (wherein he knew the right was on his side) that he could not be persuaded by his friends to make any defence, but would choose rather to put it upon the conscience and determination of his judges, to decide that wherein he knew not how to make any choice of his own, as to what should be best for him, whether to live or die. The other example is that of a chief governor, Codrus, that, to the best of my re- membrance, had the command of a city in Greece, which was besieged by a potent enemy and brought into unimaginable straits. Hereupon, the said Gov- ernor makes his address to the oracle to know the event of that danger. The answer was, ' That the city should be safely preserved, if the chief gover- nor were slain by the enemy.' He, understanding this, immediately disguised himself and went into the enemy's camp, amongst whom he did so comport himself that they unwittingly put him to death ; by which means immediately, safety and deliverance arose to the city, as the oracle had declared. So little was his life in esteem with him, when the good and safety of his country required the laying of it down." ^ The breaches of legality in this memorable trial have been exhibited by high authorities. In consid- 1 Reasons for an. Arrest of Judgment, 183. 530 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. ering the last hours of Vane, it is impossible not to think of those of Strafford. " The one began, the other closed, the list of proscriptions furnished by this period of civil discord." ^ The cases are so like and yet so unlike ! The one stood for Kingly power, as the other stood for that of the People. Here, how in contrast the two men ! yet in strength of soul and power of mind and character how similar ! Each in the eyes of the party which he opposed was " too dangerous a man to let live." Each, when arraigned at Westminster Hall, like a lion ensnared, tore to pieces as if they were so much rotten thread the legal meshes in which his hunters sought to hold him fast. Each was condemned arbitrarily with small show of statutory right. Both at last, representatives of great conflicting ideas, resigned themselves calmly and prayerfully to their fate, impressive examples of the greatness to which man may attain. 1 Lingard, Hist, of Eng. xii. p. 39. CHAPTER XXII. THE scaffold/ On the 13th of June, the day before his execution, Vane said to his children,^ who were permitted to come to him : " You have no cause to be ashamed of my chain, or to fear being brought into the like circumstances I now am in, so it be on as good an occasion, for the name and cause of Christ, and for his righteousness' sake. Let this word abide with you whatever befalls you. Resolve to suffer anything from men rather than sin against God ; yea, rejoice and be exceeding glad, when you find it given to you, on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but to suffer for his name. . . . O thou whom our souls do love, tell us where thou feedest, and makest thy Jlock to rest at noon, under the scorching heat of man's persecuting wrath ! " God seems now to take all our concerns wholly into his own hands. You will be deprived of my ^ The details of Vane's closing a curious story, for which see Bur- hours are from Sikes and The net, Hist, of his Own Times, i. p. State Trials. 280, note. This story, which can- * At this time possibly seven not with propriety be given here, children were living. Christopher, makes Christopher to have been the youngest son, through whom a posthumous son, whereas other the line descends, is the subject of authorities assign his birth to 1653- 532 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. bodily presence, but Abraham's blessing shall come upon you. The Lord revive, and cause to grow up and flourish, whatever is of that faith of Abraham in you that is in your father ; and grant it may more and more appear in my family, after I am gone hence, and no more seen in my m.ortal body ! " As Vane took farewell of his children he said, kissing them : " The Lord bless you ; he will be a better father to you ; I must now forget that ever I knew you. I can willingly leave this place and out- ward enjoyments, for those I shall meet with here- after in a better country. I have made it my busi- ness to acquaint myself with the society of Heaven. Be not you troubled, for I am going home to my father." The sorrowing household found themselves to- gether unexpectedly once more on the following day, when the doomed father prayed with them. . . . " There hath been a battle fought with garments rolled in blood, in which (upon solemn appeals on both sides) thou didst own thy servants ; though, through the spirit of hypocrisy and apostasy, that hath sprung up amongst us, these nations have been thought unworthy any longer to enjoy the fruits of that deliverance. Thou hast therefore another day of decision yet to come. Such a battle is to begin, and to be carried on by the faith of thy people ; yea, is in some sort begun by the faith of thy poor ser- vant, that is now going to seal thy cause with his blood. O that this decision of thine may remark- ably show itself in thy servant at this time, by his bold testimony and sealing it with his blood ! 1^62.] THE SCAFFOLD. 533 " We know not what interruptions may attend thy servant ; but, Lord, let thy power carry him in holy triumph over all difficulties. " O that thy servant could speak any blessing to these three nations ! Let thy remnant be gathered to thee. Prosper and relieve that poor handful that are in prisons and bonds, that they may be raised up, and trample death under foot. Let my poor family that is left desolate, let my dear wife and children, be taken into thy care ; be thou a husband, father! and master to them. Let the spirits of those that love me, be drawn out towards them. Let a blessing be upon these friends that are here at this time. Show thyself a loving father to us all, and do for us abundantly, above and beyond all that we can ask or think, for Jesus Christ his sake — Amen." As his family withdrew, Vane was heard to say : " There is some flesh remaining yet ; but I must cast it behind me and press forward to my father." As one goes through Eastcheap to-day out upon the open space of Tower Hill, he finds himself among prosaic surroundings. Over the pavement rattles the traffic to and from the great London docks close at hand. High warehouses rise at the side ; the sooty trail of steamers pollutes the air toward the river. In one direction, however, the view has suggestions the. reverse of commonplace. Looking thither, the sensi- tive beholder feels with deep emotion the fact brought home to him, that to men of English speech, the earth has scarcely a spot more memorable than the ground where he 1^ standing. There rise, as they have risen for eight hundred years, the gray walls of 534 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. the Tower — the moat in the foreground ; the battle- mented line of masonry behind ; within, the white keep with its four turrets, as they were left by the architect of William the Conqueror. Where you are standing, Shakespeare makes to have stood the for- lorn mother of the two princes about to be smothered, . and here she wept forth that touching apostrophe : " Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes Whom envy hath immured within your walls ! Rude cradle for such little pretty ones. Rough rugged nurse, old sullen playfellow For tender princes, use my babies well ! " As mothers have shed tears there for imprisoned children, so children standing there have wondered which blocks in the grim masonry covered the dun- geons of their fathers and mothers. Again and again, too, through the ages all London has gathered, waiting in a hush for the dropping of the drawbridge before the Byward tower, and the coming forth of the mournful train, conducting some world-famous man to the block, draped with black on the scaffold to the left where the hill is highest. On the 14th of June, 1662, in the full glory of the summer, Vane, in the strength of his manhood, was brought forth there to die. A disciple who was per- mitted to stand by his master writes : ^ — " The day before his execution his friends had lib- erty to visit him ; he received them with very great cheerfulness ; and when they would have persuaded him to make some submission to the King, and to endeavor the obtaining of his life, he said, ' If the King do not think himself more concerned for his 1 state Trials. •662.] THE SCAFFOLD. 535 honour and word, than he did for his life, he was very wiUing they should take it. Nay, I declare,' said he, 'that I value my life less in a good cause than the King can do his promise.' And when some others were speaking to him, of giving some thousands of pounds for" his life ; he said, ' If a thousand farthings would gain it, he would not give it ; and if any should attempt to make such a bargain he would spoil their market. For I think the King himself so sufficiently obliged to spare my life, that it is fitter for him to do it, than myself to seek it' " On Saturday, the day of his Execution, he said to a friend, ' God bid Moses go to the top of Mount Pisgah and die ; so he bid him go up to the top of Tower-hill and die.' Several friends being in his chamber this morning he oft encouraged them to cheerfulness, as well by his example as expression. In all his deportment, he shewed himself marvel- lously fitted to meet the King of Terrors, without the least affrightment. But to show where his strength lay, he said. He was a poor unworthy wretch, and had nothing but the grace and goodness of God to depend upon. He said, moreover. Death shrunk from him, rather than he from it. . . . " He told his friends, the Sheriff's chaplain came to him at twelve of the clock that night, with an order for his Execution, telling him, he was come to bring him the fatal message of death. ' I think, friends, that in this was no dismalness at all. After the receipt of which, I slept four hours so soundly, that the Lord hath made it sufficient for me, and now I am going to sleep my last, after which I shall need sleep no more.' 536 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662, " Then Mr. Sheriff coming into the room, was friendly saluted by him, and after a little pause com- municated a prohibition that he said he received, which was, That he must not speak anything against his majesty or the government. His answer to this he himself relates on the Scaffold. He further told Mr. Sheriff, he was ready; but the Sheriff said he was not, nor could be this half hour yet : ' Then, sir, it rests on you, not on me,' (said Sir Henry,) ' for I have been ready this half hour.' Then the Sheriff, at his request, promised him his servants should at- tend him on the Scaffold, and be civilly dealt with ; neither of which were performed ; (notwithstanding this promise they were beaten and kept off the Scaf- fold, till he said, ' What, have I never a servant here .?')... He went very cheerfully and readily down the stairs from his chamber, and seating him- self on the sledge (friends and servants standing about him) then he was forthwith drawn away to- wards the Scaffold. As he went, some in the Tower (Prisoners as well as others) spake to him, praying the Lord to go with him. " And after he was out of the Tower, from the tops of houses, and out of windows, the people used such means and gestures as might best discover, at a distance, their respects and love to him, crying aloud, ' The Lord go with you, the great God of Heaven and Earth appear in you, and for you ; ' whereof he took what notice he was capable in these circum- stances, in a cheerful manner, accepting their re- spects, putting off his hat and bowing to them. Be- ing asked, several times, how he did, by some about i662.] THE SCAFFOLD. 537 him, he answered, ' Never better in all my life.' Another replied, ' How sh6uld he do ill that suffers for so glorious a cause ? ' To which a tall black man said, ' Many suffered for a better cause ; ' ' and many for a worse,' said Sir Henry; wishing, that when they come to seal their better cause (as he called it) with their blood (as he was now going to seal his) they might not find themselves deceived ; and as to this cause, said he, it hath given life in death to all the owners of it, and sufferers for it. " Being passed within the rails on Tower-hill, there were loud accl.amations of the people, crying out, ' The Lord Jesus go with your dear soul,' etc. One told him, that was the most glorious seat he ever sat on ; he answered, ' It is so indeed,' and rejoiced ex- ceedingly. " Being come to the Scaffold, he cheerfully ascends, and being up, after the crowd on the Scaffold was broken into pieces, to make way for him, he shewed himself to the people on the front of the Scaffold, with that noble and christian-like deportment, that he rather seemed a looker on, than the person con- cerned in the Execution, insomuch that it was diffi- cult to persuade many of the people that he was the prisoner. " But when they knew that the gentleman in the black suit and cloke (with a scarlet silk waistcoat, the victorious dolour shewing itself at the breast) was the prisoner, they generally admired that noble and great presence he appeared with. " ' How cheerful he is,' said some ; ' He does not look like a dying man,' said others; with many like 538 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. speeches, as astonished with that strange appearance he shined forth in. " Then, (silence being commanded by the Sheriff) lifting up his hands and eyes towards Heaven, and resting his hands on the rail ; and taking a very se- rious, composed, and majestic view of the great mul- titude, about him, he spake as follows : — " ' Gentlemen, Fellow Countrymen, and Christians : " ' When Mr. Sheriff came to me this morning and told me he had received a command from ■ the King, that I should say nothing reflecting upon his majesty or the government ; I answered, I should confine and order my Speech, as near as I could, so as to be least offensive, saving my faithfulness to the trust reposed in me, which I must ever discharge with a good con- science unto death ; for I ever valued a man accord- ing to his faithfulness to the trust reposed in him, even on his majesty's behalf, in the late controversy. " ' And if you dare trust my discretion, Mr. Sheriff, I shall do nothing but what becomes a good Christian and an Englishman ; and so I hope I shall be civilly dealt with. " ' When Mr. Sheriff's chaplain came to me last night about twelve of the clock, to bring me, as he called it, the fatal message of death, it pleased the Lord to bring that scripture to my mind in the 3d of Zechariah, to intimate to me, that he was now taking away my filthy garments, causing my iniquities to pass from me, with intention to give me change of rayment, and that my mortal should put on immor- tality. i662.] THE SCAFFOLD. 539 " ' I suppose you may wonder when I shall tell you that I am not brought hither according to any known Law of the Land. It is true I have been before a court of justice (and am now going to ap- pear before a greater Tribunal, where I am to give an account of all my actions) ; under their sentence I stand here at this time. When I was before them, I could not have the liberty and privilege of an Eng- lishman, the grounds, reasons, and causes of the act- ings I was charged with duly considered ; I therefore desired the Judges that they would set their seals to my Bill of Exceptions ; I pressed hard for it again and again, as the right of myself and every free-born Englishman by the Law of the Land, but was finally denyed it' — " Here Sir John Robinson (lieutenant of the Tower) interrupted him, saying, ' Sir, you must not go on thus,' and (in a furious manner, generally observed even to the dissatisfaction of some of their own at- tendants) said that he railed against the Judges, and that it was a lye, and I am here, says he, to testify that it is false. "Sir Henry Vane replied: "'God will judge between me and you in this mat- ter. I speak but matter of fact, and cannot you hear that ? 'T is evident the Judges have refused to sign my Bill of Exceptions ' — Then the trumpets were ordered to sound or murre in his face, with a con- temptible noise, to hinder his being heard. At which Sir Henry (lifting up his hand, and then laying it on his breast) said, ' What mean you. Gentlemen .? Is this your usage of me ? Did you use all the rest so ? 540 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. I had even done, as to that, could you have been patient, but seeing you cannot bear it, I shall only say this, That whereas the Judges have refused to seal that with their hands that they have done, I am come to seal that with my blood that I have done. Therefore leaving this matter, which I per- ceive will not be borne, I judge it meet to give you some account of my life. " ' I might tell you 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 Goodfellowship, judging it to be the only means of accomplishing a gentleman. But about the 14th or 15th year of my age (which is about 34 or 35 years since) God was pleased to lay the foundation, or ground-work, of Repentance in me, for the bringing me home to myself, by his wonderful, rich, and free grace, revealing his Son in me, that by the knowl- edge of " The only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent," I might (even whilst here in the body) be made partaker of eternal life in the first fruits of it. " ' When my conscience was thus awakened, I found my former course to be disloyalty to God, profane- ness, and a way of sin and death, which I did with tears and bitterness bewail, as I had cause to do. Since that foundation of repentance laid in me, through grace I have been kept stedfast, desiring to walk in all good conscience towards God and towards men, according to the best light, and understanding God gave me. For this I was willing to turn my I662.J THE SCAFFOLD. 541 back upon my estate, expose myself to hazards in foreign parts ; yea, nothing seemed difficult to me, so I might preserve faith and a good conscience, which I prefer before all things ; and do earnestly persuade all people rather to suffer the highest con- tradictions from men, than disobey God, by contra- dicting the light of their own conscience. " ' In all respects, where I have concerned and en- gaged, as to the public, my design hath been to ac- complish good things for these nations.' Then (lift- ing up his eyes, and spreading his hands) he said, ' I do here appeal to the great God of Heaven, and all this assembly, or any other persons, to shew wherein I have defiled my hands with any man's blood or estate, or that I have sought myself in any public capacity or place I have been in. The Cause was three times stated. First, In the Remonstrance of the House of Commons. Secondly, In the Covenant, the Solemn League and Covenant ' — " Upon this the trumpets sounded, the Sheriff catched at the Paper in his hand ; and Sir John Rob- inson, who at first acknowledged that he had nothing to do there, wishing the Sheriff to see to it, yet found himself something to do now, furiously calling for the writers books,^ and saying, ' He treats of Rebellion, and you write it.' Hereupon six Note-Boots were delivered up. The Prisoner was very patient and composed under all these injuries, and soundings of the trumpets several times in his face, only saying, It was hard he might not be suffered to speak ; but, 1 Several of Vane's friends were taking notes of his words. 542 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. says he, ' My usage from man is no harder than was my Lord and Master's ; and all that will live his life this day, must expect hard dealing from the worldly spirit ' — " The trumpets sounded again, to hinder his being heard, then again Robinson, and two or three others, endeavored to snatch the Paper out of Sir Henry's hand ; but he kept it for a while, now and then read- ing part of it; afterwards, tearing it in pieces, he delivered it to a friend behind him, who was pres- ently forced to deliver it to the Sheriff. Then they put their hands into his pockets for papers (as was pretended) which bred great confusion and dissatis- faction to the spectators, seeing a prisoner so strangely handled in his dying words. " The Prisoner expecting beforehand the disorder aforementioned, writ the main substance of what he intended to speak on the Scaffold, the true copy whereof was by the Prisoner carefully committed to a safe hand before he came to the scaffold." Vane's address, thus roughly broken off, appears not to have been resumed. The notes prepared beforehand, " committed to a safe hand," are given in full by the reporter. They breathe throughout the spirit of piety and courage : the most interesting passage* are those in which he refers to events in his past career. He declares that without seeking of his own, he became a member of the Long Par- liament, and entered upon a public career, — that by steps he became convinced that the cause of the Houses was the cause of God. He is nowhere more I662.J THE SCAFFOLD. 543 earnest than in his allusion to the part he had borne in the negotiation and carrying out of the Solemn League and Covenant. He felt keenly the obloquy to which he had been exposed in consequence of it, and asserted with the greatest solemnity his recti- tude of purpose in words which have been already quoted.^ The speech is throughout free from fanati- cism, except at the conclusion, where a dream of the Fifth Monarchy drifts athwart the thought, with a picturesque effect. Who would have had it other- wise .'' One is glad that the great soul could comfort itself with a hope so glorious. " I shall not desire in this place to take much time, but only, as my last words, leave this with you. That as the present storm we now lie under, and the dark clouds that yet hang over the reformed churches of Christ, (which are coming thicker and thicker for a season) were not unforeseen by me for many years past (as some writings of mine declare) : So the coming of Christ in these clouds, in order to a speedy and sudden revival of his cause, and spread- ing his kingdom over the face of the whole earth, is most clear to the eye of my faith, even that in which I die, whereby the kingdoms of this world shall be- come the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ. Amen. Even so, come. Lord Jesus." Though he was not suffered to speak, he was suf- fered to pray without interruption, which he did at great length, uttering this among his petitions : — " Thy servant, that is now falling asleep, doth heartily desire of thee, that thou wouldst forgive his enemies, and not lay this sin to their charge." 1 See pp. 185, 186. 544 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. " I bless the Lord," he said, as he knelt at the block, " who hath accounted me worthy to suffer for his name. Blessed be the Lord, that I have kept a conscience void of offence to this day. I bless the Lord, that I have not deserted the righteous cause for which I suffer." " Father, glorify thy servant in the sight of man that he may glorify thee in the discharge of his duty to thee and to his country." One feels that a thought of his old comrades, the great strivers for freedom, with whom he had gone shoulder to shoulder, must have passed through his mind. Some, like Fairfax, forgetting their former enthusiasm, at peace with the Stuart, enjoyed tranquil ease. Lambert had been brought to trial at the same time with himself, but having made humble submis- sion, was to cultivate flowers and work embroidery for twenty years to come. The heads bf Cromwell and Bradshaw looked ghastly from their poles upon the north gable of Westminster Hall. Blake and Ire- ton had fallen before the cause was hopeless, but their bodies had been flung into dishonored graves. Pym and Hampden, dying in the morning of the strife, had been spared the burden and heat of the long day. Scott and Harrison had been torn limb from limb. Algernon Sidney lived and was faithful, — a victim destined for a later day. Not far off, too, in Jewin Street, Aldersgate, the blind Milton still lived, and must have paused, one thinks, in the dictating of Paradise Lost, heavy-hearted in the death-hour of the man, once his friend, whose praise he had sung in a day of triumph. Did Vane have in mind his old i662.] THE SCAFFOLD. 545 yoke-fellows of the Honest Party, or was the supreme moment given to things above this world ? There is a tradition that he spoke once more. As his neck lay across the block, the headsman inquired, " Shall you raise your head again ? " " Not till the final resur- rection," was the reply. Another moment — and it was done. Some disciple, not present, wrote soon after to one who attended Vane upon the scaffold a curious let- ter, preserved by Sikes, the sentences of which be- come solemnly lyrical like those of the Canticles or a triumphal psalm, as the love of the fanatical en- thusiast pours itself out. " Didst thou stand forth by my worthy friend and bear him company } Did thy soul suffer with him and rejoice with him, riding in his chariot of triumph, to the block, to the axe, to the crown, to the banner, to the bed and ivory throne of the Lord God, thy Redeemer.? " Were not his eyes like the pure dove's, fixed upon his mate, single and clear ? Was not his breast- plate strong like steel .? Did the arrows, the sharp trials and cruel mockeries pierce it ? Did not his shield cover him like the targets of Solomon ? Was it not beaten gold .? When it was tried did it yield to the tempter.? O precious faith! Tell me, my friend, how did he wield his glittering flaming sword ? " O mighty man of valor ! Thou champion for the Lord and his host, when they were defied! How 546 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. [1662. hast thou spoiled them! The GoHath is trodden under foot. The whole army of the Philistines fly." After two centuries and a quarter, these raptures of the Fifth Monarchist have an air of frenzy, though pervaded, who will deny it? by a certain wild and melancholy beauty. To the world in general of Vane's time, as his career ended thus upon Tower Hill, failure never seemed more complete. Not so : his cause was not lost, but only postponed. In a hundred years America made real his noble ideal; and to-day on far continents and distant isles of the sea, noble states are shaping themselves according to the ideas of that band of heroes among whom he stood a chief. So, too, his beloved England steadily transforms herself into the shape of that Common- wealth for which he strove and died, "for the last two hundred years having done little more than carry out in a slow and tentative way, but very surely, the programme laid down by Vane and his friends at the end of the Civil War."^ ^ John Richard Green ; see p. go. CHAPTER XXIII. WHY THE STORY OF VANE IS TIMELY AT THE PRESENT HOUR. At the time of the centennial anniversary of the early events of the American Revolution, the writer remembers to have seen a certain patriotic fellow-cit- izen of his own greatly taken back by what, to most Americans perhaps, would seem a very profane sug- gestion. " One hundred years ago," said the patriot, " my great-grandfather stood among the ' embattled farmers ' at Concord Bridge, and there fired one of the first shots in resistance to British aggression." As he stroked his chin in complacent certainty that his listeners must necessarily admire a man whose ancestor had been, so heroic — "Well," said an old man of the group, " was it worth while ? Was the American Revolution worth while.? Would it not have been better if the British Empire had remained undivided .? " The company stood aghast at the au- dacity of the man who at the very time when the air was full of the flap of the great spread eagle dared without fear of his beak to ask whether the separa- tion of America from England were worth while. Let us inquire for a moment whether there is any reason in such a question. The American Revolu- 548 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. tion began at the time of the Stamp Act, in 1764, with the declaration of the colonists that they would not be taxed unless they could be represented in the Legislative Body that imposed the tax. Excellent friends of America in England, and sev- eral of the leading patriots among the colonists, be- lieved it quite feasible that, representatives should be sent from this side of the water to the British Par- liament, and regarded this as the best way to put an end to the discontent. James Otis, who until he be- came insane in 1770 was the most conspicuous leader of the Northern colonies, never entertained a wish for independence, felt that it would be a calamity to be separated from the mother-country, and that all grievances might easily be adjusted, if only certain deputies from the colonies might sit at Westminster. " Remember, Britons," ^ he exclaims in an impas- sioned address before madness fell upon him, " when you shall be taxed without your consent, and tried without a jury, and have an army quartered in pri- vate families, you will have little to hope or fear. . . . I find it generally much disliked in the colonies arid thought impracticable, an American representation in Parliament. I would humbly ask if there be really and naturally any greater absurdity in the plan than in a Welsh and Scotch representation. An Ameri- can representation, in my sense of the terms and as I ever used them, implies a thorough beneficial union of these colonies to the realm or mother-country, so that all parts of the empire may be compacted and consolidated, the constitution flourish with new vigor, ^ Tudor, Life of Otis, 191 etc. W//y THE STORY OF VANE IS TIMELY. 549 and the national strength, power, and importance, shine with far greater splendor than. hath ever yet been seen by the sons of men. An American repre- sentation implies every real advantage to the subject abroad as well as at home. . . . Every region, na- tion, and people, must to all real intents and pur- poses, be united, knit, and worked into the very bones and blood of the original system, as fast as subdued, settled, or allied." James Otis was far enough from standing alone among Americans. More illustrious still, Benjamin Franklin was opposed to independence almost to the moment of the Declaration, making, not exultingly but quite ruefully, his . famous joke at that time : " Now, gentlemen, we must all hang together or we shall all hang separately." ' His favorite plan had been to keep together the British empire, which he compared to a handsome China bowl, ruined if a piece were broken out of it. With prophetic soul he foresaw the time when a vast population would hold the valley of the Mississippi and the lands farther westward, giving his forecast at a day when few men, even in thought, had crossed the Alleghanies. He believed the time was not far off, when, if the British empire could only be kept together, the portion of it contained in America would preponderate in impor- tance, that the seat of government would be trans- ferred, and America become principal while England became subordinate. 1 Tudor's Otis, p. 391. Lecky, Com. of Correspond., May 15, Hist, of the XVIH Century, vol. 1771 = to Joh. Winthrop, July 25, iii. p. 349 etc. See also Franklin's 1773: to Jos- Galloway, Feb. 25, rror/^J, vol. iv.p. 41. Franklin to 1775= to Francis Maseres, June his son, Nov. 25, 17O7: to Mass. 26, 1785, etc., etc. | ego YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE.- American statesmen were not alone in favonng a solution of the quarrel by an American representa- tion in Parliament. Grenville,^ the minister who imposed the Stamp Act, was disposed to think it a wise measure. Adam Smith, in so many ways the most far-seeing Englishman of his time, in the " Wealth of Nations " ^ favored strongly the idea. While admitting the difficulties, he contended they were not insurmountable. His scheme was that the number of representatives should be proportioned to the produce of American taxation. Following in the thought of Franklin, he maintained that it was faj from unlikely that in l6ss than a century the produce of American taxation would exceed that of Britain, and that the seat of empire would then be trans- ferred to America. A strong disposition to concede the seats soon came to pass among men of influence in England. Meantime, however, in America a class of leaders had gained influence, of whom Samuel Adams was the most conspicuous figure, who be- lieved a fair American representation in Parliament was quite impracticable, and would hear of nothing but independence. " Some splendid visions arise in the mind, while contemplating such a grand representative dominion as this would have been." * Our age is noteworthy through its tendency to unification. Through Ca- vour disintegrated Italy has come together into a great and powerful kingdom, under the headship of 1 Hutchinson, Hist, of Mass. ^ Wealth of Nations, ii. 103, Bay, vol. iii. p. 112. Lecky, vol. 104, Hartford ed. 1804. ill. p. 349. 8 Tudor, Life of Otis, 199. IVffy THE STORY OF VANE IS TIMELY. 55 1 the able House of Savoy. Still more memorably, Germany has been redeemed from the granulation which for so many ages has made her a mere rope of sand, her petty principalities and kingdoms be- coming plaited at length into a nation magnificent in size, power, and ability. Such unification can be regarded as only advantageous, whether we look to- ward the general welfare of the human race, or to the internal benefits brought by such consolidation to the powers themselves. The practical annihilation of space and time, as man gains dominion over the world of matter, makes it possible that states should be immense in size as never before. The ends of the earth talk together almost without shouting; the man of to-day moves from place to place more easily and speedily than the rider of the enchanted horse or the owner of the magic carpet in the Arabian Nights. Modern political unification is a step to- ward making real the brotherhood of the human race, the coming together of mankind into one har- monious family, a consummation to which the benev- olent have always looked forward.^ Moreover, by such political unification the individ- ual man is enlarged and lifted up. There is some- thing in the remark of Froude:^ "The dimension and value of any single man depend upon the body of which he is a member. ... A citizen of an impe- rial power expands to the scope and fulness of the larger organism, — the grander the organization, the larger and more important the unit that knows he 1 See the author's Life of Samuel Adams, p. 65. " Oceana, pp. 355, 3S6. 552 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. belongs to it. His thoughts are wider, his interests less selfish, his ambitions ampler and nobler. . . . Behind each American citizen America is standing, and he knows it, — is the man that he is because he knows it. ... A great nation makes great men ; a small nation makes little men." Who can question that in the case of the individual citizen whose political atmosphere is that of a mighty state, there is a largeness of view, a magnanimity of spirit, a sense of dignity, an obliteration of small pre- judices, an altogether nobler set of ideas, than are possible to the citizen of a contracted land ! Really, in the highest view, any limitation of the sympathies which prevents a thorough, generous going out of the heart toward the whole human race, is to be re- gretted. The time is to be longed and labored for when patriotism shall become merged into a cosmo- politan humanity. The man who can call sixty mil- lion fellow-citizens is nearer that magnificent breadth of love, than he whose country is a narrow patch. What if a man could call one hundred million fel- low-citizens? Was the American Revolution worth while } Would not the welfare of the English-speak- ing race, of the world in general, have been better served if the British empire had remained undivided ? But for the opposition of America, George III and his ministers might have been brought to accord an American representation in Parliament. After the sharp fighting. Lord North stood ready to concede every essential point in dispute. England fairly went down upon her knees in her efforts to retain us. Anything to keep the empire unbroken ! "In vain," WHY THE STORY OF VANE IS TIMELY. 553 says May, " the British Parliament humbling itself before its rebellious subjects, repealed the American tea-duty, and renounced its claims to the imperial taxation. In vain were Parliamentary commissioners empowered to suspend the acts of which the colo- nists complained, — to concede every demand but independence, and almost to sue for peace." ^ Noth- ing, however, would do ; America declared it was too late, and preferred to take her stand by herself. Alone, among all the great English-speaking de- pendencies of England, America has preferred to stand by herself. All the rest have remained, and been glad and proud to remain, attached to the mother-land. At the same time they have liberty. Let us glance for a moment at these faithful depen- dencies, which to-day are even freer in their forms of government than the United States. Throughout the British empire what is called " responsible govern- ment " prevails. Power is in the hands of a ministry, taken from, and reflecting the will of the dominant party among the People. If the party ceases to be in a majority, the ministry must at once resign, giving way to successors from the new party that comes upper- most. So we find it in Canada, which is to-day prac- tically free, at the same time deriving much prestige, indeed substantial benefit, from her connection with the mother-land. In Cape Colony a similar constitu- tion is established ; so too in New Zealand. In the latter noble country, three closely contiguous islands form a territory nearly as large as Italy, which has been settled by men of the best strain of English J Constitutional Hist, of England, ii. 524. 554 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. blood. The land is divided into eight great provinces, each with its own chief magistrate and legislature elected by a suffrage almost universal, each in its own affairs self-ruling, like a state of the American Union, The eight together form a confederation, in which, whatever slight reservation of power to the home government may have been made, the land is in all substantial respects free. But of all the present dependencies of England, no one is so interesting as Australia. There is perhaps no land in the wOrld in which democratic freedom has made such progress as here. In the United States Constitution, the existence of an Upper House, the Senate, has always been regarded as an aristo- cratic feature, but a most necessary one. Timely delays in legislation when the delegates direct from the people incline to be over-hasty, cautious reviews of public measures, resistance to the violence of fac- tion and the tyranny of the majority, the means of ju- dicious compromise, — these are advantages claimed to flow from an Upper House, a necessary check and balance in a representative government.^ Australia, however, has seen fit to cast all this aside: there is no Upper House ; the majority of a single chamber is absolute. In 1850, when New South Wales was divided into two colonies, one taking the name of Victoria, the constitution was revised ; the feature, however, of the single chamber was retained in both. It belongs, too, to the schemes fixed upon for the later colonies, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, and Queensland. Though a portion of the legislatures is nominated by the crown-appointed ^ May, ii. 536. WHY THE STORY OF VANE IS TIMELY. 555 Governor, the great majority are elected by a suffrage practically free ; responsible government is fully established, the executive changing according to the will of the majority, as a vane responds to the breeze which for the time may blow. Whatever slight checks upon entire self-government may exist, they are never enforced. These six great colonies, with a population increasing fast in the millions, with cities of 500,000 souls, with universities perhaps equal to the best in Europe, and all the appliances of the high- est civilization, possess a degree of democratic free- dom from which even an American shrinks; yet with it all they are proud and happy to be constitu- ents of the mighty British empire rather than inde- pendent ; and Britain in turn, proud of the children, throws round them the protection of her Army and Navy without counting the heavy cost. " Thus the most considerable dependencies of the British crown have advanced until an ancient mon- archy has become the parent of democratic Republics in all parts of the globe. The Constitution of the United States is scarcely so democratic as that of Canada or Australia. The President's fixed tenure of office and large executive powers, the independent position and authority of the Senate and the control of the Supreme Court, are checks upon the democ- racy of Congress. In these colonies the nominees of a majority of the democratic assembly, for the time being, are absolute masters of the colonial govern- ment. . . . The tie which binds them [the colonies] to her [the mother-land] is one of sentiment rather than authority. , . . Political dominion has been 556 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. virtually renounced. In short, their dependence has become little more than nominal."^ Was the American Revolution worth while, or would it have been better for America to remain and become the grandest member of the fraternity? Instead of beholding one magnificent empire, at peace in all its members, numbering more than 100,000,000, comprehending the entire great family that use the English speech, all working harmoni- ously together to compass a civilization reaching always higher and higher, we have the unlovely spec- tacle of two sharply distinguished, ever jarring nation- alities, between whom there has twice been fierce and bloody war, between whom jealousies, rivalries, grievances are ever recurring, which have brought us a dozen times to the brink of war, — a spectacle of discordance contrary to the unifying spirit of the age. Such a presentment, however, of arguments favor- ing the view that the American Revolution was not worth while is only upon the surface plausible. That great movement was not a mistake. Samuel Adams who conceived it, and Washington who carried it through, deserve respect and blessing, and from Eng- lishmen as well as Americans. As regards America herself, independence was undoubtedly necessary to any adequate development. In the middle of the eighteenth century, but for help from England, America would in all probability have fallen to France. That danger surmounted, a smiting off of all trammels was necessary in order that growth should not be dwarfed and one-sided. ^ May, ii. 538. WHY THE STORY OF VANE IS TIMELY. 557 Without stopping to consider a proposition so ob- vious as that America herself was helped by becom- ing independent, let us inquire for a moment as to the effect of the American revolt elsewhere than at home. Charles James Fox is said to have exclaimed once : " The resistance of the Americans to the oppression of the mother-country has undoubtedly preserved the liberties of mankind." If such a decla- ration appears too sweeping, the value of the Amer- ican revolt as regards the British empire, at any rate, can scarcely be exaggerated. How has it come to pass that the untrammelled freedom to-day allowed to the dependencies of England exists .? It has come to pass directly from the circumstance that the mother- country learned wisdom from her fiery experience with America. Her eyes were opened to what was and what was not possible, and it is directly as a con- sequence of the American struggle that she has at length established it as a principle that colonies are to be left to themselves. America by conquering secured not only her own freedom, but that of her fellow-dependencies, those then existing and those afterward to be established. Perhaps still more than this can be said : did not the resistance of America save England herself? Buckle, in his History of Civilization, speaking of the dangers to England, one hundred years ago, through the encroachments of royal and aristocratic power, says : ' " The danger was so imminent as to make the ablest defenders of popular liberty believe that everything was at stake, and that if the Ameri- 1 Vol. i. 345, Am. ed. 558 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. cans were vanquished the next step would be to at- tack the liberties of England, and endeavor to extend to the mother-country the same arbitrary govern- ment which by that time would have been established in the colonies. . . . The danger was far more seri- ous than men are now inclined to believe. During many years the authority of the Crown continued to increase until it reached a height of which no ex- ample had been seen in England for several gen- erations. . . . There is no doubt, I think, that the American War was a great crisis in the history of England, and that if the colonists had been defeated, our liberties for a time would have been in consider- able jeopardy. From that risk we were saved by the Americans, who with heroic spirit resisted the royal armies." A dark picture indeed can be drawn of the condi- tion in which lay the England of George III. In primeval times there had existed a large amount of popular liberty. All the free inhabitants had a voice in the rule, the people assembling in great multi- tudes for the transaction of public business. In no other country, so late as the fifteenth century, were the independent yeomen, the small landed proprie- tors, so numerous as in England ; all such were taxed, and all such took part energetically in the work of self-government, in the ways transmitted to them from their old Teutonic fathers, not delegating their authority to others, but acting for themselves in every important point. But times grew worse. The number of independent yeomen steadily decreased : the rich and influential encroached more and more tVI/y THE STORY OF VANE IS TIMELY. 559 upon the rights of the People : the Sovereigns, who in the primitive Teutonic idea were the ministers of the People, elected by their suffrages to execute their will, sought to become absolute masters. The arbi- trary Tudors arrogated to themselves authority which the Stuarts in their turn sought to make perfect des- potism. In the times of Cromwell and WiUiam III, a check was interposed: it was, however, only a check, not a reform. Up to the era of George III there had been no restoration of liberty to the People. Parliament, so far from being derived from them, de- pended upon the King and the aristocracy, and had become very corrupt ; the towns and villages through- out England were sometimes practically owned by great nobles or men of wealth, sometimes in the hands of close corporations who had seized on all power, allowing to the individual citizen not the smallest voice in public management.* Coeval with the agitations produced by the on- coming American Revolution came to Englishmen the recognition of their abasement and the desire for reform. " No taxation without representation," cried the American patriots, and in a year or two the cry became, " No government at all except by a legislature in which our representatives sit." Even while England fought us her eyes became opened. Her sense of justice became convinced that the colo- nists had been right. She began to look at home, at her own corrupt Parliament and her unrepresented millions. " Virtual representation — that they have," she tried to say. " They cast no votes, but those who 1 May, i. ch. vi., and ii. ch. xv. 56o YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. do, act for them and protect them." England saw at last that it was all a subterfuge ; the better scholar- ship of the modern time came in to help, making plain to all the old Teutonic principles of freedom which had been so long overlaid. It was remem- bered at last how once each freeman had a vote, how Kings and Nobles were ministers, not masters, how government had been of the People, by the People, and for the People. The cry for reform grew stronger. The fight was hard through the first quarter of the present century, the Crown, the Nobles, the Established Church, throwing their weight heavily against. Among the champions, the name of Lord John Russell is honorably prominent; with him as leader, was passed at length the great Reform Bill of 1832, which with its subsequent amend- ments has made England practically free again. Was the American Revolution worth while ? Aside from all gains to America herself, the revolt brought it about that the other great states that have preferred to remain dependent can do so, with no sacrifice of liberty. The revolt of America was per- haps the salvation of England herself. It will, however, be a sad day for America if her people ever allow themselves to be so far swayed by ancient prejudice or the foreign influences which have been poured in so copiously as to forget that their country is in origin English, that her institu- tions are the bequest of bygone English generations, and that the land will be past praying for if she for- gets the mother from whom she drew her life. To JVHV THE STORY OF VANE IS TIMELY. $6 1 such an extent is America overswept, stunned on the one hand by the Irish cry, weighted in another direction by inert milHons just released from slavery, threatened in still another by an Asiatic inundation, penetrated through and through with a Teutonic in- flux, which, welcome though it is, and closely allied though it is, cannot undertake her free life without a process of assimilation — to such an extent is America overswept that it is natural for thoughtful men of the original stock to feel somewhat insecure, and to ask whether it may not some day be desirable and pos- sible to brace themselves by entering into some closer league with those who, in spite of superficial differ- ences, are substantially one with themselves. Said Lowell once : " I remember a good many years ago M. Guizot asked me how long I thought the American Republic was going to last. Said I : ' M. Guizot, it will last just so long as the traditions of the men of English descent who founded it are dominant there.' And he assented. And that is my firm faith." 1 At the Colonial Exhibition at London of 1886, an exhibition of products from the dependencies of the British e^npire, a strong impression was conveyed to every visitor of the vast extent of that empire, and its enormous resources. But to the American, the thought that beyond all others suggested itself was that, so far as the English-speaking dependencies went, everything plainly told of a life identical with that which we lead ourselves. Such clothing we also wear, such food we eat, — we live in such houses, we 1 At Chicago, Feb. 22, 1887. 562 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. travel in such coaches. Bed and chair, boat and book, with precisely such appliances do we also sleep and sit, sail and read. A group of men pausing before some attractive object, might easily fall into conversation. A Londoner would be one ; men from Auckland, Cape Town, Melbourne, and Montreal, would be others ; still another, the American. To the latter, these chance companions looked and acted scarcely less like fellow-countrymen than his next- door neighbors. Nor was the resemblance merely external. If the talk went at all below the surface, the American found that the mind of the foreigner had been educated by the same methods, fed on the same literature, nurtured in the same religious faith, as his own ; and that in the polity which the foreigner, as a citizen, helped to administer, the same popular government prevails as that of which Americans boast. Why should these men be foreigners .? was a natural thought. Why not fellow-citizens ? In blood, faith, tongue, and political institutions we are one. Why should we be fenced apart in isolated groups .? For one point of difference, there are ten points of agreement. By a rough estimate, one hundred and ten million people in the world call English their mother-tongue, in institutions, blood, and language, for the most part, derived from the German woods. Until one hundred years ago, the English-speaking race was confined within one nationality. Then, in conse- quence of a bad colonial policy, a split took place, so that to-day the world has two English-speaking divisions of about equal strength, the British empire IVIIV THE STORY OF. VANE IS TIMELY. 563 and the United States of America. A large propor- tion of Englishmen, one hundred years ago, objected to the policy which alienated America ; it was soon bitterly repented of by the men in power, and at length utterly abandoned. The institutions set up by America differed, as Sir Henry Maine has power- fully shown,^ only in superficial ways from those of England. The President of the United States has, under the Constitution, the powers of an English King of the eighteenth century — of George III in fact ; the only differences lie here, that the President is elected, instead of being born to wield them, and wields them for a short term of years, instead of for life. The House of Representatives differs not greatly from the House of Commons in its powers and functions,^nd as regards the manner in which members are ..returned. In respect to the Senate and Supreme Court, the American departure from Eng- lish ways is wider. The Senate, however, has its analogue, though not its counterpart, in the House of Lords; and the Supreme Court is based upon and ruled by traditions of English jurisprudence.^ If we look at local self-government, the apparatus of town- ship and county, the country over, is based upon English traditions, the departure being slighter than in the case of the more comprehensive institutions. Moreover, as the difference in politics was slight at the outset, circumstances have since so wrought, that not greater difference but greater similarity exists now between child and mother-land. England of 1 Popular Government, ch. "American Constitution." 2 See p. 444j note. 564 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. herself has tended toward freedom, and this tendency, promoted by a powerful and constantly increasing reaction from America, has brought it about that at the present hour the people of' England, as repre- sented in the Commons, have really more. power than the people of the United States ; while in the great dependencies of England, as we have seen, the re- semblance in institutions is still more close. As methods for abridging distance are constantly bring- ing the world more closely together, it must be the case that the world will see more and more how much better it is for nations to be mutually bound together than proudly apart. It can scarcely be doubted that the different bodies of the English- speaking race, so substantially one to-day in blood, tongue, and institutions, will some tiiie and in some way blend. The townships make up the county, the counties the States, the States the United States. What is to hinder a further extension of the federal principle, so that at length we may have a vaster United States, whose members shall be, as empire state, America, then the mother, England, and lastly the great English dependencies, so populous and thoroughly developed that they may fitly stand coor- dinate ? It cannot be said that this is an unreason- able or Utopian anticipation. Dependence was right in its day : but for English help, colonial America would have become a province of France. Indepen- dence was and is right. It was well for us, and for Britain too, that we were split apart. Washington, as the main agent in the separation, is justly the most venerated name in our history. But Inter-dependence, IVffy THE STORY OF VANE IS TIMELY. 565 too, will in its day be right; and greater than Wash- ington will be that statesman of the future who shall reconstitute the family-bond, conciliate the members into an equal brotherhood, found the vaster union which must be the next great step toward the uni- versal fraternity of man, when patriotism can be merged into a love that can take in all humanity. Such suggestions as have just been made are per- haps scarcely likely to be well received either by Englishmen or Americans. We are sharply sun- dered. If England can turn a penny at America's expense, she is nothing loth to do it. If America can supplant England in the good-will of a valued customer, the mother-land is certain to be shouldered out with little ceremony. Fifty years after the close of the American Revolution, De Tocqueville wrote : " It is impossible to imagine a hatred more venomous than that of the Americans against the English." ^ A hundred years have now passed, but to many Americans to-day the name British, more than any other, is one of contempt and dislike. It is a disagree- able survival of the revolutionary struggle, reinforced in later years by Irish prejudice, which for years to come, no doubt, will affect our relations with those who speak the same tongue with ourselves, and are really flesh of our flesh. Inveterate prejudices exist on both sides, a narrow ^ational feeling exists on both sides, which is nothing but an expansion of selfishness. 1 " II est impossible d'imaginer Anglais." Quoted by J. Bryce, une haine plus venemeuse que Johns Hopkins, Hist, and Polit. celle des Amdricains centre les Stud, sth Series, No. ix. p. 50. 566 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. But if the considerations thus presented are sound, if American freedom is British freedom at bottom, and if a closer drawing together of the great Eng- lish-speaking world so scattered in various homes into some kind of a federation is a thing to be de- sired and labored for, how suitable at present will be the effort to mitigate the inveterate prejudices which stand in the way of such a coming together, and to illustrate the identity, so often unrecognized, of the principles upon which rest the structures of British and American liberty ! How can a presentment in this spirit be made con- crete and vivid ? How better than by setting forth the career of some one great man, if such a one can be found, who was at once an Englishman and an American ? Such a figure there is, who may well at the present hour be brought forth from the obscurity which has fallen upon him — Sir Henry Vane the younger. We have seen him begin his public career in 1636 as a citizen of Massachusetts, where in the position of Governor he fought stoutly against the other colonial magnates for a free toleration of all re- ligious beliefs. Returned to England, we have seen him at the outset of the Long Parliament, the chief reliance of Pym in bringing Strafford to destruction. In 1643 he brought the Scots to help the sinking cause of the Parliament. As much to him as to Cromwell was due the victory of Marston Moor, per- haps also the victory of Naseby, successes which in the Civil War turned the scale against the Stuart despotism. He was the heart of the Rump and the Council of State when Cromwell smote Ireland and IVHV THE STORY OF VANE IS TIMELY. 567 won the fields of Dunbar and Worcester. He reor- ganized and administered the Navy when Van Tromp and De Ruyter were on the point of sweeping it from the seas, — standing back of Blake when Eng- land won the empire of the deep, as the elder Pitt stood back of Wolfe and the younger Pitt back of Nelson, First of men, we have seen him, in 1656, recommend the expedient of a Constitutional Con- vention, that the People, after the American fashion, might lay down for themselves the " fundamentals " of a proper polity. From the day when scarcely more than a boy he defended Anne Hutchinson in Massachusetts, to the day when yet in his full strength he serenely laid his head upon the block on Tower-hill by command of Charles II, he consecrated the whole force of ex- traordinary powers to the expounding and vindica- tion of what he held to be English freedom, over- laid by accretions which were in reality foreign to it. If the principles for which he lived and died are examined, it will b e fo und that they are no less pre - cio us to Ame jjcansjhan to English men. " Govern- ment .of the People, by the People, and for the Peo- ple," the famous sentence of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address, was also the fundamental thought with young Sir Harry Vane. One by one England _ has adopted and is adopting the reforms which he proclaimed to be necessary in order that the state should rest upon the substructure fitted for it, — the extension of the suffrage, the transformation of the Upper Housfe, the disestablishment of the Church, — the doing away with every privilege of faith and 568 YOUNG SIR HENRY VANE. class that stands in the path of toleration and fair equality, — the utter committing of power to the hands of the People assembled in their representa- tives in the great national Council. As in England and her dependencies the power of the People grows, a process which we see going forward without break, that noble Commonwealth becomes more and more manifest which Vane prematurely tried and died to bring to pass. For and in England he struggled, when America was scarcely in embryo, but no states- man more soundly American can be named than he. His American biographer, Upham, has well said : " His name is the most appropriate link to bind us to the land of our fathers. If presents more, per- haps, than any that could be mentioned, in one char- acter, those features and traits by which it is our pride to prove our lineage and descent from the Brit- ish Isles." "Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old. Than whom a better senator ne'er held The helm." So wrote John Milton at the time when the fleets of Blake, equipped and marshalled by Vane's guiding genius, thundered for the Commonwealth. Thorough Englishman, thorough American, his mind possessed by no obsolete ideas, but with ideas so vital at the present moment, the figure of this half-forgotten mar- tyr of freedom can well be brought forward in the hour in which English-speaking men are beginning to feel, that " When love unites wide space divides in vain, And hands may clasp across the flowing main." INDEX. Agitators, representatives of the rank and file of the Army, 267-8. Agreement of the People^ work of the Agita- tors, 277; abstract of, 278-80. Agreement of the People^ the 2d one, Ireton's work, 319-21. Alfred, King, a popular reformer, 85. Allen, Adjutant, his account of the Army prayer-meeting in 164S, 287-292. America, its influence in forming Vane, 163 ; gives rise to Independency, 164, 166 ; the English foundations of, 560. Americanism, of the Ironsides, 277 etc. ; of the programme of the Commonwealth, 312 etc. American England, 310. American Revolution, was it worth while? 547 etc. Antinomian, see Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. Anthony a Wood, on Marten's wit, 190; his judgment of Vane, 484; on Stubbe, 490. Argyle, Marquis of, favors Solemn League and Covenant in 1643, 185 ; a friend of Vane, favors the New Model, 235, 238; heads Scotland against the Independents in 1648, 323-4- Army, see Ironsides. Armyne, Sir William, commissioner in Scot- land in 1643, 173. Ascham, ambassador, murdered at Madrid, 1649, 338. Asciie, naval commander, 334. Astley, Sir Jacob, his prayer at Edgehill, iS4; commands King's centre at 1 Naseby, 245, 248 ; captured by the Roundheads, 254-5. Australia, present position and free institu- tions of, 554-5" . Bacow, Nathaniel, his Laws and Gover7i* ment of England^ 404, note. Baillie, Scotch commissioner to England, in 1641, describes in his Letters and Journals discord of Lords and Commons at Straf- I ford's trial, iig; on Vane's testimony, 120; on John Cotton as the father of Indepen- dency, 167-8 ; on the passing of the Solemn Leagzie and Covenant^ 175 etc.; a commis- sioner to England in 1643, 187 ; on discovery of Violett's plot, 195-6 ; troubled by Indepen- dency, 1644, 228 9; describes the progress of Independency, 1645, 261-2. B