Men of Kent and Kentishmen/Sir Henry Vane (junior)
Sir Henry Vane,
STATESMAN,
Son of the preceding, was the well-known Republican leader under the Commonwealth. He was educated abroad, at Geneva, and there imbibed principles inimical to ecclesiastical and monarchical government. Though once in favour with the King, who knighted him in 1640, and made him joint Treasurer of the Navy, he associated himself with his father in his supposed grievance, and became one of the bitterest enemies of the Court. Upon the breaking out of the rebellion, he took up the Parliamentary cause with enthusiastic zeal, and it was he who carried to the House of Lords the articles of impeachment against Archbishop Laud. He was the "great contriver of the solemn League and Covenant," and the chief instrument in carrying the "Self-denying Ordinance" in 1644. Nevertheless he did not approve of the force put upon the Parliament by the army, nor of the execution of the King. In 1648-49 he was appointed one of the Council of State, in which capacity he incurred the special enmity of Cromwell, who, on dismissing it, applied to him the opprobious term of a "juggling fellow." From this time he became as determined an enemy of the Protector as he had been of the King. At the Restoration it was hoped he might have been included in the indemnity to all but regicides; but the part he had taken in the attainder of Strafford, and other considerations, caused him to be brought to trial, and he was condemned and executed on Tower Hill, 14th June, 1662. He died with the same indomitable resolution which had marked his conduct through life. He was undoubtedly one of the ablest and most remarkable men of the period. He was the author of several works, the most remarkable of which is "The Retired Man's Meditations," a treatise on our Saviour's coming to erect a fifth monarchy on earth, which would last 1,000 years. He was buried in the church of Shipborne, his native parish.
[See Wood's "Athenæ Oxon.," "Biographia Britannica," "Collin's Peerage," and "Hasted's Kent."]