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VANE, SIR H.


portrait of Van Dyck, with the following inscription: Icones principum, virorum doctorum, &c. &c., numero centum ab Antonio Van Dyck pictore ad vivum expressae eiusq. sumtibus aeri incisae, 1645. Seventeen editions were published, the last in 1759, with 124 plates. Many of the plates are the property of the French Government, and belong to the Chalcographie Nationale in Paris.

Literature.—See W. Hookham Carpenter, Pictorial Notices, consisting of a Memoir of Sir Anthony Van Dyck, with a descriptive catalogue of the etchings executed by him (London, 1844) John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonne of the Works of the most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, part iii. (London, 1841); J. Guiffrey, Antoine Van Dyck, sa vie et son œuvre (Paris, 1882); A. Michiels, Ant. Van Dyck et ses élèves (Paris, 1881); Ign. von Szwykowski, A. Van Dycks Bildnisse bekannter Personen (Leipzig, 1858); Fr. Wibiral, L’Iconographie d’A. Van Dyck d'apres les recherches de H. Weber (Leipzig, 1877); Carl Lemcke, A. Van Dyck (in Robert Dohme’s Kunst und Künstler, vol. i., Leipzig, 1877); Alfr. Woltmann and K. Woermann, Gesch. der Malerei, vol. iii. (Leipzig, 1886); Max Rooses, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche Schilder-school (Ghent, 1879); F. J. Van den Branden, Gesch. der Anlw. Schilder school (Antwerp, 1883); Percy Rendall Head, Van Dyck (London, 1887); F. G. Stephens, Catalogue of the Exhibition of the Works of Sir A. Van Dyck (London, 1887); E. Knackfuss, Van Dyck (Bielefeld, 1896); Lionel Cust, Anthony Van Dyck (London, 1900), an abridgment with emendations, Van Dyck (1906), and A Description of the Sketch-Book by Sir Anthony Van Dyck . . . at Chatsworth (London, 1902); Max Rooses, Chefs-d'œuvres d'Antoine van Dyck (Antwerp, 1901); Antoine Van Dyck (Paris, 1902) ; Frank Newbolt, Etchings of Van Dyck (London, 1906).  (H. H.; P. G. K.) 


VANE, SIR HENRY (1589–1654), English secretary of state, eldest son of Henry Vane or Fane, of Hadlow, Kent, a member of an ancient family of that county, by his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Roger Twysden of East Peckham, Kent, was born on the 18th of February 1589. He matriculated from Brasenose College, Oxford, on the 15th of June 1604, was admitted to Gray’s Inn in 1606, and was knighted by James I. on the 3rd of March 1611. He purchased several offices at court, was made comptroller of the king’s household about 1629, and in spite of a sharp quarrel with Buckingham managed to keep the king’s favour, in 1639 becoming treasurer. He was returned to parliament in 1614 for Lostwithiel, from 1621 to 1626 for Carlisle, in 1628 for Retford, and in the Short and Long Parliament, assembled in 1640, he sat for Wilton. He was despatched on several missions in 1629 and 1630 to Holland, and in 1631 to Gustavus Adolphus to secure the restitution of the Palatinate, but without success. In 1630 Vane had become a privy councillor and one of the chief advisers of the king. He was made a commissioner of the Admiralty in 1632 and for the colonies in 1636. He was one of the eight privy councillors appointed to manage affairs in Scotland on the outbreak of the troubles there, and. on the 3rd of February 1640, through the influence of the queen and of the marquis of Hamilton and in opposition to the wishes of Strafford, he was made secretary of state in the room of Sir John Coke. In the Short Parliament, which assembled in April, it fell to Vane, in his official capacity, to demand supplies. He proposed a bargain by which the king should give up ship-money and receive in return twelve subsidies. Parliament, however, proved intractable and was dissolved on the 5th of May, to prevent a vote against the continuance of the war with the Scots. In the impeachment of Strafford, Vane played a very important part and caused the earl’s destruction. He asserted that Strafford had advised the king at a meeting of the privy council, “You have an army in Ireland; you may employ it to reduce this kingdom.” He refused to admit or deny the meaning attributed by the prosecution that “this kingdom” signified England; he was unsupported by the recollection of any other privy councillor, and his statement could not be corroborated by his own notes, which had been destroyed by order of the king, but a copy obtained through his son, the younger Vane, was produced by Pym and owned by Vane to be genuine. He was on bad terms with Strafford, who had opposed his appointment to office and who had given him special provocation by assuming the barony of Raby, a title ardently desired by Vane himself. He was not unnaturally accused of collusion and treachery, and there is no doubt that he desired Strafford’s removal not only on private but on public grounds, believing that his sacrifice would satisfy the demands of the parliament. Nevertheless, there has appeared no evidence to support the charge that he deliberately compassed his destruction. Suspicions of his fidelity, however, soon increased, and after having accompanied the king to Scotland in August 1641, he was dismissed from all his appointments on the 4th of November on Charles’s return. Vane immediately joined the parliament; on Pym’s motion, on the 13th of December, he was placed on the committee for Irish affairs, was made lord lieutenant of Durham on the 10th of February 1642, became a member of the committee of both kingdoms on the 7th of February 1644, and in this capacity attended the Scots army in 1645, while the parliament in the treaty of Uxbridge demanded for him from Charles a barony and the repayment of his losses. He adhered to the parliament after the kingvs death, and in the first parliament of the Protectorate he was returned for Kent, but the House had refused to appoint him a member of the council of state in February 1650. He died in 1654. He had married Frances, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Darcy of Tolleshurst Darcy in Essex, by whom he had a large family of children, of whom the eldest son, Sir Henry Vane, the younger, is separately noticed.

Clarendon invariably speaks of Vane in terms of contempt and reproach. He describes him as merely fit for court duties, “of very ordinary parts by nature and . . . very illiterate. But being of a stirring and boisterous disposition, very industrious and very bold, he still wrought himself into some employment.” He declares that motives of revenge upon Strafford influenced not only his conduct in the impeachment but his unsuccessful management of the king’s business in the Short Parliament, when he “acted that part maliciously and to bring all into confusion.” The latter accusation, considering the difficulties of the political situation and Vane’s total want of ability in dealing with them, is probably unfounded. On the general charge of betraying the king’s cause, Vane’s mysterious conduct in the impeachment, his great intimacy with Hamilton, and the favour with which he was immediately received by the Opposition on his dismissal from office, raise suspicions not altogether allayed by the absence of proof to substantiate them, while the alacrity with which he transferred himself to the parliament points to a character, if not of systematic treachery, yet of unprincipled and unscrupulous time-serving. Materials, however, to elucidate the details and motives of his ill-omened career have hitherto been wanting.


VANE, SIR HENRY (1613–1662), English statesman and author, known as “the younger” to distinguish him from his father, Sir Henry Vane (q.v.), was baptized on the 26th of May 1613, at Debden, Essex. After an education at Westminster, where he was noted for his high and reckless spirits, and at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he neither matriculated nor took his degree, he was attached to the embassy at Vienna and at Leiden and Geneva. He had already acquired strong Puritan views which, in spite of the personal efforts of Laud, who made the attempt at the king’s request, he refused to give up. In 1635, in order to obtain the free exercise of his religion, he emigrated to Massachusetts, where he was elected governor in 1636. After one year in office, during which he showed some administrative ability, he was defeated by Winthrop, the former governor, chiefly on account of the protection he had given to Mrs Hutchinson in the religious controversies which she raised. He, however, never lost his interest in the colonies, and used his influence hereafter on several occasions in their support.

Vane returned to England in August 1637. He was made joint-treasurer of the navy with Sir W. Russell in January 1639, was elected for Hull in the Short and Long Parliaments, and was knighted on the 23rd of June 1640. Accidentally finding among his father’s papers some notes of Strafford’s speech iii the council of May 5, 1640, he allowed Pym to take a copy, and was thus instrumental in bringing about Strafford’s downfall. He carried up the impeachment of Laud from the Commons, was a strong supporter, when on the committee of religion, of the “Root and Branch” bill, and in June 1641 put forward a scheme of church government by which commissioners, half lay and half cleric, were to assume ecclesiastical jurisdiction in each diocese. During the absence of Pym and Hampden from the House at the time of Charles’s attempted arrest of the five members, Vane led the parliamentary party, and was finally dismissed from his office in December 1641, being