Henry Vane The Younger - Richard Cromwell and After

Richard Cromwell and After

Following Oliver Cromwell's death in September 1658, his son Richard succeeded him as Lord Protector. The younger Cromwell lacked the political and military skills of his father, and the political factionalism of the earlier Commonwealth began to resurface. When elections were called for a new parliament in December 1659, Cromwell attempted to prevent the election of both royalists and republicans. Vane, as a leader of the republican faction, was specifically targeted, but managed to win election representing Whitchurch. "Great endeavors were used by the Court to prevent the election of Sir Henry Vane; and though their officers refused to return him at Hull and Bristol, at both which places it was said he had the majority, yet at last he was chosen and returned for the borough of Whitchurch in the county of Southampton. In the parliament's session, the republicans questioned Cromwell's claim to power, argued in favour of limiting it, and spoke against the veto power of the Cromwellian House of Lords, which was packed with supporters of the protector. The republicans were unsuccessful in enacting any substantive changes.

Vane formed an alliance with a group of republican military officers known as the Wallingford House party, who met secretly in violation of laws enacted to limit military participation in political matters. The Cromwellian factions in the parliament overreached in their attempts to control republican sentiment in the military, and Cromwell was forced to dissolve the parliament in April 1659. Cromwell, with little support in the military, abdicated several days later. Following a purge of pro-Cromwell supporters from the military and a widespread pamphleteering campaign, Cromwell's council recalled the Rump Parliament in May.

In the reconstituted Rump Parliament, Vane was appointed to the new council of state. He also served as commissioner for the appointment of army officers, managed foreign affairs, and examined the state of the government's finances, which were found to be in dismal condition. Through his work General John Lambert was sent to quell Booth's Rebellion, a royalist uprising in August 1659. Lambert's support of non-mainstream religious views like Quakerism, however, ensured his political downfall. After he and other officers were stripped of their command by Parliament in October, they rallied their troops and marched on Parliament, forcibly dissolving it. A committee of safety was formed, composed of the army grandees, and including Vane. He agreed to serve in part because he feared the republican cause was destined to fail without army support. This committee only served until December, when the advance of General George Monck's army from Scotland led to the melting away of Lambert's military support, and the restoration of the full Long Parliament. For taking part in the committee of safety, Vane was expelled (over vocal objections from allies like Heselrige) from the Commons, and ordered into house arrest at Raby Castle. He went to Raby in February 1660, but only stayed there briefly, and eventually returned to his house at Hampstead.

That knave in grain
Sir Harry Vane
His case than most men's is sadder
There is little hope
He can scape the rope
For the Rump turned him o'er the ladder.

During the tumultuous year of the late 1650s proposals for how the government should be structured and how powers should be balanced were widely debated, in private, in public debates in Parliament, and through the publication of pamphlets. Vane used all of these methods to promote his ideas. In 1660 he published A Needful Corrective or Balance in Popular Government. This open letter was essentially a response to James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana, a 1656 treatise describing Harrington's view of a utopian government, which included limitations on property ownership and a legislature with an elected upper chamber. Harrington's thesis was that power arose from property ownership, and concentrated land ownership led to oligarchic and monarchic forms of government. Vane disagreed with this, arguing instead that power came from godliness, and presented a somewhat apocalyptic argument in support of his idea. Vane supporter Henry Stubbe stated openly in October 1659 that permanent Senators would be required. These proposals caused a terminal split in Vane's alliance with Heselrige, whose followers mostly deserted Vane.