Henry Vane The Younger - The Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell

The Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell

After the execution of Charles, the House of Commons voted to abolish both the crown and the House of Lords. To replace the executive functions of the crown, it established a Council of State to which Vane was appointed. He refused to be seated until he could do so without taking any oath, in particular the first one, which required an expression of approval for the regicide. Vane served on many of the council's committees. In his role on committees overseeing the military he directed the provisioning of supplies for Cromwell's conquest of Ireland. As a leading member of the committee overseeing the navy (where he was joined by schoolmate Thomas Scot), he directed affairs in the naval First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654). After the navy's disastrous performance against the Dutch in 1652, Vane headed the committee that reformed the navy, drafting new Articles of War and formally codifying naval law. Vane's reforms were instrumental in the navy's successes later in the war. He was also involved in foreign diplomacy, going on a mission to France (whose purpose is unknown) in 1652 to meet with Cardinal de Retz, and traveling again to Scotland to organize the government there after Cromwell's victories in the Third English Civil War.

Vane was also active in domestic affairs. He sat on a committee that disposed of Charles I's art collection, and made many enemies in his role on the committees for Compounding and Sequestration. These committees, on which Vane had also sat in the 1640s, were responsible for the distribution of assets seized from royalists and other government opponents, and for negotiating with those who had failed to pay taxes and other government charges. Some of the enemies he made while engaged in this work would one day sit in judgment against him.

The process by which the Parliament carried out the duties of the executive was cumbersome, and this became an issue with Cromwell and the army, who sought the ability to act more decisively. This attitude drove a wedge between Cromwell and Vane. Under pressure from Cromwell for new elections, the Parliament began to consider proposals for electoral reform. In January 1653 a committee headed by Vane made one such proposal. It called for suffrage to be allowed on the basis of property ownership, and it specifically sought to eliminate a number of so-called "rotten boroughs", which had small numbers of voters and were controlled by wealthy patrons. The proposal also called for some of the current members, whose republican credentials were deemed suitable, to retain their seats, so that the fledgling commonwealth might, as Harry Marten put it, would be shepherded by "the mother that brought it forth". This latter clause was specifically proposed at the urging of the army by Vane, who realised that those who were charged with its implementation would be able to retain power. However, Cromwell, seeking a general election, was opposed to this scheme, and the two sides were unable to reconcile.

Although Parliamentary leaders, Vane among them, had promised Cromwell on 19 April 1653 to delay action on the election bill, Vane was likely one of the ringleaders that sought to have the bill enacted the next day before Cromwell could react. Cromwell was however alerted by a supporter, and interrupted the proceedings that would otherwise have passed the bill. Bringing troops into the chamber, he put an end to the debate, saying "You are no Parliament. I say you are no Parliament. I will put an end to your sitting." Vane protested, "This is not honest; yea, it is against morality and common honesty", to which Cromwell shouted in response, "O Sir Henry Vane, Sir Henry Vane; the Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane!" This ended the commonwealth, and Cromwell began to rule as Lord Protector. Vane, "daily missed and courted for his assistance", was invited to sit on Cromwell's council, but refused.

Effectively in retirement, Vane wrote the Retired Man's Meditations, published in 1655 amid rumors that Vane was fomenting rebellion against Cromwell, principally among Quakers and Fifth Monarchists. This work, a jargon-laden religious treatise in which Vane wanders between literal and symbolic interpretation of Biblical scriptures, was treated by contemporaries and later analysts, including David Hume, as "absolutely unintelligible" and "cloudily formed". The same year, after Cromwell called for a fast day to consider methods by which his government might be improved, Vane wrote A Healing Question. In this more carefully structured political work, he proposed a new form of government, insisting as before upon a Parliament supreme over the Army. He was encouraged to publish it by Charles Fleetwood, who had shown it to Cromwell. In a postscript to the work Vane wrote the words "the good old cause", a coinage that became a rallying cry in the next few years for Vane's group of republicans.

A Healing Question was seen by John Thurloe, Cromwell's Secretary of State, as a thinly-veiled attack on Cromwell, and its publication prompted a number of opposition political groups to step up their activities. Rumors circulated that protests raised by fringe religious groups like the Anabaptists and Quakers were due to Vane's involvement, prompting Cromwell's council to issue an order on 29 July 1656, summoning Vane to appear. Vane was ordered to post a bond of £5,000 "to do nothing to the prejudice of the present government and the peace of the Commonwealth", but refused. He was arrested shortly afterward and imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. While there he addressed a letter to Cromwell in which he repudiated the extra-parliamentary authority Cromwell had assumed. Vane was released, still unrepentant, on 31 December 1656.

During Vane's retirement he established a religious teaching group, which resulted in a group of admirers known as "Vanists". The Puritan pastor Richard Baxter classified Seekers, Ranters, Behmenists and Vanists together, as religious wild men. He also cultivated pamphleteers and other surrogates to promote his political views. Henry Stubbe, introduced to Vane by Westminster head Richard Busby, became a supporter, and defended him in his Essay in Defence of the Good Old Cause, and in Malice Rebuked (1659).