Editing Henry Vane the Younger (section)

==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.<ref>Ireland, p. 298</ref>  To replace the executive functions of the crown, it established a [[Council of State (England)|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.<ref>Adamson and Folland, pp. 292–293</ref>  Vane served on many of the council's committees. On 1 August 1650 he was named president of the first [[Board of Trade|Commission of Trade]] established by an Act of Parliament.<ref>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/pp403-406 August 1650: An Act for the Advancing and Regulating of the Trade of this Commonwealth.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160808040122/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/pp403-406 |date=8 August 2016 }}</ref> The commission's instructions were to consider, both domestic and foreign trade, the trading companies, manufactures, free ports, customs, excise, statistics, coinage and exchange, and fisheries, but also the [[Plantation (settlement or colony)|plantations]] and the best means of promoting their welfare and rendering them useful to England. This act's  statesmanlike and comprehensive instructions, along with an October act [[An Act for prohibiting Trade with the Barbadoes, Virginia, Bermuda and Antego|prohibiting trade with pro-royalist colonies]] and the first [[Navigation Act]] of the following year, formed the first definitive expression of England's commercial policy.<ref>[[Charles M. Andrews]], [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33313/33313.txt British Committees, Commissions and Councils of Trade and Plantations 1622-1675] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019040151/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33313/33313.txt |date=19 October 2016 }}, Chapter II, Control of Trade and Plantations During the Interregnum, p.24 (1908)</ref>

In his role on committees overseeing the military he directed the provisioning of supplies for [[Cromwellian conquest of Ireland|Cromwell's conquest of Ireland]].<ref>Adamson and Folland, p. 296</ref>  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).<ref name=AF312/><ref>Brenner, p. 582</ref> Milton addressed an admiring sonnet to him in summer 1652. 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.<ref name=AF312>Adamson and Folland, p. 312</ref>  He was also involved in foreign diplomacy, going on a mission to France (whose purpose is unknown) in 1652 to meet with [[Jean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz|Cardinal de Retz]],<ref>Adamson and Folland, p. 310</ref> and travelling again to Scotland to organise the government there after Cromwell's victories in the [[Third English Civil War]].<ref>Ireland, pp. 321–322</ref>

[[Image:CromwellDissolvingLongParliament.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Cromwell dissolving [[Parliament of England|Parliament]] on 20 April 1653]]

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 [[Committee for Compounding with Delinquents|committees for Compounding and Sequestration]].<ref>Adamson and Folland, p. 293</ref>  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.<ref>Adamson and Folland, pp. 240–242</ref>

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.<ref name=AF314>Adamson and Folland, p. 314</ref>  This attitude drove a wedge between Cromwell and Vane.<ref>Adamson and Folland, p. 313</ref>  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.<ref>Aylmer, p. 15</ref>  It called for [[suffrage]] to be allowed on the basis of property ownership, and it sought specifically to eliminate some so-called "[[rotten boroughs]]", which had small numbers of voters and were controlled by wealthy patrons.<ref>Ireland, p. 341</ref>  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, be shepherded by "the mother that brought it forth".<ref>Ireland, p. 340</ref>  This latter clause was proposed specifically at the urging of the army by Vane, who realised that those who were charged with its implementation would be able to retain power.<ref name=AF314/>  However, Cromwell, seeking a general election, was opposed to this scheme, and the two sides were unable to reconcile.<ref name=AF315>Adamson and Folland, p. 315</ref>

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 who sought to have the bill enacted the next day before Cromwell could react.<ref name=AF315/>  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."<ref name=I350>Ireland, p. 350</ref>  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!"<ref name=I350/>  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.<ref>Adamson and Folland, p. 319</ref>

Effectively in retirement, Vane wrote the ''Retired Man's Meditations'', published in 1655,  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".<ref>Adamson and Folland, pp. 325–326</ref>  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''.<ref>Ireland, pp. 373–374</ref>  In this more carefully structured political work, he proposed a new form of government based on a constitution decided by men attending a constitutional convention.<ref>Ireland, pp. 377-379</ref> He was encouraged to publish it by [[Charles Fleetwood]],<ref>Worden, p. 312</ref> who had shown it to Cromwell.<ref>Ireland, p. 374</ref>  In a postscript to the work Vane wrote the words "the [[Good Old Cause|good old cause]]", a coinage that became a rallying cry in the next few years for Vane's group of republicans.<ref>Woolrych, p. 715</ref>

[[Image:Carisbrooke Castle gate 1.jpg|thumb|left|The gate to [[Carisbrook Castle]], where Vane was imprisoned in 1656]]
''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.<ref>Adamson and Folland, p. 341</ref>  Rumours 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.<ref name=AF344>Adamson and Folland, p. 344</ref>  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]].<ref>Auchter, p. 138</ref><ref>Adamson and Folland, pp. 344–345</ref> 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.<ref>Adamson and Folland, p. 347</ref>

During Vane's retirement he established a religious teaching group, which resulted in a group of admirers known as "Vanists".<ref>Bremer and Webster, p. 257</ref> 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).<ref>Peacey, p. 82</ref><ref>Cooper and Hunter, p. 223</ref>