Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/124

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Vane
116
Vane


reported that he had committed suicide, owing to remorse for his share in Strafford's death (Nicholas Papers, ii. 354, iii. 20). His widow, Frances, lady Vane, died on 2 Aug. 1663, aged 72, and was buried at Shipborne, Kent (Dalton, ii. 123). Portraits of Vane and his wife by Vandyck are in the possession of Sir Henry Vane of Hutton Hall, Cumberland, and a portrait of Vane by Mirevelt is in the possession of Lord Barnard (see Cat. of the National Portrait Exhibition of 1866, Nos. 601, 651, 673).

Vane's eldest son, Sir Henry (1613–1662) [q. v.], is noticed separately. George, the second son, born in 1618, was knighted on 22 Nov. 1640. He was parliamentary high sheriff of Durham in September 1645, and apparently treasurer of the committee for the county. Many of his letters to his father on the affairs of the county are printed in the calendar of domestic state papers (1644 pp. 47, 96, 120, 162, 174, 274, 288, 299, 310, ib. 1645 pp. 124, 222; Whitelocke, Memorials, i. 222). He married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir Lionel Maddison of Rogerly, Durham, and was buried at Long Newton in the same county on 1 May 1679 (Collins, Peerage, iv. 518; Surtees, Durham, iii. 214). Charles, the fourth son, matriculated from Magdalen College, Oxford, on 17 March 1637. On 16 Jan. 1650 the parliament appointed him agent of the Commonwealth at Lisbon, in which capacity he demanded Prince Rupert's expulsion from Portuguese ports, but was obliged to leave and take refuge on board Blake's fleet (Gardiner, History of the Commonwealth, i. 202, 333; Report on the Duke of Portland's MSS.)

Two other sons, William and Walter, were soldiers in the Dutch service (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1645–7 p. 45, 1644–5 p. 310). Walter, who was knighted, seems to have been royalist in his sympathies, and a large number of intercepted letters from him to friends in England are printed in the ‘Thurloe Papers.’ In 1665 Charles II employed him as envoy to the elector of Brandenburg (Stowe MS. 191, f. 6; Addit. MS. 16272). Vane was colonel of a regiment of foot in the English service in 1667, and on 12 Aug. 1668 was appointed colonel of what was known as the Holland regiment (Dalton, Army Lists, i. 83, 98, 107). He was killed serving under the Prince of Orange at the battle of Seneff in August 1674 (Sir Richard Bulstrode, Letters, 1712 pp. 47, 88, 97), and was buried at the Hague.

Of Vane's daughters, Margaret married Sir Thomas Pelham, bart., of Holland, Sussex; Frances married Sir Robert Honeywood, knight, of Pett in the county of Kent; Anne married Sir Thomas Liddell of Ravensworth, Durham; Elizabeth married Sir Francis Vincent of Stoke Dabernon, Surrey (Collins, iv. 519).

[A life of Vane is given by Collins under the title of Earl of Darlington, Peerage, ed. Brydges, iv. 505. An autobiographical fragment by Vane, extracts from the registers of Shipborne, and other particulars are contained in Dalton's Hist. of the Wrays of Glentworth, vol. ii.; Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion, ed. Macray; other authorities mentioned in the article.]

C. H. F.

VANE, Sir HENRY, the younger (1613–1662), statesman and author, eldest son of Sir Henry Vane the elder [q. v.], was baptised on 26 May 1613 at the church of Debden, near Newport, Essex, and educated at Westminster school under Lambert Osbaldeston (Wood, Athenæ, iii. 578; private information). ‘I was born a gentleman,’ he said in his speech on the scaffold, ‘and had the education, temper, and spirit of a gentleman as well as others, being in my youthful days inclined to the vanities of the world, and to that which they call good fellowship, judging it to be the only means of accomplishing a gentleman.’ About the age of fifteen he became converted to puritanism, and regarded his former course of life as sinful (Trial, p. 87; cf. Sikes, Life of Vane, p. 8). At sixteen Vane was sent to Oxford, and became a gentleman commoner of Magdalen Hall, ‘but when he was to be matriculated as a member of the university, and so consequently take the oath of allegiance and supremacy, he quitted his gown, put on a cloak, and studied notwithstanding for some time in the said hall’ (Wood, iii. 578). After leaving the university he spent some time at Geneva or Leyden (Clarendon, Rebellion, iii. 34; Strafford, Letters, i. 463). In 1631 his father sent him to Vienna in the train of the English ambassador, and a number of his letters are among the foreign state papers in the record office (Hosmer, Life of Vane, p. 6).

On his return in February 1632 Sir Tobie Matthew [q. v.] found him extremely improved. ‘His French is excellently good, his discourse discreet, and his fashion comely and fair; and I dare venture to foretell that he will grow a very fit man for any such honour as his father's merits shall bespeak, or the king's goodness impart to him’ (ib. p. 8). A familiar story represents Vane's later hostility towards the king as caused by an insult which Charles put upon him at court during his early life. He himself says, however, that the king showed him great favour, and promised to make him one of the privy chamber in ordinary (Cal. State