317). Vane was accordingly brought back to the Tower in April 1662, a true bill was found against him by the grand jury of Middlesex in Easter term 1662, and he was arraigned at the court of king's bench on 2 June 1662. The charge was high treason for compassing the death of the king, the subversion of the ancient form of government, and the keeping out of the king from the exercise of his regal power. Vane defended himself with great skill and courage, boldly asserting the sovereign power of parliament, and declaring that what was done by their authority ought not to be questioned in any other court. His bill of exceptions and other legal pleas were overruled, and, having been found guilty by the jury on 6 June, he was sentenced to death on 11 June. Vane's boldness sealed his fate, as he well knew it would (Trial, pp. 63, 80). The king regarded himself as released from his promise. ‘Sir Henry Vane's carriage yesterday,’ wrote Charles to Clarendon, ‘was so insolent as to justify all he had done; acknowledging no supreme power in England but a parliament, and many things to that purpose. If he has given new occasion to be hanged, certainly he is too dangerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the way’ (Burnet, Own Time, ed. Airy, i. 286 n.; for comments on Vane's trial see State Trials; Willis Bund, Select Cases from the State Trials, ii. 339; Ranke, Hist. of England, iii. 376; Hallam, Const. Hist. p. 516).
Vane was executed on Tower Hill on 14 June 1662. Though reputed a timid man by nature, he bore himself with great composure and cheerfulness, and seemed, it was said, when he appeared on the scaffold, ‘rather a looker-on than the person concerned in the execution.’ Vane's dying speech, in which he justified the cause for which he suffered, was thrice interrupted by the sounding of trumpets and beating of drums, to hinder him from being heard by the people (Trial, p. 95; Ludlow, ii. 338). ‘In all things,’ was the verdict of Pepys, ‘he appeared the most resolved man that ever died in that manner,’ and four days later he noted that people everywhere talked of Vane's courage at his death as a miracle. Like Burnet, he thought that the king had lost more than he gained by his execution (Pepys, ed. Wheatley, ii. 258, 260, 264; Burnet, i. 286). Charles permitted Vane's family to remove his remains for decent interment, and he was buried in Shipborne Church, Kent, on 15 June 1662 (Dalton, ii. 123).
Frances, lady Vane, died in 1679, and was also buried in Shipborne Church. Of his family of seven sons and seven daughters, the eldest son, Henry Vane, died on 2 Nov. 1660, aged 18; Christopher, the fifth son, inherited Raby, and was created by William III Baron Barnard of Barnard Castle (8 July 1699); Thomas, the next surviving son, was elected one of the first members for the county of Durham on 21 June 1675, and died four days later. Of the daughters, Frances married Edward Kekewich; Albinia, John Forth, alderman of London; Dorothy, Thomas Crisp of Essex; and Mary, Sir James Tillie of Pentillie Castle, Cornwall. Of the rest of the family an account is given in Dalton's ‘History of the Wrays’ (ii. 125–36).
Vane's abilities as a statesman were admitted by the common consent of friends and foes. ‘Extraordinary parts, a pleasant wit, a great understanding, a temper not to be moved,’ and as an orator, ‘a quick conception and a very sharp and weighty expression,’ are qualifications which Clarendon attributes to him (Rebellion, iii. 106, vii. 267; cf. Ludlow, Memoirs, ii. 339, ed. 1894). His industry was enormous. During the Long parliament, writes Sikes, ‘he was usually so engaged for the public in the house and several committees from early in the morning to very late at night, that he had scarce any leisure to eat his bread, converse with his nearest relations, or at all mind his family affairs’ (p. 105). ‘He was all in any business where others were joined with him,’ emphatically observes Clarendon (Rebellion, ed. Macray, vii. 266 n.). His devotion to the public service and freedom from corruption were as notorious as his abilities. But his mystical enthusiasm exposed him to the reproach of fanaticism; while his practical astuteness and his subtlety in speculative matters gave colour to the belief that he was crafty and untrustworthy.
Even Vane's contemporaries found it difficult to understand his religious views. A modern critic suggests that he was probably influenced by the writings of Jacob Boehme (T. H. Green, Works, iii. 295). To Clarendon he appeared ‘a perfect enthusiast,’ who ‘could not be described by any character of religion,’ but ‘had swallowed some of the fancies and extravagancies of every sect,’ and had become ‘a man above ordinances.’ Reading one of Vane's religious treatises, he found in it ‘nothing of his usual clearness and ratiocination in discourse, in which he used much to excel the best of the company he kept,’ but ‘in a crowd of very easy words the sense was too hard to find out’ (Rebellion, xvi. 88; Animadversions on Cressy's Answer to Stillingfleet, 1673, 8vo, p. 59).
