promise of principle on either side. Vane was an independent, but the agreement, it is evident, neither bound him nor the Scottish negotiators to any thing that was not in harmony with the dictates of their own consciences. Both parties trusted to the course of events bringing about that settled order both in church and state which they most desired.

In the debate on the famous self-denying ordinance, Vane took a distinguished part. Hume has followed Clarendon in his miserably garbled and distorted account of the proceeding, and represents Vane as maintaining that the whole measure was dictated by the immediate inspiration of the Spirit of God. This is false. Vane often spoke enthusiastically; but his speech on this occasion was as cool and clear-headed as could be desired in a deliberative assembly.

In 1646, Sir Henry issued a tract entitled, A Healing Question propounded and resolved, in reference to the invitation to a General Fast,' of which Godwin has given the following account:-" In this piece he maintains the natural right of the friends of liberty in England, confirmed as it was by their memorable victory over the enemies of that right, to be governed by national councils and successive representatives of their own election. The author declares this right to be in the friends of liberty exclusively, that is, in those who were known, and had distinguished themselves, by a forwardness to assist the public good and freedom of the nation. To express their faithfulness to this cause, they had largely contributed in one kind or another, what was proper for each in his place to do, and by so doing had acquired for themselves a claim of incorporation and society, to consult for their common good. To render this doctrine palatable and practicable in the present situation of affairs, the author praises the army; at the same time that he says, that not only the army as at present constituted, but the total of the well-meaning party, embodied in their military capacity, forms the proper, irresistible, and absolute strength of the nation. He expresses himself satisfied with the army, as now it is, under the command of an honest and wise general, and sober and faithful officers, and calls upon those in power to prepare all things requisite for the exercise of the general right, as, like faithful guardian to the commonwealth at present in its nonage, they are bound to do. This once put in a way, he proceeds, and declared for by the general and army, as that which they are clearly convinced in the sight of God, it is their duty to bring about, how firmly and freely would this bind the hearts and persons, the counsels and purses, the affections and prayers, of the whole party, to assist and strengthen the hands of those now in power, whatever straits and difficulties they might meet with in the maintenance of the public safety and peace! And, if this, which is so essential to the well being and right constitution of government, were once obtained, the disputes about the form would not prove so difficult, nor find such opposition, as to keep open a door of contention. Would a standing council of state, settled for life, in reference to the safety of the commonwealth, and for maintaining intercourse and correspondence with foreign states, under the inspection and oversight of the supreme judicature, be likely to meet with disapprobation? Might not the orders of this council, in the intervals of the supreme national assemblies, be made binding, so far as they were consonant to the settled laws of the commonwealth? Nay, would there be any just exception to be

taken, if it should be agreed, as another part of the fundamental constitution, to place that branch of sovereignty which chiefly respects the execution of the laws, in a distinct office, capable to be intrusted in the hands of one single person, if need should require, or in a greater num ber, and, for the greater strength and honour to this office, that the execution of all laws and orders that are binding, should go forth in his or their name, and all disobedience to, or contempt of them, be taken as done to the people's sovereignty, of which he or they bear the image, subordinate to the legislative power, and at their will to be continued in the same hands or otherwise, as the experience of its advantage or disadvantage might decide? This tract, however, though thus mild and temperate in its structure, was not entirely without passages that might give offence to the present government, It spoke of a great interruption that had lately taken place in regard to the expectations of the friends of liberty, and that, instead of setting up a national representative, something had arisen, that seemed rather accommodated to the private and selfish interest of a particular part, than truly adequate to the demands of the common interest and cause:' and further on, of 'what had been doing for the three years last past, as if God were pleased to stand still, and be as a looker-on, to see what his people would be in their latter end, and what work they would make of it, if left to their own wisdom and politic contrivances.'

This pamphlet created no small uneasiness to Cromwell, who soon after caused Bradshaw, Vane, Rich, and Ludlow, to be summoned before the council to answer to certain charges of disaffection towards the existing government. Vane was at this time residing in comparative privacy at Belleau, in the county of Lincoln. He obeyed the mandate, but declined to comply with the order which the council issued, that he should give security in bond to the extent of £5,000, "to do nothing to the prejudice of the present government and the peace of the commonwealth," justly remarking, that by so doing he would, by his own act, bring his public character, and the goodness of the cause for which he suffered, under suspicion. Fourteen days were suffered to elapse, at the end of which period he was committed to Carisbrook castle, where he suffered imprisonment for the space of four months.

On the abdication of Richard Cromwell, Sir Henry was made one of the committee of safety, and president of the council, in which office he brought forward a new model for a republican government. But the council was not prepared to go the length which their president advised and urged, and at last dismissed him, as a man of wild and impracticable views, from all share in the government of the nation.

Upon the restoration, Vane, by an act of shameful perfidy, was brought to trial, on the 4th of June, 1662. He had been included in the indemnity stipulated for by the first convention; yet, in violation of that agreement, he was no sooner in the hands of the royalists than he was charged with compassing the death of Charles I., and proceeded against as a regicide. He defended himself nobly, but was found guilty, and executed on Tower-hill, on the 14th of June. He died with a composure and dignity worthy of the sentiments which had actuated him throughout his unblemished career, and of the high and immortal hopes by which his spirit had long been sustained and fed amidst the vicissitudes of his chequered career.

Clarendon, his base and heartless betrayer, has affected to sketch the portrait of his noble-minded victim with a more than usual portion of affected candour. It is a false resemblance throughout. "The cha racter of the murdered was to be written for posterity; the murderer had the pen in his hand; and with the same infernal skill which had contrived the doom, he could blacken, for a while, the very memory of his victim." Burnet represents Vane as naturally "a very fearful man, whose head was as darkened in his notions of religion as his mind was clouded with fear," and Hume characterises his theological writings as "absolutely unintelligible." There is no doubt that Vane had some singularly mystical notions about him, and that he has written much which, to ordinary minds at least, is not only dark but incomprehensible. But it has been justly observed, that the fault of obscurity might lie in the subject treated of, rather than in the writer. His works, besides the one already mentioned, are, 'The retired man's meditations, or the mystery and power of godliness showing forth in the living world;' an essay, entitled, 'Of the love of God and union with God; an' Epistle General to the mystical body of Christ on earth;'The Face of the Times;' and 'The people's cause stated,' to which are added sundry meditations on life, government, friendship, enemies, death, written during his last imprisonment. In the first of these works, Sir Henry contends strongly for the personal reign of Christ on earth during the millennium. We might quote many passages of great beauty from it, but we shall be doing more justice to Vane's genius by selecting a specimen of his argumentative writing from his observations on the fall of man. "The occasion of this," says he, 66 was twofold: First, the present enjoyment of good from God under the ministry of the first covenant, the fruit of which, to the eye of flesh and blood even at its best, was so glorious, and appeared so beautiful and desireable, that man was easily perswaded that it was the best and highest attainment hee needed to look after; and thereby, through Sathan's subtilty, rendered secure and negligent as to the use of means given by God to carry him on, pass him through and conduct him out of this his corruptible state, as from glory to glory, into the power of an endless life (without the intervening of sin) to the full and perfect securing of man's nature from all prevailing power of sins assaults for ever; which was not done by creation.

"The second occasion of mans fall, was the freedom of his will, wherein the judging and desiring faculties of his mind were entirely committed by God to his own free motion and operation, upon the terms of the covenant he was brought into with God; which was, to be dealt with according unto his works, to be rewarded with life or with death, as he should rightly order or abuse this liberty of action with which God had invested him by way of tryal and probation. That man had such a power of free-will as this,

"First, the nature and tenor of the Covenant he was taken into, doth demonstrate; which is conditional in reference to the works of man; And God throughout deals with man under that Covenant according to his works, strongly thereby asserting them to be man's own; so as the very reward which comes thereby, is accounted to him of debt, even

1 See Westminster Review, vol. viii. p. 319.

the thing which his own action (as left alone unto himself therein) hath brought upon him, and entitled him unto.

Secondly, without such a power of free-will, man's first estate could not have been mutable, at least could never have changed into corrup tion; for if it had been necessary to him to have stood, he could not have fallen; and if it had been necessary to him to fall, God had thereby made himself the Author of sin, which could not be."

Sir Richard Fanshawe.

BORN A. D. 1608.—died a. D. 1666.

SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE, was the younger son of Sir Henry Fanshawe of Ware Park, Hertfordshire. He was born in 1608, and was originally intended for the bar; but abandoning that profession, he spent two or three years abroad. On returning to England, he was presented at court, and in 1630, was appointed secretary to Lord Aston's embassy to Spain. On the recall of Lord Aston, Fanshawe became charge d'affaires at the Spanish court, and held that appointment until 1638. Two years after his return to England from Spain, his elder brother resigned the office of remembrancer of the court of exchequer in his favour; and shortly after, in the capacity of one of the royal household, he accompanied the king to Oxford on the breaking out of the civil wars. Here he first met his future wife Ann, daughter of that staunch royalist Sir John Harrison of Balls in Hertfordshire, to whom he was married in May 1644, and who was destined to embalm the memory of her husband in one of the most interesting volumes of autobiography ever penned.' Before his marriage, Sir Richard was sworn secretary-at-war to the prince of Wales. In the suite of the prince, Fanshawe travelled to Bristol, and afterwards embarked for Scilly and Jersey. On the departure of Charles for Paris, he went to his brother at Caen, and sent his wife to England to procure some pecuniary supplies for him. She succeeded in obtaining leave for her husband to return and compound for her estates. They lived very privately in London for some months, and whilst the king was at Hampton court they were honoured with several audiences from him. Of some of these interviews, Lady Fanshawe has given an exceedingly interesting account in her autobiography. "The last time I

ever saw the king," she says, "when I took my leave, I could not refrain weeping. When he had saluted me, I prayed to God to preserve his majesty with long life and happy years. He stroked me on the cheek and said: Child, if God pleaseth it shall be so, but both you and I must submit to God's will, and you know in what hands I am.'" Then turning to your father, she continues, "he said: " Be sure, Dick, to tell my son all that I have said, and deliver these letters to my wife, -pray God bless her! I hope I shall do well.' And taking him in his arms, said: 'Thou hast ever been an honest man, and I hope God will bless thee and make thee a happy servant to my son, whom I have charged in my letter to continue his love and trust to you.' Adding, I do promise you that if ever I am restored to my dignity I will bountifully reward you both for your service and sufferings.' In the • Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe. Lund. 8vo. 1829. Memoirs, p. 67.

month of October that same year, Fanshawe and his wife went to France. They returned to England in April 1648, from which time he was employed on the prince's affairs in Paris, Flanders, Ireland, and Spain. In all these journeys he was accompanied by his faithful and affectionate wife, who encountered her husband's manifold difficuities and privations with all the fortitude of a heroine.

When Fanshawe joined the king in Scotland, the Yorkists intrusted him with the great and privy seal, and wished him to take the covenant, but this he steadfastly refused to do. In the battle of Worcester he was taken prisoner and sent to London, whither his affectionate spouse accompanied him. Her unwearied solicitation at last wrought upon Cromwell, who allowed her husband to be set at liberty upon a physician's certificate of bad health.

On the death of Cromwell, Sir Richard, who had been created a baronet in 1654, obtained permission to go abroad. On the restoration he was promised one of the state-secretaryships, but was disappointed through the interference of that false man'-as Lady Fanshawe calls him -Lord Clarendon. He was, however, honoured with the appointment to negotiate Charles's marriage with Catherine of Portugal, and, when the queen landed at Portsmouth, was sent to congratulate her on her arrival. He was immediately afterwards appointed ambassador to the court of Lisbon, and on his return from that mission, was made a privy-councillor of England. In January, 1664, he was constituted ambassador to the Spanish court. Having signed a treaty in December 1665, which the ministry at home refused to ratify, he was superseded by the earl of Sandwich. A few days after having introduced his lordship to his first audience, Sir Richard was taken ill, and died at Madrid on the 26th of June 1666. His wife, whose autobiography forms so noble a monument to her husband's memory, died in 1680.

Bertie, Earl of Lindsey.

BORN A. D. 1608.-DIED A. D. 1666.

MONTAGUE BERTIE, second earl of Lindsey, was the eldest son of Lord Willoughby of Erseby, by Elizabeth, daughter of Edward, first Lord Montague of Broughton. In early life, he served as a volunteer in two or three campaigns in Flanders. On his return to England, he was appointed captain of the king's life-guard; and, in this capacity, he attended Charles into Scotland in 1639.

At the battle of Edgehill, in which his father was taken prisoner, Montague distinguished himself by the gallant but unavailing efforts which he made to rescue his parent. He was taken prisoner himself, and, although the king made proposals for his release, his captors thought it expedient to detain him for nearly a whole year in their hands. On being at last liberated, he joined Charles at Oxford, and thenceforward became one of his principal advisers. He fought at the head of his old regiment, the life-guard, in the battles of Newbury, Cropredy bridge, and Naseby. In the latter engagement he was wounded. When Charles put himself into the hands of the Scots, Lindsey surrendered to the parliamentary army, and, after a brief imprisonment, was released on parole. The king appointed him one of his commissioners in the