I, were only fit to be destroyed. I had formerly some jealousies; the fraudulent proclamation for indemnity increased them; the imprisoning of those

so maliciously active in opposition to his majesty's government, as to be excepted from any conditions of pardon. The commons for some time adhered to their first resolution, but after several conferences, they agreed with the lords in all things except some little alterations in the frame of the act; Vane and Lambert were excepted, but Haselrigge remained liable to such pains, penalties and forfeitures, as should be inflicted on him, not extending to life; and the rest of those put under the same qualifications by the commons, that were not of the king's judges, were made only with others incapable of offices.

Kennet's hist. register, p. 256.

Sir Henry Vane, whose blood seems to have been demanded by the peculiar vengeance of heaven, had been most deeply engaged in the darkest scenes of the late calamities, which he carried on with infinite subtlety and artifice, to the deception of incredible numbers in the nation; and though he cunningly kept himself from the impious court that condemned the king, it was sufficiently known that none contributed more to the bringing him thither; and after, that none more zealously promoted the establishment of the new commonwealth, and his actions daily discovered so much of republican rancour, that it was impossible for him to live in quiet under any resemblance of monarchy. So after the restoration, having been found tampering with some malecontents of the army and others, in order to fresh disturbances, the government thought fit to confine him and though he, with Lambert, was particularly excepted in the act of indemnity, yet he found so much favour afterwards from the House of Commons in the same Parliament, that they petitioned the king, in which they were joined by the House of Peers, that he might yet be exempt from suffering the pains of death; to which, as his friends alledge, his majesty consented. This was looked. upon as a sufficient security; yet either upon the account of his

three men, and turning out of all the officers of the army, contrary to promise, confirmed me in my resolutions not to return. To conclude, the tide is

own behaviour or that of his party, or some private resentment, the present House of Commons thought fit to address the king to bring him, together with Colonel John Lambert, to their tryals. Accordingly, June 4, 1662, they were both arraigned at the king's bench bar, before Sir Robert Forster, lord chief justice, and other judges; and Sir Henry indicted for imagining and compassing the death of the king, and for taking upon him and usurping the government: and Colonel Lambert for levying war against the king in several parts of the kingdom. The carriage and behaviour of Vane was very extraordinary; for, being charged by the king's council with a continued series of treasons, from the king's murder to the restoration, without insisting upon the rebellion with which they might have begun, he absolutely denied that they had any power to try him, and declared, "that neither the king's death, nor the members themselves could dissolve the Long Parliament, whereof he be-' ing one, no inferior court could call him in question........His whole behaviour was so assuming and insolent, that the court and king's council told him, that his own defence was a fresh charge against him and the highest evidence of his inward guilt, had there not been such a cloud of witnesses to prove the particulars........ The jury after a very short stay brought him in guilty of high treason. Colonel Lambert's behaviour was quite contrary, full of submission and discretion........He was likewise condemned; but when he was to receive sentence with Sir Henry Vane, he was by the king's favor reprieved at the bar, upon the report that the judges had given of his submissive and handsome deportment at his tryal; upon which he desired the judges to return to his majesty his most humble thanks, for his so unexpected mercy, which the judges said might have been, and was once thought to be extended to Sir Henry, if his forwardness and contemptuous behaviour had not precluded the way to it. The Colonel was confined during life in the Isle of

He

not to be diverted nor the oppressed delivered; but God, in his time, will have mercy on his people. will save and defend them, and avenge the blood of

Guernsey, where he continued a patient and discreet prisoner for above thirty years.

Archdeacon Echard and Bishop Kennet; as see the hist. register, p. 704, 5.

And since it hath pleased God, who separated me from the womb to the knowledge and service of the gospel of his Son, to separate me also to this hard and difficult service at this time, and to single me out to the defence and justification of this his cause, I could not consent by any words or actions of mine, that the innocent blood that hath been shed in the defence of it throughout the whole war, the guilt and moral evil of which must and does certainly lye somewhere, did lye at my door, or at theirs, that have been the faithful adherers to this cause. This is with such evidence upon my heart, that I am most freely and cheerfully willing to put the greatest seal to it I am capable, which is, the pouring out of my very blood in witness to it; which is all I shall need to say in this place and at this time, having spoken at large to it in my defence at my tryal, intending to have said more the last day, as what I thought was reasonable for arrest of judgment, but I was not permitted then to speak it; both which may, with time and God's providence, come to public view. And I must still assert, that I remain wholly unsatisfied, that the course of proceedings against me at my tryal were according to law; but that I was run upon and destroyed, contrary to right and the liberties of Magna Charta, under the form only of justice, which I leave to God to decide, who is the judge of the whole world, and to clear my innocency. In the mean time I beseech him to forgive them and all that had any hand in my death; and that the Lord, in his great mercy, will not lay it unto their charge, etc.

The tryal of Sir Henry Vane, knt. at the king's bench,
Westminster, June 2, and 6, 1662, together with what

those who shall now perish, upon the heads of those, who, in their pride, think nothing is able to oppose them. Happy are those, whom God shall make in

he intended to have spoken the day of his sentence, June 11, for arrest of judgment, had he not been interrupted and over-ruled by the court, and his bill of exceptions. With other occasional speeches, etc. Also his speech and prayer, etc. on the scaffold. Printed in the year 1662, in quarto, p. 90.

Vane, young

Sonnet to Sir Henry Vane.

in years, but in sage councils old, Than whom a better senator ne'er held

The helm of Rome, when gowns not arms repell'd

The fierce Epirot, and the African bold,

Whether to settle peace, or to unfold

The drift of hollow states, hard to be spell'd;
Then to advise how war may best upheld,

Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold,

In all her equipage: besides to know

Both spiritual and civil, what each means,

What serves each, thou hast learn'd; which few have done.
The bounds of either sword to thee we owe ;
Therefore on thy right hand religion leans
In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.

JOHN MILTON.

The cases cited by the learned judge (Hale) do not in the least shake the principle already advanced, that the throne being full, any person out of possession but claiming title, be his pretensions what you please, is no king within the statue of trea

sons.

I am aware of the judgment of the court of king's bench in the case of Sir Henry Vane, "That king Charles the second, though kept out of the exercise of the kingly office, yet was still a king both de facto and de jure; and that all acts done to the keeping him out were high treason."

struments of his justice in so blessed a work! If I can live to see that day, I shall be ripe for the grave, and able to say with joy, "Lord, now lettest

Sir Henry Vane's was a very singular case, and the transactions in which he bore a part, happened in a conjuncture of affairs which never did exist before, and I hope never will again an usurpation founded in the dissolution of the ancient legal government, and the total subversion of the constitution.

I will therefore say nothing to the merits of the question more, than that the rule laid down by the court, involved in the guilt of treason every man in the kingdom who had acted in a public station under a government possessed in fact for twelve years together of sovereign power; but under various forms, at different times, as the enthusiasm of the herd or the ambition of their leaders dictated.

But this resolution hath not in the least shaken the principle I contend for; it doth in reality suppose the truth of it. For if Charles the second was king de facto from the death of his father, every thing done from that time in prejudice of his right was undoubtedly high treason.

The only difficulty is, what did the court mean by a king de facto? They could not mean, what every soul before themselves understood, a king in the actual and full exercise of the regal power. They meant, I presume, as his lordship upon another occasion is pleased to express himself, one quasi in possession of the crown; since, during the usurpation, no other person did claim to act under the regal title.

The distinction between de jure and de facto kings was taken up by the house of York, to serve the purpose of ambition and revenge. By the former, they meant those who are presumed to have succeeded to the crown in a regular course of descent, By the latter, those who have not had that claim to it. The former were in their estimation the only rightful kings. The latter, not excepting such as have claimed under a parliamentary settlement, no better than fortunate usurpers.