George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 2, 17th edition.

[38] Both Cromwell and Vane were unsuccessful states-

Chap XI.}

men; the first desired to secure the government of England to his family; the other, to vindicate it for the people.

The convention parliament had excepted Vane from

1662 June

the indemnity, on the king's promise that he should not suffer death. It was now resolved to bring him to trial; and he turned his trial into a triumph. Though ‘before supposed to be a timorous man,’¹ he appeared before his judges with animated fearlessness. Instead of offering apologies for his career, he denied the imputation of treason with settled scorn, defended the right of Englishmen to be governed by successive representatives, and took glory to himself for actions which promoted the good of England, and were sanctioned by parliament as the virtual sovereign of the realm. He spoke not for his life and estate, but for the honor of the martyrs to liberty that were in their graves, for the liberties of England, for the interest ‘of all posterity in time to come.’ He had asked for counsel. ‘Who,’ cried the solicitor, ‘will dare to speak for you, unless you can call down from the gibbet the heads of your fellow-traitors?’ ‘I stand single,’ said Vane; ‘yet, being thus left alone, I am not afraid, in this great presence, to bear my witness to the glorious cause, nor to seal it with my blood.’ Such true magnanimity stimulated the vengeance of his enemies; ‘they clamored for his life.’ ‘Certainly,’ wrote the king, ‘Sir Henry Vane is too dangerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the way.’² It was found he could not honestly be put out of the way; but still, the solicitor urged, ‘he must ’