When this was done, the next Question was, Who should be Lord General, and what new Officers should be put in, or old ones continued?  And here the Policy of Vane and Cromwell did its best:  For General they chose Sir Thomas Fairfax, Son of the Lord Ferdinando Fairfax, who had been in the Wars beyond Sea, and had fought valiantly in Yorkshire for the Parliament, though he was over-powered by the Earl of Newcastle’s, Numbers.  This Man was chosen because they supposed to find him a Man of no quickness of Parts, of no Elocution, of no suspicious plotting Wit, and therefore One that Cromwell could make use of at his pleasure.  And he was acceptable to sober Men, because he was Religious, Faithful, Valiant, and of a grave, sober, resolved Disposition; very fit for Execution, and neither too Great nor too Cunning to be Commanded by the Parliament.

41.

SIR HENRY VANE, THE YOUNGER.

Born 1613.  Beheaded 1662.

By CLARENDON.

The other, S’r H. Vane, was a man of greate naturall parts, and of very profounde dissimulation, of a quicke conception, and very ready sharpe and weighty exspression.  He had an unusuall aspecte, which though it might naturally proceede both from his father and mother, nether of which were beautifull persons, yett made men thinke ther was somewhat in him of extraordinary, and his whole life made good that imagination.  Within a very shorte tyme after he returned from his studyes in Magdalen Colledge in Oxforde, wher, though he was under the care of a very worthy Tutour, he lyved not with greate exactnesse, he spent some little tyme in France, and more in Geneva, and after his returne into Englande, contracted a full praejudice and bitternesse against the Church, both against the forme of the goverment and the lyturgy, which was generally in greate reverence, even with many of those, who were not frends to the other.  In this giddinesse which then much displeased, or seemed to displease his father, who still appeared highly conformable, and exceedingly sharpe against those who were not, he transported himselfe into New Englande, a Colony within few yeeres before planted by a mixture of all religions, which disposed the professors to dislike the goverment of the church, who were qualifyed by the Kings Charter to chuse ther owne goverment and governors, under the obligation that every man should take the othes of Allegiance and Supremacy, which all the first planters did, when they receaved ther charter, before they transported themselves from hence, nor was ther in many yeeres after the least scruple amongst them of complyinge with those obligations, so farr men were in the infancy of ther schisme, from refusinge to take lawfull othes.  He was no sooner landed ther, but his partes made him quickly taken notice of, and very probably his quality, beinge the eldest sunn of a Privy Councellour, might give him some advantage, insomuch that when