His grandson, Sir Henry Fane, resumed the ancient patronymic of his family, Vane, in lieu of Fane, and this has continued to the present time. This Henry Fane, or Vane, was knighted in 1611, and was constituted one of the regents of the kingdom for the safe keeping of the Queen, Prince Charles, and the rest of the royal children. In 1616, on the disgrace of Robert Carr of Fernyhurst, Earl of Somerset, Sir Henry Vane received a lease from the trustees for support of the household of Charles, Prince of Wales, for the remainder of the term granted to Carr. He was principal Secretary of State to James I., and Cofferer of the Household to Charles I. In 1626 he purchased the castle and manor of Raby, and in 1632 was sent as ambassador to Sweden to expostulate with Gustavus Adolphus in favour of the Elector Palatine. In the following year he nobly entertained the King at Raby, on his journey to and from Scotland, on the occasion of his coronation. He married Frances, daughter of Thomas Darcy, of Tolleshunt Darcy, and died at Raby Castle in 1654. By this union he had seven sons—viz. Thomas and John, who died in infancy; Sir Henry Vane, who succeeded him; and Sir George Vane, from whom the Marquis of Londonderry, who sits as Earl Vane, is descended; Sir Walter Vane, Charles Vane, and William Vane—and eight daughters, among whom were Margaret, married to Sir Thomas Pelham, from whom are descended the Duke of Newcastle and the Earl of Chichester; and Frances, wife of Sir Robert Honeywood.
Sir Henry Vane (third son), who succeeded his father in the estates of Raby, Fairlawn, Shipborne, &c., in 1654, had a very chequered, but historical life. He was educated at Westminster and Oxford, proceeded to Geneva, and afterwards to America, where he was elected Governor of Massachusetts. He was also M.P. for Hull and other places, and was knighted in 1640. He is characterized as “one of the most turbulent enthusiasts produced by the rebellion, and an inflexible Republican,” by some, but by Milton as
“Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old.”
In 1659 he was, in Pepys’s own words, “this day voted out of the House, and to sit no more there; and that he would retire himself to his house at Raby.” And again, a month later, “This day, by an order of the House, Sir H. Vane was sent out of town to his house in Lincolnshire.” In 1661 he, with Lambert and others, was sent prisoner to Scilly. He had in former years been joined with Sir William Russell in the office of Treasurer of the Navy, which yielded an annual income of £30,000; but although, as survivor of Russell, the whole of this was his by patent for life, he voluntarily and disinterestedly gave it up to Parliament, reserving only a salary of £2,000 a year for an agent. A series of charges having been drawn up against Vane—principally arising out of his just indignation at the title of Raby having been bestowed upon the Earl of Strafford—he was, on the 6th of June, 1662, found guilty of high treason, and, on the 14th of the same month, beheaded on Tower Hill. Of this execution it is needless to give any particulars beyond those written, the same day, by Pepys. He says, “Up by four o’clock in the morning and upon business at my office. Then we sat down to business, and about eleven o’clock, having a room got ready for us, we all went out to the Tower Hill; and there over against the scaffold, made on purpose this day, saw Sir Henry Vane brought. A very great press of people. He made a long speech, many times interrupted by the sheriffe and others there; and they would have taken his paper out of his hand, but he would not let it go. But they caused all the books of those that writ after him to be given the sheriffe; and the trumpets were brought under the scaffold that he might not be heard. Then he prayed and so fitted himself, and received the blow; but the scaffold was so crowded that we could not see it done. But Boreman, who had been upon the scaffold, came to us and told us, that first he began to speak of the irregular proceeding against him; that he was, against Magna Charta, denied to have his exceptions against the indictment allowed: and that there he was stopped by the sheriffe. Then he drew out his paper of notes, and began to tell them first his life; that he was born a gentleman, that he was bred up and had the quality of a gentleman, and to make him in the opinion of the world more a gentleman, he had been till he was seventeen years old a good fellow, but then it pleased God to lay a foundation of grace in his heart by which he was persuaded, against his worldly interest, to leave all preferment and go abroad, where he might serve God with more freedom. Then he was called home and made a member of the Long Parliament, where he never did to this day anything against his conscience, but all for the glory of God. Here he would have given them an account of the proceedings of the Long Parliament, but they so often interrupted him that at last he was forced to give over, and so fell into prayer for England in generall, then for the churches of England, and then for the City of London: and so fitted himself for the block, and received the blow. He had a blister, or issue, upon his neck, which he desired them not hurt: he changed not his colour or speech to the last, but died justifying himself and the cause he had stood for; and spake very confidently of his being presently at the right hand of Christ; and in all things appeared the most resolved man that ever died in that manner, and showed more of heate than cowardice, but yet with all humility and gravity. One asked him why he did not pray for the King? He answered, ‘Nay,’ says he, ‘you shall see I can pray for the King: I pray God bless him!’ The King had given his body to his friends, and, therefore, he told them that he hoped they would be civil to his body when dead; and desired they would let him die like a gentleman and a Christian, and not crowded and pressed as he was.”
This unfortunate, but gifted member of the family of Vane had married, in 1639, Frances, daughter of Sir Christopher Wray, Bart., of Ashby and Glentworth, in Lincolnshire, by whom he had issue seven sons, five of whom died young. The fifth son was Sir Christopher Vane, who was knighted in 1688, made a Privy Councillor, and in July, 1699, created Baron Barnard of Barnard Castle, county of Durham. He married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Gilbert Holles, third Earl of Clare, and sister of John Holles, Duke of Newcastle. By her Baron Barnard had issue, with others, a son—Gilbert Vane, who succeeded him; and another son—William Vane, who was created Viscount Vane and Baron Duncannon. This Viscount Vane married Lucy, daughter of William Jolliffe, Esq., of Caverswall, in Staffordshire, and was father, by her, of William Holles Vane, second Viscount, whose wife (Frances, daughter of Francis Hawes, of Purley Hall, and widow of Lord William Hamilton) was the notorious Lady Vane, whose intrigues and disreputable course of life form the subject of the “Memoirs of a Lady of Quality” in “Peregrine Pickle,” which were “written by herself, which she coolly told her lord to read.”
Gilbert Vane, second Baron Barnard, who succeeded his father, the first baron, in 1723, and died in 1753, married Mary, daughter and heiress of Morgan Randyll, of Chilworth, by whom he had six sons and three daughters. His eldest son and successor was Henry, third Baron Barnard, a Lord of the Treasury, who, in 1754, was advanced to the dignity of Viscount Barnard and Earl of Darlington. This nobleman, of whom Lord Orford wrote, “He never said a false thing nor did a bad one,” married, in 1725, the Lady Grace, daughter of Charles Fitzroy, first Duke of Cleveland, by whom he had issue three sons and three daughters. The eldest son was Lord Henry Vane, who succeeded his father as second Earl of Darlington and fourth Baron Barnard; he married Margaret, sister of the first Earl of Lonsdale; and, dying in 1792, was succeeded by their eldest son, William Henry, as fifth baron and third earl.
This nobleman, who held many important appointments, was born in 1766; in 1827 he was advanced to the dignity of Marquis of Cleveland; and in 1833 was again advanced to the title of Duke of Cleveland, and had the barony of Raby conferred upon him. He was married twice: first, in 1787, to the Lady Katharine Margaretta Powlett, daughter and co-heiress of the sixth and last Duke of Bolton, and a co-heiress of the barony of St. John of Basing; and secondly, in 1813, to Elizabeth Russell, of Newton House, Yorkshire. By his first marriage the Duke had issue three sons (who have each in succession become Dukes of Cleveland) and five daughters—one of whom, Lady Louisa Catherine Barbara, married a brother of the first Lord Forester, and another, the Lady Arabella, married the third Lord Alvanley. The Duke was succeeded at his death, in 1842, by his eldest son—
Henry Vane, second duke and marquis, third earl and viscount, and sixth baron, who was born in 1788, and died, without issue, in 1864, having married, in 1809, Lady Sophia, daughter of the fourth Earl Powlett. He was succeeded by his brother, William John Frederick Vane, as third duke and marquis, fourth earl and viscount, and seventh baron, who assumed the surname of Powlett in lieu of that of Vane, but in 1864 resumed his original patronymic of Vane. His grace married, in 1815, Caroline, fourth daughter of the first Earl of Lonsdale, but died without issue in 1864, when he was in turn succeeded in his titles and estates by his brother, the present Duke of Cleveland.
The present noble head of this grand old family, whose genealogy we have thus briefly traced, is Harry George Powlett (late Vane), Duke of Cleveland, Marquis of Cleveland, Earl of Darlington, Viscount Barnard of Barnard Castle, Baron Barnard, and Baron Raby, a Knight of the Garter, &c. His grace is, as has been shown, a son of the first Duke of Cleveland, and brother of the second and third dukes. He was born in 1803, and succeeded to the titles and estates in 1864, when, by royal license, he assumed the surname and arms of Powlett in lieu of those of Vane. His grace, who was educated at Eton and at Oriel College, Oxford, was attached to the embassy at Paris in 1829, and was appointed Secretary of Legation at Stockholm in 1839. In 1854 he married Lady Catherine Lucy Wilhelmina Stanhope, daughter of the late Earl Stanhope (President of the Society of Antiquaries), and widow of Lord Dalmeny, son of the Earl of Rosebery, by whom, however, he has no issue, so that at his decease—his brothers, the second and third dukes, having also died without issue—the titles, with the exception of that of Baron Barnard, will become extinct. The heir to the barony of Barnard is Morgan Vane, Esq. (only son of the late Rev. Robert Morgan Vane), great-grandson of the Hon. Morgan Vane, brother of Henry, third Baron Barnard, who, as we have shown, was created Viscount Barnard and Earl of Darlington. This Robert Morgan Vane married, as his first wife, Margaretta, daughter of Robert Knight, and ultimately heiress to Robert, Earl of Catherlough, from which marriage the present heir-presumptive is descended.
The arms of Vane are (as already explained, from the circumstance of one of the family taking the French king prisoner at the battle of Poitiers)—azure, three dexter gauntlets, or. These were borne by the Duke of Cleveland quarterly with those of Fitzroy, being the royal arms of King Charles II., viz.—one and four France and England quarterly, two Ireland, three Scotland; the whole debruised by a baton sinister, componé of six pieces, ermine and azure, the supporters being dexter, a lion guardant, or, ducally crowned with a ducal coronet, azure, gorged with a collar counter-componé, ermine and azure; sinister, a greyhound, argent, gorged with a collar, counter-componé, ermine and azure, being the supporters of Fitzroy, Duke of Cleveland, granted to Vane on being advanced to the marquisate in 1827. Crests: Vane—a dexter arm in a gauntlet grasping a dagger; Fitzroy—on a chapeau, gules, turned up, ermine, a lion passant guardant, or, crowned with a ducal coronet, argent, and gorged with a collar, counter-componé, ermine and azure. Motto—“Nec temere, nec timide.” On the assumption of the name and arms of Powlett, the arms, as now borne by the Duke of Cleveland, are—sable, three swords in pile, points downwards, proper, pomels and hilts, or. Crest, on a wreath, a falcon rising, or, belled of the last, and ducally crowned, gules. Supporters and motto as before. The arms of the Earl of Catherlough, which the heir-presumptive is entitled to quarter with his own of Vane, are—argent, three bendlets, gules; on a canton, azure, a spur with the rowel downwards, strapped, or. Crest, on a wreath, argent and gules, a spur, or, between two wings erect, gules. Motto—“Te digna sequere.”