Sir Henry Vane, Theologian

This volume is an inquiry into the theological and political writings of the English statesmen Sir Henry Vane the younger (1613-62), and is the first comprehensive study to be published on Vane's writings. Well-known to students of history as a leading political figure during the English Civil War and beyond, Vane is presented in this book as a formidable and articulate thinker. Author David Parnham sees Vane as a fascinating occupant of the rich intellectual world of the mid-seventeenth century. He provides a thorough analysis of Vane's complex religious and political tracts, and obliges readers to reconsider the prevailing consensus that Vane was too elusive and incoherent a writer to be capable of fruitful scholarly treatment. A central commitment of this study is that a sensitive consideration of Vane's variegated modes of expression will show him to be a theorist and exegete of considerable historical interest.