A strange
paradox! did we not know, that men of the greatest genius, where they
relinquish by principle the use of their reason, are only enabled,
by their vigor of mind, to work themselves the deeper into error and
absurdity. It was remarkable, that as Vane, by being the chief
instrument of Strafford's death, had first opened the way for that
destruction which overwhelmed the nation, so by his death he closed the
scene of blood. He was the last that suffered on account of the civil
wars. Lambert, though condemned, was reprieved at the bar; and the
judges declared, that if Vane's behavior had been equally dutiful and
submissive, he would have experienced like lenity in the king. Lambert
survived his condemnation near thirty years. He was confined to the Isle
of Guernsey, where he lived contented, forgetting all his past schemes
of greatness, and entirely forgotten by the nation. He died a Roman
Catholic.
However odious Vane and Lambert were to the Presbyterians, that
party had no leisure to rejoice at their condemnation. The fatal St.
Bartholomew approached; the day when the clergy were obliged, by the
late law, either to relinquish their livings, or to sign the articles
required of them. A combination had been entered into by the more
zealous of the Presbyterian ecclesiastics to refuse the subscription,
in hopes that the bishops would not venture at once to expel so great a
number of the most popular preachers.
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