But views of religious liberty, worthy the admiration of posterity, were coupled in Vane's mind with an impracticable and un-English republican theory, which stripped them of the authority with which otherwise they might have been clothed. It was unfortunate for the interests of freedom that, in an age when it struggled to establish its sway, there were too often in alliance with its advocacy enthusiastic opinions or fanatical practices, impairing it at the time, and affording pretexts for opposing it in the next generation. Vane acted with characteristic honesty and candour in sending privately to Cromwell a copy of the "Healing Question," containing the sentences we have quoted, before he proceeded to publish what he had written. Perhaps it never reached the Protector's hands. Be that as it might, notwithstanding the moderate tone of the pamphlet--sufficient, one would have thought, to protect the author against any unpleasant interference from the Government--some of the political passages which the pamphlet contained greatly displeased the Protector; a displeasure which was much increased by another violent publication, attributed to Vane's pen, but not with sufficient reason. The republican statesman was summoned before the Council. The Council required him to give a bond for £5,000 that he would not disturb the peace of the Commonwealth, in default whereof he should stand committed. He refused to give the bond, and to the great discredit of both Cromwell and his Council, they sent their honest brother patriot to prison. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII. [Sidenote: _Second Protectorate Parliament._] England could not exist long without Parliaments. The Major-Generals had become intolerable. Sir Harry Vane and others, in their call for another of the old constitutional assemblies of the land, only expressed the deeply-seated desire of the nation. The Protector, therefore, made a further attempt to govern in the ancient fashion; and for that end writs were sealed and sent out in the month of July. After the corn had been garnered, while still the reaper's sickle in some parts was flashing amidst the wheat, the country was astir with elections, and citizens and yeomen were rushing to the poll. Cromwell and his supporters looked on with no little apprehension, finding so much of disaffection to the Protectorate. Cavaliers and Presbyterians could not be trusted. Anabaptists and Republicans, too, were objects of fear. When the elections were over, the following letter, which explains itself, was written to the Protector:--[126] [Sidenote: 1656, August.]