Arms of Vane: Azure, three sinister gauntlets (appaumée) or[1] These are a difference of the arms of the Fane family, Earls of Westmorland from 1624, which show: three dexter gauntlets back affrontée, with identical tinctures
Henry Vane, 1st Earl of Darlington, PC (c. 1705 – 6 March 1758), known as Lord Barnard between 1753 and 1754, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1726 to 1753 when he succeeded to a peerage as Baron Barnard.
Vane contested County Durham as a Whig on his family's interest at the 1722 British general election, but was unsuccessful. He was brought in by the ministry as Member of Parliament for Launceston at a by-election on 31 May 1726. At the 1727 British general election he planned to stand for county Durham, but stood down to avoid splitting the Whig vote, and the ministry found him another seat at St Mawes where he was returned as MP unopposed. He went into opposition, and attached himself to his wife's first cousin William Pulteney. He never spoke in the House, which was said to be because of 'a monstrous tongue which lolled out of his mouth'. He was returned again in a contest for St Mawes at the 1734 British general election, on the Boscawen interest, and, at the 1741 British general election, was returned unopposed as MP for Ripon on the Aislabie interest.
After Walpole's fall in 1742, Pulteney procured for Vane a lucrative sinecure as Vice-Treasurer and Paymaster General of Ireland and he also became a Privy Counsellor (Ireland) in 1742. Vane lost his Irish post when Pulteney and his adherents were turned out in December 1744. He was finally returned for county Durham at the 1747 British general election as a government supporter. He became a follower of his kinsman, the Duke of Newcastle, cultivating him so assiduously that in 1749 he was appointed a Lord of the Treasury which he retained to 1755. On 27 April 1753 he succeeded to the peerage as 3rd Baron Barnard on the death of his father and became Lord Lieutenant of Durham from 1753 to 1758. He was rewarded by Newcastle with an earldom, as 1st Earl of Darlington and 1st Viscount Barnard on 3 April 1754 and held the post of Joint Paymaster of the Forces between 1755 and 1756.[2]
Death and legacy
Vane died on 6 March 1758. He was succeeded in his titles by his son Henry.[2] With his wife Grace, he had seven children:
Hon. Raby Vane (2 January 1736 – 23 October 1769)[4]
Lady Harriet Vane (27 January 1739 – January 1759)[4][6]
References
^Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p.115, which omits appaumée, useful in differentiating from Fane arms; concerning appaumée Cussans (1898) states: "In blazoning a Hand, besides stating what position it occupies, and whether it be the dexter or sinister, and erased or couped, it must be mentioned whether it be clenched or appaumé". (Cussans, John, Handbook of Heraldry, 2nd Edition, London, 1868, p.47 [1], p.92)
^Matthew Kilburn, 'Vane, Anne (d. 1736)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008 accessed 19 Feb 2017
