No. 107 Heneage Finch, Earl of Nottingham
BORN 1621, DIED 1682.
Robes and badges of office.
Sir Thomas Finch, Privy Councillor to Queen Elizabeth, holding many lucrative offices under the Crown, had an only daughter, Elizabeth, by his wife, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Poyntz, of Acton Poyntz, county Gloucester. Sir Thomas left his heiress a very large fortune, and she married Sir Moyle Finch, and was the grandmother of the first Earl of Nottingham of that name. Sir Moyle died in 1614, and his widow was created Viscountess Maidstone in 1623, and in 1628 further advanced to the grade of Countess of Winchilsea. Her fourth son, Heneage, was a celebrated lawyer, Speaker of the House of Commons, and the friend of Bacon. He married the daughter of Sir Edmond Bell of Beaupré, county Suffolk, and their eldest child was the subject of this memoir.
He was born at his father’s beautiful estate of Eastwell in Kent, but passed most of his youth at Kensington, which property, it may here be observed, was purchased by William III. of Finch’s grandson, and has remained in possession of the Crown ever since.
Heneage received a good education at Westminster and Oxford, and went to Christ Church in 1645, where he was steady and studious; but the sudden death of his father, from whom he inherited a large fortune, called him away from the University before he had taken his degree. Rich as he was, it did not suit the young man’s taste to remain without a profession; and he began to study law in the Inner Temple, where he soon gained a name for fluency of speech and readiness of reply, and was called to the bar before the usual time in consideration of his proficiency.
During the Protectorate Finch contented himself with an extensive private practice, and having married Elizabeth Harvey, daughter of a London merchant, lived a happy domestic life with his ‘pretty and dearly-loved wife.’ He came of too loyal a family, and shared their opinions too truly, to be popular with the powers that then were, or to seek their favour.
His kinsman, Sir John Finch, (Speaker of the House of Commons,) had made himself so obnoxious to the Government that he had found it advisable to fly the country, while another cousin was in actual attendance on the King’s person.
At the time of the Restoration, Heneage Finch contrived to ingratiate himself with His Majesty by getting up a memorial, signed by the principal inhabitants of his county, to show forth that none of ‘the men of Kent’ had had any participation in the ‘murder of Charles the Martyr.’ At all events, it was not long after his Restoration that the King summoned him from his retreat, named him Solicitor-General, and gave him a Baronetcy. In return for these honours perhaps it might have been that Sir Heneage pursued the prosecution of the regicides with great violence, and would willingly have brought John Milton to condign punishment on account of his political tendencies.
He served in several Parliaments for Canterbury, Oxford, etc., but never gave up his profession, and as a true Templar he acquired great ‘kudos’ (in 1601) by an eloquent course of lectures, which he delivered, in his capacity of Reader, at the Temple. Surely that time-honoured pile had never witnessed such a brilliant concourse as flocked to listen to the law and learning of the future Lord Chancellor. All the dignitaries of London, in the robes of their respective callings, municipal, clerical, commercial, legal, and the last day of the course many Peers of the realm, members of the royal household, in barges of State, attended by servants in scarlet and white doublets, the King’s own Majesty, accompanied by the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, and numerous grandees. This was but the shadow of coming honours.
Sir Heneage continued in Parliament for some time, now gaining, now losing, popularity with his constituents, for voting as he thought fit on important measures.
In 1670 he became Attorney-General on the death of Sir Jeffrey Palmer, having exercised the duties of the office for some time past. His ambition, however, suffered a temporary disappointment, when, on the removal of Sir Orlando Bridgeman, he saw his rival, Lord Shaftesbury, elevated to the Woolsack in his despite.
But he had not long to wait for his enemy’s downfall. At the end of 1673 the Great Seal of England was consigned to him, and the beginning of the next year saw him Lord Keeper, with the title of Baron Finch of Daventry, in the county of Northampton, and other dignities.
In 1677 he sat as Lord High Steward of England on the trial of Philip Earl of Pembroke, and in 1680 on that of William Howard, Viscount Stafford, where his speech, in which he passed sentence on that unfortunate nobleman, (accused of plotting against the King,) was pronounced a model of eloquence, but scarcely of justice. Burnet, who found great fault with him in many ways, testifies to his probity, yet other writers insinuate that he consulted the royal wishes on many points of law, at least before he had attained to the heights of his ambition.
Be that as it may, he was very firm on all matters where the interests of the Reformed Church were concerned. In his latter days Lord Finch became so great a sufferer from gout that he was for some time incapacitated from attending his duties in public, and he did not long survive the last mark of royal favour, dying within a year after the Earldom of Nottingham had been conferred on him.
This great lawyer, who has been called ‘the Father of Equity,’ and ‘Finch the Silver Tongue,’ died at his house in Queen Street, Covent Garden, and was buried at Ravenstone, near Olney, county Bucks, where a grand monument assigns him every virtue under the sun. He had fourteen children, of whom the eldest son was the ancestor of the present Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham, and the second of the Earl of Aylesford.
Lord Nottingham was a liberal patron of literary men, and encouraged rising talent. As Bishop Warburton quaintly expresses it, (in a letter to Lady Mansfield, Nottingham’s granddaughter, and wife of the celebrated Judge,) ‘He was elegantly ambitious to give the last polish to his country by patronage of learning and science.’
In the distribution of Church preferment he was very conscientious, and often said, ‘God knows, I would not willingly appoint one unworthy.’ He was by no means of a grasping disposition, and having a good private fortune, gave up of his own accord £4000 a year, which was allowed him in his official capacity for the expenses of the table.
In ‘Absalom and Achitophel,’ Dryden contrasts him, (by the name of Amri,) in most complimentary terms, with Lord Shaftesbury.
Alluding to the English laws, the poet says he had fathomed them all:—
‘No Rabbin speaks like him, their magic spell,
So just, and with such charms of eloquence;
To whom the double blessing does belong,
With Moses’ inspiration, Aaron’s tongue.’
Worth says, that ‘the business, rather than the justice of the Court, flourished exceedingly under Finch.’ Another opinion has it that ‘he was a formalist, and took much pleasure in encouraging and listening to nice distinctions of law, instead of taking a broad view of the equity of each case.’ So do historians differ. It was said he had such fear of thieves stealing his wand of office, that he used to sleep with the mace under his pillow.