FINCH, Heneage (1657-1726)

As a young man Heneage Finch, the second son of Heneage Finch, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, by his second wife, joined his fortune to that of James Stuart, duke of York. In November 1682 he was commissioned a captain in the Coldstream Guards and, with his youth and military background, was appointed a groom of the bedchamber to the duke in 1683. He further cemented his connection with James and his court in May 1684 by marrying Anne Kingsmill, a maid of honour to Mary of Modena, and later a celebrated poet. As the king’s nominee, he won a seat for the port of Hythe in 1685 but was not particularly active in James II’s only Parliament.

While his father ultimately sided with William of Orange at the Revolution, Finch remained loyal to his master and shortly after the accession of William and Mary he resigned his military commissions, or at least he is noted as ‘wanting’ in a muster of the Coldstream Guards in the spring of 1689. CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 129. He refused to take the necessary oaths to the new monarchs and in May 1690 was apprehended trying to flee via Hythe to the exiled court in France. His case was dropped in November upon his giving recognizances for good behaviour. CSP Dom. 1690-1, p. 4; Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 38, 50, 73, 133. Thereafter he retired to a country life at Eastwell Park in Kent, at the invitation of its owner, his nephew, Charles Finch, 4th earl of Winchilsea.

On 5 Aug. 1712 Finch inherited the title and the financially embarrassed estate from his childless nephew. Although Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, hoped to enlist his support for the upcoming session of Parliament, Winchilsea still refused to take the requisite oaths of allegiance and never sat in the House of Lords. Jones, Party and Management, 159. Nor did he involve himself in politics in general. An observer of the elections in Kent in 1713 commented that the Tory victories were even more surprising as there were, by his reckoning, only two politically active Tory peers in the county, ‘for Winchilsea does not concern himself with the public’. Bodl. Ballard 15, f. 107. The Winchilsea estate, however, did come up before the House in April 1714 when the lords upheld in Winchilsea’s favour a previous chancery decree against the claims on part of the estate made by his niece, Marianne, sister of the 4th earl and his heir-at-law, and her husband Philip Herbert^‡. HMC Lords, n.s. x. 232-3; HMC Portland, v. 432-3; Northants. RO, Finch-Hatton 282; McGovern, 99.

Thomas Hearne described Winchilsea as ‘a very honest worthy Non Juror, and an excellent antiquary’. Hearne, Remarks and Collections iii. 427. From his country retreat, Winchilsea acted as a patron of the non-jurors, occasionally serving as a witness to the consecration of non-juring bishops and protecting clergy who refused to comply. McGovern, 184-6; Overton, Nonjurors, 133-4. He even tried to place ‘a very ill man, and disaffected to the government to the last degree’ in a church living under his control in Eastling in Kent. Christ Church, Oxf. Wake mss 8/24, 81. As Hearne also suggests, and knew from his own activities, Winchilsea was a keen antiquarian. Bodl. Rawl. Letters 13, ff. 73, 81; 15, ff. 71. In around 1722 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and less than two years later was nominated vice-president of the Society. These new engagements were short lived as Winchilsea died of inflammation of the bowels on 30 Sept. 1726. The title thereafter passed to his half-brother John, son of the 3rd earl of Winchilsea’s fourth wife, and the only surviving male heir of that peer.