FINCH, John (1584-1660)

One of the most notorious figures in the Caroline regime, Finch has been the subject of a series of damning criticisms from contemporaries and historians alike. HP Commons 1604-29, iv. 271-2. Considered by many to be self-serving and an overly harsh judge, the best-known instance of the latter was his order, having observed that William Prynne^‡ still had some vestiges of his ears left, for the remaining stumps to be sliced off and for Prynne’s cheeks to be branded. Harl. Miscellany, iv. 13, 18. It was as a result in part of his role in handing down such brutal sentences that Finch was one of those particularly targeted for censure in the months leading up to the outbreak of Civil War but his involvement with ship money was perhaps more significant. After charges of impeachment were brought against him by the Commons, he fled to the Netherlands and thus avoided the fate of his colleagues, William Laud^†, archbishop of Canterbury, and Thomas Wentworth^†, earl of Strafford. In July 1641 John Evelyn noted him among those paying court to the exiled queen of Bohemia at The Hague, while the following month he was described as being a pensioner in a Brownist house in Amsterdam. Evelyn Diary, ii. 33-34, 44.

Although Finch was a cadet member of a newly ennobled Kentish family, the Finches pretended to a more illustrious heritage as descendants of the family of Herbert or Fitzherbert and claimed only to have taken upon themselves the name of Finch during the reign of Edward I in acknowledgement of their inheritance of the manor of Finches in Kent. Hasted, Kent, vii. 405-7. The 1619 visitation of Kent listed the Finch family under Herbert alias Finch and it was a (probably spurious) tradition that Finch appears to have taken seriously. Vis. Kent 1619-21, 14-15. From his exile in The Hague, he wrote to Philip Herbert^†, 4th earl of Pembroke, describing himself as ‘your poor kinsman’. W.H. Terry, Life and Times of John, Ld. Finch, 20. He was genuinely able to claim kinship with a number of senior Kentish figures on both sides of the political divide but such connections could not disguise the relative paucity of Finch’s inheritance, rendered the more uncertain by his predicament, and on 14 Mar. 1645 Lady Finch felt constrained to petition the Lords to give their consideration to her ‘distressed estate’, she being forced to subsist on a remnant of her husband’s lands, ‘the fifth part … being but £60.’ She subsequently entered into an agreement with Parliament to lease back certain estates in Kent and Middlesex, valued at £338 p.a., for an annual payment of £100. Two years later, on 14 July 1647, Finch petitioned the House for leave to return to England: ‘Old age, many late sicknesses, and the deep sense of his long and present miseries, give the petitioner certain assurances of a very short life, which above all earthly things he desires may take end in his dear and native soil’. Although his request appears to have gone unanswered, in 1649 he compounded for his delinquency, being fined £1,678 12s. 6d. CCC, 2061.

By the time of the Restoration Finch was living in retirement on his estates in Kent. The precise date of his return from exile is uncertain. Terry, John Ld. Finch, 415. He may have been in England as early as 1653, while a report of March 1655 noting that three of Finch’s horses had been confiscated at the time of the rising of that year is strongly suggestive of his having returned to his home in Canterbury by that date. Thurlow State Papers, iii. 295-310. In spite of the earlier confiscation of his horses, Finch seems not to have played any part in the plots to secure the king’s return, and in March 1660 he was sufficiently poorly remembered to have been noted, inaccurately, by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, as one of the peers whose fathers had sat.

Despite his relative seclusion, Finch greeted the king on his triumphal progress through Kent in May, noting the dates of the king’s proclamation and landing in his commonplace book. Wellcome Lib. ms 2362, pp. 26-27. On 9 June he took his seat in the Convention, after which he was present on 56 per cent of all sitting days prior to the September adjournment. In spite of his age and clearly failing health, as one of the few peers in the chamber with both judicial and ministerial experience from before the Civil War, Finch was soon active in managing committees and conferences. Named to some 33 committees in the course of the session, on 2 July he was added to the committee for petitions as well as being named to that considering the petition of Thomas Wentworth, earl of Cleveland. On 10 July he reported from the committee for petitions the case of Portington v. Dawson and Thomson, and on 21 July from the committee for the poll money bill, which was passed with a number of additions and alterations recommended by the committee. Finch reported from the committee considering Cleveland’s petition on 30 July and on 11 Aug. from that considering the bill for judicial proceedings. Three days later he was named to the committee established to prepare heads for a conference concerning the poll money bill. He reported the committee’s findings the same day and was then named one of the managers of the resulting conference. The proceedings were opened by Warwick Mohun, 2nd Baron Mohun, after which Finch spoke, followed by John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor) and Wharton. CJ, viii. 120-2. Finch reported the result of the conference to the House on 16 August. On that day he was also prominent as one of the principal managers of the conference for the indemnity bill. One of a number of peers who were determined to secure a more severe settlement, he was noted as having ‘made a most excellent speech’ in outlining the reasons for the Lords’ proposed alterations to the bill. HMC Hastings, ii. 141; HEHL, HA 7645. Comparing the king with ‘Joseph in Egypt, lying long in fetters’ and David being ‘hunted as a partridge in the wilderness’, he reminded the Commons that ‘the afflictions that befell this good king were the effects of the counsels of these men that are now in question.’ No doubt eager to forestall any suggestion that he was motivated by his own experiences, he concluded by declaring that, ‘his majesty’s honour was concerned in the infamy which the shedding of that royal blood brought upon this nation, in the eyes of foreign nations; and that this is the only opportunity to take it off.’ CJ, viii. 125-7.

Over the ensuing month Finch continued to be active in the House. He reported from the committee for the bill for George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, on 17 Aug. and three days later he was again nominated a reporter of a second conference to consider the indemnity bill. Later that month he presided at the committee for petitions and on 29 Aug. reported from the committee for Cleveland’s bill. PA, HL/PO/CO/7/3. On 3 Sept. he was added to the committee for the bill for draining the fens in Lincolnshire. On 6 Sept. he reported from the committee for the bill for Sir George Booth, later Baron Delamer, and two days later from the committees for the Colchester baize-making bill and the bill for disbanding the army. He was then nominated a reporter of a conference to consider the latter business.

Finch sat for the last time on 10 September. There was clearly no expectation of this being his last attendance in the House as two days later he received the proxy of his cousin, Heneage Finch, 3rd earl of Winchilsea. The proxy was vacated by Winchilsea’s resumption of his seat the following day. On 13 Sept. Finch noted in his commonplace book the death of Prince Henry, duke of Gloucester, with whom he had participated in the conference on the indemnity bill; Winchilsea had counted the prince as ‘one of my chiefest patrons.’ Wellcome Lib. ms 2362, p. 34; HMC Finch, i. 110.

In October 1660 Finch was nominated one of the commissioners for judging the regicides, attending at least three days of the proceedings. During the trial of Thomas Harrison^‡ on 11 Oct., Finch gave vent to his frustration at Harrison’s demeanour. He lectured the prisoner, ‘though my lords here have been pleased to give you a great latitude: this must not be suffered; that you should run into these damnable excursions; to make God the author of this damnable treason committed.’ He appeared better disposed towards Thomas Scot^‡, whom he hoped ‘would contradict that which he has said before; that is, that he hopes he should not repent, I hope he does desire to repent’. An Exact and Most Impartial Accompt of the Indictment, Arraignment, Trial, and Judgment … of Nine and Twenty Regicides (1660), 50, 91. On the final day of the hearings, he also attempted to interpose with his kinsman, Sir Hardress Waller, attempting to convince him to submit to some form of public penance for his role in the execution of the king:

I have heard of late of your sorrow, which I was glad to hear of, because you are my kinsman, both by your fathers and mothers side, and also my countryman; I was glad to hear of your great penitence for that horrid crime, and I would have been glad to have seen it now; advise with your self, whether you do yourself any good in speaking to extenuate, when you know there is no man against whom there are such circumstances of aggravation as against you; consider whether a public penitence would not be more proper. An Exact and Most Impartial Accompt, 273.

Harrison and Scot were both executed, while Waller’s death sentence was commuted following the intercession of other members of the family.

Finch died towards the close of the following month and was buried in Canterbury. A memorial was erected to him in St Martin’s church. In his will, which was drawn up earlier that year, Finch bequeathed £500 to his niece and committed her upbringing to his wife, who was named sole executrix. The majority of his estates, including the manor of Chilham, were left to his wife for her life after which they descended to the senior branch of the family. C.F. Routledge, Hist. of St Martin’s Church, Canterbury, 163; Hasted, Kent, vii. 281; ix. 63; xi. 162, 284; HMC Finch, i. 184. In the absence of an heir the title was extinguished.