sing of his wealth could not be well done in justice, might be answered to the full in this, that his patrimony considered, and the gainfulness of the places he passed through, together with the great fortunes of his own and his son's intermarriages, all concurring and falling into a frugal family,-might soon wipe away all imputations of the most malignant, and persuade even detraction itself to suffer him to rest in peace, and, as we may charitably believe, in glory, as his posterity surviving remains in his house and fortunes."* He was buried in the church of Crome d'Abitot, where a suitable monument, recording his age, family, and offices, was erected to his memory. He was twice married; first, to Sarah, daughter of Edward Sebright, Esq., of Besford, in the county of Worcester, by whom he had a daughter and a son, who succeeded to his title and estates; and, 2dly, to Elizabeth, daughter of John Aldersey, Esq., Spenstow, in the county of Chester, by whem he had several sons and daughters. His grandson, Thomas, [APRIL 26, 1697.] the fifth Baron, his last male descendant was advanced in the peerage by King William to be Earl of Coventry and Viscount Deerhurst, with a special limitation on failure of his own issue to that of Walter, the third son of the Judge, and brother of the Lord Keeper. This remainder came into operation in the year 1719, by the death of the fourth Earl without issue, and under it the honours of the family are now enjoyed,† CHAPTER LXIII. LIFE OF LORD KEEPER FINCH, FROM HIS BIRTH TILL THE MEETING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. We now come to one of the worst characters in English history. It is rather fortunate for his memory that he has not had his full share of notoriety with posterity. He was universally execrated in his own times, and ought now to be placed in the same category with Jeffreys and Scroggs. He raised himself to eminence in bad times by assisting to upset law and liberty, and when on the bench he prostituted, in the most shameless manner, his judicial duties for his private ends. It is some consolation to think that, if he did not meet the fate he deserved, he did not escape unpunished. Although, previous to the death of Lord Keeper Coventry, it had been resolved to submit to the necessity of once more calling a parliament, the King and [JAN. 13, 1640.] * Sloane MS. Brit. Mus. VOL. II. 38 † Grandeur of the Law, p. 49. his advisers were by no means fully aware of the state of the public mind, or of the difficulties which surrounded them. Instead of making concessions, and trying to gain ever opponents, they were resolved still to stretch the prerogative, and if they could not obtain a supply of money by dictating to the House of Commons, to throw aside all profession of respect for the constitution, and to govern by open force. The most violent and unscrupulous supporter of arbitrary power that could be found in the profession of the law was therefore to be chosen as Lord Keeper, and there was no hesitation in fixing on Sir John Finch, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, although he was, in reality, a man exceedingly obnoxious to the people upon the business of ship-money, and not of reputation and authority enough to advance the King's service."* He disgraced a family of considerable antiquity, which, in the seventeenth century, rose to great distinction by producing several very eminent lawyers. They were said to be descended from Sir Henry Fitzherbert, Chamberlain to King Henry I., and in the time of Edward I. to have assumed their present surname from the acquisition of the manor of Finch's, in Kent. Their possessions were enlarged by the marriage of Sir Thomas Finch with the heiress of Sir Thomas Moyle, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations in the reign of Henry VIII. The eldest son of this marriage was Sir Moyle Finch, the ancestor of the Earls of Winchelsea and Nottingham. The second son, Sir Henry Finch, from whom sprang the subject of this memoir, was twice representative in parliament for the city of Canterbury in the reign of Elizabeth, and the first great lawyer of the family. He was autumn reader of Gray's Inn in 1603, took the coif in 1614, and was made King's Serjeant in 1616. He wrote the treatise called "Finch's Law," which, till the publication of Blackstone's Commentaries, was the chief elementary text book for law students. From his preface, he seems to have had himself a very high opinion of his own performance, and to have thought it of infinitely greater importance than the NOVUM ORGANUM: "Inter innumeros tam augustæ disciplinæ alumnos, surrexit adhuc nemo, qui in eo elaboravit ut rerum præstantiam methodi præstantia consequatur. Aut ego vehementer fallor, aut superavi rei vix credendæ difficultatem maxiniam; syrtesque et scopulos, Scyllam et Charybdin præternavigavi.” John, his son, whom we have now to take in hand, was born on the 17th of September, 1584, and was of a very different character, being, from his early years, noted for idleness, though he showed a talent for turning the industry of other boys to his own advantage He was entered of Gray's Inn, and there professed to study the law, but instead of reading his father's black-letter treatise, or at *Clarendon. tending "moots and readings," he spent his time in dicing and roistering. When called to the bar, he had little acquired learning of any sort,-no clients, and many debts. He saw that he had no chance to get forward in the regular routine of his profession, and that he was in considerable danger of being sent to prison by his creditors; but his parts were lively, his manners were agreeable, he had powerful friends at Court, and he determined to make his fortune by politics. He avoided the degree of the coif, as he knew he could make no figure in the Court of Common Pleas, among the drowsy, long-winded Serjeants, but he contrived to be employed occasionally, in libel cases, in the Star Chamber. What he looked forward to with most eagerness was the meeting of parliament; a chance which an aspiring lawyer, in those days, might for years expect in vain. Having led a free life in a restrained fortune, and having set up upon the stock of a good wit and natural parts, without the superstructure of much knowledge in the profession by which he was to grow, he was willing to use those weapons in which he had most skill."* He was disappointed in not being returned to Charles's first parliament, but he took his seat as a burgess in that which met in February, 1626. [A. D. 1626.] He was one of the lawyers then accused of "taking retainers on both sides," and "of waiting to see which way the cat jumped." The popular party had been gaining strength every new parliament since the middle of the reign of Elizabeth, and now had a complete ascendancy in the House of Commons, but they had no preferment to bestow and John Finch would have been much better pleased with the appointment of Attorney to the Court of Wards than with the reputation of a flaming patriot. An expectation prevailed, which was not disappointed, that some of the most formidable leaders who gave least open offence to the Court, would be offered employment. Under the pretence of great moderation, the new member contrived to get himself appointed Chairman of the Committee, to whom was referred the very important question, "whether Sir Edward Coke, late Chief Justice of the King's Bench, having been appointed, against his will, sheriff of Buckinghamshire before the general election, was disqualified to sit in the House of Commons for another county?" The Committee very much deferred to Finch as a gentleman of the long robe, who, among lay gents, could talk very glibly of law, and left it him to draw up the report, "wherein many cases were cited, pro et contra, as to the nature of a High Sheriff for one county being elected knight of the shire for another; on all which cases, he said, the Committee would give no opinion, but desired that a search might be made amongst the records for more precedents of the like nature."† dissolution took place before the point was decided. In the mean * Clarendon. † 2 Parl. Hist. 46' A time Coke was not allowed to sit, and the Court was relieved from his invectives, which proved so formidable in the next parliament, when the "Petition of Right" was passed; but Finch, to show his impartiality, the day before the dissolution, moved a resolution, which was carried, "that Sir Edward Coke, standing de facto returned a member of that House, should have privilege against a suit in Chancery commenced against him by the Lady Clare." It must have required considerable ingenuity to mystify so clear a point as that though a Sheriff could not return himself as member for his own county, the Crown could not, at pleasure, disqualify him for being returned for another county, or for a borough, over which he had no official control; but Finch had the good luck, from his conduct of this case, to establish the reputation of a constitutional lawyer, and to be courted, if not confided in, by both parties. In consequence of this, at the meeting of Charles's third parliament in March, 1628, he was actually elected [A. D. 1628.] Speaker of the House of Commons. He had now his foot in the stirrup, and he resolved to push forward, appalled by no obstacle. Though elected by the voice of the popular party, he instantaneously deserted them and made himself the mere tool of the Court. His conduct as Speaker might have been anticipated from the slavish and fulsome language he held as soon as his formal disqualifying of himself had been overruled, and his appointment had been confirmed by the King: "It is now no longer good time nor good manners to dispute with my Lord the King; but with all joy and alacrity of heart, humbly and thankfully to meet so great a favour from the best of masters and the best of men. Therefore, first, I lift up my heart to him that sits on the throne of Heaven, per quem Principes imperant et potentes devernuns justitiam, humbly begging at his hands that made the tongue to give me speech, and that framed the heart of man to give me understanding; for I am but as clay in the hands of the potter, and he will mould me for honour or dishonour as best seems good unto him. Next I bow my knees unto your most excellent Majesty, in all humble and hearty acknowledgment of this and many other your great and gracious favours. The truth of my own heart, full of zeal and duty to your Majesty and the public as any man's, quits me from all fear of running into wilful and pregnant errors; and your Majesty's great goodness, of which I have been so large a partaker, gives me strong assurance that having been by your gracious beams drawn up from earth and obscurity, you will so uphold me by a benign and gracious interpretation of all my words and actions, that I fall not down again like a crude and imperfect vapour, but consume the remainder of my days in zeal for your Majesty's service. This great and glorious assembly, made perfect by your royal presence, like a curious perspective, the more I behold it with the more joy and comfort I find a lively representation of that true happiness which, under your Majesty' gracious government, we all at this time enjoy. A better tongue were fitter to express it, but a rich stone retains its value though ill set. Here, in the fulness and height of your glory, like the sun in the exaltation of his orb, sits your Majesty, the sovereign monarch of this famous isle, in a throne made glorious by a long succession of many and great princes. A meditation worthy of our better thoughts that we live neither enthralled to the fury and rage of the giddy multitude nor yet to the distracted wills of many masters; but under the command of a King the stay and strength of a people; one, as Homer saith well of kings,- Πολλῶν ἀντάιος ἄλλων, not to be laid in common balance with other men; for kings know no other, tenure but God's service, and the value is only tried at his beam." He proceeds to inculcate conformity to the established church, perverting a text of scripture in a manner I believe quite original: Coge ingredi, ut impleatur domus mea, was his command that made the great feast, and is the duty of magistrates." Having dwelt long on the perfection of our church discipline as then regulated by the meekness of Laud, he comes to the state, and tells the King, that, sitting on his throne on his right hand he had the reverend, religious, and learned prelates, lights fit to be set in golden candlesticks, and not made contemptible by parity or poverty; on his left the nobles, full of courage and magnanimity, and before him the grave judges and sages of the law, like the twelve lions under Solomon's throne, and learning justice by his great example. Then after a very extended and tiresome view of foreign politics, he exhorts all classes to unanimity under so good a Sovereign, who when he does not at once yield to any request from the two Houses, only says, "Le Roy s'avisera." He next expresses a wish that the saying penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos may not be made good by internal divisions among ourselves, and concludes with an exhortation to the King himself to be firm and resolute against all his enemies: "He that sits on high will in his good time laugh them to scorn; and as that wise woman said to King David, God will make to my Lord the King a sure house, if my Lord the King will fight the battles of Jehovah, and let all England say, AMEN. "* The Commons saw, when it was too late, the fatal error they had committed in choosing such a Speaker. While they were vindicating their privileges and asserting the liberties of the nation, he did every thing in his power to embarrass them, and to frustrate their efforts. Although, in consequence of a message from the King to hasten the supply, they had agreed upon an ad *2 Parl. Hist. 222. |