FINCH, Thomas (1578-1639)

Seated at Eastwell in central Kent, the Finch family owed its wealth to a thirteenth century wine merchant from Winchelsea, in Sussex. Finch’s father, Sir Moyle Finch^‡, was reputedly worth £6,000 p.a., making him one of the richest commoners in England. In 1623 Sir Moyle’s widow, Elizabeth, obtained for herself a title of nobility, that of Viscountess Maidstone, by conveying property in Essex worth £13,000 to the king’s cousin, Ludovic Stuart^*, duke of Richmond and 2nd duke of Lennox [S]. She thereby became only the second woman to be made a peer in her own right since Henry VIII’s consort Anne Boleyn was created marchioness of Pembroke in 1532. In July 1628 Elizabeth paid a further £5,000 to upgrade her title to that of countess of Winchilsea.14 L. Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 110-11, 116n. At that time Sir Thomas Finch, 3rd bt., the subject of this biography, was senior knight of the shire for Kent. He thereupon became Viscount Maidstone by courtesy.

Finch was in his mid fifties when he inherited the earldom of Winchilsea from his mother in March 1634. Initially at least he may have hoped that his elevation would open the door to a career at court, for in November 1634 he accompanied the newly arrived Venetian ambassador, Angelo Correr, to his first audience with the king.15 CSP Ven. 1632-6, p. 298; Ceremonies of Chas. I ed. A.J. Loomie, 70. If so, this aspiration remained unfulfilled. One reason for this, perhaps, was that by the time he entered into his inheritance he was deeply in debt, despite the efforts of his late mother to clear his accounts.16 Berks. RO, D/EN/F40/1. In the summer of 1635 he was obliged to continue where his mother had left off and divest his family of his family’s remaining Essex properties, selling for £21,500 the manor and advowson of Epping to William Grey^*, 1st Lord Grey of Warke.17 C54/3039/17. Grey had been appointed a trustee of part of Winchilsea’s estate by the earl’s late mother, and his London residence was close to Winchilsea’s townhouse.18 PROB 11/165, f. 180.

At around the same time as he sold off his Essex estates, Winchilsea, along with John Tufton^†, 2nd earl of Thanet and other leading Kentish landowners, became embroiled in a dispute with the east Sussex corporation of Rye over the drainage of nearby marshland which, the corporation claimed, was one of the principal reasons for the silting up of their harbour.19 PC2/44, f. 323v; CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 397 (misfiled). In the following year Winchilsea was at the centre of another quarrel, this time involving the beneficed clergy of Romney Marsh, who accused him and other landowners of trying force them to accept 2d. per acre in lieu of tithes in kind, to their ‘great wrong and prejudice’. Following the intervention of the Privy Council, Winchilsea and his fellow landowners were obliged to pay the clergymen a much higher rate.20 CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 195; PC 2/45, f. 187r-v; 2/46, f. 103v; P. Clark, English Provincial Soc. 369.

Despite having sold off his Essex lands, Winchilsea remained in deep financial difficulties. Between 1636 and 1639 he raised a further £1,531 by parting with a number of properties in Yorkshire,21 C54/3082/31; 54/3118/32; 54/3216/27. and in June 1636 he sold for £6,750 the manor and advowson of Fordwich, in eastern Kent, to his cousin Sir John Finch^† (later Lord Finch of Fordwich).22 W.R. Prest, Rise of the Barristers, 361. At around the same time he set about improving and consolidating his main Kent properties, obtaining a licence from the king to enclose 600 acres in the parishes of Eastwell and Challock and purchasing the nearby manors of Wye and Aldons.23 Northants. RO, FH2229; C54/3210/33; 54/3113/6; Hasted, Kent, vii. 352-3. However, he could ill afford the outlay, having racked up enormous debts which, at the time of his death, amounted to £28,000. By the spring of 1638 matters were evidently desperate. In April he was licensed to alienate to Edmund Hasselwood and Abel Carey his principal manor of Eastwell, the adjacent manors of Seaton and Boughton Aluph, the mansion house at Aldons (known as Perrycourt) and his London townhouse.24 SO3/11, unfol.; Coventry Docquets, 722. The following month he borrowed £5,000 from the London-based merchant Peter Ricaut on the security of a manor in Romney Marsh,25 PA, HL/PO/PB/1/1640/16C1n26. but he was apparently so fearful that he would not be able to repay this sum and the interest payable on it (which over three years would amount to £1,225) that in June he obtained the king’s permission to travel abroad for three years.26 SO3/11, unfol. At around the same time, he mortgaged his three Sussex manors of Icklesham, Netherfield and Ittington to Hasselwood and Carey.27 Suss. Manors ed. E.H.W. Dunkin (Suss. Rec. Soc. xix), 237-8.

Winchilsea died in early November 1639, before matters reached a head and having never sat in Parliament. In his will, drafted a few weeks earlier, he asked to be buried at Eastwell and for his funeral to be held ‘as privately as conveniently may be’. To his widow he left his goods in his house at Charterhouse Yard, London, but his library, his swords and armour and ‘all my antiquities’ were to be preserved intact ‘for the use and benefit of my eldest son’. These ‘antiquities’ included 2,500 silver and copper coins and a further 237 gold coins and medals. Among the witnesses to the will was Herbert Palmer, the puritan lecturer of St Alphege, Canterbury. Responsibility for carrying out his last wishes was divided between his widow and five friends and relatives, including his nephew Sir Roger Twysden^‡, who shared his antiquarian interests, and his son-in-law Sir William Waller^‡, the future parliamentarian general.28 PROB 11/184, ff. 148v-50; Stone, 717-18. Anne Finch, Waller’s wife, has been described by one modern commentator as an ‘aggressively puritan young woman’.29 Oxford DNB, lvi. 986. Her character, taken alongside her father’s association with Herbert Palmer, perhaps provides a clue as to the nature of Winchilsea’s own religious beliefs.

Following Winchilsea’s death his widow, assisted by Algernon Percy^*, 4th earl of Northumberland, Francis Finch of Ravenstone in Buckinghamshire and Sir William Waller, bought for £6,000 the wardship of her eldest son Heneage^†, now 3rd earl of Winchilsea and still a minor. She also agreed to pay the king an annual rent of £449 10s. for the right to lease his lands.30 WARD 9/163, f. 98; 9/128, ff. 42v-5. This outlay was more than the already heavily indebted estate could bear, and in November 1640 she and the other guardians of her son’s estate laid a bill before Parliament to enable them to sell some of the family’s entailed lands. This measure was given a smooth passage through both Houses and passed into law the following year.31 LJ, iv. 91a, 96a, 98a, 106a, 106b; CJ, ii. 89b, 94a, 113a, 117a; PA, HL/PO/PB/1/1640/16C1n26. Soon after the outbreak of civil war, the late earl’s collections of arms and armour attracted the attention of Parliament, which gave orders for its seizure in November 1642.32 CJ, ii. 833a, 833b.