Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/22

Finch much employed in Star-chamber and high commission cases (Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star-chamber and High Commission, Camd. Soc.) In the autumn of 1633, the Inns of Court having decided to provide a grand masque for the entertainment of the king and queen, by way at once of testifying their loyalty and protesting against the austere views lately published by Prynne in his 'Histrio-Mastix,' Finch was elected one of the committee of management. The performance, which took place on Candlemas day (2 Feb. 1633-4), is described at some length by Whitelocke, and seems to have been a very splendid pageant. The masquers went in procession from Ely House, Holborn, by way of Chancery Lane and the Strand to Whitehall. The dancing took place in the palace, the queen herself dancing with some of the masquers. The revels were prolonged far into the night, and terminated with a stately banquet. Finch was subsequently deputed to convey the thanks of the members of the four inns to the king and queen for their gracious reception of the masquers. The entertainment was afterwards repeated by royal command in the Merchant Taylors' Hall (, Memoirs, pp. 19, 22). About the same time Finch was busily engaged in the proceedings taken against Prynne in the Star-chamber. His speech, in which he charges Prynne with veiling under the name of Herodias a libel on the queen, is reported in 'Documents relating to William Prynne' (Camd. Soc. pp. 10, 11). Attorney-general Noy dying in the following August was succeeded by Sir John Banks, and Sir Robert Heath having been removed from the chief-justiceship of the court of common pleas on 14 Sept., Finch was appointed to succeed him on 16 Oct., having taken the degree of serjeant-at-law on 9 Oct. Notes of his speeches on being sworn in as serjeant, taking leave of Gray's Inn on 12 Oct., and being sworn in as chief justice, are preserved in Sloane MS. 1455, ff. 7-15. These changes inspired some legal wit with the following couplet :


 * The Heath is cropt, the Finch sings there.

(, Chron. Ser. 106-7;, Rep. Car. p. 375 ; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1634-5, p. 221). On the bench Finch distinguished himself by the height to which he carried the royal prerogative, and the severity of his sentences. Thus a certain James Maxwell and his wife Alice having been found guilty in the Star-chamber (17 April 1635) of libelling the king and the lord keeper, and Lord Cottington proposing a fine of 3,000l. for the offence against the king and the same sum to the lord keeper, the lord chief baron moved to add in the case of the woman a whipping, in which he was supported by Finch. The motion, however, was lost. In another Star-chamber case (27 Jan. 1636-7) one Elmstone having been sentenced to imprisonment and also to stand in the pillory at Westminster, Finch moved to add that he lose his ears. The motion was lost. On Prynne's second trial (1637) Finch surpassed himself in brutality. He drew the attention of the court to the fact that some remnants of Prynne's ears still remained, and moved that they be cut close, and that he be stigmatised with the letters S. L. (seditious libeller) on his cheeks, which proposals were adopted into the sentence. In the case of John Langton (1638), one of the subordinate officials of the exchequer, charged with abuse of the royal prerogative, Finch doubled the fine of 1,000l. proposed by Lord Cottington, and added the pillory, imprisonment, and disability to hold office, in which the rest of the court concurred, Archbishop Laud, however, being for raising the fine to 5,000/lFinch also added a whipping to the sentence of fine, pillory, and mutilation proposed by Lord Cottington for one Pickering, a Roman catholic, found guilty in 1638 of libelling the king and queen by calling them Romanists, and sacrilegiously converting part of a churchyard into a pigsty (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1635 p. 31, 1636-7 p. 398, 1637 p. 214, 1637-8 pp. 384, 474 ;, State Trials, iii. 717, 725). On 12 Feb. 1636-7 the king laid before the judges a case for their opinion on the legality of ship-money. The opinion which they all subscribed, but for which, according to Clarendon, Finch was mainly responsible, was to the effect that the king had an uncontrolled discretion in the matter. To this opinion Finch and the majority of his colleagues adhered on the occasion of the trial of Hampden in the exchequer chamber. He delivered a long and somewhat 'rambling judgment, concluding with the statement that 'upon common law and the fundamental policy of the kingdom the king may charge his subjects for the defence of the kingdom when it is in danger,' and 'that the king is sole judge of the danger, and ought to direct the means of defence', State Trials, iii. 843, 1243). Of this judgment Clarendon says that it made ship-money 'more abhorred and formidable than all the commitments by the council table, and all the distresses taken by the sheriffs in England ; the major part of men looking upon these proceedings with a kind of applause to themselves, to see other men punished for not doing as they had done ; which delight