In 1670 he became Attorney-General on the death of Sir Jeffrey Palmer, having exercised the duties of the office for some time past. His ambition, however, suffered a temporary disappointment, when, on the removal of Sir Orlando Bridgeman, he saw his rival, Lord Shaftesbury, elevated to the Woolsack in his despite.
But he had not long to wait for his enemy’s downfall. At the end of 1673 the Great Seal of England was consigned to him, and the beginning of the next year saw him Lord Keeper, with the title of Baron Finch of Daventry, in the county of Northampton, and other dignities.
In 1677 he sat as Lord High Steward of England on the trial of Philip Earl of Pembroke, and in 1680 on that of William Howard, Viscount Stafford, where his speech, in which he passed sentence on that unfortunate nobleman, (accused of plotting against the King,) was pronounced a model of eloquence, but scarcely of justice. Burnet, who found great fault with him in many ways, testifies to his probity, yet other writers insinuate that he consulted the royal wishes on many points of law, at least before he had attained to the heights of his ambition.
Be that as it may, he was very firm on all matters where the interests of the Reformed Church were concerned. In his latter days Lord Finch became so great a sufferer from gout that he was for some time incapacitated from attending his duties in public, and he did not long survive the last mark of royal favour, dying within a year after the Earldom of Nottingham had been conferred on him.
This great lawyer, who has been called ‘the Father of Equity,’ and ‘Finch the Silver Tongue,’ died at his house in Queen Street, Covent Garden, and was buried at Ravenstone, near Olney, county Bucks, where a grand monument assigns him every virtue under the sun. He had fourteen children, of whom the eldest son was the ancestor of the present Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham, and the second of the Earl of Aylesford.
Lord Nottingham was a liberal patron of literary men, and encouraged rising talent. As Bishop Warburton quaintly expresses it, (in a letter to Lady Mansfield, Nottingham’s granddaughter, and wife of the celebrated Judge,) ‘He was elegantly ambitious to give the last polish to his country by patronage of learning and science.’
In the distribution of Church preferment he was very conscientious, and often said, ‘God knows, I would not willingly appoint one unworthy.’ He was by no means of a grasping disposition, and having a good private fortune, gave up of his own accord £4000 a year, which was allowed him in his official capacity for the expenses of the table.
In ‘Absalom and Achitophel,’ Dryden contrasts him, (by the name of Amri,) in most complimentary terms, with Lord Shaftesbury.
Alluding to the English laws, the poet says he had fathomed them all:—
‘No Rabbin speaks like him, their magic spell,