In the Hearth Tax Roll for 1675 the house is shown as empty, and in the ratebook for 1683 the name of the occupier is given as: “Sir Fr. North, Knt., Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England.” It is known (see below) that the offices of the Great Seal were situated in this street in 1677, and there can be no doubt that this was the house.
It would appear, therefore, that the premises were taken for the purpose of the offices of the Great Seal some time in the period 1675–77, and consequently during the time that the seal was in the custody of Finch.
Heneage Finch, first Earl of Nottingham, was born in 1621, the eldest son of Sir Heneage Finch, recorder of London and speaker in Charles I.’s first parliament. On leaving Christ Church he joined the Inner Temple, where he acquired a great reputation and an extensive practice. On the Restoration he became solicitor-general and was created a baronet. As the official representative of the court in the House of Commons, he seems to have given every satisfaction to the king, despite the fact that on at least one important point (the toleration of dissent) he opposed the royal desire. He was indeed in such favour that the king, with all the great officers of state, attended a banquet in his house at the Inner Temple in 1661. In 1670, he became attorney-general and counsellor to the queen. On the dismissal of Shaftesbury in 1673, he was made Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Finch of Daventry, and a year afterwards was appointed Lord Chancellor. During his term of office the well-known burglary took place at the house in Great Queen Street. Under date of 7th February, 1676–7, Anthony Wood writes: “About one or two in the morning the Lord Chancellor his mace was stolen out of his house in Queen Street. The seal lay under his pillow, so the thief missed it. The famous thief that did it was Thomas Sadler, soon after taken and hanged for it at Tyburn.”[[399]]
Finch.
As Lord Chancellor, Finch had the unpleasant task of explaining to the House of Commons how the royal pardon given to Danby in bar of the impeachment bore the great seal. He was created Earl of Nottingham in 1681 and died in December, 1682. “The fact that throughout an unceasing official career of more than twenty years, in a time of passion and intrigue, Finch was never once the subject of parliamentary attack, nor ever lost the royal confidence, is a remarkable testimony both to his probity and discretion.”[[400]] He was the Amri of Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel.
North.
Francis North, first Baron Guilford, was the third son of Dudley, fourth Baron North, and was born in 1637. He entered the Middle Temple in 1655, and at once gave himself up to hard study. He was called to the Bar in 1661, and seems very early to have acquired practice. His first great case occurred in 1668, when he was called upon, in the attorney-general’s absence, to argue in the House of Lords for the King v. Holles and others. He at once sprang into favour and became king’s counsel. In 1671 he was made solicitor-general and received the honour of knighthood. In 1673, he succeeded Finch as attorney-general, and in 1675 was appointed chief justice of the common pleas. On the death of the Earl of Nottingham in 1682 he succeeded him as Lord Keeper, and from that day, his brother Roger says, “he never (as poor folks say), joyed after it, and he hath often vowed to me that he had not known a peaceful minute since he touched that cursed seal.”[[401]] In 1683 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Guilford. From this time his health began more and more to fail, and though he continued diligently to perform his duties, he was compelled in the summer of 1685 to retire to his seat at Wroxton, Oxfordshire, taking the seal with him and attended by the officers of the court. Here he died on 5th September, 1685, and the next day his brothers, accompanied by the officials, took the seal to Windsor, and delivered it up to the king, who at once entrusted it to Jeffreys.
George Jeffreys, first Baron Jeffreys of Wem, was born in 1648 at Acton in Denbighshire. He was ambitious to be a great lawyer, and after overcoming with difficulty his father’s objections, he was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1663. He was called to the Bar in 1668, and by his wit and convivial habits making friends of the attorneys practising at the Old Bailey and Hicks’s Hall, he soon gained a good practice. He was appointed common serjeant of the City of London in 1671. He now began to plead in Westminster Hall, and by somewhat doubtful means he obtained an introduction to the court. In 1677 he was made solicitor-general to the Duke of York, and was knighted, and in 1678 became Recorder of the City. Both as counsel and recorder he took a prominent part in the prosecutions arising from the Popish Plot, and as a reward for his services in this direction, and for initiating the movement of the “abhorrers” against the “petitioners,” who were voicing the popular demand for the summoning of parliament, he was appointed chief justice of Chester.