Heneage, first Earl of Nottingham, and Lord High Chancellor of England, was the son of Sir Heneage Finch, recorder of London, and born in December 1621. He received his education at Westminster school, and at Christ Church College, Oxford, of which he was a gentleman commoner; and he studied law in the Inner Temple, where, by his talents and diligence, he became remarkable for great legal acquirements. On the restoration of Charles II. he was made solicitor-general, and created a baronet. He was also appointed reader of the Inner Temple, and chose as his subject the statute of the 39th Elizabeth, concerning the payment and recovery of debts of the crown, which he treated with great force of reason and depth of legal erudition. As solicitor-general, he took an active part in the trials of the regicides; and, in 1661, he was chosen member of parliament for the university of Oxford, by the recommendation of Lord Clarendon; but, according to the author of Athene Oxonienses, he did his constituents no good, when they wanted his assistance for taking off the tax upon hearths. In 1665, after the prorogation of the parliament which then sat at Oxford, he was created doctor of civil law in full convocation; but after the ceremony had terminated, the public orator, being called upon to do his duty, stood up, and, in allusion to the tax above mentioned, observed, "that the university wished they had more colleges to entertain the parliament men, and more chambers, but by no means more chimneys;" an expression of academical opinion which, however undignified in itself, startled the new-made doctor of laws, who changed colour, and seemed by no means to relish the quaint remark of the orator. In 1667, when Lord Clarendon was impeached for certain alleged high crimes and misdemeanours, Sir Heneage, mindful of his old friend, stoutly defended him against the charges preferred by his enemies. In 1670 he was appointed attorney-general, and, some years afterwards, lord keeper. He was then raised to the peerage by the style and title of Baron Finch of Daventry, in the county of Northampton; and, in 1675, appointed lord high chancellor of England. He officiated as high steward at the trial of Lord Stafford, who, in the madness of that time, was found guilty of high treason by his peers, on a charge of being concerned in the Popish plot. In 1681 he was created Earl of Nottingham, and died, the following year, at his house in Queen Street, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, from the exhaustion produced by long-continued exertion. Lord Nottingham was distinguished for both sagacity and eloquence; and though he lived in times when it was difficult to pursue a steady and consistent course, he conducted himself in such a manner as to retain the favour of the court without forfeiting the approbation of the people. "He was a person," says Mr Justice Blackstone, "of the greatest abilities, and most incorrupted integrity; a thorough master and zealous defender of the laws and constitution of his country; and ended with a pervading genius that enabled him to discover and pursue the true spirit of justice, notwithstanding the embarrassments raised by the narrow and technical notions which then prevailed in the courts of law, and the imperfect ideas of redress which had possessed the courts of equity. The reason and necessities of mankind arising from the great change in property, by the extension of trade, and the abolition of military tenures, co-operated in establishing his plan, and enabled him, in the course of nine years, to build a system of jurisprudence and jurisdiction upon wide and rational foundations, which have also been extended and improved by many great men who have since presided in Chancery; and from that time to this, the power and business of the court have increased to an amazing degree."

In the name of the Earl of Nottingham have been published, 1. Several Speeches and Discourses on the trials of the Regicides; 2. Speeches delivered in both Houses of Parliament; 3. Speech at the Sentence of William Viscount Stafford, 7th December 1680; 4. Answers to his Majesty's command upon several Addresses presented to his Majesty at Hampton Court, 19th May 1681; 5. The Arguments upon which he made the Decree in the cause between the Honourable Charles Howard, plaintiff, Henry Duke of Norfolk, Henry Lord Mowbray his son, Henry Marquis of Dorchester, and Richard Marriot, Esq. defendants, folio; 6. An Argument on the claim of the Crown to pardon on Impeachment, folio. He also left in manuscript, Chancery Reports, and notes on Coke's Institute. (a.)