Thomas Finch

Who is Thomas Finch?

Sir Thomas Finch, was an English military commander.

Finch was the second son of Sir William Finch, who was knighted for his services at the siege of Therouanne in 1513, and attended Henry VIII with a great retinue in 1520. His mother, his father's first wife, was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Cromer of Tunstall, Kent, and widow of Sir Richard Lovelace. An elder brother, Lawrence, died without issue, and Thomas succeeded to his father's property. He was trained as a soldier, and in 1553 was engaged in suppressing Wyatt's rebellion in Kent. On the day after Mary's coronation he was knighted. Soon after Elizabeth's accession, Nicholas Harpsfeld, archdeacon of Canterbury, threatened violent resistance to the new ecclesiastical legislation, and Finch was despatched to Canterbury to disarm his household. Early in 1563 he was appointed, in succession to Sir Adrian Poynings, knight-marshal of the army then engaged in war about Havre. He at once sent his half-brother, Sir Erasmus Finch, to take temporary charge, and his kinsman Thomas Finch to act as provost-marshal.