Heneage Finch, 3rd Earl of Winchilsea

Heneage Finch, 3rd Earl of Winchilsea ( – 28 September 1689) was an English peer and diplomat who served as the English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1660 to 1669.

Early life Finch was the only surviving son of Thomas Finch, 2nd Earl of Winchilsea and the former Cecille Wentworth of Gosfield Hall, Essex.

He was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge.

Career On his return from Ottoman territory in June 1668, King Charles II remarked to Finch, "My Lord, you have not only built a town, but peopled it too". Winchilsea, in an obvious reference to Charles' own brood of natural children, replied that after all, he was the King's representative.

Lord Finch was appointed by his friend George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle a Governor of Dover Castle, and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in July 1660. He was also Lord Lieutenant of Kent and afterwards ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and served in this capacity between 1668 and 1672.

Samuel Pepys first referred to him as the Lord Winchilsea.

King Charles II had landed at Kent on his way to London to secure the throne on 25 May 1660. The King arrived in Dover with 20 ships and frigates, the Lord General and his lifeguard were accompanied by the Earl of Winchelsea to the cheer of the crowding locals gathered upon the beach to witness a salute fired from the guns of Dover Castle. The King created him Baron FitzHerbert, of Eastwell in the County of Kent, on 26 June 1660. Hon. Thomas Finch (b. 1658), who was born before the family went to the Ottoman Empire.

His third marriage was to Catherine Norcliffe on 10 April 1673. The daughter of Sir Thomas Norcliffe and Hon. Dorothy Fairfax (fifth daughter of Thomas Fairfax, 1st Viscount Fairfax), she was twice a widow from her marriages to Christopher Lister, of Thornton, York, and Sir John Wentworth, of Elmshall, York. She died in . Before his death in 1689, they were the parents of:

Descendants Through his daughter Frances, he was a grandfather of Henry Thynne (1675–1708), and Frances Thynne (who married Sir Robert Worsley, 4th Baronet).