Men of Kent and Kentishmen/Sir John Fineau
Sir John Fineau,
JUDGE,
Was born "by all probablity" (Fuller says) at Swingfield, a place said to have been bestowed on one of his ancestors by Nicholas Criol, for saving his life at the Battle of Poictiers. He was twenty-eight years old, the same authority adds, when he took to the study of the law; he followed the profession another twenty-eight years before he became a judge, and he continued a judge the same number of years, so that he must have lived eighty-four years. He owed his elevation to the bench to his bold opposition to the payment of tenths to the Pope. He was a great benefactor of the Church of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, and according to Fuller, deserves all the praise bestowed upon him by the monks. He had a house at Canterbury and at Heme, where he died in 1525,