Wood's 'Athenæ (iv. 182, ed. Bliss), from which the former notices have evidently been copied. Annesley's first public employment was in 1645. It seemed probable that Ormond would succeed in establishing a cordial union with the Scotch forces under Monroe in Ulster. To defeat this, Annesley (selected no doubt for his knowledge of Irish affairs) and two others were sent over with a commission under the great seal. Their duty was fulfilled ably and with entire success (REID, History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, ii. 79, 100). In February 1647 Ormond, who was with difficulty holding Dublin against the Irish, reluctantly applied to the parliament for help, and Annesley was placed at the head of a second commission to conclude the matter (CARTE'S Ormond, iii. 168, 305). By the 19th all was settled, and Dublin handed over to the parliament. Annesley appears to have identified himself with the parliamentary as opposed to the republican party, and, according to Heath's 'Chronicle' (p. 420), was one of the members secluded in 1648. This appears confirmed by his letter to Lenthall printed in England's Confusion' (note to p. 182 of vol. iv. of WOOD's Athena). His name, however, does not appear on the list in the parliamentary history taken from the well-known Vindication.' In Richard Cromwell's parliament of 1658 he sat for the city of Dublin, and endeavoured, with some others of the secluded members, to gain admittance into the Rump parliament when restored by the officers in 1659 (HEATH, p. 420). For the statement (Biog. Brit.) that he was concerned in Booth's abortive rising there seems no authority; but he was certainly in the confidence of the royalist party, though a professed friend to the presbyterians (REID, ii. 335), for he held a blank commission from Charles II, with Grenville, Peyton, Mordaunt, and Legge, to treat, on the basis of a free pardon, with any of his majesty's subjects who had borne arms against his father except the regicides (COLLINS's Peerage). In February 1660 he was chosen president of the council of state. In the Convention parliament he sat for Carmarthen town (Parl. Hist. iv. 8). On 1 May he reported from the council to parliament an unopened letter from the king to Monk, and he was on the committee for preparing an answer to that sent direct to the house. On the same day he took part in the conference with the lords on the settlement of the government of these nations.' On 1 June he was sworn of the privy council, and on 4 June was placed on the commission for tendering the oaths of supremacy and allegiance (CARTE'S Ormond, iv. 1). It was now

that Annesley and men of his moderate and practical views played a useful part. To them it was chiefly due that the lords were checked in their desires for revenge, and that the restoration was wellnigh bloodless. In the trials of the regicides and in the debates on the Act of Indemnity, Annesley was throughout on the side of lenity; and he advised the carrying out of the king's declaration in its integrity. It was largely owing to him that Hazelrig's life was spared. At the same time he made himself useful to the court by securing on 10 Aug. the passing of a money bill before the act of grace, and again on 12 Sept. by helping successfully to oppose the motion that the king should be requested to marry, and to marry a protestant. In November, probably in the court interest, he moved that the question of passing the king's declaration concerning ecclesiastical affairs into a law should be referred to a committee of the whole house. At the abolition of the court of wards he strenuously but vainly resisted, on the ground of its injustice, the proposal made in the interests of the landed gentry to lay the burden on the excise. In the settlement of Ireland his services were often called for and liberally rewarded. In August 1660 he received his father's office of vice-treasurer and receiver-general for Ireland, which he held until July 1667, when he exchanged it with Sir G. Carteret for the treasurership of the navy (CARTE's Ormond, iv. 340; PEPYS, 26 June 1667), and on 6 Feb. 1660-1 he received a captaincy of horse. On 9 March 1660-1 he was placed on the commission for executing the king's declaration for the settlement of Ireland, and in June on the permanent committee of council for Irish affairs. By the death of his father in November 1660, he became Viscount Valentia, and on 20 April 1661 he was made an English peer by the title of Lord Annesley of Newport-Pagnell in Bucks, and Earl of Anglesey. On 21 July 1663, Anglesey appeared as the sole signer of a protest against the bill for the encouragement of trade on grounds which show how little such questions were then understood, while in 1666, on the other hand, he strongly opposed the bill for prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle (Parl. Hist. iv. 284; and CARTE'S Ormond, iv. 234). In 1667 he was threatened with an examination of his accounts if he refused to assist in Buckingham's attack on Ormond; and such an examination actually took place in 1668, but no charge could be sustained. He was, however, temporarily suspended from his office of treasurer to the navy (CARTE, iv. 330, 340;

PEPYS, 8 Dec. 1667, and 29 and 31 Oct., and 5, 11, and 14 Nov. 1668). During 1671 and 1672 Anglesey was employed continuously upon commissions appointed to inquire into the working of the acts of settlement; and in 1671 he also took the leading part in the conference between the houses regarding the lords' right to alter money bills, and wrote an acute and learned comment thereupon. On 22 April 1672 his services were rewarded with the office of lord privy seal, and in 1679 he was placed on the newly modelled privy council, which was framed at Temple's instance. When the popish terror began, Anglesey showed independence of character; he is recorded as the only peer who dissented from the vote declaring the existence of an Irish plot; and, according to his own testimony, he interceded for Langhorne, Plunket, and Strafford, though convinced of the guilt of the last (Happy Future State, p. 205; SIR W. PETT, Memoirs of Anglesea, pp. 8, 9). This line of action brought upon him, on 20 Oct. 1680, an accusation by Dangerfield, and he was attacked by Sir William Jones, attorneygeneral, in the House of Commons (Happy Future State, p. 267; DANGERFIELD, Narration). In 1681 Anglesea published A Letter from a Person of Honour in the Country,' containing his 'Animadversions' upon some memoirs regarding Irish affairs written by the Earl of Castlehaven. There were in this letter passages which seemed to reflect on Charles I; Ormond was called upon to answer it, and on 9 Aug. 1682 Anglesey was dismissed from his lucrative post of privy seal. His loss of office was doubtless hastened by another paper addressed to the king, entitled 'The Account of Arthur, Earl | of Anglesea, to your most excellent Majesty, of the true State of your Majesty's Government and Kingdom.' This was dated 27 April 1682, immediately after the dissolution of Charles's last parliament. The boldness of the tone of remonstrance, and the vehemence with which the attack on James was supported at such a time, are remarkable. Upon his dismissal he retired to his seat of Blechingdon in Oxfordshire, and took no further part in public affairs, except by voting in a minority of two, in 1685, against the reversal of Lord Strafford's attainder, for whose condemnation he had voted, though pleading * afterwards for his pardon (SIR W. PETT, Memoirs, p. 10). He died of quinsy on 26 April 1686.

Anglesey was undoubtedly a most useful official during his unbroken service of twenty years (PEPYS, passim), laborious, skilful, cautious, moderate, and apparently, on the whole, honest and independent in action, a

sound lawyer, with a high reputation for scholarship, research, and the use of a smooth, sharp, and keen pen' (Athena Oron. ii. 784). But there is no reason whatever for regarding him as a great man. His care for his own interests was constant and successful. Besides the profits of his various offices he secured large sums and grants from Ireland. Thus, in 1661, he had a grant of the forfeited estates of the regi cides Ludlow and Jones, as well as other spoil; on 10 March 1665-6 he received a pension of 6007. a year; on 24 March in the following year 5007.; on 10 Oct. 5,000l. out of forfeited lands, as well as many grants, both of lands and money, under the acts of settlement, at various times.

Anglesey is noted as perhaps the first peer who devoted time and money to the formation of a great library. The sale of this library at his death is remembered because among the books was a copy of the Eikon Basilike,' which contained a memorandum, presumably by himself, though this is warmly disputed (Biog. Britan.), to the effect that the writer had been told both by Charles II and James II that the Eikon Basilike' had been composed not by Charles I but by Bishop Gauden.

In addition to the works mentioned, Anglesey wrote: 1. The History of the late Commotions and Troubles in Ireland,' from the Rebellion of 1641 to the Restoration, the manuscript of which was unfortunately lost. 2. True Account of the whole Proceedings betwixt his Grace the Duke of Ormond and the Earl of Anglesea.' 3. The King's Right of Indulgence in Spiritual Matters asserted.' 4. Truth Unveiled.' 5. 'Reflections on a Discourse concerning Transubstantiation.'

[Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iv. 18; Biographia Britannica; and other authorities quoted above.]

O. A.

ANNESLEY, FRANCIS, BARON MOUNTNORRIS and VISCOUNT VALENTIA (1585–1660), descended from the ancient family of Annesley of Annesley, Nottinghamshire, was the son of Thomas Annesley, high constable of Newport, Buckinghamshire, and was baptised 2 Jan. 1585-6. As early as 1606 he had left England to reside at Dublin, and he took advantage of the frequent distributions of Irish land made to English colonists in the early part of the seventeenth century to acquire estates in various parts of Ireland. With Sir Arthur Chichester, who became lord deputy in 1604, he lived on terms of intimacy, and several small offices of state, with a pension granted 5 Nov. 1607, were

bestowed on him in his youthful days. In the colonisation of Ulster, which began in 1608, Annesley played a leading part, and secured some of the spoils. In October 1609 he was charged with the conveyance of Sir Neil O'Donnell and other Ulster rebels to England for trial. On 13 March 1611-12 James I wrote to the lord deputy confirming his grant of the fort and land of Mountnorris to Annesley in consideration of the good opinion he has conceived of the said Francis from Sir Arthur's report of him.' On 26 May 1612 Annesley was granted a reversion to the clerkship of the 'Checque of the Armies and Garrisons,' to which he succeeded 9 Dec. 1625. In 1613 county Armagh returned Annesley to the Irish parliament, and he supported the protestants there in their quarrels with the catholics. On 16 July 1616 the king knighted him at Theobalds; in 1618 he became principal secretary of state for Ireland; on 5 Aug. 1620 received from the king an Irish baronetcy; and on 11 March 1620-1 received a reversionary grant to the viscounty of Valentia, which had recently been conferred on Sir Henry Power, a kinsman of Annesley, without direct heir. In 1622 Lord Falkland became lord deputy of Ireland, and Sir Francis sympathised very little with his efforts to make the authority of his office effective throughout Ireland. Dissensions between him and Falkland in the council chamber were constant, and in March 1625 the lord deputy wrote to Conway, the English secretary of state, that a minority of the councillors, amongst whom Sir Francis Annesley is not least violent nor the least impertinent,' was thwarting him in every direction. But Annesley's friends at the English court contrived his promotion two months later to the important post of vice-treasurer and receiver-general of Ireland, which gave him full control of Irish finance (RYMER'S Fœdera (2nd edition), xviii. 148), and in 1628 Charles I raised him to the Irish peerage as Baron Mountnorris of Mountnorris. In October of the same year an opportunity was given Annesley, of which he readily took advantage, to make Falkland's continuance in Ireland impossible. He was nominated on a committee of the Irish privy council appointed to investigate charges of injustice preferred against Falkland by an Irish sept named Byrne, holding land in Wicklow. The committee, relying on the testimony of corrupt witnesses, condemned Falkland's treatment of the Byrnes, and Falkland was necessarily recalled on 10 Aug. 1629. On 13 June 1632 the additional office of treasurer at wars' was conferred on Mountnorris.

In 1633 Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards

Earl of Strafford, became lord deputy, and Lord Mountnorris soon discovered that he was determined to insist on the rights of his office more emphatically than Falkland. Wentworth disliked Mountnorris from the first as a gay liver, and as having been long guilty, according to popular report, of corruption in the conduct of official duties. In May 1634 Wentworth obtained an order from the English privy council forbidding his practice of taking percentages on the revenue to which he was not lawfully entitled; this order Mountnorris refused to obey. Fresh charges of malversation were brought against him in 1635, and, after threatening to resign office, he announced that all intercourse between the lord deputy and himself was at an end, and that he should leave his case with the king. Mountnorris's relatives took up the quarrel. A younger brother insulted Wentworth at a review, and another kinsman dropped a stool in Dublin castle on Wentworth's gouty foot. At a dinner (8 April 1635) at the house of the lord chancellor, one of his supporters, Mountnorris boasted of this last act as probably done in revenge of the lord deputy's conduct towards himself; he referred to his brother as being unwilling to take 'such a revenge,' and was understood to imply that some further insult to Wentworth was contemplated. Wentworth was now resolved to crush Mountnorris, and on 31 July following obtained the consent of Charles I to inquire formally into the vice-treasurer's alleged malversation and to bring him before a court-martial for the words spoken at the dinner in April. At the end of November a committee of the Irish privy council undertook the first duty, and on 12 Dec. Mountnorris was brought before a council of war at Dublin castle and charged, as an officer in the army, with having spoken words disrespectful to his commander and likely to breed mutiny, an offence legally punishable by death. Wentworth appeared as suitor for justice; after he had stated his case, and counsel had been refused Mountnorris, the court briefly deliberated in Wentworth's presence, and pronounced sentence of death. The lord deputy informed Mountnorris that he would appeal to the king against the sentence, and added: 'I would rather lose my head than you should lose your head." In England the sentence was condemned on all hands; in letters to friends, Wentworth attempted to justify it in the cause of discipline, and even at his trial he spoke of it as in no way reflecting upon himself. The only real justification for Wentworth's conduct, however, lies in the fact that he had obviously no desire to see the sentence exe

he entered one of the ships of Admiral Vernon's fleet as a sailor, told his story to the officers, and was brought back by Vernon to England, where he took measures to support his claim. He was actively supported by a Mr. Mackercher, who appears as Min a chapter of 'Peregrine Pickle,' where Smollett introduces a long narrative (of questionable authenticity) of the Annesley case and Mackercher's previous history. An action of ejectment was brought against the uncle, now Lord Anglesey, in possession of the Irish estates. On 1 May 1742 James Annesley went out shooting at Staines, with a gamekeeper; they met a poacher netting the river, and a dispute followed, in which Annesley shot the man dead. He was tried for murder (15 July 1742), and Lord Anglesey, who had previously been thinking of a compromise, now thought that he could get rid of his nephew, instructed an attorney to prosecute, and said that he did not care if it cost him 10,000l. to have his nephew hanged. It was, however, clearly proved that the shot was fired by accident, and James Annesley was acquitted. He went to Ireland in 1743 with Mackercher to carry on his action, in spite, as is said, of various attempts upon his life by the uncle. On 16 Sept. 1743 they went to some horse races at the Curragh, where they encountered Lord Anglesey and his party. A riot took place; the party were violently assaulted by the earl's servants and friends; Annesley escaped by the speed of his horse, though injured by a bad fall, and three of his friends were knocked down, beaten, and stunned. The trial for ejectment came on upon 11 Nov. 1743, and lasted for the then unprecedented space of fifteen days. The question was simply whether Lady Altham or Juggy Landy was the claimant's mother. The most contradictory evidence was given. Several witnesses swore that they had been in the house at the time of the birth, and said that Landy was the foster-mother; that a road was specially made to her cottage after the event; that the christening was celebrated by bonfires; and that Lord Altham repeatedly acknowledged James as his legitimate son and treated him accordingly. On the other hand it was sworn, especially by Mary Heath, who attended Lady Altham until her death, that the lady had never been pregnant at all. The weight of evidence seems to be against the legitimacy, as the parents had strong reasons for establishing the birth of a legitimate heir; though Lord Anglesey's unscrupulous behaviour implies doubt as to the sufficiency of his cause. The verdict, however, was given for the claimant. Mary

Heath was prosecuted for perjury on 3 Feb. 1744, but, after a repetition of much of the former evidence, was acquitted. On 3 Aug. 1744 Lord Anglesey, with Francis Annesley and John Jans, was tried for the assault at the Curragh, and they were all convicted and fined.

It seems that Annesley was unable to raise the funds necessary to prosecute his case further. An 'Abstract of the Case of James Annesley,' published in 1751, is an appeal to the public to help him. He died 5 Jan. 1760, having been twice married, to a daughter of Mr. Chester of Staines (d. 1749), by whom he left a son (d. 1763) and two daughters, and, secondly, to a daughter of Sir Thomas I'Anson, by whom he had a son (d. 1764) and a daughter (d. 1765). A doubtful narrative of his life in America is given in the Gentleman's Magazine,' vol. xiii. The very curious trials are fully reported in the 'State Trials,' vols. xvi. and xvii. The story was turned to account by Scott in Guy Mannering' (see Gent. Mag. for July 1840), and it has been more directly used by Charles Reade in the 'Wandering Heir.'

OF

ANNESLEY, RICHARD, EARL ANGLESEY (1694-1761), was seventh Viscount Valentia, seventh Baron Mountnorris, and fifth Baron Altham in the peerage of Ireland, and sixth Earl of Anglesey and Baron of Newport-Pagnell in the peerage of England, and held for some time the post of governor of Wexford, but was chiefly distinguished for the doubts which hung about his title to the barony of Altham and the legitimacy of his children. He took his seat in the Irish House of Lords as Baron Altham in 1727, on the death of his brother, the fourth baron, second son of Richard, the third baron, sometime prebendary of Westminster, and dean of Exeter in 1680, and succeeded his cousin Arthur, the fifth Earl of Anglesey, as remainderman in default of lawful issue in 1737, when he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords as Lord Viscount Valentia and Baron Mountnorris, and in the English House of Lords as Earl of Anglesey and Baron of Newport-Pagnell. He was for a short time an ensign in the army, but quitted the service in 1715. In this year he married a lady named Ann Prust or Prest, daughter of Captain John Prust or Prest, of Monckton, near Bideford, Devonshire, but he appears to have deserted her almost immediately. She died in 1741 without issue. Between 1737 and 1740 he lived with a lady