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 reason 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 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 regicides 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 5001.; 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.] Q. 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 Fodera (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. 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 Mount norris 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. Mount-norris 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 dis-cipline, 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 In 1633 Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards obviously no desire to see the sentence exe- MSS., A. 44, f. 120; A. 57, f. 263). Henry Cromwell, writing to General Fleetwood (4 Feb. 1657-8), urges him to aid in carrying out this arrangement, and speaks in high terms of father and son (THURLOE'S State Papers, vi. 777). Lord Mountnorris died in 1660. Lord Mountnorris married Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Phillipps, Bart., of Picton Castle, Pembrokeshire, who died 3 May 1624. By her he had three sons, of whom Arthur, the eldest, became later Lord Annesley and Earl of Anglesey [see ANNESLEY, ARTHUR]. cuted; he felt it necessary, as he confessed two years later, to remove Mountnorris from office, and this was the most effective means he could take. Hume attempts to extenuate Strafford's conduct, but Hallam condemns the vindictive bitterness he here exhibited in strong terms; and although Mr. S. R. Gardiner has shown that law was technically on Wentworth's side, and his intention was merely to terrify Mountnorris, Hallam's verdict seems substantially just. In the result Mountnorris, after three days' imprisonment, was promised his freedom if he would admit the justice of the sentence, but this he refused to do. On the report of the privy council's [Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, i. 279-80; committee of inquiry he was stripped of all Gardiner's History of England, ed. 1884, viii. his offices, but on 13 Feb. 1635-6 a petition 20-3, 182-198; Nichols's Progresses of James I, to Strafford from Lady Mount norris, which vols. iii. and iv.; Hallam's History, ii. 445; was never answered, proves that he was still Calendars of Irish State Papers, 1606-25; Clain prison. Later in the year Lady Mount-rendon State Papers, vol. i. passim; Strafford's norris petitioned the king to permit her husband to return to England, and the request was granted. Letters, i. 508, et seq.; Lords' Journals, vols. iv. ix.; Commons' Journals, vols. ii. iii. v. vi.; Liber Hiberniæ, 44, 45, 99.] S. L. L. ANNESLEY, JAMES (1715-1760), claimant, was born in 1715, and was the son of Lord Altham, according to one account, by his wife Mary Sheffield, natural daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, or, according to another, by a woman called Juggy Landy. Lord Altham, grandson of Arthur, the first Earl of Anglesey, was a dissolute spendthrift. He was married in 1706, quarrelled with his wife, was reconciled to her in 1713, and lived with her for some time at his house at Dunmaine, co. Wexford. During their cohabitation the child was born. In 1716 they were again separated; the child remained with the father, and was said to have been The rest of Mountnorris's life was passed in attempts to regain his lost offices. On 11 May 1641 he wrote to Strafford enumerating the wrongs he had done him, and desiring, in behalf of wife and children, a reconciliation with himself, and his aid in regaining the king's favour. But other agencies had already been set at work in his behalf. A committee of the Long parliament had begun at the close of 1640 to examine his relations with Strafford, and on 9 Sept. 1641 a vote of the commons declared his sentence, imprisonment, and deprivations unjust and illegal. The declaration was sent up to the lords, who made several orders between October and December 1641 for the attend-treated for a time like a legitimate heir. ance before them of witnesses to enable them About 1722 Lord Altham fell under the into judge the questions at issue; but their fluence of a mistress, named Gregory. Lady final decision is not recorded in their journals. Altham returned to England in 1723, having In 1642 Mountnorris succeeded to the vis- for some time suffered from paralysis, and county of Valentia on Sir Henry Power's lingered in London till her death in October death. In 1643 the House of Commons 1729. Meanwhile the mistress (it is suggranted him permission, after much delay, gested) alienated the father's affections by to go to Duncannon in Ireland. In 1646 persuading him that the boy was not his he was for some time in London, but he lived, own son. The lad was left to himself, ramwhen not in Ireland, on an estate near his bled to different places during two years prebirth-place, at Newport Pagnell, Bucking- viously to his father's death (16 Nov. 1727), hamshire, which had been sold to him by and was at one time protected by a butcher Charles I in 1627. In 1648 parliament re-named Purcell. Lord Altham was succeeded stored him to the office of clerk of the signet in Ireland, and made him a grant of 5007. Later he appears to have lived on friendly terms with Henry Cromwell, the lord deputy of Ireland during the protectorate, and to have secured the office of secretary of state at Dublin. In November 1656 he proposed to the English government that he should resign these posts to his son Arthur (Rawl. by his brother Richard, afterwards Earl of Anglesey, in spite of the reports as to the existence of a legitimate son. In order to make things pleasant, the uncle attempted to kidnap the nephew, and succeeded, about four months after the father's death, in having him sent to America and sold for a common slave. The boy remained there till the term of his slavery was out; at the end of 1740 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 l'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.' [Howell's State Trials, vols. xvi. and xvii. ; Abstract of Case of James Annesley, 1751; Gent. Mag. vols. xiii. and xiv.] L. S. 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 ANNESLEY, RICHARD, EARL OF Lord Anglesey and his party. A riot took ANGLESEY (1694-1761), was seventh Visplace; the party were violently assaulted by count Valentia, seventh Baron Mountnorris, the earl's servants and friends; Annesley and fifth Baron Altham in the peerage of escaped by the speed of his horse, though Ireland, and sixth Earl of Anglesey and injured by a bad fall, and three of his friends Baron of Newport-Pagnell in the peerage were knocked down, beaten, and stunned. of England, and held for some time the post The trial for ejectment came on upon 11 Nov. of governor of Wexford, but was chiefly 1743, and lasted for the then unprecedented distinguished for the doubts which hung space of fifteen days. The question was simply about his title to the barony of Altham and whether Lady Altham or Juggy Landy was the legitimacy of his children. He took his the claimant's mother. The most contra- seat in the Irish House of Lords as Baron dictory evidence was given. Several wit- Altham in 1727, on the death of his brother, nesses swore that they had been in the house the fourth baron, second son of Richard, the at the time of the birth, and said that Landy third baron, sometime prebendary of Westwas the foster-mother; that a road was spe- minster, and dean of Exeter in 1680, and cially made to her cottage after the event; succeeded his cousin Arthur, the fifth Earl of that the christening was celebrated by Anglesey, as remainderman in default of bonfires; and that Lord Altham repeatedly lawful issue in 1737, when he took his seat acknowledged James as his legitimate son in the Irish House of Lords as Lord Viscount and treated him accordingly. On the other Valentia and Baron Mountnorris, and in the hand it was sworn, especially by Mary Heath, English House of Lords as Earl of Anglewho attended Lady Altham until her death, sey and Baron of Newport-Pagnell. He was that the lady had never been pregnant at all. for a short time an ensign in the army, but The weight of evidence seems to be against quitted the service in 1715. In this year he the legitimacy, as the parents had strong married a lady named Ann Prust or Prest, reasons for establishing the birth of a legiti- daughter of Captain John Prust or Prest, of mate heir; though Lord Anglesey's unscru- Monckton, near Bideford, Devonshire, but he pulous behaviour implies doubt as to the appears to have deserted her almost immesufficiency of his cause. The verdict, how-diately. She died in 1741 without issue. ever, was given for the claimant. Mary Between 1737 and 1740 he lived with a lady named Ann Simpson, whom he forced to quit his house in 1740 or 1741. From that time until his death he lived with one Juliana Donnovan, whom he married in 1752. In 1741, Ann Simpson having taken proceedings against him in the ecclesiastical court on the grounds of cruelty and adultery, with a view to obtaining permanent alimony, he set up by way of defence that he was lawfully married to Ann Prest at the time when he was alleged to have gone through the ceremony of marriage with Ann Simpson, and the lady appears to have gained nothing by her suit. She survived the earl, dying in 1765, leaving three daughters, Dorothea, Caroline, and Elizabeth, but no son., Juliana Donnovan is variously reported as the daughter of a merchant in Wexford, and of an alehouse-keeper in Cammolin. By this woman the earl had four children, Arthur, Richarda, Juliana, and Catherine. In or about 1742 there appeared in England one James Annesley, who represented himself to be the legitimate son of Arthur, the late Baron Altham, an account of whose claim is given under ANNESLEY, JAMES. James Annesley failed to establish his claim, and the earl continued in the enjoyment of his estates and his titles until his death in 1761. Upon that event two memorials were presented to the Earl of Halifax, the lordlieutenant of Ireland: one by Sir John Annesley and the other by the Countess Juliana, on behalf of her infant son Arthur, both claiming the Irish honours of Viscount Valentia and Baron Mountnorris. Both memorials were referred to the attorney-general and solicitor-general for consideration, who in 1765 reported to the lords-justices in favour of the claim of Arthur, who accordingly, on coming of age, took his seat in the Irish House of Lords. He was not, however, so successful in the proceedings which he took to make good his claim to the English earldom. In 1766, being then of age, he presented a petition to the king, praying to be summoned to parliament as Earl of Anglesey and Baron of Newport-Pagnell. The petition was considered by the committee of privileges in 1770-1. It was opposed by Constantine Phipps, Lord Mulgrave, who claimed to be interested in the result by virtue of the will of James, Earl of Anglesey, the grandfather of the claimant. Mr. Wedderburn (afterwards Lord Loughborough, Earl of Rosslyn), who became solicitorgeneral during the progress of the inquiry, and Mr. Dunning, appeared for the claimant; Mr. Serjeant Leigh and Mr. Mansfield for Lord Mulgrave. The issue came to depend entirely on whether a certain marriage certificate, bearing date 1741, was genuine or not. The countess swore that she had been secretly married to the late earl in 1741, and produced the certificate in evidence. On the other hand Lord Mulgrave's witnesses swore that the certificate had been made out at the date of the marriage in 1752, and purposely antedated. The witnesses to the alleged marriage being all dead, the case for the claimant broke down, and the committee reported that he had no right to the titles, honours, and dignities claimed by him. The English peerage accordingly became extinct. The earl by his will had entailed his estates upon the issue of his son Arthur, whose right to the Irish titles was reinvestigated on the petition of John Annesley of Ballysax, Esq., but was confirmed, and who in 1793 was created Earl of Mountnorris. This title has, however, since become extinct, the present Viscount Valentia and Baron Mountnorris being the lineal descendant of the sixth son of the first viscount. The family derives its name from Annesley, in Nottingshire, where it is supposed to have been settled before the conquest. The Irish titles were derived from Sir Francis Annesley, who in 1619 was created baronet of Ireland, and subsequently (1621) Viscount Valentia by James I, and (1628) Baron Mountnorris by Charles I. The arbitrary imprisonment of the first viscount by Strafford in 1635 for a mere personal affront was made part of the fifth article of his impeachment. The second viscount was created Baron Annesley of Newport-Pagnell in Bucks and Earl of Anglesey in 1661. As to the title of Baron Altham, see ALTHAM ad fin. The present Marquis of Anglesey [see PAGET] belongs to a different family. [Peerage Claims, i.; Rep. from the Committee for Privileges on the Anglesey Peerage, ordered to be printed 11 May 1819; Howell's State Trials, xvii. 1094, 1124-5, 1139, 1148-9, 1245, 1443, 1454; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland and Burke's Extinct Peerage, sub tit. Annesley; Gent. Mag. xiii. 93, 204, 306, 332; Journals of the House of Lords, (Ireland) iii. 1, 363, (England) XXV. 113; Calendar of Home Office Papers, 1772, 869, 933, 1098, 1119, 1136, 1246.] 1760-65, 2019, 2037, 2130; 1766-69, 173; 1770 J. M. R. ANNESLEY, SAMUEL (1620 ?-1696), one of the most eminent of the later puritan nonconformists, was the son of John Aneley (sic) of Hareley, in Warwickshire; this spelling of his father's name was accentuated by Anthony à Wood in order to support his baseless representation that Samuel Annesley, by slightly altering his name, falsely sought relationship with the first Earl of Anglesey. As a matter of fact, he was ac |