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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.

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

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 Mountnorris, 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. The rest of Mountnorris's life was passed ANNESLEY, JAMES (1715-1760), in attempts to regain his lost offices. On claimant, was born in 1715, and was the son 11 May 1641 he wrote to Strafford enumerat- of Lord Altham, according to one account, ing the wrongs he had done him, and desiring, by his wife Mary Sheffield, natural daughter in behalf of wife and children, a reconciliation of the Duke of Buckingham, or, according with himself, and his aid in regaining the to another, by a woman called Juggy Landy. king's favour. But other agencies had al- Lord Altham, grandson of Arthur, the first ready been set at work in his behalf. A Earl of Anglesey, was a dissolute spendcommittee of the Long parliament had begun thrift. He was married in 1706, quarrelled at the close of 1640 to examine his rela- with his wife, was reconciled to her in 1713, tions with Strafford, and on 9 Sept. 1641 a and lived with her for some time at his house vote of the commons declared his sentence, at Dunmaine, co. Wexford. During their coimprisonment, and deprivations unjust and habitation the child was born. In 1716 they illegal. The declaration was sent up to the were again separated; the child remained lords, who made several orders between with the father, and was said to have been 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 by his brother Richard, afterwards Earl of in Ireland, and made him a grant of 5007. Anglesey, in spite of the reports as to the Later he appears to have lived on friendly existence of a legitimate son. In order to terms with Henry Cromwell, the lord deputy make things pleasant, the uncle attempted of Ireland during the protectorate, and to to kidnap the nephew, and succeeded, about have secured the office of secretary of state four months after the father's death, in having at Dublin. In November 1656 he proposed him sent to America and sold for a common to the English government that he should slave. The boy remained there till the term resign these posts to his son Arthur (Rawl. of his slavery was out; at the end of 1740

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 M

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.

[Howell's State Trials, vols. xvi. and xvii.; Abstract of Case of James Annesley, 1751; Gent. Mag. vols. xiii. and xiv.]

L. S.

in a chapter of 'Peregrine Pickle,' where Smollett introduces a long narrative (of It seems that Annesley was unable to questionable authenticity) of the Annesley raise the funds necessary to prosecute his case and Mackercher's previous history. An case further. An 'Abstract of the Case of action of ejectment was brought against James Annesley,' published in 1751, is an the uncle, now Lord Anglesey, in possession appeal to the public to help him. He died of the Irish estates. On 1 May 1742 James 5 Jan. 1760, having been twice married, to a Annesley went out shooting at Staines, daughter of Mr. Chester of Staines (d. 1749), with a gamekeeper: they met a poacher by whom he left a son (d. 1763) and two netting the river, and a dispute followed, daughters, and, secondly, to a daughter of in which Annesley shot the man dead. He Sir Thomas I'Anson, by whom he had a son was tried for murder (15 July 1742), and (d. 1764) and a daughter (d. 1765). A doubtLord Anglesey, who had previously been ful narrative of his life in America is given thinking of a compromise, now thought that in the Gentleman's Magazine,' vol. xiii. he could get rid of his nephew, instructed The very curious trials are fully reported in an attorney to prosecute, and said that he the 'State Trials,' vols. xvi. and xvii. The did not care if it cost him 10,000l. to have story was turned to account by Scott in his nephew hanged. It was, however, clearly Guy Mannering' (see Gent. Mag. for July proved that the shot was fired by accident, 1840), and it has been more directly used by and James Annesley was acquitted. He Charles Reade in the 'Wandering Heir.' 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 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.

6

[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

But

knowledged as the earl's full nephew, and of Oxford.' Nearly contemporaneously he when the Countess of Anglesey was dying she was again at sea with the Earl of Warwick, asked to be buried in his grave. Annesley was 'who was employed in giving chase to that born' about the year 1620' at Kellingworth, part of the English navy which went over to near Warwick. Deprived of his father in the then prince, afterwards King Charles II.' his fourth year, the care of his education de- The parishioners of Cliffe being not only volved on his mother, who was 'a very pru- reconciled but greatly attached to Annesley, dent and religious woman.' In Michaelmas he resigned the living that he might keep term, 1635, he was admitted a student in the promise he had made to them when Queen's College, Oxford, and there he pro- they were in another disposition.' In 1657 ceeded successively B.A. and M.A. He he was nominated directly by Cromwell seems to have been naturally slow and slug-lecturer of St. Paul's,' and in 1658 was gish while at the university, but to have presented by Richard Cromwell to the supplied this defect in nature by prodigious vicarage of St. Giles, Cripplegate, London. application.' He was from his youth in- This presentation becoming useless,' he, in clined to the ministry.' Like others he must 1660, procured another from the trustees have had a twofold ordination. First An- for the maintenance of ministers,' being also thony à Wood informs us he took holy orders a commissioner for the approbation and from a bishop.' Secondly, Calamy adduces admission of ministers of the Gospel after a certificate of presbyterian ordination, dated the presbyterian manner.' This second pre18 Dec. 1644, and subscribed by seven pres- sentation growing equally out of date with byterian ministers. The latter stated that the first, he, on 28 Aug. 1660, procured a he was appointed chaplain on a man of war third presentation from Charles II. called the Globe.' It is possible, however, even this did not hold him long at St. Giles, that Anthony à Wood was misinformed, see- for in 1662 he chose to be one of the illusing that in 1644 he was just of age to re- trious band of the ejected two thousand. ceive orders. In the Globe he was chap- His undoubted relative, the Earl of Anglelain to the Earl of Warwick, then admiral sey, did all he could to induce him to conof the parliament's fleet. form, but in vain. He preached semi-privately wherever opportunity was given him. His nonconformity created him,' says Neal, troubles, but no inward uneasiness.' His goods were distrained for, as the phrase ran, keeping a conventicle.' That 'conventicle was the meeting-house in Little St. Helen's. He was spared to a good old age.' He died on 31 Dec. 1696, and his funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Daniel Williams, while Daniel Defoe (who was a member of his congregation) wrote a pathetic and melodious elegy on his death. He had the reputation,' concludes the Biographia Britannica,'' of being a warm, pathetic preacher, as well as a pious, prudent, and very charitable divine, laying by the tenth part of his income, whatever it was, for the use of the poor.' The notorious John Dunton was his son-in-law (see his Life and Errors). More memorable still, his daughter Ann, as wife of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, became the mother of the Wesleys. His writings consisted of sermons separately published, and in the various Morning Exercises' and certain minor biographical things.

'In process of time his own behaviour and the great interest he had with such as were then in power' procured him one of the prizes of the church, viz. Cliffe in Kent. Here he succeeded Dr. Griffith Higges, who was ejected for his loyalty to the king and treason to the Commonwealth. Cliffe was an important post; for besides its income of nearly 4007. per annum 'a great jurisdiction belonged to the incumbent, who held a court wherein all matters relating to wills, marriage contracts, &c., were decided.' The parishioners were devoted to their ejected clergyman, and were disposed to show their esteem by rude and rough misconduct towards his successor. Annesley told them 'that if they conceived him to be biassed by the value of so considerable a living, they were exceedingly mistaken; that he came among them with an intent to do good to their souls, and that he was resolved to stay, how ill soever they used him, till he had fitted them for the reception of a better minister; which whenever it happened, he would leave them, notwithstanding the great value of the living.'

[Kippis's Biogr. Brit., where his will is On 26 July 1648 he preached the fast ser- printed; Calamy and Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. mon before the House of Commons, which. 124; Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iv. 509, and Anthony à Wood vehemently attacks and supporters of the parliament highly praise.

About this time 'he was 'honoured with the title of doctor of laws by the university

Fasti, ii. 114, Oxon.; Walker's Sufferings, pt. ii. p. 39; Calamy's Abridgment of Baxter, iii. 67; Turner's Remarkable Providences, ch. 143; Wilson's History and Antiquities of Dissenting

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