Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/14

---

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 Athenæ). 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. l). 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;