Arthur Annesley, first earl of Anglesey, born in Dublin in 1614, died April 6, 1686. He was the eldest son of Sir Francis Anneslev, afterward Baron Mountnorris and Viscount of Va-lentia. He was among the loyal members who met in the parliament summoned by Charles I. at Oxford in 1643. The royal cause having become almost hopeless, he joined the parliamentarians, and was one of the three commissioners appointed to settle the affairs of Ireland in 1645. He took an active part in the restoration of Charles II., and in 1661 was created Baron Annesley and earl of Anglesey in the peerage of England. He was afterward made treasurer of the navy and lord privy seal, and held the latter office till 1682, when he was dismissed for favoring the exclusion of the duke of York from the throne. He published several works on polemics, politics, constitutional law, and parliamentary privileges. - James Axnesley, Lord Altliam, his grandson, born in 1715, was kidnapped by his uncle and sent to America, where he was 13 years in slavery, but finally in 1743 established his legal right to the honors and estates of the earls of Anglesey, though he never assumed the title.

Smollett gave the leading facts of the case in his novel of "Peregrine Pickle." - The earldom of Anglesey expired in 1761, but the Irish peerages of Annesley and Valentia are held by descendants of Arthur Annesley.