Manuscript concerning parliaments by the Earl of Anglesey, Arthur Annesley

British statesman. Was born at Dublin July 1614, was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1634. Having made the grand tour he returned to Ireland; and being employed by the parliament in a mission to the Duke of Ormonde, he succeeded in concluding a treaty with him on the eighth of June 1647, thus securing the country from complete subjection to the rebels.

In April 1647 he was returned for Radnorshire to the House of Commons. He supported the parliamentary as against the republican or army party, and appears to have been one of the members excluded in 1648. He sat in Richard Cromwell's parliament for Dublin city, and endeavored to take his seat in the restored Rump Parliament of 1659. He was made president of the council in February 1660, and in the Convention Parliament sat for Carmarthen borough. The anarchy of the last months of the commonwealth converted him to royalism, and he showed great activity in bringing about the Restoration.

He used his influence in moderating measures of revenge and violence, and while sitting in judgment on the regicides was on the side of leniency. In November 1660 by his father's death he had become Viscount Valentia and Baron Mountnorris in the Irish peerage, and on the 20th April 1661 he was created Baron Annesley of Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire and Earl of Anglesey in the peerage of Great Britain.

He supported the King's administration in parliament, but opposed strongly the unjust measure which, on the abolition of the court of wards, placed the extra burden of taxation thus rendered necessary on the excise. He filled the office of vice-treasurer from 1660 till 1667, served on the committee for carrying out the declaration for the settlement of Ireland and on the committee for Irish affairs, while later, in 1671 and 1672, he was a leading member of various commissions appointed to investigate the working of the Acts of Settlement.

In 1667 he exchanged his vice-treasuryship of Ireland for the treasuryship of the Navy. His public career was marked by great independence and fidelity to principle. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 edition.