ANGLESEY, ARTHUR ANNESLEY, I ST EARL OF (1614-1686), British statesman, son of the 1st Viscount Valentia (cr. 1621), born at Dublin on July io, 1614, was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and admitted to Lincoln's Inn in He was commissioned by the English parliament in a mission to the duke of Ormonde, with whom he concluded a treaty on June 19, 1647. In that year he entered the House of Commons as mem ber for Radnorshire, and supported the Parliamentary as against the Republican or Army Party. The anarchy of the last months of the Commonwealth converted him to the Royalist side and he helped to bring about the restoration. In 1661 he was created Baron Annesley and earl of Anglesey in the British peerage. From 166o to 1667 he held various offices in the Irish administra tion, and in the British House of Commons supported Irish interests.
In the bitter religious controversies of his time Anglesey showed moderation and toleration. In the panic over the "Popish Plot" in 1678 he kept his head. He was one of the four peers who pro tested in that year against the bill for the disarming of convicted recusants ; he was the only peer to dissent from the motion declar ing the existence of an Irish plot ; he interceded for Lord Stafford, although he believed in his guilt; and in 1683 he appeared as a witness in defence of Lord Russell. He died at Bletchingdon in Oxfordshire on April 26, 1686.
The unfavourable character drawn of him by Burnet is cer tainly unjust and not supported by any evidence. Pepys, a far more trustworthy judge, speaks of him invariably in terms of respect and approval as a "grave, serious man," and commends his appointment as treasurer of the navy as that of "a very notable man, and understanding, and will do things regular and understand them himself." He was a learned and cultivated man and collected a celebrated library, which was dispersed at his death. His works include A True account of the Whole Proceed ings betwixt . . . the Duke of Ormond and . . . the Earl of Anglesey (1682).
Memoirs of Lord Anglesey were published by Sir P. Pett in 1693, but contain little biographical information and were repu diated as a mere imposture by Sir John Thompson (Lord Haver sham), his son-in-law, in his preface to Lord Anglesey's State of the Government in 1694. However, the author of the preface to The Rights of the Lords asserted (1702), while blaming their pub lication as "scattered and unfinished papers," admits their genuineness.