ANNESLEY, Arthur (1614-86)

Civil Wars, Interregnum and the restoration of the monarchy

The Annesleys were an important Anglo-Irish family, having left Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, for Ireland in the sixteenth century. HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 537. Annesley’s father was a client of Arthur Chichester^†, Baron Chichester, the Ulster planter and lord deputy of Ireland and a victim of the Irish policies of Thomas Wentworth^†, earl of Strafford. He was sentenced to death by court martial in 1635, but the sentence was never carried out, although the legal consequences, which left the family deprived of their Irish estates, were not finally resolved until after the Restoration. HP Commons, 1640-60, unpub. draft biog. By the time Annesley was born on Fishshamble Street, Dublin, his father was already a substantial Irish landowner and political figure, as indicated by the choice of Chichester as his godfather. Add. 4816, f. 3. Annesley was always a substantial figure in Irish politics and society. His marriage settlement referred to the property he held in 12 Irish counties, and by about 1675 he held an estimated 144,546 acres in Ireland, second only to James Butler, earl of Brecknock, better known by his Irish peerage as duke of Ormond (and later also duke of Ormond in the English peerage). HIP 1692-1800, iii. 92-93; PRONI, Annesley pprs., D1503/2/19/3; Restoration Ireland ed. C. Dennehy, 47-48.

During the Civil Wars, Annesley was initially supportive of Parliament. After election to the English House of Commons for Radnorshire in 1647, he subscribed to the National League and Covenant on 23 Feb. 1648, but was excluded from the House during Pride’s Purge. In 1659 he was returned for Dublin to the Parliament of Richard Cromwell^‡ where he became an active member and argued for the ‘indispensable rights’ of the ‘old peers’ to be summoned to the Lords as an essential constituent part of the legislature. He also argued that although the constitutional positions of Ireland and Scotland were different, they had the same right as the people of England to hold a free parliament. HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 537; HIP 1692-1800, iii. 92.

From the early weeks of 1659 Annesley had been in contact with the exiled Charles II. In March 1659 Charles II gave Annesley the authority to negotiate on his behalf with key political figures in England. With his knowledge and contacts in Ireland and England Annesley was in a pivotal position to influence political developments. He began working actively for the Restoration. Edward Hyde, later earl of Clarendon, referred to Annesley as the virtual leader of Ireland at this time, and recalled that Annesley was ‘very well contented that the king should receive particular information of his devotion, and of his resolution to do him service.’ Clarendon, Rebellion, vi. 181.

After the Rump Parliament was restored in May 1659, Annesley was the chief protagonist for the return of the secluded members. Haley, Shaftesbury, 129-30. He was eventually reinstated, along with the other secluded members, in February 1660 after the intervention of George Monck, later duke of Albemarle. Annesley was elected to the council of state and became its president, which placed him at the centre of political developments before and during the Restoration. Bodl. Carte 73, f. 408; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 396. He was returned to the Convention for Carmarthen and was a particularly active member, being effectively leader of the Presbyterians in the House of Commons. HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 32. As such, in the months before and after the Restoration Annesley was either the chair or a member of every crucial Commons committee dealing with the impending settlement. Ibid. i. 537.

After the Restoration of Charles II in May 1660 the Annesleys’ Irish lands were legally reinstated; when his father died in November 1660 Annesley succeeded to his Irish honours and inherited estates in Ireland and England. He was also appointed to his father’s old office of vice-treasurer of Ireland, a key role reputed to be worth £6,500 per year. CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 524; CSP Ire. 1669-70 and Add. 1625-70, p. 682. On 1 June 1660 he was sworn a member of the Privy Council, the body that replaced the council of state, from where he counselled restraint and conciliation rather than revenge, and argued for freedom of conscience and toleration in church and state, proposing that the Declaration of Breda should become law. On 19 June 1660, Samuel Pepys^‡ noted that Annesley ‘above most men’ was engaged to the families of Edward Montagu, earl of Sandwich and his father-in-law, John Crew, later Baron Crew, both Presbyterian servants of the previous regime. Pepys Diary, i. 178. He played a key role as a layman on the Presbyterian side in the Worcester House debates in October 1660, and was selected, with Denzil Holles, later Baron Holles, to be one of two assessors to settle some of the outstanding points at issue. Green, Re-establishment of the Church of England, 20.

The early years of the Restoration 1661-5

Annesley was created earl of Anglesey on 20 Apr. 1661. Although he sat on both 8 and 10 May, he was not officially introduced into the Lords until 11 May by Ormond and Algernon Percy, 4th earl Northumberland. In the first part of the 1661-2 session (which ran until 30 July 1661), Anglesey attended on 62 days (95 per cent of the total). On 11 May, as would become customary, he was named to the usual sessional committees (privileges, petitions and the Journal) as well as a further 25 committees, reporting from one, on 27 May 1661, for the naturalization of Sir William Throckmorton and others. He reported the bill to repeal the act preventing persons in holy orders from exercising temporal jurisdiction or authority from the committee of the whole House on 18 June. He was listed on 11 July as being against the case of Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, for the great chamberlaincy.

In the second part of the 1661-2 session (which began on 20 Nov. 1661), Anglesey attended on 121 days of the session (95 per cent of the total). He was named to a further 43 committees (excluding those mentioned below). On 7 Dec., he was appointed to manage a conference touching witnesses to be sworn at the bar in the Lords in the case of vacating fines levied by Sir Edward Powell. On 14 Dec. he was named to report a conference on the bill for confirming private acts passed during the Interregnum, and did so later in the day. On 19 Dec. he was named to a conference on the proper response to the fear of a plot against the government. He was appointed on 4 Feb. 1662 to manage a conference on the bill for the execution of attainted persons. He entered a protest on 6 Feb. against the passage of the bill restoring the estates of Charles Stanley, 8th earl Derby. On 2 Apr. he chaired the committee on Bushell’s bill, reporting it on 4 April. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 227-8. On 8 Apr. he was named to a committee to draw up a proviso (intended as a concession to the ejected clergy) for the bill of uniformity, which he duly reported on the following day. On 15 Apr. he chaired the committee on the bill confirming an award made by the king for settling the differences between John Paulet* , 5th marquess of Winchester and his son Charles Powlett, the future 6th marquess. Ibid. 250. He was appointed on 10 May to manage a conference on the bill confirming two acts and to give the Commons the reasons why they did not agree to the bill confirming the naturalization of Francis Hyde and others. On 13 May he was named to a committee of five to draw up a clause on the militia bill, and on the 14th this committee was named to manage a conference on the bill. Also on 14 May Anglesey was named to a conference on the Norwich stuffs bill, reporting from it later in the day. On 16 May he was appointed to prepare another proviso to the militia bill, and was named to a conference on the bill on 17 May, which he managed with George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes and later earl of Radnor. Chatsworth, Cork mss misc. box 1, Burlington diary, 17 May 1662. Also on 17 May he was named to manage a conference on the bill distributing money to officers who had served the king and to report from a conference on the highways bill and on the bill for the relief of the poor. On 19 May 1662 he was named to manage further conferences on the highways bill, the poor bill and the bill to restrain disorderly printing and he also entered his protest against dropping two provisos from the highways bill.

Anglesey’s knowledge of Ireland was particularly useful, and he was appointed to the standing committee of the Privy Council for Irish affairs. This, in turn, secured him a significant role in the Restoration settlement in Ireland. Carte, Life of Ormonde, ii. 227. He worked alongside Ormond and with his associates in Ireland, who included Roger Boyle^‡, earl of Orrery [I], Sir Charles Coote, earl of Mountrath [I], and Sir John Clotworthy, Viscount Massereene [I], to secure a settlement favourable to the Protestant interest. Throughout the early 1660s he sought to reassure Irish Protestant leaders as the process of discussion and decision continued and the legislation was drafted. Bodl. Carte 31, f. 223; Petworth House, West Sussex, Orrery pprs. ms 13,217(2) and (3) (NLI microfilm p. 7076); HMC 6th Rep. 316-17. Charles II appointed Anglesey along with Orrery and others to a commission for the implementation of the king’s declaration for the settlement of Ireland, issued in November 1660, a role with a salary of £500 a year. Agents for the Irish Catholic interest complained to the king that Anglesey was both a judge and a party to the settlement; sentiments which the king apparently recognized, but Anglesey’s position was too strong to dispense with his services. Notes which Passed, 52; Bodl. Carte 165, f. 41; Hutton, Charles II, 148. Ormond, the lord lieutenant, relied on Anglesey’s financial and legal expertise, especially in his role as Irish vice-treasurer. Bodl. Carte 42, f. 324; 60, f. 122; CSP Ire. 1660-2, pp. 505, 517. When Ormond returned to Ireland in early 1662 Anglesey was ordered to stay at Whitehall until the Irish Act of Settlement was finalized. HMC 6th Rep. 317. He was certainly a beneficiary of that settlement and in a later assessment of Anglesey’s estate, ‘new purchases’ since the Restoration were estimated to be worth £2,400 per year, or approximately one fifth of his total estate. CSP Ire. 1669-70 and Add. 1625-70, p. 682. Anglesey, with the help of Orrery (with whom he left his proxy for the Irish parliament in May 1662) and Sir James Shaen, obtained Irish lands that had been previously confiscated from rebels and was allowed to keep lands under the Act of Settlement, including the forfeited estates of the regicides Edmund Ludlow^‡ and John Jones^‡. HMC 6th Rep. 317; Irish Statutes, ii. 254. All the regicides’ former Irish lands had been granted to James Stuart, duke of York, and it was a measure of Anglesey’s political importance, and perhaps his personal connections, that James paid £1,000 per year from his Irish revenue to Anglesey, the same amount given to colonel Richard Talbot, later earl of Tyrconnell [I]. HMC 8th Rep. pt. 1 (1881), 497-99. Anglesey also acquired land in England, including the manor of Farnborough, which appears to have been purchased shortly after the Restoration. VCH Hants, iv. 16.

Anglesey was in Dublin by December 1662, and therefore absent from London during the discussions over the Declaration of Indulgence and the controversial bill to give effect to it that preoccupied the English Parliament when it met for the 1663 session on 18 February. Anglesey was excused attendance accordingly. Bodl. Clarendon 78, f. 114. Anglesey was undoubtedly keen on moderating the religious settlement. His own religious observance is meticulously catalogued in his diaries. His regular practice was to attend an Anglican service on a Sunday morning followed by a service by his own chaplain (usually a Nonconformist minister) in the afternoon. Add. 18730; Add. 40860. He always took time to prepare for receiving the sacrament which he did several times a year, and at least five times in 1673. However, his use of nonconformist chaplains was disliked by Anglicans like Clarendon, who criticized him in August 1662 for taking Edward Bagshaw to Ireland as his chaplain. Bodl. Carte 217, f. 462. (Bagshaw had caused trouble earlier in the year with his controversy with George Morley, bishop of Worcester: Bagshaw’s publications had been delivered to Anglesey’s house.) CSP Dom. 1661-2, 287. Anglesey’s wife was much more openly committed to the dissenting cause. On 10 Jan. 1663 she informed her husband that ‘despite the declaration to favour tender consciences, [Edmund] Calamy is in Newgate for preaching once at his church and your Bagshaw is in the Gatehouse.’ Greene thesis, 59. Together with Anglesey’s step-mother she was noted as attending a conventicle in August 1664. CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 678. Nor did his wife’s zeal lessen over time for in January 1684 she was one of 19 people arrested for attending ‘the meeting that was formerly Dr Owen’s.’ Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 444, 456.

Anglesey was not in good health while in Ireland, Ormond writing to Clarendon on 12 Mar. that he had ‘lately been very infirm’ and might even have to relinquish his office. CCSP, v. 302. He had recovered sufficiently for Clarendon to write on 18 Apr. that he was ‘very glad all the alarums of your frequent indispositions are over, you had need of a very confirmed health, for you have many labours to struggle with, and of a more troublesome and exorbitant nature, then those difficulties we wrestle with here.’ Bodl. Clarendon 79, ff. 160-1.

Nevertheless, Clarendon saw the usefulness of Anglesey being in England, opining on 4 July 1663 that ‘I long for few things more than to see some good expedient for the … settlement of Ireland, and therefore must long for my Lord Anglesey’s arrival.’ Bodl. Carte 32, f. 684. Anglesey first sat in the Lords in 1663 on 22 July and attended on the last five days of the session, being named to a single committee. On 24 July he entered his protest against the passage of the bill for the encouragement of trade, legislation which included a prohibition on the import of fat cattle from Ireland, and on which he ‘represented as effectually as I could the mischiefs thereof’ to the king. Many hoped that Anglesey’s presence in London would strengthen the arguments being made from Ireland for this legislation to be amended in the next session. Ibid. f. 734; HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 64. Once Parliament was prorogued Anglesey became heavily involved in the Council’s work on Irish affairs, and particularly the bill of explanation relating to the Irish land settlement. HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 64-93. Not everyone appreciated his efforts: Sir Alan Brodrick^‡ wrote on 8 Aug. 1663 that the bill had been ‘so altered by Anglesey (who is naturally dishonest) that neither English nor Irish Papist nor Protestant will vote for it.’ CCSP, v. 325.

Despite the failure of the 1663 bill of indulgence Anglesey was ever ready it seems to push the case for a more tolerant attitude to moderate, law-abiding dissenters. On 11 Aug. 1663 he noted some discussions with Clarendon on ‘extending such liberty as may be safe to men of peaceable spirits, though they differ in judgment. It’s to be doubted uniformity hath been pressed with too much earnestness, many ministers are subdued by it, but the people seem to be rather provoked than conquered.’ HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 71. Nevertheless, Anglesey was comfortable in the company of the Anglican hierarchy: on 31 Aug. he attended the installation at Lambeth of Gilbert Sheldon, as archbishop of Canterbury, being ‘nobly entertained.’ Ibid. 83.

In the second half of 1663 Anglesey was also much concerned to protect Ormond’s position as lord steward from the projected retrenchment of expenditure in the royal household and was trusted by the duke to view his new property at Moor Park and to help negotiate the financing of it. Ibid. 71, 78-79, 83-85, 105, 114. Ormond clearly appreciated Anglesey’s talents, describing him in July 1663 as ‘a man of worth and ability and of good use for the king’s service’, and ‘an extraordinary fit minister in his province’. Bodl. Carte 49, f. 218; 143, f. 146. In October 1663 Anglesey noted that the bill of explanation, and attendant lobbying, would keep him in England longer than he had official licence for from Dublin. On 19 Dec. he wrote of the seemingly interminable discussions on the bill of explanation and his inability to influence them because ‘I hath not those evening opportunities and familiarities which others have and abuse.’ HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 97, 120. Ormond was unsympathetic, and despite their close working relationship by March 1664 there were signs of future strains. As the bill of explanation was debated at length in Whitehall Ormond told Clarendon that Anglesey’s relentless questioning did nothing to advance their cause and remarked that ‘nobody gains by delay but those that drive the trade of bribery’. Bodl. Carte 143, f. 275. Only a few months earlier, on 26 Dec. 1663, Ormond had felt it necessary to warn Anglesey that the king and duke of York

are, and have been, much unsatisfied with your deportment in Parliaments and Councils, and have observed that upon all questions wherein nonconformists are concerned, you have always inclined to their favour, and cast difficulties in the way to all means that have been proposed to reduce them to conformity, or to secure the peace of the kingdom against them.

Ascribing Anglesey’s actions to ‘a charitable desire to do good offices, or from a belief that moderation and lenity is the likeliest way to gain Dissenters and to establish tranquillity’, he nevertheless noted that it ‘may also bear a worse construction … especially when you are single in the opinion, or supported by very few.’ HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 131-2.

In February 1664 Anglesey was afflicted with the gout, which severely restricted his outdoor activities, although he did manage to attend a Council committee meeting on Irish affairs. Ibid. 144-7. A few days before Parliament met on 16 Mar. 1664, Anglesey received a letter from the disgraced George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, ‘enclosing one of submission to his majesty, sealed with a copy thereof for me to peruse.’ Anglesey rose from his sickbed, took it to the king and then returned it to Bristol unopened. Anglesey informed Ormond of this incident because he felt some people would use it against him, whereas the duke knew ‘what passed in the Lord’s house between me and my lord of Bristol, in your presence, [and] can easily judge whether I am likely to hazard my lord chancellor’s friendship for my Lord Bristol’s compliment.’ Ibid. 152.

In the next session of Parliament, Anglesey’s attendance rate was over 94 per cent and he missed only two days of the session. He was named to the sessional committees and to nine other committees. On 22 Apr. he was named to a conference on foreign trade. He chaired a committee on 5 May on the hearth tax, and on five consecutive sitting days served on the subcommittee on the conventicle bill. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 454-6, 458. On 13 May he was named to manage a conference on the bill, reporting from it later that day. He reported subsequently from conferences on the bill on 14, 16 May (twice), when he also reported a proviso that had been drawn up, and on 17 May, the day on which Parliament was prorogued. He also attended the prorogation on 20 Aug. 1664.

When Parliament sat again, for the session which began on 24 Nov. 1664, Anglesey attended on 23 days (43 per cent of the total). He was again named to the sessional committees and to several select committees. He was absent from 20 Dec. 1664 until 18 Feb. 1665, without a recorded excuse. He chaired sessions of the committee on the bills to prevent delays upon extending statutes and to prevent arrests of judgment, reporting both bills on 1 March. Also on 1 Mar. he chaired the committees on Wildmoor Fen bill (which was adjourned with no discussion). PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 75-76. On 1 Mar. he was appointed to report a conference on the estate bill of Nicholas Tufton, 3rd earl of Thanet.

Irish Cattle and the crisis of 1665-8

By this date, it was clear that Anglesey was a man of business, prepared to take part in every day parliamentary activities and to undertake the onerous task of routine administration. His temperament appealed to an administrator like Samuel Pepys^‡, who described Anglesey in December 1664 as ‘a grave and serious man’. Pepys Diary, v. 336. In February 1665, Pepys recorded the chaos of Privy Council committees, in which men came and went, noting that Anglesey had said ‘I think we must be forced to get the king to come to every committee, for I do not see that we do anything at any time but when he is here’. Ibid. vi. 45. When Parliament was prorogued on 1 Aug. 1665, in the absence of both Clarendon and a commission from the king, Anglesey was chosen Speaker for the occasion.

In mid-August 1665 Anglesey wrote to Archbishop Sheldon signifying his consent should an application be received for a marriage licence for his daughter Elizabeth and her future husband, Alexander Macdonnell, brother of Randal Macdonnell, earl of Antrim [I], a leading Catholic. Bodl. Add. c 307, f. 116. This was a significant match, and may have been a reward for Anglesey’s support for a clause favouring Antrim in the bill of explanation. Greene thesis, 67-68. Later it would help to produce an impression that Anglesey was sympathetic to Catholicism. Indeed, if the marriage of one’s daughters is an indication of religious tolerance, it should be noted that his eldest daughter, Dorothy, was already married to the Catholic Richard Power, Baron Power, the future earl of Tyrone [I], whilst his widowed daughter Lady Frances Wyndham would marry the nonconformist sympathizer John Thompson, later Baron Haversham, in 1668. Two later incidents reveal more about Anglesey’s religious sympathies. On the 10 Nov. 1672 he spent ‘two hours in the evening in dispute with Mr Holland the priest at Lady Waldegrave’s’, and on 19 Nov. he recorded the death of John Wilkins, bishop of Chester as ‘a great loss to religion and learning’. Add. 40860, f. 39.

Anglesey’s usefulness in the king’s service probably explains the series of rewards he received around this time. A treasury warrant was issued to him for £400 for ‘secret services’ in May 1665, and in June he was given a patent confirming his lands in Ireland. CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 388; PRONI, Annesley pprs., D/1503/2/6/1-16. In August 1665 the king instructed Ormond to grant Anglesey lands in Ireland not appropriated by the Acts of Settlement and Explanation to the value of £500 per year fee-farm rent, and to enroll an additional pension to Anglesey of £600 per year for life out of the Irish revenue. Bodl. Carte 43, ff. 444, 452.

Anglesey was absent from the session of October 1665, being excused attendance on the 23rd as he was on the ‘king’s business’ in Ireland. His proxy had been registered with Edward Conway, 3rd Viscount Conway on 11 October. Ormond’s correspondence reveals that Anglesey was also in Ireland on business for York and on a mission to procure ‘his majesty’s bounty’ for Henry Bennet, Baron (later earl of) Arlington. Bodl. Carte 48, ff. 382-5; 51, f. 156. Anglesey returned to England probably in response to a plea from his recently widowed daughter, Lady Frances Wyndham, but also charged with reinforcing the views of the Irish ministers against the Irish cattle bill in the hope that the king would use his authority to prevent the bill’s passage. CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 411.

At this date Anglesey seems to have been in the market for land in England. Herts. RO, Ashridge mss AH 1098. During the course of the year Anglesey purchased Bletchingdon from Charles Stuart, 3rd duke of Richmond. VCH Oxon. vi. 59. Only seven miles north of Oxford and close to Woodstock this was to prove a pleasurable summer or autumn retreat for Anglesey. By about 1667 Anglesey’s estate was estimated at £11,360 p.a. CSP Ire. 1669-70 and Add. p. 682.

Anglesey missed the first five days of the 1666-7 session, sitting first on 27 September. Overall he attended on 83 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and was appointed to a further 22 committees. Anglesey was also the recipient of two proxies: that of Henry Jermyn, earl of St Albans (24 Oct.) and that of Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper (22 Dec.). On 12 Oct. 1666 Anglesey was named to a committee to prepare reasons for a conference over the prohibition of trade with France, which he reported on the 15th. He then reported the resultant conferences on 17 and 23 October. On 29 Oct. Anglesey and Anthony Ashley Cooper* , Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), were deputed to add the Lords’ concurrence to the Commons vote on the matter, which Anglesey reported. Finally, Anglesey reported the resultant conference with the Commons on the 30th, and was named as one of the peers to present to the king the joint address against the importation of French commodities.

Irish matters bulked large in this session of Parliament. Anglesey, with the backing of Ormond and his son, Thomas Butler, styled earl of Ossory [I], and Baron Butler of Moore Park in the English peerage, was engaged in opposition to the bill to prohibit the importation of Irish cattle. Bodl. Carte 217, ff. 334, 336-7, 338. Anglesey was expected to ‘employ his interest with particular friends in both Houses.’ Bodl. Carte 51, f. 2. Indeed, Ormond and the Irish Privy Council had written to the king in August deputing Anglesey as one of the peers to lobby him over the matter. CSP Ire. 1666-9, p. 184. As early as 29 Sept. Anglesey had correctly perceived that

it is impossible to stop the torrent or rectify the mistakes that are in that House [of Commons], in this affair … and I see also that his majesty takes it for granted that the bill cannot be opposed in that house with any success but that we must beg for it in the House of Lords and at conferences, and in conclusion his majesty is well resolved against it. Bodl. Carte 217, f. 336.

On 10 Nov. Arlington noted that he had dissuaded Anglesey from offering

a proviso relating to free trade in that kingdom … assuring myself from the temper I observe in the House it will not be admitted, and will by consequence be offered with more disadvantage hereafter to his majesty when it shall be thought seasonable, and his Lordship seemed convinced by my reasons therein. Ibid. 46, f. 396.

On 17 Nov. Anglesey was named to the committee to draft a proviso to the bill stipulating the form in which the Irish offer of beef for the City of London in the wake of the Fire of London would be distributed. On 23 Nov. Anglesey entered his dissent to the passage of the Irish cattle bill. With thoughts moving on to how to block the bill altogether, on 27 Nov. Conway pointed out that although Anglesey ‘is a man of excellent parts … his interest at court is not answerable.’ Ibid. 35, ff. 148-9. On 14 Dec., when the bill was before the Commons, Anglesey was named to report a conference on the subject, which he did on 17 Dec. He was then named to prepare reasons to be offered at the next conference on the bill, reporting them on 29 December. He reported from further conferences on the bill on 3 and 12 Jan. 1667. On 14 Jan. Anglesey entered his protest against agreeing with the Commons on the Irish cattle bill, particularly objecting to the term nuisance. As he wrote to Ormond,

yesterday unexpectedly proved a fatal day to Ireland by the passing of the bill against importation of their cattle, when we were generally resolved to have cast it out, and had certainly done so, if we had been left free to our own judgment ... The duke of York had that very morning expressed great resolution against it; and the archbishop of Canterbury, who had two proxies, came purposely to ... oppose it ... But his majesty met the duke at my lord chancellor’s, and ... as I understand, against my lord chancellor’s mind, it was resolved the Lords must yield to the Commons.’ Ibid. 47, f. 138.

As was by now the pattern, Anglesey continued to be active in a wide range of other parliamentary business. He was involved in conferences on the poll bill and public accounts (22 Nov., 29 Dec. 1666, 3, 12 and 24 Jan. 1667), the Canary Company (19 Dec. 1666) the impeachment of John Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt (3 Jan., 4 and 7 Feb. 1667) and the plague bill (1 and 4 February). According to the diary of Richard Boyle, earl of Burlington, he was the chief manager for the Lords at the conference on 7 Feb. regarding Mordaunt’s impeachment. Chatsworth, Cork mss Misc Box 1, Burlington diary, 7 Feb. 1667. The committee book shows that he was equally active chairing committees; he reported from the committee on the bill for the relief of poor prisoners on 1 Feb. and on 6 and 7 Feb. he chaired the adjourned committee on the bill settling taxes on Bedford Level, presenting a ‘draught of what shall be proposed’ to the committee on the 8th. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 158, 169, 178-9, 181.

According to Ormond, at the beginning of April 1667 a bedridden, gout-suffering Anglesey was ‘not unmindful of the danger he supposes his interest may undergo by his absence from here,’ presumably demonstrating his unease over the investigations by commissioners into the Irish land settlement. Bodl. Carte 48, f. 448. Anglesey had been quite ill, for on 4 May Lady Ranelagh had written to Burlington that he had ‘been nearer going into another world than to Ireland since you went … he is yet weak but mending and for Ireland when he is able.’ Add. 75354, ff. 63-65.

Anglesey remained a heavy presence in the Privy Council where he proved keen to absolve himself from any blame for the naval disasters against the Dutch, taking care to inform Ormond on 15 June 1667 that, nine months previously, he had argued in the king’s cabinet for a fleet to be put to sea and the consequences of not doing so. Bodl. Carte 47, f. 158. In the debates in the Privy Council around 20 June, Anglesey was in favour of calling a new Parliament, but the views of Sheldon and Clarendon prevailed to the contrary. Verney ms mic. M636/21, Sir N. Hobart to Sir R. Verney, n.d. On 24 June Pepys recounted an intervention at the Privy Council by Anglesey to the effect that their purpose in meeting was ‘to enquire what was or could be done in the business of making a peace, and in whose hands that was and where it was stopped or forwarded; and went on very highly to have all made open to them.’ Pepys Diary, viii. 288.

By this date opposition to Clarendon and Ormond was increasing, chiefly orchestrated by Buckingham, assisted by Orrery. Pressure was exerted on Anglesey to join them through the threat of an investigation into the Irish treasury. Anglesey responded by obtaining the king’s reluctant permission to swap offices with the equally beleaguered treasurer of the navy, Sir George Carteret^‡. Ibid. 295; Add. 75354, ff. 87-88; Add. 18730, f. 1. James Thurston thought that the exchange was a clever manoeuvre by which the king would respond to some of the demands insisted on in the last parliamentary session, one of which was Carteret’s removal as treasurer of the navy. CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 246. Pepys was pleased, noting at Anglesey’s first meeting of the navy board on 9 July: ‘he is a very notable man and understanding, and will do things regular and understand them himself, not trust Fenn [John Fenn, the navy paymaster] as Sir George Carteret did, and will solicit soundly for money.’ Others were not so sanguine, Sir Hugh Cholmley^‡ remarking that Anglesey was ‘one of the greatest knaves in the world’. Pepys Diary, viii. 301, 327.

Anglesey attended Parliament on both 25 and 29 July 1667, a short session designed to allow the king to announce the conclusion of a peace. His administrative skills were utilized on 29 July when he was named to a committee of the Council charged with the retrenchment of expenditure. Ibid. 367; CSP Dom. 1667, p. 338. He remained supportive of Ormond’s position, and kept Ormond informed throughout the autumn of 1667 on matters relating to the Irish settlement and Clarendon. Bodl. Carte 220, ff. 296-8; Carte 216, ff. 411; 217, ff. 413, 415, 417, 419, 421, 425-6.

The 1667-9 session opened on 10 Oct. 1667, after Clarendon’s dismissal from office. Within weeks Anglesey had warned Ormond that he was now the focus of opposition. Bodl. Carte 217, f. 419; Carte 47, ff. 176, 182; Carte 51, f. 74. Anglesey was characteristically active in the first part of this session (October to December) attending on 39 days, 76.5 per cent of the total. On 14 Oct. he was added to the committees for privileges and the Journal, having been absent when they were nominated on 11 Oct. and he was added to the committee on petitions on 31 October. Also on 31 Oct. he informed the House that a committee of the Commons on the miscarriages in the late war had desired him to provide them with information on the tickets given to seamen. After referral to the committee for privileges to examine precedents, on 12 Nov. Anglesey was given leave to do as he pleased in the matter. Presumably he cooperated, at least in part, because the Commons read a paper from Anglesey on 28 Feb. 1668, relating to the inconveniencies and abuses which occurred when mariners were discharged by tickets. He was named to a further 16 committees during this part of the session. The committee book again testifies to his activity, including his role chairing the committee on the estate bill of Gilbert Holles, 3rd earl of Clare, on seven occasions in October and November 1667. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 184, 192, 197, 202, 205, 208, 210, 213. On 15 and 19 Nov. he was named to manage conferences over the commitment of Clarendon but on 21 Nov. he protested against granting another conference on the matter, in part because he viewed it as an invasion of the Lords’ privileges, and so was not named to manage it. The following day he was nevertheless named to draft heads of a conference concerning the procedures used during the discussions over Clarendon, and on 23 Nov. he attended and reported back from the subsequent conference. On 25 and 27 Nov. he was named to manage further conferences on Clarendon’s case. Pepys recorded that when the conference was held on 28 Nov. it was said that ‘my Lord Anglesey doth his part admirably.’ Pepys Diary, viii. 551. Other diarists noted that he and his fellow managers, Holles and Ashley, rejected the precedents advanced by the Commons and that Anglesey argued that the precedents should be disregarded as they were ‘new, and that new precedents were not so binding and authentic as those that were more ancient.’ Chatsworth, Cork mss Misc Box 1, Burlington diary, 28 Nov. 1667; Milward Diary, 143. Anglesey apparently believed that the Commons would yield to the Lords and when the Commons voted that the Lords had not allowed them justice by failing to commit Clarendon, he told Pepys that

should the Lords yield to what the Commons would have in this matter, it were to make them worse then any justice of the peace (whereas they are the highest court in the kingdom); that they cannot be judges whether an offender be to committed or bailed, which every justice of the peace doth do. And then he showed me precedents plain in their defence. Pepys Diary, viii. 555, 561.

On 4 and 6 Dec. he was named to manage conferences on Clarendon’s ‘scandalous and seditious’ petition to the Lords. When, on 5 Dec., James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton, introduced ‘a bill for the honour and privilege of the House and mercy to my Lord Clarendon’ Anglesey opposed it, arguing that mercy could only be shown under the law to those already convicted of a crime, but the bill, actually to banish Clarendon, was given a first reading. Ibid. 565. Despite his opposition, he was added on 9 Dec. to the committee for the bill. On 14 Dec. he was named to draw up reasons why the Lords did not agree with the Commons’ address for a proclamation summoning Clarendon to his trial. On 24 Dec. Anglesey wrote to Ormond that the bill for banishing Clarendon,

which went very bad from the House of peers was much amended in the House of Commons, and imports no more now but a summons to render himself to one of the secretaries or lieutenant of the tower by the first of February under pain of banishment with assurance of a trial in parliament if he come. Bodl. Carte 217, f. 435.

Meanwhile, on 6 Dec. 1667 Anglesey had come under attack in the Privy Council for altering payments in course set by the council. According to Sir William Coventry^‡, this was merely an excuse to seek revenge on Anglesey for his conduct over Clarendon. Just after Christmas, there were rumours at Whitehall that Anglesey would be removed from the Privy Council because he had resisted the king’s will against Clarendon, although York was intent on resisting such a move. Pepys Diary, viii. 567, 571, 596, 600. Anglesey summed up the situation on 4 Jan. 1668, writing of the ‘sad and declining state affairs are in; all confidence among men so broken, by late intrigues and cabals, that there are scarce any two that dare trust one the other’; instead of ‘love, and friendly converse; now, there is nothing but practice to undermine and supplant one another.’ Bodl. Carte 217, ff. 431, 433. Anglesey defended himself vociferously, Pepys recording on 5 Jan. an alleged conversation between Anglesey and one of his opponents, in which Anglesey asked the question:

what are we to look for when we are outed; will all things be set right in the nation? … will you and the rest of you be contented to be hanged, if you do not redeem all our misfortunes and set all right, if the power be put into your hands? I and the rest of us that you are labouring to put out, will be contented to be hanged if we do not recover all that is passed, if the king will put the power into our hands and adhere wholly to our advice. Pepys Diary, ix. 10.

Also in January 1668 Anglesey was critical of the new act setting up a commission of accounts, which he said the Lords had passed ‘because it was a senseless, impracticable, ineffectual and foolish act’, and ‘a thing that can do nothing considerable for all its great noise.’ Ibid. 8-9.

When the 1667-8 session resumed on 6 Feb. 1668, Anglesey attended on 36 days, 55 per cent of the total. He was named to further eight committees. On 9 and 16 Mar. he entered his dissent to resolutions in the case of Morley v. Elwes. On 3 Mar., Anglesey had reported that the threat of impeachment proceedings against Ormond was receding but on 17 Mar. he noted that

the extravagant petition of the Adventurers was read in the House of Commons yesterday. The petitioners are to be heard, at bar, upon it that day month. … Some here are countermining this design which would overthrow the Settlement, and make Ireland slave to England. ... The new arrow is aimed more at his grace, than at any else. Bodl. Carte 46, f. 180; 47, f. 182.

On 1 Apr. Anglesey informed the House of a breach of privilege against him, by a summons in connection with a case in King’s Bench. The culprits were summoned to attend on the following day, but the Journal is silent on what happened. Having been added on 10 Apr. to the committee concerning the Hamburg Company and its creditors, on 23 Apr. he chaired the committee attempting to mediate between them. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, p. 275. On 24 Apr. he was named to manage a conference over the impeachment of William Penn, which he reported later in the day. On 29 Apr., ‘upon a speech of the earl of Anglesey’s’ the bill from the Commons for continuing the act suppressing conventicles was laid aside. Add. 36916, f. 95.

Anglesey was also involved in the most important constitutional wrangle of the session, the case of Skinner v. the East India Company. On 5 May he was named to a conference on the case. Stowe 303, f. 22. On 6 May, in the committee for privileges, it was decided that Anglesey and Holles would draft the Lords’ case and that Anglesey would be one of the peers deputed to respond to the arguments offered by the Commons. On 7 May he offered ‘what his Lordship hath prepared by way of introduction for the conferences’ together with the relevant precedents and this was then reported to the House. He was then designated to speak ‘to modern records’ at the conference with the Commons on 8 May. Several accounts survive detailing his defence of the Lords jurisdiction. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1/2, pp. 54-55; Braye mss 10, vol. 3, ff. 190-5, 201-8; Alnwick mss xix. ff. 131-3. Yet Anglesey failed to convince himself. He told Pepys that the

Lords may be in error, at least it is possible they may, in this matter of Skinner; and he doubts they may, and did declare his judgment in the House of Lords against their proceedings therein, he having hinder[ed], a hundred original causes being brought into their House, notwithstanding that he was put upon defending their proceedings; but that he is confident that the House of Commons are in the wrong in the method they take to remedy any error of the Lords, for no vote of theirs can do it; but in all cases the Commons have done it by petition to the king, sent up to the Lords and by them agreed to and so redressed. Pepys Diary, ix. 196.

This ties in with a comment of Sir Roger Twysden^‡ in June, that the counter-arguments of the solicitor general, Sir Heneage Finch, later lord chancellor and earl of Nottingham, had proved so effective that it ‘put the earl of Anglesey, who was to reply to it, into some distemper.’ HMC Finch, i. 510.

Anglesey was still a lynchpin in the government’s administrative machine. However, his activity could cause resentment as at the end of June 1668, when he offended York by complaining in the Council of disorders in the navy, rather than taking his concerns directly to the duke. Pepys Diary, ix. 253, 256. A document of September 1668 shows that Anglesey was a member of two standing committees of the Privy Council, one concerning the admiralty, navy, military matters, fortifications, and the other with trade, foreign plantations, Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Tangier, although he was omitted from the key committee for foreign affairs. Bodl. Carte 72, f. 615.

Loss of office 1668-70

Meanwhile, Anglesey came under attack for his role in the Irish administration. Once again the real target was Ormond and part of the purpose of the accusation was to pre-empt criticism in the next session of Parliament. The attack was led by Buckingham and Arlington, but caused tensions between the two. Arlington, it was said, ‘would like to ruin milord Anglesey, who is his enemy, and the best head there is in the council. But the duke of Buckingham, to whom this milord once showed partiality, will not consent to his downfall, and would very much like to acquire him.’ Greene thesis, 77-78; Bodl. Carte 48, f. 278; TNA, PRO 31/3/119, pp. 86-89; 31/3/120, pp. 10-11, 28; Browning, Danby, i. 64; ii. 21. Ossory attributed much of the political manoeuvring to Orrery and this is confirmed by other accounts. Bodl. Carte 220, ff. 394-5; NAS GD406/1/9789, A. Cole to Hamilton, 29 Sept. 1668; TNA, PRO 31/3/120, p. 24. Anglesey was suspended as treasurer of the navy by the king acting in Council on 28 Oct. 1668. Add. 36916, f. 117. On 7 Nov., he was also suspended from attending Council, probably because of his failure to acquiesce in the decision to hand over the administration of the navy treasurership to Sir Thomas Littleton^‡ and Sir Thomas Osborne, the future earl of Danby: ‘the former a creature of Arlington’s, and the latter of the duke of Buckingham’s.’ Bulstrode Pprs. 71; PRO 31/3/120, pp. 40-42; Pepys Diary, ix. 340-1. On 9 Nov. 1668 Colbert informed Louis that upon Anglesey’s loss of office and suspension from the Council ‘Milord Arlington rejoiced quite publicly, drinking the health of these commissioners and letting it be seen that this change could be attributed to him.’ TNA, PRO 31/3/120, pp. 40-42. Anglesey, who probably had the support of the duke of York, petitioned the king, arguing that he had ‘a legal estate’ for life in the office and making a barely concealed threat to raise it as a matter of privilege of peerage unless he were given an opportunity to argue his case before the council and the judges. The petition was rejected on 11 Nov. when the king replied that Anglesey was not prevented by the king’s actions from ‘taking the benefit from his laws’, but that ‘His majesty hath reason to suspect very great miscarriages in the management of that revenue which passed through the petitioner’s hands in Ireland to the damage of himself and his subjects there, and therefore doth not think fit to trust the treasure of his navy in the same hands, till he hath received better satisfaction’. TNA, PC 2/61, p. 104.

Anglesey petitioned the king again on 5 Dec. 1668 asking how he could give better satisfaction over his Irish accounts and hence return to exercising his navy office. CSP Dom. 1668-9, p. 90. By the summer of 1669, the commissioners were able to report back to the king. They stated that initially they had had difficulty tracking down Anglesey’s detailed accounts but when they did they found they were ‘kept in so ill a method’ that anything could be concealed in their confusion and perplexity. Daniel Bellingham, an officer of the Irish treasury, had not been sworn in and considered himself accountable only to Anglesey and not to the king. They estimated that the king was owed approximately £34,000 but the current balance was only £7,150. Bodl. Carte 37, ff. 107-09; 48, f. 342; 118, f. 62; Dublin Pub. Lib. Gilbert ms 198, ff. 14-32. Despite these criticisms no further action was taken against Anglesey, perhaps because Ormond, who had been the key target, had been removed from office in February 1669 or because the king had no wish to open a legal battle with Anglesey when there were more important matters in hand. Nevertheless, Anglesey remained suspended from office.

Anglesey attended the adjournment of the House on 11 Nov. 1668 and the prorogation on 1 Mar. 1669. He attended on 34 days (94 per cent) of the 1669 session. On the opening day, 19 Oct., he was named to four select committees. On 21 Oct. Sir Heneage Finch revealed in a speech to the Commons something of Anglesey’s views on the issues raised by the Skinner case when he noted that ‘I am clearly of the earl of Anglesey’s mind that votes will not end this matter nothing but a bill can do it.’ Leics. RO, Finch mss DG 7, box 4956 P.P. 18 (v). On 15 Nov. a complaint was made that Sir Maurice Eustace had breached the privilege of the House by procuring a hearing of a cause against Anglesey, for which he was ordered to appear at the Bar on the following day. The House ordered a stop to proceedings, and Eustace was discharged at Anglesey’s request. Anglesey registered his protest on 25 Nov. 1669 and his dissent on 29 Nov. in the case of Bernard Granville v. Jeremy Elwes.

On 18 Nov. 1669 Anglesey took his case over the treasurership of the navy to the Lords, particularly alleging that the commissioners appointed to examine his Irish accounts were influenced extra-judicially. CCSP, v. 632. The following day, it was referred to the committee for privileges, where Anglesey had the matter suspended. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1/2, p. 60. On 24 Nov. he petitioned the king; he asked for the profits of his office, as a pledge that Charles II ‘has not cast me off.’ CSP Dom. 1668-9, p. 589.

Anglesey was absent from the first two days of the next (1670-1) session. He first sat on 21 Feb. 1670, when he was added to the committees for privileges and petitions. He missed only one further day (11 Mar.), attending on 37 days of the session before the adjournment on 11 Apr., 93 per cent of the total of this part of the session. He was also on hand to support the divorce bill of John Manners, Lord Roos, the future 9th earl of Rutland, whose sister was married to his son. On 22 Feb. he informed Roos’s mother that ‘now will be the time for your ladyship and my lord ... to come about my Lord Roos’s his business; all things going smooth in Parliament, and the two houses agreed this day’, a reference to the Skinner case. Belvoir, Rutland mss, xviii. f. 137. He spoke and acted as a teller in favour of giving the Roos divorce bill a second reading on 17 March. At the third reading on 28 Mar. he offered a proviso allowing Lady Roos £400 p.a. maintenance, which was not allowed as the bill had already been read three times. However, Anglesey, Ashley and Roos’s father, John Manners, 8th earl of Rutland, ‘undertook the substance of the proviso should be made good to her.’ Harris, Sandwich, ii. 319, 323, 332. As Andrew Marvell^‡ concluded: ‘Anglesey and Ashley, who study and know their interests as well as any gentlemen at Court, and whose sons have married two sisters of Roos, inheritrixes if he has no issue, yet they also drive on the bill with their greatest vigour. The king is for the bill.’ Marvell ed. Legouis, ii. 315.

On 21 Mar. 1670 he was named to draft an address to the king about the ancient freedom of peers from the impost on wines, which he reported the same day. He was named to a further 26 committees in this part of the session. On 26 Mar. he entered his dissent against the passage of the conventicle bill. As in previous sessions he was active in committee, chairing meetings of four committees on 30 Mar., one of which (the dean of St Paul’s bill) he reported later that day and another (the malicious burning of houses bill) on 4 April. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, p. 325. He was also named to manage several conferences: the Guzman et al. naturalization bill on 30 Mar.; the conventicle bill (reporting on 2 and 5 Apr.); repair of Great Yarmouth harbour (reported on 5 Apr.); and on 9 Apr. he was named to that for preventing the delivery of merchant ships (named 9 April). From 2 Apr. he held the proxies of both Rutland and Edward Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu. On 11 Apr. he reported from the committee for privileges on the case of Henry Slingsby v. William Hale^‡. On 9 Apr. Anglesey had been named to a committee to consider grievances arising from the rules and practices that governed law suits. While the House stood adjourned Anglesey was an active member of a subcommittee on this subject. Ibid. pp. 332, 334, 336, 338, 345, 348.

Return to favour 1670-78

The adjournment of the House saw Anglesey’s political prospects rise. A newsletter writer noted on 19 Apr. that ‘Anglesey is restored to the council, he made an excellent speech in the House of Lords in behalf of the Lord Roos’s bill but I do not say that is the cause.’ Add. 36916, f. 180. Sir Ralph Verney^‡ reported that he was also ‘in good esteem with the king, and is in no small hope of being restored to his office of treasurer of the navy, or compensation for it.’ Verney ms mic. M636/23, Sir R. to E. Verney, 18 May 1670.

Another indication of Anglesey’s return to favour, or at least a willingness by the king to use his talent for business, was his appointment as a commissioner for negotiating a union with Scotland, meetings of which took place between September and November 1670. Significantly, on 22 Sept. he was one of those named to a joint committee with the Scots charged with drawing up the intended articles of union. This committee met at Anglesey’s house on 23 Sept. and drafted the preliminary articles, which he reported back to the commissioners for England on the following day before they were considered by the full commission. Cromwellian Union, 188-207, 211-12; NLS, ms 7004, f. 174.

Anglesey was present on 24 Oct. 1670 when the House reconvened after the adjournment. He attended on 113 days, 90 per cent of the total. He was named to a further 44 committees during this part of the session, chairing several of them, and reporting from the committee on the Falmouth church bill on 21 Nov. and that on the bill against the malicious burning of houses on 22 November. He was active in committee in other ways too: on 10 Dec. the committee on the bill to prevent frauds in the export of wool accepted a clause he had drafted. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 325, 345, 351, 353-4, 387, 389, 400, 402, 437, 440, 443, 447, 448-9, 451, 454.

Meanwhile, on 11 Nov. 1670 Anglesey argued ‘mightily’ on behalf of Sir Robert Nugent in his complaint against Richard Talbot, whereupon the House ordered a hearing for later in the month. CSP Dom. 1670, pp. 525-6. On 1 Dec. he argued for granting relief to Ann Fry in her appeal from a chancery decree in favour of George Porter, but without success. Mapperton, Sandwich mss Jnl. X. 302-20. On 2 Dec. Anglesey entered his dissent against the passage of the general naturalization bill. As was by now usual he was deeply involved in managing and reporting conferences. These ranged from issues of national concern, such as the Commons petition to the king for the prevention of the growth of popery (reported on 10 Mar. 1771) and the additional excise bill (named 6 Mar.), to matters of more localized interest such as the Boston navigation bill (named 13 Mar.) and the bill to prevent abuses at Smithfield market (named 18 and 20 April). On 9 Mar. Anglesey protested against the failure to commit the bill concerning privilege of Parliament ‘because I conceive there is no colour of law to claim a privilege of freedom from suits; and for many other reasons’. He likewise entered his dissent against the failure to order the bill to be engrossed. On 15 Mar. he entered his protest against the suspension of judgment against John Cusack in the case against William Usher, ‘because the defendants were never yet summoned nor heard and are not parties to the judgment’. On the following day he entered his dissent against the suspension of judgment for two months.

Having been involved in the conference on preventing the growth of popery, Anglesey went on to chair the committee on the resultant bill. On 13 Apr. 1671 he was also named to the subcommittee ‘to draw up such a test or oath according to the debate of the committee this day which being taken, may obtain a mitigation of the penalties of the law following conviction to such recusants’. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, pp. 437, 440, 443, 447, 449, 451.

In April 1671 Anglesey became involved in the controversy arising from the bill imposing an additional duty upon foreign commodities over the Lords’ claim to amend money bills. He reported on a conference on the bill and the general point about the upper House amending money bills on 22 April. The Commons’ refusal to accept the right of peers to amend financial legislation caused the bill to be lost and prompted Anglesey to write a widely copied manuscript tract, eventually published in 1702 as The Privileges of the House of Lords and Commons Argued and Stated. Greene thesis, 82-83.

With Ormond out of office in Ireland some of those patronized by him looked to Anglesey for assistance in 1670, especially as he was now active again in the Privy Council. The pro-French and ‘Catholic’ policy of the king and the Cabal had resulted in the reinstatement of the Catholic church hierarchy in Ireland. As a result Peter Talbot, titular Archbishop of Dublin, was able to use his position to persecute the clergy who had subscribed to the loyal oath promoted by Ormond and Father Peter Walsh in 1661. IHS, xxxiv. 16-41. In the summer of 1670 Anglesey was reading Walsh’s pamphlets and papers in order to understand the issue and present a petition to the Privy Council. Bodl. Carte 45, f. 391; Carte, 221, ff. 344, 354. More generally, when Richard Talbot presented a petition to the king and council requesting a review of the Irish land settlement, Anglesey’s position was ambiguous. He had been an architect and beneficiary of the settlement but now agreed that it had been unjust in some respects towards Irish Catholics. Dublin Pub. Lib., Gilbert ms 198, ff. 78-83, 266-9, 272-3; 227, f. 47. Anglesey was appointed to a commission to investigate the Irish settlement which was overwhelmed in hearings, recriminations and paperwork for the next few years. Bodl. Carte 69, ff. 230-1; Carte 70, f. 163.

From May 1671 Anglesey’s diary details his daily activities, revealing an extraordinary level of involvement in a range of governmental bodies, his commercial interests in the Gambia Company and Fen Corporation, and his religious life. It also demonstrates, albeit partially, his contacts with the main political players of the day. On 4 June, for example, Ashley, Buckingham ‘and others’ came to dine with him at Kensington, while on the 18th he dined with Lord Chamberlain St Albans at Windsor. HMC 13th Rep. VI. 263. Anglesey’s diary also helps to explain the convoluted proceedings over his office of treasurer of the navy in the summer and early autumn of 1671. On 22 Sept. the king decided to appoint Osborne as the sole treasurer of the navy, in effect making Anglesey’s suspension perpetual. Negotiations continued for many months and at one point Charles II offered Anglesey the mastership of the rolls instead of the treasurership of the navy, ‘if I would accept it, and clear all for time past. I said I was willing to serve … and liked better to be among lawyers, as I was bred, than in any other course.’ CSP Dom. 1671, pp. 498-9; HMC 13th Rep. VI. 265, 269, 271. After many delays on 5 Sept. Anglesey was granted the fees of the office from the date of his suspension until June 1672, and then £3,000 p.a. in lieu of his fees from the treasurership. CSP Dom. 1672, p. 572. Even then there were further delays, and a fresh grant had to be issued on 14 October. Add. 40860, f. 37. This settlement did not prevent Anglesey from continuing to press for justice over his accounts for the vice-treasurership of Ireland, claiming that if anything the king owed him money. Stowe 200, f. 258.

Anglesey was still being courted by other ministers. On 19 July 1671 he joined Ashley for dinner at Twickenham, the residence of John Berkeley, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, the lord lieutenant of Ireland, where Buckingham suggested that Anglesey was his preferred candidate for chancellor. By 25 Aug. Buckingham seemed to be suggesting Anglesey as lord president but the following day Berkeley assured him that only Osborne opposed him being lord keeper, and Ashley offered his support for the post. HMC 13th Rep. VI. 266-7. On 11 Nov. Anglesey dined with Ashley, Lord Roos and others at the Sun Tavern in London. Add. 40860, f. 21. From 3 Dec. until 9 Jan. 1672 Anglesey was bedridden with gout but on 2 Jan. 1672 he rose from his sickbed to attend an extraordinary council meeting where he failed to prevent the Stop of the Exchequer. Ibid. f. 22; HMC 13th Rep. VI. 270.

On 23 Jan. 1672 Anglesey had a long private meeting with the king, who told him ‘all his designs against the Dutch and for liberty [of conscience].’ From late February until mid-April 1672 Anglesey was ill of the gout, although he occasionally roused himself to attend council, as he did on 15 Mar., ‘where I spoke my mind freely to the Declaration offered by the king for indulgence; observing the Papists are put thereby into a better and less jealoused state than the dissenting protestants,’ and on the 17th when he ‘spoke my mind to the Declaration against the Dutch, and proposed the last treaty might be observed in not seizing of merchants’ goods’, but giving time to withdraw if war were judged necessary. HMC 13th Rep. VI. 270-1. Anglesey had long been a supporter of liberty of conscience. His pamphlet on the subject, entitled The King’s Right of Indulgence in Spiritual Matters, with the Equity thereof, asserted, was published in 1688. It was not so much the Second Declaration of Indulgence therefore that concerned him in 1672, but the absence of Parliament, the general direction of court policy, war with Holland and developments in Ireland. HMC, 6th Rep. 318; Bodl. Carte 66, ff. 597-8.

In June 1672 the mutual antipathy between Anglesey and Orrery boiled over. On 11 June, at the king’s command, Anglesey handed over to him a letter from Orrery about Ireland. Add. 40860, f. 29. According to Conway, ‘Lord Orrery is totally ruined by a letter which he wrote to Lord Anglesey, who carried it to the king. I know not which is most condemned, the indiscretion of the one or the treachery of the other.’ HMC Hastings, ii. 380. By the same post Arlington wrote on the king’s behalf commanding Orrery to ‘moderate his zeal’ on security matters and to stop inflaming matters in the wake of the king’s declaration of his indulgence towards allowing the Roman Catholics to live in corporate towns. CSP Dom. 1672, pp. 269-70.

On 25 Nov. 1672, Sir John Coplestone reported that Anglesey might be about to be made lord privy seal. Add. 21948, ff. 427-8. On 30 Nov. Anglesey recorded that the king had offered him encouragement which ‘I should quickly see by him employing me in some place of trust’. Arlington advised letting ‘things rest so keeping all private and all would go well,’ and so Anglesey bided his time. Meanwhile, Anglesey was working hard at the social aspects of power, accompanying first the new chancellor of the exchequer, Sir John Duncombe^‡ (23 Nov.), and then the lord treasurer Thomas Clifford, Baron Clifford (5 Dec.) to be sworn in the exchequer. His care to attend the court saw him on hand to note on 25 Dec. that although the king received the sacrament, the duke of York did not. Add. 40860, ff. 40, 42. Early in the new year, Anglesey was revealed to be one of the protectors (the other being Shaftesbury, as Ashley had now become) of Marvell’s The Rehearsal Transpros’d. HJ, xliv, 709.

Anglesey was present when a new session opened on 4 Feb. 1673. He was excused attendance on 13 Feb. because of ill health, and was absent until he attended the committee for privileges on the afternoon of 24 February. Ibid. f. 43. Otherwise he attended on 32 days of the session (78 per cent of the total), and was named to a further 15 committees. Throughout March he was deeply involved in the debates over the growth of popery. He was named to a conference on the matter on 6 Mar. and in response to the suggestion of the lord treasurer, produced a draft clarification of the king’s powers in matters ecclesiastical on 7 March. HMC 9th Rep. pt. 2, p. 25. On 8 Mar. when Shaftesbury announced the withdrawal of the Declaration of Indulgence with the king in attendance, and the House passed an address against popery, Anglesey recorded it as ‘a strange day in Parliament’. Add. 40860, f. 44. On 15 Mar. he was named to a subcommittee to draw a clause for the Test bill. HMC 9th Rep. pt. 2, p. 29. On 24 Mar. he was named to a conference on the bill, reporting it later in the day. He was then named to prepare reasons against the clauses in the bill concerning the queen, which led to another conference on the 25th. On 29 Mar. he was named to report a conference on the bill for the ease of Dissenters, and to manage the resultant conference. As usual he also chaired committees on a variety of subjects. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, pp. 23-24, 43-45. On 28 Mar. he entered his dissent to the resolution dismissing the petition of James Percy, a claimant to the earldom of Northumberland. After the end of the session, on 8 Apr. 1673 Anglesey recorded his attendance at ‘the committee for the Lords Journal.’ Add. 40860, f. 45.

Anglesey had undoubtedly helped the king to negotiate a difficult parliamentary session and was rewarded on 11 Apr. when the king informed him in private of his decision to appoint him lord privy seal. HMC 13th Rep. VI. 274. On 21 Apr. he ‘found that some had been undermining me with the king and shaken him so far as that he told my Lord Arlington that it was not reasonable I should have my £3,000 pension and the privy seal both’, whereupon he went to the king and persuaded him otherwise. Add. 40860, f. 46. A later assessment suggested that ‘the king being pressed by factions, and charged with introducing popery and arbitrary power, made him privy seal, as a man that had always been in opposition to both, and yet one he thought might be useful to him in the House of Peers, being very knowing in records and precedents of Parliament, of a good tongue and one who had an excellent faculty in writing.’ HMC 2nd Rep. 213.

On 29 May 1673 Anglesey attended a committee of council to discuss the implications of the cancellation of the Declaration of Indulgence on 7 Mar. 1673, particularly that the licences were ‘snares’ to those that had taken them out, and that ‘somewhat ought to be signified for quietness sake till the Parliament met, yet with so much caution as neither to suspend the laws in force, nor give authority to the licences.’ An attempt to draw up a letter for the Privy Council in June 1673 proved beyond Anglesey’s powers of legal finesse, it being a ‘nice narrow patch that could hardly be hit.’ Add. 40860, f. 49; Williamson Letters (Cam. Soc. n.s. viii.), 33. He was also responsible for the summoning of Oxfordshire justices before the council on 13 June. At Easter the justices had declared in quarter sessions that the penal laws were in force as the king had no power to suspend them. CSP Dom. 1673-5, p. 152; CSP Dom. 1673, p. 369.

Following York’s resignation from office, on 17 June the king informed Anglesey that he had ‘put me in the commission for the admiralty and depended chiefly on my care and skill therein’. Add. 40860, f. 50; CSP Dom. 1673, p. 385. Although his commission was dated 9 July, his diary records entries on admiralty business from 26 June when he discussed the commission with the king. On 22 July Anglesey attended the committee for Ireland, ‘where I differed almost wholly about the rules of corporations in Ireland,’ and on the following day at the full council he ‘singly opposed the corporation rules’. On 20 Aug. 1673 Anglesey described being ‘in the junto council’, presumably a reference to the foreign affairs committee. He now carried sufficient weight to secure an Irish earldom for his son-in-law Richard Power, who was created earl of Tyrone in October. On 15 Oct. Anglesey recorded that he had spent three hours ‘at my Lord Arlington’s chamber, the king and most of the junto present upon great affairs.’ Add. 40860, ff. 50, 52, 54, 55, 57.

Anglesey attended the prorogation on 20 Oct. 1673, and attended all four sittings of the ensuing short session. On 31 Oct. during a debate on the king’s speech in the Commons he was attacked by Henry Powle^‡ as ‘the contriver’ of the Declaration of Indulgence, who had since been made lord privy seal, the third office in the kingdom, or as Sir Christopher Musgrave^‡ put it, one who had ‘declared the declaration for liberty of conscience lawful’. Grey, ii. 208; Williamson Letters (Cam. Soc. n.s. ix), 59. Despite references to the ‘juncto’ and being singled out for attack by the Commons, involvement in key meetings was rare for Anglesey. So much so that when he attended Parliament on 4 Nov., the day on which the king unexpectedly attended to prorogue Parliament, ‘I found the king there and many of the lords in their robes having no notice of it before I saw them.’ Add. 40860, f. 59. That month, following Shaftesbury’s dismissal as lord chancellor, Anglesey was said to be ‘much disappointed’ not to succeed him. CSP Dom. 1673-5, p. 13; Bodl. Tanner, 42, f. 54.

Anglesey was present on 7 Jan. 1674, when the next parliamentary session opened, attending on 28 days, 74 per cent of the total. On the opening day of the session, Verney reported that, together with Charles Howard, 2nd earl of Berkshire, Anglesey spoke in vindication of Buckingham following a complaint about his conduct with the countess of Shrewsbury. Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. to E. Verney, 8 Jan. 1673[-4]. On 8 Jan., when he stayed until 3 p.m., Anglesey was one of three peers (the others being York and Northampton) to vote against an address to the king for the removal of papists from London during the sitting of Parliament. Add. 40860, f. 63; Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. to E. Verney, 12 Jan. 1673[-4]; TNA, PRO 31/3/130 ff. 34-36. From 13 Jan. to 3 Feb. he recorded ‘I was most of the time very ill of the gout and some days kept bed, yet other days went to the Parliament.’ Add. 40860, f. 63. On 14 Jan. Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon, registered his proxy with Anglesey. That month, when the Commons attacked Buckingham and Arlington, Verney expected them to broaden their attack to question Anglesey, ‘who is the least beloved man in England.’ Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. to E. Verney, 15 Jan. 1673[-4]. He was named to a further six committees of the House as well as to two conferences with the Commons, one on 3 Feb. relating to their address advising the king on a treaty with the States-General, and another on 11 Feb. on giving thanks to the king for response to the address. He chaired the committee for privileges, on the question of whether the sons of peers had privileges, reporting on 11 February. Add. 40860, f. 64; PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1/3, p. 108. He reported from the same committee on 18 Feb. on the claim of Arthur Capell, earl of Essex, to the earl of Northumberland’s estate.

Anglesey must have been worried by the Commons debates in February 1674, which resulted in the appointment of a committee on 20 Feb. to inspect the state of the Irish revenue, the state of religion, and the militia and armed forces. It was perhaps this hostility in the lower House that prompted Verney to write on 12 Feb. of his belief that Anglesey was ‘much abated in his power’ of influencing appointments. Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. to E. Verney, 12 Feb. 1673[-4]. On 27 Mar., after council, Arlington attacked Anglesey for passing a grant for John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester, saying that ‘I understood not the duty of my place; that he never looked for better from me, that by God I served everybody so, and would do so to the end of the chapter.’ HMC 13th Rep. VI, 276-7.

Anglesey’s private life remained busy. On 7 Apr. 1674 his daughter, the countess of Tyrone, died and on 7 May another daughter, Philippa, married Charles Mohun, 3rd Baron Mohun. Meanwhile, Anglesey became entangled in a legal dispute over his title to Bletchingdon, from which he was only saved by the death of his opponent, Edward Lewis^‡. Add. 40860, ff. 45, 69, 70-72. For most of October and much of November Anglesey was again ill with a severe attack of gout. Ibid. f. 79.

The religious settlement continued to play a prominent part in Anglesey’s political actions. On 29 Jan. 1675 he attended the council, ‘where the king communicated the proceedings at Lambeth for reformation [the meeting of the bishops with Danby and other councillors on 21 Jan.], which we debated a while but desired time if our advice was expected it being as I conceived a weighty affair.’ On 3 Feb. he was ‘was with the king long in private about the declaration’ (the declaration embodying the chief points originally agreed in the meeting in January, concerning measures against Catholics and nonconformists), and in council that afternoon ‘the declaration was mended and the day lengthened till the 25th of March and so passed with a proclamation.’ Ibid. ff. 82-83. Verney reported these conciliar debates as being very warm, with Anglesey, Holles, George Savile, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, and Charles Howard, earl of Carlisle, ensuring that the proclamation would ‘contain very large directions for prosecution of papists. But concerning the Protestant dissenters there is to be nothing more or less than that the king (from Lady Day next) hath taken off his licences.’ Verney ms mic. M636/28, Sir R. to E. Verney, 4 Feb. 1674[-5].

Between 5 and 24 Mar. 1675 Anglesey was again ill. What aroused him from his sickbed was a family crisis which erupted on 25 Mar. when ‘false, bold, ungrateful daughter Decies went to Lord Ossory.’ Lady Decies was his barely teenage granddaughter-in-law and heiress to a large estate, who now claimed that she had been forced into a contract of marriage and had been ‘restrained and hindered from manifestation of my dislike and dissent’ to it. Despite seeking the king’s assistance and a referral to the council, Anglesey was unable to compel her return. Add. 40860, ff. 85-86; T.M. Mackenzie, Dromana (1907), 125-6. The following year, she married Edward Villiers, the heir of George Villiers, 4th Viscount Grandison [I], and cousin of the still powerful Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland.

Parliament reassembled for the 1675 session on 13 April. Anglesey was present on each of the 41 days that the Lords sat; he was named to 13 select committees. His name appears on several lists as a supporter of the non-resisting test in April-June 1675 but this disguises Anglesey’s more nuanced position. On 19 Apr. Anglesey attended ‘by the king’s command at lord treasurer’s where [there] was [the] lord keeper &c about the new test. ... I urged many arguments against the test or new oath.’ He spent most of the following day in Parliament ‘on the new test &c.’ Add. 40860, f. 86. On 24 Apr. Dr William Denton reported on the retention the previous day of the ‘Test bill’ or ‘no alteration oath’, by one voice, noting that Anglesey

hath left this sting in the tail of it by a memorial openly in the House to the bishops of the reasons why they were cast out of the Lords’ House before, and how that this Parliament brought them in again so that they now sit not on any old foundation but by an Act of Parliament, and therefore did advise them to be cautious least they tricked themselves out of it again. Verney ms mic. M636/28, Denton to Verney, 24 Apr. 1675.

On 26 Apr. Anglesey spent from nine in the morning to after nine at night in Parliament, presumably mainly for the debates on the test bill. On 30 Apr. he ‘spent the morning with good success in Parliament,’ when he chaired a committee of the whole on the test bill, and an amendment was passed that no oaths imposed on peers would result in them losing their seats, thereby reassuring those peers who were concerned that the oath proposed in the bill might constitute a breach of their privileges. He reported a further eight times from the committee, the last occasion being 31 May (on which day he recorded ‘being in the chair upon the test till near 12 at night’), before the bill was eventually submerged in a privilege dispute between the Houses. Add. 40860, ff. 86, 88.

Meanwhile, on four days in April 1675 Anglesey chaired the committee on the bill explaining the act preventing the danger from popish recusants, reporting it on 4 May, and taking the resultant oaths on 31 May. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, pp. 85-89. On 23 Apr. he reported from the committee of privileges concerning the manner in which the clerk had entered two votes from 13 Apr. in the Journal. On 5 May he recorded being at the committee of privileges, when the matter of Dr Thomas Sherley v. Sir John Fagg^‡ was under consideration. Add. 40860, f. 87. He chaired many other committees too, three of which he also reported: the bill vesting the site of St Trinity the Less in the trustees of the Augustine Protestant German congregation in London (31 May); the bill for the better payment of church duties, small tithes and other church duties (18 May); and that for the estate of William Lewis. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, pp. 94, 96, 97-101, 104-9, 110-11, 114.

On 10 May 1675 he entered his protest against the resolution not to affirm the decree in the cause of Dacre Barrett v. Viscount Loftus [I]. On 12 May he recorded attending Parliament all day until after nine in the evening, though quite what the business was that detained him so long is unclear. Add. 40860, f. 87. On 14 May he entered his dissent (along with Christopher Monck, 2nd duke of Albemarle) to the resolution of the House exonerating his son-in-law Mohun, who had forcibly taken a warrant of the Commons for the arrest of Dr Sherley. He was nevertheless named to a conference on the matter on 17 May, and presumably attended the subsequent conferences on the matter, reporting from one held on 21 May. On 26 May he was the sole peer to enter his dissent to the reversal of the judgment in the case of John Streater v. Abel Roper et al. On 27 May he was named to report a conference on the privilege dispute between the houses in the case of Sir Nicholas Stoughton v. Arthur Onslow^‡. The Lords’ insistence on restricting the subject matter of the conference, in order to protect their claim to judicature, led to the failure of the Commons to attend. Anglesey was then one of four peers nominated on 31 May to draw up heads for another conference on the matter, which he reported later that day. Privilege issues continued to be a concern for Anglesey, and on 1 June he was one of those peers appointed to draw up reasons for the release of the four counsel appointed by the Lords to defend Sir Nicholas Crisp in his cause with Thomas Dalmahoy^‡, but who had been taken into custody by order of the Commons. Anglesey reported the resultant conference on 2 June and later in the day reported from a committee of the whole that a small committee should draw up reasons to be offered at a conference on the subject. On 3 June Anglesey reported from this committee and from the subsequent conference. On 5 June Anglesey ‘morning and afternoon sat in Parliament but did nothing the king having used us ill, the Lord prevent confusion. We did attend the king in the Banqueting House.’ On 11 June, after the prorogation, he spent the morning ‘at Mr Browne’s, clerk of the Parliament, to examine the Lords Journal.’ Add. 40860, f. 88.

During July 1675 he noted that cousin ‘Pereg.’ (Peregrine Bertie) ‘assured me of lord treasurer.’ This intelligence was somewhat gainsaid on 7 Aug. when John Granville, earl of Bath, ‘told me of [the] lord treasurer’s jealousy of me about telling the king of privy seals for secret service.’ On 17 Sept. Anglesey recorded that in the afternoon he was ‘at the junto till late.’ Similarly, on 11 Oct. he recorded a meeting of ‘the junto about preparations for the Parliament.’ Ibid. 91-92, 94; Add. 18730, f. 3.

When the next session of Parliament opened on 13 Oct. 1675, Anglesey attended on each of the 21 days on which the Lords sat and was named to a further nine committees. On 18 Oct. he registered the proxy of Henry Pierrepont, marquess of Dorchester. On that day he ‘was with them that met at [the] lord treasurer’s’, presumably to discuss the proceedings in the Commons on the king’s speech, when Danby’s allies had tried to get the lower House to prioritize religious matters ahead of supply. Add. 18730, f. 3; Browning, Danby, i. 175. He was active in the debates on the case of Sherley v. Fagg, noting on 26 Oct. that ‘I satisfied the whole House in the morning about our judicature,’ and on the following day that he spent the morning in Parliament ‘to general satisfaction.’ On 4 Nov. he was the sole protester against the resolution of the House to order the hearing of Sherley v. Fagg for 20 Nov., noting that Bristol and Essex ‘would have had me to the bar for being of a different mind, but they did but show their teeth.’ Add, 18730, f. 4. On 10 Nov. Anglesey was named to a conference on a joint address to the king to renew the prohibition on soldiers serving in the French army, from which he duly reported. He also chaired several committees in November, including (on seven occasions) the committee investigating the publication of A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country. Some of the committees may have been for bills in which friendship played a part, such as those for the dowager countess of Warwick or that for settling the estates of William Maynard, 2nd Baron Maynard; others, like the revived bill on behalf of the Augustine Protestant German congregation, may reflect personal interests or previous expertise. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1/3, pp. 115-19, 121-4, 124, 126. On 19 Nov. he was named to report a conference on preserving a good correspondence with the Commons. On 20 Nov., he was one of the chief speakers against the motion to address the king to dissolve Parliament, spending ‘all day till near nine at night in Parliament to prevent the dissolution.’ On the day after the prorogation he again recorded being present ‘at the committee for the Journal book.’ Timberland, i. 183; Add. 18730, f. 5.

Anglesey was still deeply involved in the business and minutiae of patronage. One of those he assisted was Thomas Cartwright, the future bishop of Chester. Add. 18730, f. 6. At council on 28 Jan. he ‘spoke my mind freely, yet with submission, against the scheme of suspension or retrenchment.’ Ibid. f. 7. In Westminster Hall on 30 June, Anglesey was one of six peers to vote Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, guilty of manslaughter. Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxii), 134-6; Add. 18730, f. 12.

On 11 Aug. 1676, Anglesey began his summer journey to Bletchingdon. He returned to his house in Kensington at the beginning of October. Add. 18730, f. 17. Although there is no record of the exchange in the Privy Council minutes, on 24 Nov. Anglesey recorded that he had given ‘a sound reprimand to the City for their petition to the King’, presumably that promoted at the end of October by Jenks and Player for the redress of grievances. TNA, PC 2/65, pp. 382-4; Add. 18730, f. 19; CSP Dom. 1676-7, pp. 388-9.

At the end of December 1676 Anglesey fell ill of the gout, which kept him bedridden until the parliamentary session began on 15 Feb. 1677. On the opening day he was carried to Westminster and stayed till seven at night. Thereafter, until 11 Apr. ‘he was carried or went to the Parliament most days, but sometimes was so ill of the gout I could not and some days went to the council table also.’ Add. 18730, f. 20. He spoke on 15 Feb. 1677 in support of the lord chancellor and the lord treasurer and against the view expressed by Buckingham, Shaftesbury, Wharton and James Cecil, 3rd earl of Salisbury, that Parliament had been dissolved. Anglesey apparently then spoke for an hour against the move to bring those four lords to the bar, arguing that it would take away the freedom of Parliament to punish them for their opinions. He was then involved in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Salisbury to ask the pardon of the House. All four were sent to the Tower, at which Anglesey was reported to be ‘much troubled’, arguing that ‘this violence will make things worse to the king, but he was so ill and tired by Thursday’s attendance that he could not be there to moderate on Friday.’ HMC Rutland, ii. 38-9. He was then absent for the next five days. After a solitary day in attendance on 22 Feb., he was absent until 12 March. Thereafter, in the first part of the session (before the adjournment on 16 Apr.) he attended on a further 29 days of the session (making in all 63 per cent of the total) and was named to a further 18 committees.

Despite being absent from the House, on 2 Mar. 1677 Anglesey was able to defend his privilege as a peer and secure the release from custody of his servant Robert Meldrum. Back in the House, on 12 Mar. he was named to draw up reasons to be offered at a conference on a joint address to the king for the preservation of the Spanish Netherlands, and was duly named on 13 and 15 Mar. to manage the resultant conferences. On 13 Mar. he entered his dissent to the resolution to engross the bill for further securing the Protestant religion, and on 15 Mar. he entered his dissent to the bill’s passage, noting on the latter occasion that he forbore to enter his particular reasons ‘in humble deference and submission to the major vote by which the bill was carried.’ On 4 Apr. he was named to a conference on the bill for the naturalization of the king’s foreign born subjects. On 13 Apr. he was named to a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill and was then named to the committee to draw up the heads of what was to be insisted upon at the next conference on the matter. On 16 Apr. he was named to draw up an address to the king, asserting the right of the Lords to amend supply bills, which he duly reported to the House. On 18 Apr. he helped to verify the entries in the Journal. When Parliament met again for five days in May 1677, Anglesey attended on each day, and again two days after the adjournment, on 30 May, to check the Journal. Add. 18730, ff. 21-22.

Having spent the morning of 16 Oct. 1677 in the company of the Prince of Orange, on the 22nd Anglesey was one of the council appointed by the king to assist in drafting the articles for his marriage to Princess Mary. Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxii), 152; Add. 18730, f. 30. Anglesey attended the adjournment of the House on 3 Dec., around which date Shaftesbury classed Anglesey as twice ‘worthy’ in his analysis of lay peers, an assessment perhaps coloured by Anglesey’s vain attempt to keep Shaftesbury out of the Tower in the previous session.

Anglesey was present on 15 Jan. 1678, when the king adjourned Parliament to 28 January. He was then afflicted by the gout, remaining in bed for the next few weeks, although it was reported on 27 Jan. that he had attended the entertainment following the consecration of Archbishop Sancroft. LPL, ms 942, 31. He did not attend Parliament until 5 Feb., when ‘I was carried to hinder the horrid bill about Sir Ralph Bankes’s^‡ estate.’ Anglesey then chaired the committee on the bill on five occasions in February, as he did Sarah Clifton’s estate bill on three occasions in the same month, before reporting it on 15 February. Add. 18730, ff. 33-34; PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, pp. 209-11, 215, 219-1, 224, 226. Missing again on 6 Feb. he then attended on the remaining 53 days of this part of the session (making 90 per cent of the total), being named to a further 17 committees. Once again he was active in chairing committees, including those on the countess of Warwick’s bill, restoring the title and dignity of Baron Audley to James Tuchet, 13th Baron Audley and 3rd earl of Castlehaven [I] (reported 26 Feb.) and, on 17 separate days, the committee examining the security of prisons, which also considered the bill discharging poor prisoners for debt (reported on 15 and 27 Mar.) and the petition from the prisoners in the Fleet and legislation drafted by the chief justices. He also chaired committees on the bills to enable creditors to recover their debts from executors and administrators (reported 11 Mar.) and for fines and recoveries (reported 12 March). PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, pp. 214-15, 220, 222-5, 227-32, 235. 238-40, 247-50, 253-5, 257-60, 261-3, 267, 269, 271-4, 281. On 6 Mar. he reported from the committee of privileges concerning the method of trying Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke. Also on 6 Mar. he was named to present a resolution to the king on behalf of John Frescheville, Baron Frescheville, reporting the fact on the following day. On 8 Mar. he was named to a conference on the bill for regulating fishing, which he reported on the 9th and 19th. He reported from committees of the whole House on the poll bill (11 and 12 Mar.) and on the address for war with France (16 and 18 Mar.). On 22 Mar he entered his dissent to the decision to hear the attorney general on Viscount Purbeck’s claim to the peerage. Later in the day he reported the conference with the Commons on the address for war with France. On 23 Mar. Anglesey presented the petition of his daughter, Lady Mohun, to the House, claiming a breach of privilege over a quarrel during a game of cards, but the case was subsequently thrown out and left to the law. HMC Rutland, ii. 49. On 30 Apr. he was named to a conference called to consider the remedies for the growth of popery. On 4 Apr. Anglesey attended Pembroke’s trial, and was one of a handful of peers to find him guilty of murder. Outside Parliament, Anglesey accompanied several other ministers on 9 Apr. 1678 on a successful visit to ‘the common council to get money for the king’. Add. 18730, f. 35; Verney ms mic. M636/31, Fall to Verney, 11 Apr. 1678. He also continued to be a regular attender at council.

Anglesey attended every day bar one of the session which began on 23 May 1678. He was missing on 29 May (the king’s birthday), ‘having been ill in the last night’. Add. 18730, f. 38. On the opening day, he was named to the usual sessional committees and to a further 27 committees. Towards the end of the previous session, on 10 May 1678, Anglesey had ‘got Mr Cottington’s appeal read’ in the Lords. Ibid. f. 37. This was an appeal from the court of delegates concerning the validity of Cottington’s marriage to Angela Margerita Gallina, which had been referred to the committee for privileges to determine whether the cause might be brought before the House. The case was again referred to the committee for privileges on 23 May. On 2 June, the day before the committee was due to discuss the matter, ‘Mrs Cottington came and spent an hour with me to inform me in her cause and beg my justice. We discoursed all the time in French and Italian. She seems a witty understanding woman. If her cause appears as just tomorrow she need not fear me.’ The case raised important and contentious constitutional issues, since the Lords had not established that its judicature extended to the spiritual courts, for which delegates wielded ultimate appellate jurisdiction. Anglesey attended the committee on 3 June, recording ‘a brave debate’. He attended again on 10 June, staying until nine in the evening. The committee reported on 12 June against hearing the appeal but the matter was reserved for a full debate, with the assistance of the attorney general, the judges and the keeper of the records, on 17 June. On that day the appeal was dismissed, Anglesey noting that ‘whilst I went to get a short dinner, leaving the House reading the precedents in Cottington’s case, a hasty vote was made and the House risen before I got back.’ Ibid. ff. 39-40.

On 28 May 1678 Anglesey noted that ‘the Lords gave an unjust judgment in favour of Sir Alexander Frazier’, a royal physician, when they dismissed the appeal from chancery of Frances Denyes; ‘I and many others were against it but the cause was laboured since it was heard last sessions’. Ibid. f. 38. Anglesey reported from the committee for privileges on 30 May regarding the keeping of good order in the Lords and its surroundings. On 1 June he noted that ‘we saved the settlement of Ireland by dismissing Cusack’s cause’ – an appeal from the court of claims in Ireland. Ibid. f. 39. He again chaired committees on a variety of bills, including that for burying in woollen (reported 3 June), the estate of Sir Trevor Williams^‡ (reported 4 June), Childes’ and Thoresby’s bills (reported 27 and 28 June respectively) and the measurement of keels (reported 9 July). PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, pp. 286, 306, 308-10, 327-330. He attended the debates on the claim of Robert Villiers, to be Viscount Purbeck, entering protests against proceeding as a whole ‘upon complicated and accumulative questions’ on 7 and 20 June. On 14 June he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill against the clandestine marriage of minors. On 25 June he reported a conference on the supply bill for disbanding the army and was named to draw up reasons why the Lords disagreed to the proviso about the timing of the disbandment, a committee which he chaired, reporting it on the 26th. Ibid. 306, 330. He then reported on four conferences on the matter held in the days following. He chaired the committee on the bill for the measurement of keels, reported it on 9 July, and was named to a conference on the bill on 13 July. Ibid. 306, 330.

On 5 July 1678 Anglesey noted that ‘this day till six at night spent in Parliament judged Mr Darell’s case again.’ Add. 18730, f. 41. On 8 July, he opposed the appeal of Louis de Duras, earl of Feversham, against a decree in chancery in favour of Lewis Watson, the future 3rd Baron Rockingham, and his wife. According to Finch, Anglesey ‘spoke so doubtfully that it was hard to understand on which side he was till he came to vote and then he voted for the defendant [Watson].’ Ibid.; Lord Nottingham’s Chancery Cases, ed. Yale (Selden Soc. lxxix), 648. After what appears to have been a contentious debate Feversham won his case, spurring Anglesey to enter protests against the judgment on 8 and 10 July. He protested with Northampton on 9 July against the passage of a vote to petition the king for leave for a bill to be brought in against Purbeck’s claims, writing the six reasons in his own hand. However, as lord privy seal he was one of those charged with delivering the petition to the king, and reported the king’s acquiescence on 11 July. Also on 11 July he was named to a conference on the bill for burying in woollen. On 13 July he was named to a conference on methods of returning bills between the Houses, which he reported later in the day. On 18 July, he introduced the agents from New England to kiss the king’s hand, apparently refusing a gratuity of 200 guineas from them. Add. 18730, ff. 41-42.

Anglesey remained busy on a myriad of tasks outside Parliament, not least providing for his family. Doubtless as a result of his sterling work in trying to reconcile Thomas Leigh, 2nd Baron Leigh and his wife, on 15 June 1678, Leigh’s uncle, the second son of the 1st Baron, proposed a match for his daughter with Anglesey’s second son, Altham. After attending the prorogation on 1 Aug. 1678, ‘being one of the commissioners for that end’, Anglesey left London on 6 Aug. with a promise from the king for an Irish peerage for Altham in view of his imminent marriage to a ‘lady of good estate,’ a promise he recorded as being fulfilled on 12 Jan. 1681, when ‘the king gave order for Altham’s barony.’ Add. 18730, ff. 40, 42-43, 45, 80.

The popish plot and exclusion 1678-80

After his usual round of summer visits, dinners and entertainments, Anglesey set out for London again on 27 September. Later that day he attended the council and ‘had discourse with the king about the two Oxfordshire lords’, namely a commission to reconcile Rochester and his nephew, James Bertie, Lord Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). Ibid. f. 46; Verney ms mic. M636/32, Sir R. to E. Verney, 26 Sept. 1678. The following day Anglesey was ‘at council about the Popish Plot and the gout took me as before’, although he may well have missed the virtuoso performance from Titus Oates as he attended the christening of his grandson in the afternoon. Add. 18730, f. 46; Kenyon, Popish Plot (2000 edn), 77. For the next few days Anglesey struggled to attend the council and the prorogation on 1 Oct., before succumbing to the pain and taking to his bed from 2 October. Add. 18730, f. 47.

Anglesey was still bedridden when the next session of Parliament opened on 21 Oct. 1678, being absent until the 24th, when he was added to the usual sessional committees as well as the committee to examine papers regarding the Popish Plot and Godfrey’s murder. Thereafter he attended on every day that the House sat. He was named to a further seven committees, excluding those relating to conferences. On 29 Oct. he was in Parliament, ‘where the duke of York was concerned upon Coleman’s examination taken by the Lords the two last days, but nothing was done’, and on 2 Nov. ‘was in Parliament morning and afternoon, the duke of York being moved against.’ Ibid. On 2 Nov. he was named to a conference on the structural defects of both Houses, which he reported. He was also named to several conferences whose subject matter arose directly or indirectly from consideration of the Popish Plot: confirming the reality of the Plot (1 Nov.), administration of oaths to papists (11 Nov.), the address on the militia and the bill for disabling papists (both on 23 Nov.), the safety of the king and government (28 Nov.) and the refusal of the Lords to agree to an address for the removal of the queen from the king’s presence (29 Nov.). On 15 Nov. he voted against putting the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalty as the oaths. On 19 Nov. he was the sole dissenter from the resolution to commit Francis Smith, 2nd Baron Carrington, into custody. After sitting in the Lords on the morning of 22 Nov. he spent ‘the afternoon at council and committee for sorting the evidence for Coleman’s trial.’ Add. 18730, f. 48. On 6 Dec. he entered his protest against agreeing with a joint address with the Commons to the king for a proclamation disarming all Catholics convicted of recusancy. On 9 Dec. he was named to prepare heads for a conference on the disbandment of troops before those from Flanders arrived, subsequently reporting from the conference. When the supply bill providing for the disbandment was amended by the Lords, Anglesey reported the resultant conference on 26 Dec., voted in favour of the Lords adhering to their amendment concerning the payment of the money into the exchequer, and on 28 Dec. reported the reasons for insisting on the amendment and reported the subsequent conference. He was then named to draw up a proviso for the bill, but it was rejected by the House, before the bill was lost at the prorogation.

As the attack on Danby gathered pace, on 23 Dec. 1678 Anglesey noted that ‘a new thing was done in the lord treasurer’s not being ordered to withdraw but sitting in his own case being accused by the Commons of treason.’ Add. 18730, ff. 49-50. On 27 Dec. he voted against the motion to commit the impeached Danby. On 30 Dec. Anglesey recorded that ‘the king made a short speech and prorogued us to Feb. 4, by whose advice God knows’, incidentally revealing again his exclusion from the king’s inner counsels. Ibid.

Worried by the implications of the Popish Plot for Ireland, on 20 Nov. 1678 Anglesey wrote to Ormond suggesting that he rebuild the strength of the Irish Protestant militia in order to protect the military strong points and avoid another Irish rebellion. Bodl. Eng. hist. c 37, ff. 93-94. The committee of the Lords investigating the Plot was wound up on 12 Dec. but earlier in the month the Privy Council revived its own committee of ‘examinations’, which, for example, Anglesey attended on 7 Dec. before attending Parliament later in the morning. Add. 18730, f. 49; Kenyon, Popish Plot, 148. On 31 Dec. the king declared he would have this committee sit daily, recommending it to the care of Anglesey, Bridgwater and Essex; Anglesey spent much time during January at the committee. HMC Ormonde, n.s. iv. 494; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 90; Verney ms mic. On 19 Jan., after the sermon at Whitehall, Anglesey ‘delivered a letter of humble advice to the King.’ If this referred to the dilemma of whether to dissolve Parliament, it may have had some effect, for at the council meeting on 24 Jan., ‘the king, without asking any advice, declared the Parliament dissolved and ordered writs for a new one’, for 6 March. Add. 18730, f. 51.

From 16 Feb. to 21 Mar. 1679 Anglesey was stricken by the gout, and as such missed all of the short parliamentary session of 6-13 March. Ibid. f. 52. At the beginning of March Danby calculated that Anglesey was likely to be an opponent in any proceedings against him. He was still absent when the parliament resumed on 15 Mar. 1679, missing the first six days of the session, and first sitting on 22 March. He attended on 54 days of the session, 88.5 per cent of the total. The attendance lists in the Journal suggests that he missed only one further day (28 Mar.) but his diary recorded that he did attend that day. Ibid. f. 52. On 22 Mar. he was added to the committee examining into the Plot and on 29 Mar. he was added to the usual sessional committees. He was appointed to a further 12 committees during the session. By this time Danby seems to have reassessed Anglesey’s position, recording him on one list as an unreliable opponent, and on another as doubtful. On 25 Mar. he entered his protest against the committal of the bill disabling Danby, because it went against ‘essential forms of justice’, and was ‘a dangerous precedent against all peers.’ Nevertheless, he voted in favour of the early proceedings of the attainder bill against him, speaking in favour of the bill on 2 Apr. as he could ‘see no ground against the committal of the bill for any exceptions that are made to it’, although he would ‘be glad to find him as innocent as the prince has said him to be’. Add. 28046, f. 56. He voted for the bill on 4 Apr. and was then named to a committee to consider what to impart to the Commons at a conference on the bill, and to manage the conference, which he reported. On 8 Apr. he reported another conference on the Danby attainder bill, as he did on 10 Apr. (twice). He also voted on 14 Apr. to agree with the Commons in the attainder bill. He was then one of the peers deputed to ask the king to pass the bill quickly given the timescale in the bill for Danby to surrender himself, duly reporting back on 15 April.

On 3 Apr. 1679 Anglesey presented to the House, at the request of Lincoln’s Inn, a list of Catholics belonging to their society. On 9 Apr. he reported to the House that he was commanded by the king to complain of the reprinting of dangerous books written by William Prynne^‡, now given new titles, the House ordering him to renew the motion on 12 Apr. (when nothing happened). On 17 Apr. he was one of the peers named to ask the king to instruct the lord lieutenant of Ireland to put the laws against papists more vigorously into execution, reporting the king’s consent on 22 April. On 24 Apr. he was named to a conference on the answers of the five Catholic peers to their impeachment. On 25 Apr. he chaired a meeting of the committee on the habeas corpus bill. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, p. 351. On 29 Apr., together with Thomas Belasyse, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, he was appointed to ask the king for a pardon to quash the conviction of the countess of Portland for recusancy in 1674, reporting the king’s agreement on 7 May. Also, on 29 Apr., he attended ‘a very secret council’, presumably to discuss how the king should respond the vote of the Commons that the prospect of York succeeding to the throne had encouraged popish plotting. Add. 18730, f. 54. Following the king’s offer to accept expedients to divert the Commons from the proposal for the exclusion of York from the throne he was named on 30 Apr. to thank the king for this speech. On 2 May he complained about the arrest of his servant John Fenn by the under-sheriff of Middlesex, and secured an order for his release. On 3 May he was named to a conference on the habeas corpus bill, which he reported on 5 May. Probably on 6 May he intervened in the debates on whether the bishops should be allow to try cases involving blood, defending their right to sit on the grounds that they were called by the same writ as temporal peers and ‘in point of law may judge as well as you. If you should vote they should not sit, it doth not conclude them. They may sit if they will.’ Greene thesis, 127-8. He was again active in managing and reporting conferences: the supply bill for disbanding the army (8 May); amendments to the habeas corpus bill (9 and 22 May); Danby’s petition (10 May). He was also involved in the negotiations over arrangements for the trial of the five Catholic peers, managing conferences on the subject on 8, 9, 10, 11 and 26 May, voting against the resolution to appoint a joint committee of both Houses on 10 May, being named on 11 May to a committee of Lords to consult with a committee of the Commons and reporting from the committee on the Journal concerning the trial on 22 May. On 14 May he entered his dissent to the passage of the bill regulating the trials of peers. On 15, 17 and 19 May he chaired a committee on the bill for confirming a conveyance made to trustees by James Scott, duke of Monmouth and Francis Newport, Viscount Newport, which never emerged from committee. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, pp. 357, 359-60. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.

Anglesey’s response to the king’s decision to prorogue Parliament on 27 May 1679 was ‘God avert dangers by it.’ The following day he ‘opposed most of the first business at council about priests and the trials &c.’ Two days later, in the council ‘by many arguments I opposed bloodiness again.’ On 2 June he approached the king directly, armed with two proclamations from the reign of James I ‘for exile of priests, jesuits &c,’ as an alternative policy. Add. 18730, f. 55.

Meanwhile, by virtue of his office as lord privy seal, Anglesey had retained his place on the Privy Council following the dissolution of the old body by the king on 20 Apr. 1679, and the constitution of a new one. He was also named to the subcommittee dealing with Irish affairs. HMC Ormonde, n.s. iv. 305. Suspicions of Anglesey’s pro-Catholic sympathies were voiced by Thomas Bennett^‡, Shaftesbury’s lieutenant in the Commons, who thought that the new council would not produce any good results as long as Anglesey and John Maitland, earl of Guilford and duke of Lauderdale [S], were retained as members, implying that the former had masses said daily for him in Ireland. Works of Algernon Sydney (1772), 24. Henry Sidney, the future earl of Romney, recounted on 27 June that the business at the Privy Council was the (temporary) reprieve of the Catholic barrister, Richard Langhorne, noting that Anglesey ‘doth even plead for the Catholics; Lord Shaftesbury is the most violent against them.’ Sidney Diary, i. 17-18. This ties in with Anglesey’s later recollection that he pleaded for clemency towards not only Langhorne, but also Archbishop Plunkett (executed 1681). Anglesey Mems. (1693), 8-10.

A desire to avoid judicial bloodshed did not equate to a disbelief in the Plot itself, and during the summer of 1679 Anglesey was much involved in the investigations, proving himself a tenacious interrogator of suspects. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 171. He retained an impressive capacity for business. On 16 June Anglesey attended the council, ‘where all but I were mealy mouthed in duke Lauderdale’s concern,’ probably a reference to the political problems and the unrest in Scotland caused by attempts to enforce a religious settlement opposed by the majority Presbyterians. On 26 June Anglesey dined with Shaftesbury and Henry Somerset, 3rd marquess of Worcester, after council ‘and after dinner we agreed on the justices of the peace for Wales.’ On 3 July Anglesey attended the council meeting at Hampton Court, where ‘weighty matters’, namely the dissolution, were debated. On 6 July he was sent for to Windsor by the king where he ‘had large discourse with him about the dissolution and opposed.’ Later in the day when the council convened he joined Arlington and Finch in arguing against the dissolution, the contrary point of view being put by Essex and Halifax. He attended the council again on the 10th when the dissolution was announced by the king. On 12 July he wrote to Ormond: ‘God send good success herein and guide the people to make a wise and moderate choice, or else I doubt we are out of the frying pan into the fire by a new Parliament.’ Add. 18730, ff. 56, 57; HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 153.

Anglesey remained anxious about the future, for on 17 July, he wrote to Sir John Nicholas^‡, the clerk of the Privy Council, to ask him to send word if it was true that the king had again dissolved the council. Surr. Hist. Centre, Bray mss G52/2/19/144. On 6 Aug. he left London, taking a circuitous route to Bletchingdon, but when he learned of the king’s illness on 26 Aug., he raced back to Windsor and remained there or at nearby Farnborough until 1 September. Add. 18730, ff. 59-60. As usual there was much convivial activity, including Woodstock races and a visit from the newly elected Members for Woodstock. Ibid. f. 61. On 11 Sept. Anglesey wrote to assist John Swinfen^‡ in his candidature for Radnor promoting him as ‘my old acquaintance, and having been several times of the House of Commons with him, I know him to be a wise and moderate man, and we need men of healing spirits in the present condition of the kingdom.’ Add. 70053, Anglesey to E. Davies, 11 Sept. 1679.

Anglesey returned to London on 8 Oct. 1679 and on 13 Oct. went to visit York, who had returned to London on the previous evening. Add. 18730, f. 62. At least one contemporary thought that Anglesey had been ordered by the king to inform York of his illness. Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxii), 191. Anglesey attended the prorogation of Parliament on 17 October. For the next three weeks, until 9 Nov., he was afflicted with gout, ‘but went to the council in the evening, where I dealt very freely with the king and council as need required.’ Add. 18730, f. 62. Following the removal of Shaftesbury from the Privy Council in mid-October, it was rumoured that Anglesey would lose his place as well, but at the end of the month he was being touted by some as a replacement for Finch as lord chancellor. Verney ms mic. M636/33, P. Osborne to Verney, 16 Oct. 1679; J. to Sir R. Verney, 27 Oct. 1679. On 1 Nov. Ossory offered his assessment of Anglesey’s recent conduct ‘which has been with all the vigour and steadiness imaginable in the House of Lords and elsewhere upon the occasion of the king’s service and the right of the crown and the lawful succession.’ HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 232.

Following Monmouth’s return to London on 27 Nov. 1679, Anglesey attempted to mediate between the king and his son. Having met Monmouth secretly on 29 Nov., the following day he ‘had long private discourse with the king in favour of the duke of Monmouth, wherein he was very open to me, after dinner, having the king’s leave, I went to the duke of Monmouth.’ Greene thesis, 151; Add. 18730, f. 63. The following evening Monmouth paid him a visit, but Anglesey’s efforts were in vain and Monmouth lost all his posts.

On 6 Dec. 1679, in the committee of council for Irish affairs, Anglesey helped to ‘cast out unanimously the Irish pretended bill of confirmation of estates, but really destructive to the English.’ He was in attendance on 10 Dec. ‘when the king against the full advice of his council declared that fatal and dismal resolution of proroguing this Parliament till November the 11th. The Lord save England.’ Add. 18730, f. 63. It was reported that even though Parliament stood prorogued, the Plot would nevertheless still be examined vigorously, with Anglesey named as one of the committee of the Privy Council charged with the responsibility to do so. Add. 70081, newsletter, 13 Dec. 1679. He attended the prorogation of Parliament on 26 Jan. 1680, arriving early to swear in about 100 Members before the prorogation was delivered and then ‘with great sadness’ attending a ‘committee of council’ in the afternoon. Add. 18730, f. 65.

During the winter Anglesey was kept busy by a multitude of concerns. On 18 Feb. 1680 he tackled Charles II about the payment of his salary, ‘laid plainly open my condition and ill usage desiring him I might be better dealt with after 20 years faithful service, he came not off so frankly as I had reason to expect and painfully deserved, but in the close said he would speak with the commissioners of the treasury about paying me and confessed I had pressed him least of any for money and served him well.’ Ibid. f. 66. On 20 Feb. he attended the committee for Irish affairs,

in the business about the earl of Tyrone &c, where against my clear reasons and opinion the committee did mad and illegal work concerning two peers and some commissioners of Ireland, and contrary to the order of reference to them, and so without authority, which was only for them to examine and to report to his majesty in council. Ibid. f. 67.

On 8 Mar. he ‘went with the countess of Warwick to Sir Francis Pemberton’s about her brother, the earl of Manchester’s [Robert Montagu, 3rd earl of Manchester] suit against her and to advise about one from her against him and others for discovery of the Warwick estate.’ Ibid. f. 68.

On 13 Mar. 1680 Anglesey ‘went to see Totteridge, Sir Robert Atkyns’^‡ house and dined there.’ This presaged the purchase of the house, albeit in his son Altham’s name, it being conveniently situated a mere nine miles from Charing Cross while giving him easy access to such places as Hatfield. TNA, PROB 11/383; Add. 18730, ff. 68-70. He attended Parliament on 15 Apr., swearing in Members before acting as a commissioner to prorogue it. From late April to the beginning of June Anglesey had an attack of the gout so severe that he feared for his life. He was unable to attend the prorogation of the Parliament on 17 May, but attended on 1 and 22 July, on the second occasion noting there was ‘a very little appearance of both Houses.’ Add. 18730, ff. 70, 72. He left London in August, returning on 1 October. Ibid. ff. 73-75.

During October 1680 Anglesey was one of the majority in council who argued that York should remain in England when Parliament sat. He recorded that on 16 Oct. the king ‘turned cat in pan’, that is reversed himself so that he could tell his brother that he had not favoured his withdrawal. On 19 Oct. Anglesey took his leave of the duke and duchess of York upon their departure for Scotland. Ibid. f. 76; Greene thesis, 175; Chatsworth, Devonshire Collection Group 1/G, ?Sir J. Gell to Devonshire, 21 Oct. [1680]; Knights, Pols. and Opinion, 75. Two days later he was present at the opening of the 1680-1 session, arriving early to swear in Members. Add. 18730, f. 77. On 23 Oct. he was named to the usual committees as well as the committee on the Plot. Also on the 23rd, when Halifax brought in a bill ‘against popery’, nobody said a word against it apart from Anglesey, ‘who was laughed at and sat down again.’ HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 456. Anglesey missed only three days of the session (5 Nov., 21 and 22 Dec.), very little business being transacted on the first and last of these, and on all of which he had gout. Add. 18730, ff. 77, 79. He attended on 56 days, 95 per cent of the total, and was appointed to a further eight committees during the session.

Anglesey’s perceived pro-Catholic sympathies brought allegations of complicity in plotting. In October 1680, in testimony before the Commons, Thomas Dangerfield accused Anglesey of ‘corresponding with and encouraging the lords in the Tower’ and Algernon Sydney^‡ recorded that there were ‘many terrible accusations come in against Anglesey.’ CSP Dom. 1680-1, p. 68; Add. 18730, f. 77; Works of Algernon Sydney (1772), 54. On 4 Nov. Anglesey was in the Lords to hear the report and testimony concerning an Irish Plot. In the course of the day Hobert Bourke presented evidence against Anglesey’s son-in-law, Tyrone, and also testified that Anglesey and York were often prayed for at Catholic masses in Ireland. Further evidence on 6 Nov. also implicated Anglesey. Thomas Samson claimed to have seen letters from Anglesey to Tyrone saying that York was well pleased with their plans; John MacNamara recalled a meeting at which Anglesey was named as a ‘person of quality’ who consented to their scheme. It was said that Anglesey was to help prevent Parliament from prosecuting Roman Catholics.

Despite these allegations, on 8 Nov. Anglesey was named to a conference with the Commons on the Irish Plot, which he reported later in the day. He recorded in his diary that he had sat in the morning till late ‘and did good things’, which may have been a reference to moves in favour of Dissenters and against Catholics. He made the same comment on 11 November. On 15 Nov. he voted against the decision to put the question that the exclusion bill be rejected on first reading, voted against rejecting it, and for good measure signed the protest against its rejection. After this vote the House took information from Dangerfield which implicated Anglesey in dealings with William Herbert, earl of Powis, and Mrs. Cellier. Anglesey simply noted: ‘all day in Parliament till ten at night ... The Lord help’ and on 21 Nov. that he spent the afternoon ‘drawing up my vindication’. Add. 18730, ff. 77-78. Daniel Finch, the future 2nd earl of Nottingham, in a letter written two months later, ascribed Anglesey’s vote for exclusion to being ‘frightened into it by an accusation of him brought into the House of Commons by Mr Dangerfield for having had a hand in some of the Popish conspiracies.’ HMC Finch, ii. 96. On the other hand, given Anglesey’s survival in office long after other exclusionists, and his ability to obtain further favours from the king during this time, one possible explanation is that he was able to explain away his vote as merely supporting the convention that bills from the Commons should not be rejected at first reading, as at least one peer explicitly noted in the protest.

On 8 Dec. 1680 Anglesey noted the arrival of Tyrone, which presaged more investigations into the Irish Plot. Add. 18730, f. 79. On 4 Jan. 1681 Anglesey was the only peer to oppose the resolution that there was a Catholic conspiracy in Ireland. Pett, Happy Future State (1688), 205. Upon reading the depositions of MacNamara, Fitzgerald and Nash on 6 Jan., when it was again suggested that prayers were being said at Catholic masses in Ireland for York and Anglesey, the Commons impeached Tyrone for high treason. Add. 19527, f. 165. They postponed consideration into their report on the Plot in Ireland, and Anglesey’s involvement until 8 Jan., and then to the 10th when Parliament was prorogued. Anglesey continued to give succour to Tyrone and when he was eventually released in November 1681, Anglesey acted as one of his sureties. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 143; Add. 18730, ff. 90-91.

Contemporaries remained perplexed by Anglesey’s survival in office. One of Ormond’s correspondents wrote on 25 Jan. 1681 that Anglesey had ‘appeared for’ the exclusion bill, but also noted that the Commons on 7 Jan. had intended to remove Anglesey, Nottingham, Radnor, Halifax and Laurence Hyde, the future earl of Rochester, as evil counsellors, but having began with the two latter ‘others were by accidental motions introduced against the sense of the managers, whereby the three first escaped’. HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 562-3. These Privy Councillors were attacked for advising the king to insist on the rejection of the exclusion bill. This suggests a further possible explanation for Anglesey’s survival in office after the vote on exclusion: that the king wished to avoid being seen as bowing to pressure from the Commons to dismiss his ministers. Greene thesis, 194. Alternatively, as Ormond later opined, the reason for his longevity in office may have been that ‘nothing keeps him in so long, but competitions for his place’. Bodl. Carte 50, f. 283.

Anglesey continued to be active in the House during the session on a variety of business. On 16 Nov. 1680 he chaired a committee of the whole considering heads for securing the Protestant religion, reporting from it on 16, 17, 19, and 23 November. Thereafter the judges were ordered to draw up a bill based on the heads agreed to by the House. When the House considered the resultant bill, Anglesey again chaired the committee of the whole on it on 8 Jan. 1681, duly reporting some clauses for the judges to draw into legal form.

On 19 Nov. 1680 Anglesey was the sole peer to enter his dissent on the proceedings of the legal cause between Challoner Chute and Lady Dacres. On 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the kingdom. On 23 and 24 Nov. he chaired the committee on the Association, another of the expedients discussed following the loss of the exclusion bill. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, pp. 369-70. On 25 Nov. he was the sole peer to enter his protest against the rejection by the House of another petition from James Percy, on the grounds that it denied him recourse to justice. On 26 Nov. he reported from the committee of privileges considering the method of proceeding in the trial of William Howard, Viscount Stafford. On 30 Nov. was ‘at Lord Stafford’s trial most of the day’, as he was on the following days. Add. 18730, ff. 78-79. On 7 Dec. he voted for the attainder of Stafford, despite misgivings over the testimony of the witnesses. Kenyon, Popish Plot, 232; Burnet, ii. 269.

During November 1680 Anglesey chaired the committee concerned with Protestant dissenters. Having heard the complaints of various Dissenters that the laws passed against papist recusants were being enforced against them, on 8 Dec. the committee decided that Anglesey should draft a bill to rectify this abuse. The bill was presented to the committee the following day. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, pp. 374, 376-7. Shaftesbury then presented it to the House later that day as the bill for distinguishing Protestant dissenters from popish recusants.

On 9 Jan. 1681 Anglesey attended a council in the evening ‘about proroguing the Parliament for a few days’. On 16 Jan. he ‘was with the king and argued hard for the Parliament’s sitting.’ Two days later, at council, Anglesey recorded that ‘his majesty declared without asking (yea refusing to take) their advice, his dreadful resolution of dissolving the Parliament and calling another to meet at Oxford.’ Anglesey spent the next day ‘melancholy’ at home. On 25 Jan. he was in attendance on the king when Essex presented a ‘bold’ petition to the king for the Parliament not to sit at Oxford. Add. 18730, ff. 80-81. On 5 Feb. 1681, Anglesey obtained the lucrative deanery of Exeter for his son, Richard. Rather ironically he then hosted a dinner for Monmouth, Ford Grey, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, Henry Herbert, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, William Howard, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, Thomas Thynne^‡, Sir Thomas Armstrong^‡ and other leading opponents of the court. Ibid. f. 81; Bodl. Carte 222, f. 252.

On 15 Feb. 1681 Anglesey recorded that he had been ‘with the king and gave him good advice.’ Six days later he succumbed to an attack of the gout which lasted until the middle of May, thus missing the brief Oxford Parliament. Add. 18730, f. 82. His name did, however, appear on a pre-sessional forecast of 17 Mar. as one of those peers likely to be in favour of granting bail to Danby. Anglesey’s illness did not render him entirely inactive. At the end of April he sent the king a long missive concerning the dispute between Lord Colepeper and his siblings, which Anglesey, Ormond, Essex and Bath had attempted to solve five years previously, and which Colepeper had revived. Anglesey advised the king to let the matter take its course at law. Ibid. f. 9; Add. 75266, Anglesey to Charles II. [27 Apr. 1681]. However, his prolonged absence did generate speculation that he would be replaced with Edward Seymour^‡ who was often touted as his successor. HMC Ormonde, n.s. vi. 51.

Anglesey seems now to have been intent on acting as an intermediary between the court and its opponents. On 28 May 1681 he recorded visits to William Russell, 5th earl of Bedford, and to Salisbury (Essex and Shaftesbury not being at home). Such fraternization did not prevent him from expecting royal favours. On 16 June Anglesey recorded that ‘on much importunity’ the king had finally acceded to his request for a Scottish viscountcy for his son-in-law Thompson, although the promise was never honoured. On 28 July Anglesey received leave to go into the country but in the early hours of 7 Aug. he was summoned back to Windsor, where, on the 10th the king ‘required my not being at the commission of oyer and terminer’ for the trial of Stephen College. Add. 18730, ff. 82-83, 85-86. Presumably the court believed that Anglesey’s presence on the bench might derail the prosecution. By now it seems likely that York regarded Anglesey as one of his opponents: in August 1681, York’s chaplain Francis Turner, the future bishop of Ely, referred to Anglesey as ‘entering into the faction against the duke’. Bodl. Tanner 36, f. 99.

Meanwhile, Anglesey was embedding himself into Oxfordshire politics. In 1679, according to Thomas Hearne, Anglesey had tried to buy ‘the great house standing in the entrance into Grampole over against the lower end of Christ Church,’ Oxford. Hearne, Remarks and Collections, x. 224. He certainly cultivated good relations with the corporation. On 23 Sept. 1681 Anglesey was visited at Bletchingdon by the mayor and aldermen, who offered him the freedom of the city. Add. 18730, f. 88. According to Humphrey Prideaux this was due to the ‘sole contrivance’ of the dowager Lady Lovelace, as part of the townsmen’s struggle against Lord Norreys, and specifically as a counterweight to him at court. In return they allegedly promised him the recommendation to one of the city’s parliamentary seats. Prideaux stated that Anglesey took the honour, whilst insisting that he would not challenge Norreys’ interest. Prideaux Letters (Cam. Soc. n.s. xv), 98-99, 100-102. Anglesey performed several important services for the corporation, including in January 1682 introducing the mayor to the king in order to present a petition. Add. 18730, f. 92. Anglesey left Bletchingdon on 29 Sept. 1681 and arrived back at Drury Lane on the following day. Ibid. f. 88.

Flirting with the opposition 1681-6

Anglesey may now have been the most significant opposition sympathizer left in office. Throughout October and November 1681 he continued to see the king and to act at council. Yet during those months he was also regularly dining with Monmouth. His diary also records dining with Shaftesbury, Monmouth and Lord Herbert in March 1682. Ibid. ff. 88-90, 95. On 29 Mar. Danby used a letter to Anglesey as one of his channels to the Privy Council in an attempt to secure his release from the Tower. According to Danby, Anglesey thought it would be legal for the king to release him. Eg. 3332, ff. 36-39.

At the beginning of April 1682 there were further rumours that Anglesey would be replaced as lord privy seal by Halifax or Seymour. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 314. Nevertheless, Anglesey continued to play the part of the courtier assiduously. According to Francis Aungier^‡, earl of Longford [I], when York returned from Scotland in April 1682, Anglesey was the first to kiss his hand and was with the duke again on the following morning. Bodl. Carte 216, f. 29. Narcissus Luttrell^‡ reported that Anglesey ‘met with a cold reception’, but Anglesey himself merely recorded kissing the duke’s hands on 11 Apr. and then being called into the king’s closet for a long discourse in which he was told that ‘my enemies in Parliament were the same still against me.’ Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 177; Add. 18730, f. 95. Perhaps Anglesey’s real views were contained in a memorandum for Charles II penned on 27 Apr. 1682 (which he probably never showed to the king) in which he argued that it was ‘the perversion of the duke of York … in point of religion’, which was the ‘cause of all our mischiefs … and which, if not by wisdom antidoted, may raise a fire which will consume to the very foundations.’ Lacey, Dissent and Parlty Politics, 153.

In the middle of May 1682 Anglesey again fell a victim to the gout, which confined him to bed at both Totteridge and London until the middle of July. However, on 23 June he was forced to leave his bed to be ‘carried’ to the council ‘to defend myself against duke of Ormond as I did God assisting to his shame.’ Add. 18730, f. 97. This controversy had begun late in 1680 with the publication of The Memoirs of James Lord Audley earl of Castlehaven, his engagement and carriage in the wars of Ireland, from the year 1642 to the year 1651. Anglesey responded with A Letter from a person of honour in the country written to the earl of Castlehaven, which reviewed Castlehaven’s account of events in the 1640s, but in so doing cast aspersions on the role of Ormond and Charles I. Anglesey had encouraged Castlehaven’s literary enterprise, probably out of a desire to prove his own historical commitment to the Protestant interest in Ireland, and possibly to highlight Ormond’s role in the wars. Ormond responded with a critique of the work in November 1681, and ensured that the king saw a copy. Anglesey published it, together with a response, A Letter from ... Ormond ... Printed from the original, with an answer to it. Taking Sides? ed. V.P. Carey and U. Lotz-Heumann, 213-30.

Ormond complained to the Privy Council on 17 June 1682, that Anglesey had printed ‘letters to his prejudice’ and that despite being friends for over 20 years, this had questioned Ormond’s loyalty to the crown and his Protestantism. TNA, PC 2/69, p. 521; Verney ms mic. M636/36, J. to Sir R. Verney, 22 June 1682; Bodl. Carte 39, f. 403. The potential danger to Anglesey in Ormond’s action was obvious to Longford, who noted on 17 June that ‘a man without the danger of being accounted a witch may presume to foretell, that the consequence will be that his lordship will be removed both from the council and his privy-seal’s place.’ Bodl. Carte 232, f. 119.

On 23 June Anglesey presented a written response to the council. Longford reported that Anglesey had represented his merits in the Restoration ‘wherein he magnified himself that degree as if he had contributed much more to it then the late duke of Albemarle’ and that he denied Ormond’s assertions. Anglesey had tried to deny printing of the book and to deny certain passages which he said were not in his letter to Castlehaven, gave assurances of loyalty and requested time to answer. Meanwhile, Longford had tried to procure Anglesey’s original letter from Castlehaven, who could not find it. Bodl. Carte 216, f. 84. This at least bought Anglesey time, for Ormond had written on 18 July ‘I presume it has been long resolved to ease my Lord of Anglesey of his privy-seal, and place in council’. Bodl. Carte 70, ff. 556-7. On 27 July Anglesey attended the council at Hampton Court ‘where I defended myself against Ormond but was unjustly used by the council.’ Add. 18730, f. 97; TNA, PC 2/69, p. 537. At that meeting Charles II declared Anglesey’s published reflections on Castlehaven’s memoirs and his reply to Ormond to be ‘scandalous and a libel on the late king’. Bodl. Carte 47, f. 178; Carte 216, f. 123. The consequence of the king’s opinion, according to Colonel Fitzpatrick, was that ‘it’s believed that by the next council he will be put out of all his employments’ but Longford accurately predicted that Anglesey would keep fighting. Bodl. Carte 216, ff. 123, 127. Anglesey complained about the decision to vote his work a scandalous libel, for ‘I find no clauses whereon such judgment is grounded’, insisted that the council had no jurisdiction to try a peer for libel, pointed out that the passage which seemed to offend the king was not one of the particular charges he had been asked to answer, and queried the failure to censure Ormond for the ‘scandalous pamphlet which he owned at council to have published against me.’ Bodl. Carte 59, ff. 552-3. He did not attend the council meeting on 3 Aug. but sent a letter instead which ‘was read in council but nothing done on it, but some fretted.’ Add. 18730, f. 98. That same day, William Douglas, marquess of Queensberry [S], noted that Anglesey was ‘certainly broke.’ NAS, GD406/1/9127. Another commentator thought that ‘all things concurred to Anglesey’s ruin, for besides the strength of his enemies and his having no friends, the court wanted his privy seal for the Lord Halifax who had done it such service.’ HMC 2nd Rep. 213.

On 9 Aug. Anglesey recorded that he had delivered up the privy seal, ‘The Lord be praised I am now delivered from court snares.’ He was now even more open to the blandishments of the opposition. On 25 July Longford had reported that ‘there is of late a great league between my Lord Anglesey and the earl of Essex, who have had several meetings within this fortnight.’ Bodl. Carte 216, f. 119. The day before he relinquished the seal, Anglesey found the time to dine with Monmouth. Add. 18730, f. 98.

On 29 Aug. 1682 Anglesey began his usual journey to Bletchingdon. During his sojourn in Oxfordshire, he attended the mayoral election at Oxford and dined with the former Member of the Commons, William Wright^‡, a supporter of Monmouth. He left Bletchingdon on 26 Sept. 1682, but embarked on a series of excursions to dine with prominent opposition peers, including Monmouth. Ibid. ff. 99, 100-3. Anglesey also sought to vindicate his reputation. On 13 Sept. 1682, John Brydall reported that ‘Anglesey since his discharge from the office of the lord privy seal for revenge sake, has attempted to expose some papers of his to the world, but his lordship was happily prevented, for all the papers were seized at the press, by a warrant from Whitehall.’ Bodl. Tanner 35, ff. 91-92. The publication concerned was A True Account of the Whole Proceedings betwixt his Grace James Duke of Ormond and the Rt. Hon. Arthur Earl of Anglesey which had reached the booksellers by October 1682. Greene thesis, 242. Anglesey commenced a suit against Ormond for non-payment of debts, possibly in relation to the cost of the education of James Butler, Ormond’s illegitimate son for which Anglesey would later threaten another suit. Bodl. Carte 118, f. 466; 216, f. 255.

From the end of January to the end of April 1683, Anglesey was again bedridden, although ‘I did business often and received visits almost every day. In all this time I was carried out but once to take the air.’ By early May he was fit enough to commence a new round of dinners with leading opposition peers. Add. 18730, ff. 104-5. By this date the government was putting financial pressure on Anglesey. As early as August 1682, his grant of stewardship of manors and towns in Radnorshire had been revoked. Greene thesis, 245. The government re-opened the investigation into his accounts as vice-treasurer in Ireland, whereupon Anglesey countered that the king owed him money, presumably a reference to his £3,000 p.a. In January 1683 he was ordered to be prosecuted in Ireland, and by June he had been declared a debtor to the king and some of his Irish estates seized. Ibid. 246-8. On 5 June Anglesey attended the treasury ‘having been with Lord Rochester also in the morning, but though I cleared the remain of my account I could get no justice, nor so much as respite of the unjust proceedings in Ireland.’ Add. 18730, f. 105. However, on 12 June it seems that the case against him was suspended by the king. Greene thesis, 250. As Roger Morrice noted after Anglesey’s death, his financial troubles were partly self-inflicted because ‘he might in several junctures of time for the 12 last years of his life had his quietus from the crown upon all accounts whatsoever, and he knew very well they did charge him with £22,000 about the Irish affairs, and some other sums but when he could have been discharged he was mindless of it, and when prosecution was revived he would have been discharged but could not.’ Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 90.

Anglesey paid a visit to London on 28-30 June 1683, ‘but found so many new plots and confusions that in the evening I returned to Totteridge without seeing the king, which I came to town purposely to do.’ Add. 18730, f. 105. Following the discovery of the Rye House Plot a warrant was on 1 July issued to search his house in Drury Lane for ‘persons mentioned in the late proclamations’, one of the targets being Monmouth. CSP Dom. 1683 (July-Sept.), p. 6; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 264. As Anglesey recorded: ‘I understood next day that my house at London had been rudely searched at midnight and most of my doors broken open and papers, writings and books disordered and pendulum broken by warrant pretended from the king, but they would give no names nor copy of warrant.’ On 13 July he ‘was a witness at my Lord Russell’s trial, which I heard.’ He remained irked by his treatment from the king, recording on 9 Aug. that ‘this day was twelvemonth the king sent for the privy seal, the Lord incline his heart to do me right from this day for my long faithful service.’ Add. 18730, ff. 105-6.

On 21 Nov. 1683 he ‘was from 8 in the morning till near 7 at night at Mr [Algernon] Sydney’s trial and was a witness for him,’ to prove that Howard of Escrick had previously said that there was no plot and that Sydney was innocent. Ibid. f. 108; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 290; State Trials, ix. 869-70. On the following day he attended ‘my cousin Arnold’s trial’ for scandalum magnatum. Almost certainly in response to these trials, on 25 Nov. he ‘resolved of writing the sum of our laws and liberties and against the oppression of the times in causes of life members and liberties’, noting in particular for use the statute of ‘1 and 2 of Phil. & Mary cap. 3 &c., Magna Charta, the rights of Parliament, the freedom of members, the king’s legal title and prerogative wisdom, the gravity and moderation of former judges and the courage of learned council.’ Add. 18730, f. 108.

Anglesey clearly had his doubts about the Rye House Plot, at least as far as it concerned his Whig friends. In early January 1684 he was called before the council for ‘charging the Lord Howard for accusing the duke of Monmouth falsely’ Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxiii), 44. and for saying that Russell had been murdered. According to Roger Morrice, Howard had instigated the investigation in order to disprove Monmouth’s assertion that there had been no plot. Anglesey responded to questions about it by asking to be excused from revealing to any but the king alone, ‘a private discourse’, that was not penal or criminal and held in his own house. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 443.

Although increasing afflicted with gout, Anglesey maintained an interest in public affairs, especially relating to Ireland and the land settlement there. Bodl. Clarendon 88, ff. 49-50; HMC Ormonde, n.s. vii. 206-7, 210-12. By mid June 1684 a further reaction to the times had manifested itself in a resolution to,

write a complete history of England ... to show in a continued discourse the bravery of the English monarchs and people how tenaciously they were always of their liberties even in popish times opposing the Romish tyranny and refusing to submit to that yoke, and in all my time and ever since the Reformation showing themselves zealous for the true Christian religion and freedom against popery ... and show the miserable end of those that have oppressed or betrayed their country or its well settled government or endeavoured to enslave them. That the clergy have been the worst in that kind in all times. Add. 18730, f. 110.

Anglesey was assiduous in attending James II, following his accession to the crown. HMC 11th Rep. pt. 2, p. 317. Although he was absent from the opening day of James II’s Parliament, 19 May 1685, he attended the next sitting on the 22nd, when he was again named to the usual committees. He attended on 27 days of the session up to the adjournment on 2 July, 90 per cent of the total, and was named to a further eight committees. On 22 May he was one of six peers who voted against the resolution that all impeachments fell by the dissolution of a Parliament. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 8. He then entered his protest to the resolution that the order of the Lords of 19 Mar. 1679 should be annulled, which effectively dismissed the impeachments still hanging over Danby and the surviving popish peers. On 25 May he was the sole peer to enter his protest against the resolution not to proceed with the suit between Elizabeth Harvey and Sir Thomas Harvey, because it was a ‘heavy and an unprecedented obstruction to judicature and appeals.’ On 26 May he was excused attendance during a call of the House, being ‘not well.’ On 3 June he was the sole peer to enter his protest against the decision to engross the bill reversing Stafford’s attainder, there being ‘no defect in point of law alleged as a reason for the reversal of the attainder’, and he also entered his protest against the bill’s passage on the following day. Braye ms 47, f. 12. On 4 June he received the proxies of both Ormond and Lovelace. On 15 June, according to Gilbert Burnet, the future bishop of Salisbury, Anglesey made ‘some small opposition’ to the bill attainting Monmouth of high treason ‘because the evidence did not seem clear enough for so severe a sentence.’ Burnet, iii. 45. On 19 June Anglesey petitioned the Lords complaining of a breach of privilege by Anthony Philpot, ‘who hath vilified him in a scandalous manner’, by calling him ‘a base rogue’ for opposing the bill of attainder against Monmouth. HMC 11th Rep. pt. 2, pp. 316-7. Philpot was ordered into custody and had to beg Anglesey’s pardon on his knees at the bar of the House to secure his release on 1 July, but only after offering sureties in the court of King’s Bench for his future good behaviour. Having chaired the committee on the bill for conveying fresh water to Rochester on 27 June, he reported it later in the day. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1/3, pp. 400-1.

Anglesey attended the adjournment of the House on 4 Aug. 1685, and when the House resumed on 9 Nov. he was in his place. To do this he had been forced to borrow a horse, for the receiver-general of the hearth tax had distrained one of his coach horses at Bletchingdon. He duly complained to the treasury of a breach of privilege, prompting Henry Guy^‡ to ask ‘can any Member of Parliament have any privilege against the king when he is indebted to the king?’ CTB, viii. 427, 503. Anglesey attended on each of the 11 days that Parliament sat before the prorogation on 20 Nov., being named to one committee. On 9 Nov. he supported William Cavendish, 4th earl of Devonshire, in promoting the petition to the House of Henry Booth, 2nd Baron Delamer, complaining of his imprisonment, and suggested that the Lords answer the petition themselves without reference to the king. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 56. On 14 Nov. he was the sole dissentient to the decision to affirm the decree in the case of Eyre v. Eyre. On 18 Nov., together with Bishop Compton, he was said to have seconded a sharp speech by Devonshire ‘about standing to the Test’, but this may be an error possibly confusing the events of 18 Nov. with those of the following day. HMC 6th Rep. 463. On 19 Nov., along with Halifax, he ‘vehemently’ seconded Devonshire’s motion that the king’s speech be taken into consideration, but only managed to secure an order for it to be considered on the 23rd, by which time Parliament had been prorogued. Add. 72481, f. 77.

On 26 Nov. 1685 Anglesey was examined as a character witness at the trial for high treason of Charles Gerard, styled Lord Brandon, the future 2nd earl of Macclesfield. Morrice, , Ent’ring Bk. iii. 66; HMC Downshire, i. 59. On the same day it was reported to Sir William Trumbull^‡ that the king having pardoned all the Roman Catholic officers in the army, ‘before the pardon was sealed my Lord Anglesey brought an action against Mr Bernard Howard (who is one of those officers) and intends to try to recover the fine they incurred by the Test Act, but of this I am not certain.’ Add. 72482, f. 62. A newsletter of the 26 Nov. also supported this statement, suggesting that Anglesey had acted the previous day. HMC Downshire, i. 59.

Anglesey attended the prorogation on 10 Feb. 1686, the last day upon which he sat. On 8 Mar. Anglesey recorded a private meeting with Robert Spencer, earl of Sunderland, and then a meeting with the king at William Chiffinch’s^‡ ‘who was very kind, free and open in discourse. Said, he would not be priest-ridden; read a letter of the late king, said I should be welcome to him.’ Anglesey Mems. dedication. According to Luttrell and John Tucker he kissed the king’s hand on 16 Mar. 1686, although the latter expected Trumbull to be ‘surprised by the news.’ Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 373; Add. 72482, f. 71. It was reports such as these that led to rumours of Anglesey’s return to favour and possibly high office.

Anglesey died on 6 Apr. 1686 of ‘a kind of quinsy’, or as Dr James Fraser put it ‘of a mixed distemper, betwixt the gout and squinary,’ and was buried at Farnborough on 14 April. HMC Montagu, 192; Add. 72523, ff. 92-93. He was succeeded by his eldest son James Annesley, 2nd earl of Anglesey. At least one report suggested that ‘Anglesey died of a sudden. They did not apprehend him in such danger a few hours before’. NAS, GD406/1/11513. It was widely reported that he had told Dr John Sharp, the future archbishop of York, that ‘he ever was of the Church of England, and would die so, and said he was willing to receive the sacrament but could not swallow’. HMC Montagu, 192. Thomas Windsor, earl of Plymouth, evinced surprise, writing to Halifax on 13 Apr. ‘that he declared himself to have been always of the Church of England is more than I did expect.’ Add. 75359, Plymouth to Halifax, 13 Apr. 1686.

Rumours abounded following Anglesey’s death, including one suggesting that he had desired to speak with the king and delivered up to him a bundle of papers. Another wrote that Anglesey ‘was become so great a favourite that he failed not to be at the king’s levee and … had [he] lived but one fortnight longer he been chancellor so that death proved a great disappointment to him.’ Verney ms mic. M636/40, J. to Sir R. Verney, 8 Apr. 1686; A. H[obart] to Verney, 14 Apr. 1686. Even Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon, in Dublin, picked up these rumours: ‘letters which bring the news of Lord Anglesey’s death, say, ’twas pity he died, for had he lived but a little time, he would have been a very great man, and have done much good for the poor Irish: Good God!’ Clarendon Corresp. i. 350. Verney sombrely recorded ‘I am sorry for the death of my Lord Anglesey, he will be much wanted in the Lords’ House.’ Verney ms mic. M636/40, Sir R. to J. Verney, 11 Apr. 1686.

Anglesey had composed his will on 23 Feb. 1686, when ‘of sound mind and memory … though weak and decaying in body’, and because he had ‘seen and considered the disquiets and unnatural differences that do arise and the ruin of families that doth follow upon the dying intestate or by the want of or imperfect or unadvised settlements of estates.’ His house in Drury Lane with its contents together with the ‘silk gold coloured bed and all the furniture of the room called the golden chamber at Blechingdon’ was bequeathed to his wife. He gave his daughter Lady Frances Thompson £1,500, with the significant proviso that his executrix ‘be not sued, molested or troubled’ for it by her husband. Another daughter, Lady Anne Wingate, received the £2,000 part of the portion of £4,000 still owing to her from her marriage. He also gave £1,100 with interest for the redemption of a mortgage for his late son-in-law, Lord Mohun, the money having been borrowed from Sir John Baber. The rest of his real estate in Ireland was to be divided into three parts and bequeathed to his three youngest sons Richard, Arthur and Charles, in remainder after the death of his second son Altham, at that time a widower without children. His executrix was encouraged to apply to the king for ‘those great sums which are due to me from the crown as the only rewards of long service,’ a reference to the sum of £3,000 p.a. for ten years ‘payable out of the inheritable part of the excise, for surrendering his vice-treasurership of Ireland’ to Sir George Carteret. HMC Montagu, 192. The need to raise money to pay debts may explain the auctioning of his library, reputedly the largest private library in England, consisting of 30,000 volumes, shortly after his death, which Andrew Marvell may have made use of in his own work. Bibliotheca Angleseiana (1686); HJ, xliv, 703-26. His own memoirs, published in 1693 were generally regarded as more the work of Sir Peter Pett than himself. Greene thesis, 282-5.

In 1681 Anglesey had summed himself up as a man of ‘prudence and moderation’, whose consistent aim had been ‘a moderator between factions and parties, never addicted or enslaved to any but striving to make all one.’ Ibid. 194-5. Around the same time, in January 1681, he wrote to Laurence Hyde that he thought the government of England ‘so wisely and artificially framed that the pulling out or so much as altering any one pin but by common consent of Parliament may dissolve and overturn the whole fabric, in the preserving and upholding which I have now spent above fifty years with knowledge and industry.’ Add. 17017, f. 4.

Anglesey has been described as ‘a kind of opposition figure within the inner circle of government, a cultivated but unlikeable figure.’ Aylmer, Crown’s Servants, 19. Burnet recalled him as ‘a man of a grave deportment’, with a ‘faculty of speaking indefatigably upon every subject: but he spoke ungraciously; and did not know that he was not good at raillery, for he was always attempting it.’ Burnet, i. 177. In the Lords his legal expertise, together with his intellectual and financial abilities, made him an important figure; but despite his links to prominent politicians like Holles and Shaftesbury he seems to have made no attempt to create a personal following or to promote himself as a factional leader. A man of business, his industry made him useful in the administration of the state and no doubt ensured his longevity in the public service. On the way, he made the most of his opportunities to advance his personal wealth and his family members.