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- BIOGRAPHY
Son of Robert Annesley and Beatrice Cornwall, Francis was born before 1 February 1583. About 1608 he married Dorothea Philipps who died in 1624 and before 1629 he married Jane Stanhope and had children by both wives.
Early in his life he was in the service of Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland. He took an active part in the colonisation of Ulster and held many offices as Clerk and as MO. He also took advantage of the many distributions of Irish lands made to English colonists in the early part of the seventeenth century.
From 1616 he performed the duties of Principal Secretary for Ireland but was prevented by Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, from becoming Principal Secretary. In 1621 he obtained a reversionay interest in the grant of the Viscount of Valentia, which had recently been conferred on Sir Henry Power, a kinsman of his without any direct heir.
In May 1625 he was created Vice-Treasurer and Receiver General of Ireland, which gave him full control of Ireland's finances. However he soon after developed another quarrel with Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, who was by then Lord Deputy. As a result he was sentenced to death on a trumped up charge of mutinous conduct by a Council of War on 12 December 1635. His life was spared but he was imprisoned until 1637.
In England the sentence was widely condemned and when, in 1636, his wife petitioned Charles I to permit him to return to England, the request was granted. Meanwhile, in 1636 he was stripped of all his offices by a full Council. He appealed to the House of Lords, which found in his favour.
He spent the rest of his life trying to regain the lost offices, mostly living at his estate near Newport Pagnell, which he had bought off Charles I in 1627. On 26 May 1642 he became Viscount Valentia on the death of the previous Viscount. He appears not to have taken part in the Civil War but he was a Commissioner for the militia in county York. In 1648 he was restored to the office of Clerk of the Signet in Ireland and he appears to have got on well with Henry Cromwell, the Lord Deputy of Ireland during the Protectorate. In 1656 he proposed to the English Government that he should resign his offices to his son, Arthur, and this was accepted.
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