[Illustration] Ralph, surnamed Brito de Annesley, living in the
second year of Henry II. (1156,) is assumed to have been son of
Richard, of Annesley, in the county of Nottingham, mentioned in the
Domesday Survey. That estate continued in the Annesleys till the
death of John de Annesley, Esq., in 1437, when it went by an heiress
to the Chaworths. The family then removed to Rodington in the same
county, and afterwards to Newport-Pagnell in Buckinghamshire; but
Ireland was the scene of the prosperity of the family, early in the
seventeenth century, which may be said to have been re-founded by
Sir Francis Annesley, Secretary of State in 1616. Hence the
Viscountcy of Valentia, which afterwards merged in the Earldom of
Anglesey in England, adjudged by the English House of Lords to be
extinct in 1761; but by the same evidence the Viscountcy of Valentia
was allowed to the grandson of the last Earl of Anglesey, whom the
English House of Lords found to be illegitimate. He was created Earl
of Mountnorris in Ireland in 1793, and on the decease of the last
Earl in 1844, the Irish Viscountcy and the representation of
the family descended to Arthur Annesley of Bletchingdon, Esq.,
descended from the second marriage of the first Viscount Valentia.
Younger Branches. 1. Annesley of Clifford Chambers, co. Gloucester.
2. The Earl of Annesley in Ireland, 1789.
See Baker's Northamptonshire, i. 502; Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, p.
251; Archdall's Lodge, iv. 99; and the Tyndale Genealogy, privately
printed, folio, 1843.
ARMS.--_Paly of six argent and azure, a bend gules_. Monsieur de
Annesley bore, _Paly of six argent and gules, a bend vairy argent
and sable_, in the reign of Edward III. The present coat was borne
by John de Annesley in the reign of Richard II. (Rolls.)
Present Representative, Arthur Annesley, 11th Viscount Valentia.