ANNESLEY, Arthur, 1st Earl of Anglesey. England’s confusion: or, a true and impartial relation of the late traverses of state - London: 1659. 4to. pp. 24. A good copy stitched and housed in a...

ANNESLEY, Arthur, 1st Earl of Anglesey. England’s confusion: or, a true and impartial relation of the late traverses of state - London: 1659. 4to. pp. 24. A good copy stitched and housed in a quarter morocco binder's folder. Wing A 3167A. Anonymously published, the author is characterised as “one of the few English men that are left in England” although at that time he was the sitting member for Dublin in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament. He opens up with a violent onslaught on Oliver Cromwell’s “high hand of arbitrary power” and his ambition “to have continued his posterity in the same unlimited dominion; declaring .... his eldest son Richard his successor .... his son Henry Lord Lieutenant or Viceroy of Ireland, and his daughter [Bridget] Fleetwood married to the Commander in Chief under him of the army.” Arthur Annesley, a native of Dublin, was the fourth generation of the family to participate in Irish affairs. His great grandfather Sir John Perrot was lord deputy; his grandfather was an undertaker in the Plantation of Munster after the defeat of the earl of Desmond, and his father, Baron Mountnorris, a major player in the Plantation of Ulster. Taking the parliamentary side during the civil war, his major contribution was to foil a projected alliance between the marquis of Ormond and the Scots forces in Ulster under General Monroe. Arthur Annesley acted as an intermediary for Charles II after his appointment as president of the council of state. Following the Restoration, he became vice-treasurer and receiver-general for Ireland, 1660-1667. Late in life he earned honourable mention as the only peer who dissented from the vote declaring the existence of an Irish “Popish Plot.” Davies’ Restoration pages 77-78 assesses Annesley as one of the best informed pamphleteers of the time. His books were disposed of by public auction in October 1686 and significantly the Dictionary of National Biography credits him with being “perhaps the first Peer who devoted time and money to the formation of a great library.” Sweeney 164 quoting the 1st issue of the 1st edition.

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