Francis Annesley, 1st Viscount Valentia

The Right Honourable The Viscount Valentia PC (Ire)
Personal details
Born	Francis Annesley 1 February c. 1585 Dublin, Ireland
Died	22 November 1660 Thorganby, Yorkshire, England
Resting place	Thorganby, Yorkshire, England
Occupation	English and Irish politician

Francis Annesley, 1st Viscount Valentia, PC (Ire) (1 February c. 1585 – 22 November 1660) was an English statesman during the colonisation of Ireland in the seventeenth century. He was a Member of Parliament for both the English and Irish houses, and was elevated to the Irish peerage as Baron Mountnorris, and later Viscount Valentia.

Annesley, descended from the ancient Nottinghamshire family of Annesley, was son of Robert Annesley, high constable of Newport, Buckinghamshire, and was baptised 2 January 1586. As early as 1606 he had left England to reside at Dublin, and he took advantage of the frequent distributions of Irish land made to English colonists in the early part of the seventeenth century to acquire estates in various parts of Ireland. With Sir Arthur Chichester, who became lord deputy in 1604, he lived on terms of intimacy, and several small offices of state, with a pension granted 5 November 1607, were bestowed on him in his youthful days.

In the colonisation of Ulster, which began in 1608, Annesley played a leading part, and secured some of the spoils. In October 1609 he was charged with the conveyance of Sir Neil O'Donnell and other Ulster rebels to England for trial. On 13 March 1611–12 James I wrote to the lord deputy confirming his grant of the fort and land of Mountnorris to Annesley "in consideration of the good opinion he has conceived of the said Francis from Sir Arthur's report of him". On 26 May 1612 Annesley was granted a reversion to the clerkship of the Checque of the Armies and Garrisons, to which he succeeded 9 December 1625.

In 1614 County Armagh returned Annesley to the Irish parliament, and he supported the Protestants there in their quarrels with the Catholics. In 1616 he was sworn of the Irish Privy Council, on 16 July the king knighted him at Theobalds; in 1618 he was acting as Principal Secretary of State for Ireland, although he may not have been formally appointed; on 5 August 1620 received from the king an Irish baronetcy; and on 11 March 1620–1 received a reversionary grant to the viscounty of Valentia, which had recently been conferred on Sir Henry Power, a kinsman of Annesley, without direct heir.

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