ARMS.--_Gules, a cross between four fleurs-de-lis argent_. The Baronet family bore the _cross engrailed or, and but one fleur-de-lis of the same_. Present Representative, John Henry Ashurst, Esq. ANNESLEY OF BLETCHINGDON, VISCOUNT VALENTIA IN IRELAND 1621. [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. VILLIERS OF MIDDLETON-STONEY, EARL OF JERSEY 1697.