The greatest rogue in Europe

On 11 November 1743, the most sensational trial of the 18th century opened in the Four Courts in Dublin. The plaintiff, James Annesley, claimed that his uncle, Richard Annesley, the sixth earl of Anglesey, had robbed him of immense estates in England and Ireland worth £10,000 a year. The scale of the theft and the rank of the alleged thief would by themselves have made the case exceptional. According to Viscount Perceval who was present, it was ‘of greater importance than any tryall ever known in this or any other kingdom.’ But what really attracted attention was James Annesley’s allegation that in 1727, the year he became heir to the earldom, his uncle had had him kidnapped and shipped to America as an indentured servant, and thereby stolen the title.

Undoubtedly Anglesey was a rotter. He married bigamously, lied, cheated, and bullied, and in a tawdry, beggarly fashion that scandalised the tolerant morals of fellow peers. He borrowed money that was not repaid, cut down valuable timber on estates that were not his, and left his bastards unprovided for. Anglesey was, said one lord, ‘the greatest rogue in Europe’.

Nevertheless, aristocrats were part of government, and not easily displaced. When the wicked earl took to calling young James ‘the pretender’, it asscociated his claim with that of Charles Edward Stuart’s to be the rightful king. The implications were obvious to a 1740s audience: if one pretender was allowed to take an earl’s coronet, why shouldn’t another take George II’s crown?

At the trial, however, a trail of evidence revealed the full extent of the villainous earl’s campaign against his nephew. It began when he hired two ruffians to bundle the 12-year-old boy onto a ship bound for America, and bribed the captain to present him in the colonies as a ten-year, indentured servant, effectively making him a slave for that time.