hem to keep the peace; he was the only peer to dissent
from the motion declaring the existence of an Irish plot; and though
believing in the guilt and voting for the death of Lord Stafford, he
interceded, according to his own account,[4] with the king for him as
well as for Langhorne and Plunket. His independent attitude drew
upon him an attack by Dangerfield, and in the Commons by the
attorney-general, Sir W. Jones, who accused him of endeavouring to
stifle the evidence against the Romanists. In March 1679 he protested
against the second reading of the bill for disabling Danby. In 1681
Anglesey wrote _A Letter from a Person of Honour in the Country_, as a
rejoinder to the earl of Castlehaven, who had published memoirs on
the Irish rebellion defending the action of the Irish and the Roman
Catholics. In so doing Anglesey was held by Ormonde to have censured
his conduct and that of Charles I. in concluding the "Cessation," and
the duke brought the matter before the council. In 1682 he wrote _The
Account of Arthur, Earl of Anglesey ... of the true state of Your
Majesty's Government and Kingdom_, which was addressed to the king
in a tone of censure and remonstrance, but appears not to have been
printed till 1694.[5] In consequence he was dismissed on the 9th of
August 1682 from the office of lord privy seal. In 1683 he appeared
at the Old Bailey as a witness in defence of Lord Russell, and in June
1685 he protested alone against the revision of Stafford's attainder.
He died at his home at Blechingdon in Oxfordshire on the 26th of April
1686, closing a career marked by great ability, statesmanship and
business capacity, and by conspicuous courage and independence of
judgment. He amassed a large fortune in Ireland, in which country he
had been allotted lands by Cromwell.

The unfavourable character drawn of him by Burnet is certainly unjust
and not supported by any evidence. Pepys, a far more trustworthy
judge, speaks of him invariably in terms of respect and approval as a
"grave, serious man," and commends his appointment as treasurer of
the navy as that of "a very notable man and understanding and will do
things regular and understand them himself."[6] He was a learned and
cultivated man and collected a celebrated library, which was dispersed
at his death. Besides the pamphlets already mentioned, he wrote:--_A
True Account of the Whole Proceedings betwixt ... the Duke of Ormond
and ... the Earl of Anglesey_ (1682); _A Lette