James Annesley

James Annesley (1715–5 Jan 1760) was an Irishman with a claim to the title Earl of Anglesey. He is perhaps best known today for partially inspiring the novel Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.^[1][2][3]

Life

Annesley is said to have been born on April 15, 1715, in Dunmaine, County Wexford, to Arthur Annesley 5th Baron Altham (1689–14 Nov 1727) and his wife Mary Sheffield, the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Buckingham.^[4]He was initially rejected by his father and left destitute on the streets of Dublin. Then, at about the age of 12 in 1728, soon after the death of his father, Annesley was kidnapped and shipped to an American plantation in Delaware, where he was sold into indentured servitude,^[1] apparently on the orders of his uncle Richard Annesley.^[4] By removing James from the line of succession, Richard was able to claim the title of the 6th Earl of Anglesey.^[4] However after 12 years working in slave labour, James travelled to Jamaica, where he signed on as an able seaman in H.M.S. Falmouth, serving throughout the campaign against Cartagena, but seeing no action. He was discharged in October 1741.^[5]

He returned to Ireland in 1741 and laid claim to his supposed birthright.^[4] There followed a protracted legal battle between James and Richard, during which Richard tried on a number of occasions to have James murdered.^[4] In 1742 James killed a poacher while out shooting. Richard attempted to ensure his conviction for murder, but forensic evidence indicated that the shooting was an accident. He was acquitted.^[5]

Richard's legal defense was that James was not the legitimate son of Mary Sheffield, but actually the illegitimate son of Joan Landy, whom James claimed was merely his wet nurse. The verdict was in James' favour, and his estates were returned to him, although he never took up his titles before he died of a disease at age 44.^[4] His uncle Richard died about a year later.^[4]

On 14, September, 1751, at Bidborough, Kent, Annesley married Margaret I'Anson. She was the second daughter of Sir Thomas I'Anson (1701-1764), 4th Bt., of New Bounds, Kent; Gentleman Porter of the Tower of London, by his wife Mary, the only surviving daughter of John Bankes Esq., M.P., of Kingston Lacy Hall, Dorset. Margaret's brother, Sir John I'Anson, married secondly Mary Harpur, sister of the Revd Henry Harpur, vicar of Tonbridge, who had married Sarah Marshall, aunt of the artist J.M.W. Turner.

Historicity

The Annesley case attracted enormous interest in Dublin and London. Abridged trial reports appeared in daily newspapers and periodicals, such as the Gentleman's Magazine, and fifteen separate accounts of the trial were printed.^[6] Fictionalized accounts also circulated in literature at the time, in Eliza Haywood's novel Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman (1743) and Tobias Smollett's novel Peregrine Pickle (1751), and in the 19th century by Sir Walter Scott in Guy Mannering (1815) and Charles Reade in The Wandering Heir (1872).^[7]

In 2010, A. Roger Ekirch published Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped, a biography of James Annesley.^[4] Ekirch says that historians had traditionally dismissed many details of the story of Annesley as being fanciful fiction.^[2] However Ekirch found a trove of legal documents that show the story as traditionally told was mostly true.^[2] This is the first book length study of the case since Andrew Lang edited The Annesley Case in 1912.^[8] The Johnsonian scholar and mystery writer, Lillian de la Torre, extensively researched unpublished documents in Ireland in the early 1960s, but her long projected book still remained in manuscript at the time of her death.^[6] She did however publish a number of articles in scholarly journals on different aspects of Annesley's life.^[9][5]

Kidnapped

A. Roger Ekirch and others have said^[3] that the novel Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson was inspired by the Annesley story. They point to similar storylines, such as an uncle who kidnapped a fatherless and rightful heir at a young age and ships him to the colonies; the heir then returns and claims his birthright from the villainous uncle. It is probable Stevenson was influenced by the Annesley story, as Ekirch says,

It is inconceivable that Stevenson, a voracious reader of legal history, was unfamiliar with the saga of James Annesley, which by the time of Kidnapped’s publication in 1886 had already influenced four other 19th-century novels, most famously Sir Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering (1815) and Charles Reade’s The Wandering Heir (1873).^[3]

However there is no direct evidence, because Stevenson never left any recorded statement about his sources for Kidnapped. Stevenson's wife, Fanny Stevenson, said an inspiration for Kidnapped was The Trial of James Stewart, a contemporary account of the Appin murder, concerning the killing of Colin Roy Campbell,^[10] but this does not preclude there being more than one influence on Kidnapped.

References

Sources

• A. Roger Ekirch (2010). Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06615-9
•  "Annesley, James". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.  Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

• "Kidnapped!", by A. Roger Ekirch in common-place.org Vol.11, No.1, October 2010
• The Foundation of Scott's Guy Mannering, a retelling of Annesley's life, The Gentleman's Magazine, July 1840, pg.39-42.
• The Trial of Mrs Mary Heath, court transcript 1743
• The Trial of Richard Anglesea, court transcript 1744