the Irish peerage. On 20 April 1661, he was created Baron Annesley, of Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire and Earl of Anglesey in the Peerage of England. Anglesey supported the king's administration in parliament, but opposed strongly the unjust measure which, on the abolition of the court of wards, placed the extra burden of taxation thus rendered necessary on the excise. His services in the administration of Ireland were especially valuable. He filled the office of vice-treasurer from 1660 till 1667, served on the committee for carrying out the declaration for the settlement of Ireland and on the committee for Irish affairs, while later, in 1671 and 1672, he was a leading member of various commissions appointed to investigate the working of the Acts of Settlement. In February 1661 he had obtained a captaincy of horse, and in 1667 he exchanged his post of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland with Sir George Carteret for that of Treasurer of the Navy. He was elected as a Bailiff to the board of the Bedford Level Corporation in 1664 and again in 1679, a position he then held until his death. Later years His public career was marked by great independence and fidelity to principle. On 24 July 1663, he alone signed a protest against the bill "for the encouragement of trade", on the plea that owing to the free export of coin and bullion allowed by the act, and to the importation of foreign commodities being greater than the export of home goods, "it must necessarily follow ... that our silver will also be carried away into foreign parts and all trade fail for want of money." He especially disapproved of another clause in the same bill forbidding the importation of Irish cattle into England, a mischievous measure promoted by the Duke of Buckingham, and he opposed again the bill brought in with that object in January 1667, though without success. This same year his naval accounts were subjected to an examination in consequence of his indignant refusal to take part in the attack upon Ormonde; and he was suspended from his office in 1668, no charge, however, against him being substantiated. He took a prominent part in the dispute in 1671 between the two Houses concerning the right of the Lords to amend money bills, and wrote a learned pamphlet on the question entitled The Privileges of the House of Lords and Commons (1702),