# Francis Aungier, 1st Baron Aungier of Longford

Francis Aungier, 1st Baron Aungier of Longford (1558–1632), also known as Lord Aungier, was the progenitor of the Earldom of Longford, member of the House of Lords, Privy Councillor for Ireland and Master of the Rolls in Ireland under James I and Charles I.

## Early life

Francis was born in 1558 in Cambridge, England, the eldest son of Richard Aungier, Esq., and Rose Steward. His father was a barrister and a member of Gray's Inn, as well as a substantial landowner. Francis attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, before entering Gray's Inn in 1577. He became a member of several jurisdictions and was the reader of the Inn in 1602. He was a sufficiently gifted lawyer to earn the praise of Francis Bacon. His father was murdered in his chambers in November 1597, soon after his third election as Treasurer of Gray's Inn. His body, which had been thrown into the Thames, was recovered and was buried in the chapel of St Thomas of Canterbury at East Clandon on 17 December 1597. His son Richard Aungier, younger brother of Francis, was hanged for the crime at Tyburn on 25 January 1598.

## Later years

Following his first marriage (1584) into the FitzGerald family (seated at Hatchlands Park), Aungier settled at East Clandon, Surrey around 1590, where he became a friend of Sir William More of Loseley. His signature can be seen as a commissioner, with William and George More, Laurence Stoughton and John Agmondesham, in a 1591 warrant for the arrest of a Surrey recusant. In 1609, King James I appointed him to the Irish Privy Council, as well as to the position of Master of the Rolls for Ireland. He was also knighted at Greenwich by the King that same year. He was re-appointed Master of the Rolls for Ireland by King Charles I in 1625.
Aungier attended the House of Lords in 1614 and served as commissioner of the Plantation of Munster in 1616 and of County Longford in 1620. In 1619, he was appointed as a commissioner of the Great Seal of Ireland following the death of Archbishop Thomas Jones. In 1621, he was created Lord Aungier, Baron of Longford by patent, which stated that he descended from the Counts of Aungier. He died in 1632, leaving a will.
He purchased the lands of the White Friars Monastery in Dublin, where he resided: there, in 1677, Aungier Street was dedicated in honour of his family.

## Marriage and issue

Aungier was married three times, and had several children through his marriages.
He married first, on 12 August 1584 at Rushbrooke, West Suffolk, to Douglas Fitzgerald ("Douglas Garret"), (died 1600), sister of the 14th Earl of Kildare. The East Clandon register, recording her burial there on 1 June 1600, describes her as "mulier pietate, virtute et stemmate honoris florens", a woman flowering in piety, virtue and honourable descent. (Sir Ambrose Copinger (died 1604), of Dawley Court, Middlesex, a grandson of Sir Thomas Jermyn of Rushbrooke, had married Douglas's sister Lettice FitzGerald weeks previously. The names Lettice and Ambrose derived from this example, as the East Clandon register shows.) They had issue:
* Elizabeth Aungier (baptized 12 December 1585). She married (1) in January 1607/08, to Simon Caryll (c. 1577-1619), son of John Caryll and Lettice Lane, (2) in February 1619/20, to Richard Barne, son of Sir George Barne (died 1593) and Anne Gerrard, and (3) in February 1624/25, to John Machell (c. 1580-1647), (son of Mathew Machell and Mary Lewknor) of Great Tangley, Shalford, Surrey. Elizabeth died in 1650.
* Lettice Aungier (baptized 25 May 1591), who married (1) Edward Cherry of Dublin, (2) Sir William Danvers, and (3) Sir Henry Holcroft. She was living in 1639, when addressed in a printed funeral sermon for her niece, and apparently so in 1649 when Holcroft made his will, of which she was an executor.
* Frances Aungier (baptized 2 November 1592, buried 11 November 1604), daughter.
* Gerald Aungier, 2nd Baron Aungier of Longford ("Garret"), (baptized 23 March 1594), heir, died 1651, who married in February 1637/38 to Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Onslow and Elizabeth Shirley, and relict of Sir Edward Carr of Hillingdon. Gerald was an accomplished student of antique and oriental languages, and both a patron and student of his near kinsman William Oughtred, who wrote very highly of him.
* Ambrose Aungier (baptized 12 September 1596), of Westminster School, Trinity College and Clare College, Cambridge. He became Chancellor of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and married Grisel Bulkeley, daughter of the Archbishop of Dublin, Lancelot Bulkeley. He was the father of Francis Aungier, 1st Earl of Longford, Gerald Aungier the first Governor of Bombay, and Ambrose Aungier, 2nd Earl of Longford. Ambrose Aungier died in 1654.
* Thomas Aungier (baptized 27 November 1597).
He married secondly Anne Barne, daughter of Sir George Barne (died 1593) and Anne Gerrard, and relict of Walter Marler, citizen and Salter of London, and had issue:
* George Aungier.
* John Aungier (baptized 7 July 1605, buried 24 February 1606/07).
* Francis Aungier (baptized 3 August 1607), son, of Clare College, Cambridge (1622), and Gray's Inn: he died in 1652.
* Robert Aungier (baptized 6 April 1609).
He married thirdly Margaret Cave, daughter of Sir Thomas Cave (died 1613) of Stanford Hall and Eleanor St. John. They had no issue.