Aungier, Sir Francis (1558–1632), lawyer and administrator, eldest son of Richard Aungier of Cambridgeshire, barrister and treasurer of Gray's Inn, and Rose Aungier (née Stewart/Steward) of Ely, was baptised 14 May 1558 at Coton, Cambs. He was a queen's scholar at Westminster School (1570), matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge (1574), and was specially admitted to Gray's Inn (1577), where (having been called to the bar in 1583) he became an ‘ancient’ (1593) and a reader and bencher (1602). He married (a.1589) Douglas Fitzgerald, sister of Gerald, 14th earl of Kildare. He sat for Ashton-under-Lyne in the English parliament (1589); inheriting property in Surrey, he settled there, extended his estates, became a JP, and sat as MP for Haslemere (1597–8). In May 1609 he was knighted and made master of the rolls for Ireland (recommended by the previous master, Anthony St Leger), and held the office till his death, becoming known as an energetic and severe judge and an efficient administrator. When his brother-in-law the earl of Kildare died (1612), leaving a young son, Aungier was considered a suitable guardian.
A member of the Irish privy council by 1611, he was a commissioner for the plantations in Ulster (1609, 1616), Wexford (1613), and Longford (1620), where he built a mansion and was created (1621) Baron Aungier of Longford . He died 8 October 1632 at his Dublin house (on a former White Friars property granted to him in 1617; later the site of Aungier St.), was buried in a nearby chapel, and was reinterred (6 December) in St Patrick's cathedral. His will revealed him as ‘singularly happy in his family relations, and with wide sympathies . . . but, above all . . . a master of detail’ (Ball). He married secondly Anne (née Barne) of Woolwich, widow of Walter Marler; and thirdly Margaret (née Cave) of Northamptonshire, widow of Sir John Wynne. He had at least five sons and three daughters; his grandsons Francis (qv), Ambrose, and Gerald (qv) became respectively 1st and 2nd earls of Longford and governor of Bombay, and his brother John was ancestor of the Hanger family, barons of Coleraine. Aungier's widow (d. 1656) married Sir Thomas Wenman, provost-marshal of Munster.