fellow commoner of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Register of Admissions).
In the following year, on the death of his brother, Sir Charles Shirley, he succeeded to the baronetcy and estates under the wardship of his uncle, the Earl of Essex. Almost immediately, contrary to the advice of his guardian and family, he married Katherine, daughter of Humphrey Okeover of Okeover, Staffordshire.
On 14 Sept. 1646 his mother's brother, the Earl of Essex, died intestate, and Shirley succeeded to a moiety of his estates, including Chartley in Staffordshire, property at Newcastle-under-Lyne, the tenements in London adjoining Essex House, a rent-charge of 300l. from the Cardigan estates, and half the barony of Farnham in Monaghan. Thereupon he retired to the country and took up arms for the king. In the winter of 1647–8 he was in Oxford and resided in St. John's College. After the execution of Charles I he was involved in plots for a restoration of the monarchy. On 4 May 1650 a warrant was issued for his committal to the Tower, but he was released in October on finding two securities in 5,000l. (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1650, passim). He continued, notwithstanding, to engage in conspiracies against the Commonwealth (Nicholas Papers, Camden Soc. ii. 218). Arms were discovered at his dwelling in 1656 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1656–7, p. 140), and in consequence of his conduct he was several times confined in the Tower. There he died on 28 Nov. 1656, and was buried beneath the chancel of the church at Staunton Harrold, which he had rebuilt. By his will he left 1000l. for the relief of persons distressed for their loyalty to Charles I. By his wife Katherine, who died on 18 Oct. 1672, he had five children—three sons: Seymour, the fifth baronet; Sewallis, who died young; and Robert, seventh baronet and first baron Ferrers; and two daughters: Katherine, who married Peter Venables, called baron of Kinderton in Cheshire, and Dorothy, second wife of George Vernon of Sudbury in Derbyshire.
Portraits of Sir Robert and his wife are at Staunton. That of Sir Robert is attributed to Vandyck. Two other portraits of him were discovered in 1842 at the vicarage of Prees in Shropshire. There are also portraits of both husband and wife—half-length—at Lord Vernon's house at Sudbury in Derbyshire.
[Stemmata Shirleiana, p. 142; Colvile's Warwickshire Worthies, p. 686; Nichols's Hist. of Leicestershire, iii. 713; Dugdale's Warwickshire, p. 619; Harl. MS. 4023, f. 79; Thurloe's State Papers, iv. 224, 439, 473, 639; Staveley's Hist. of Churches, 2nd edit. p. 143.]
SHIRLEY or SHERLEY, Sir THOMAS (1564–1630?), adventurer, born in 1564, was eldest son of Sir Thomas Shirley, ‘the elder,’ of Wiston, Sussex, who married, in 1559, Anne (d 1623), daughter of Sir Thomas Kempe of Ollantighe in Wye, Kent. Sir Anthony Shirley [q. v.] and Robert Shirley [q. v.] were his younger brothers. The founder of the Wiston branch of the family, Ralph Shirley or Sherley (d 1510), sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1504, was son, by a second marriage, of Ralph Shirley of Ettington (d. 1466).
Sir Thomas Shirley (1542–1612) of Wiston, the father of the subject of the present notice, was great-grandson of Ralph Shirley of Wiston and son of William Shirley (d. 1551). He is said to have abandoned the Roman catholic faith, to which the elder branch of the family and his own sons adhered. Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, patronised him. He was elected M.P. for Sussex in 1572, and again in 1592, while he sat for Steyning in 1584, 1601, and 1603. He was knighted at Rye on 12 Aug. 1573, and served as sheriff of Sussex and Surrey in 1578. He rebuilt the house at Wiston. In 1585–6 he accompanied Leicester to the Low Countries with a troop of his own raising, and was on 1 Feb. 1587 appointed treasurer-at-war to the English army serving in the Low Countries. In that capacity he involved himself inextricably in debt to the crown. In 1588 his goods at Wiston were seized by the sheriff. In 1591 the queen appointed a commission to inquire into his pecuniary position. Efforts to secure, by Lord Burghley's influence, the controllership of the royal household failed, and in March 1596 it was reported that ‘he owed the queen more than he was worth,’ and that his indiscretions had cost him the loss of good friends. His distresses proved incurable. On 15 March 1603–4, the day of James I's formal entry into London, he was arrested for debt, while M.P. for Steyning, on the petition of a goldsmith, and was sent to the Fleet. Parliament raised the question of privilege, and the obduracy of the warden of the Fleet in releasing Shirley caused much public excitement (Commons' Journals; Spedding, Bacon, iii. 173–6). For Shirley is claimed the distinction of first suggesting to James I the creation of the rank of baronets (Shirley, Stemmata, p. 256). He died in great pecuniary distress in October 1612, and was buried in the church at Wiston, where a monument to his memory still stands. Three sons—a far-famed ‘leash of brethren,’ in Fuller's phrase—with six daughters, survived him.
