On 30 March 1700 he was chosen by the commons as one of the trustees to regulate William's Irish grants, which parliament had resumed, and in March following was summoned from Ireland by the peers to explain the proceedings of the commission to their lordships (Journals of the House of Commons, xiii. 307; Journals of the House of Lords, xvi. 622, 640, 645; Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 64, iv. 24, 628, v. 28). He died on 21 April 1710.
Sheeres, who was a member of the Royal Society, was the author of: 1. ‘A Translation of Polybius,’ 1693, 8vo. 2. ‘An Essay on the Certainty and Causes of the Earth's Motion,’ 1698, 4to. 3. ‘A Discourse on the Mediterranean Sea and the Streights of Gibraltar,’ 1703, 8vo. He also edited two pamphlets by Sir Walter Ralegh, ‘A Discourse on Seaports,’ 1700, and ‘An Essay on Ways and Means to maintain the Honour of England,’ 1701; and was part author of a translation of Lucian, published in 1711. A poem of his was prefixed to Southern's ‘Oronooko,’ 1696. Several manuscripts by Sheeres, together with a correspondence with Pepys during his stay at Tangier, are among the Rawlinson MSS. at the Bodleian (Coxe, Catalogue of Bodleian MSS., pt. v. index, s.v. Sheres); and a manuscript work by him, entitled ‘A Discourse touching the Decay of our Naval Discipline,’ dated 1694, is in the collection of the Duke of Leeds.
[Pepys's Diary, ed. Braybrooke, index; Hasted's Kent, ed. Drake, i. 37; Pointer's Chron. Hist. of England, 1714, p. 674; Help to History, 1711, i. 114; Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, App. p. xxvii; Burnet's Own Time, 1823, i. l42.]
SHEFFIELD, first Earl of. [See Holroyd, John Baker, 1735–1821.]
SHEFFIELD, EDMUND, first Earl of Mulgrave (1564?–1646), only son of John, second baron Sheffield of Butterwick, Lincolnshire [see under Sheffield, Sir Robert, ad fin.], by Douglas, daughter of William Howard, first baron Howard of Effingham, was born about 1564, and succeeded to his father on 10 Dec. 1568 (Doyle, Official Baronage, ii. 541; Complete Peerage, by G. E. C., v. 417). In 1573 his mother secretly married the Earl of Leicester [see Dudley, Robert], and Sheffield seems to have been for a time Dudley's ward (Hatfield MSS. ii. 200). In 1582 he was one of the lords whom Queen Elizabeth ordered to accompany the Duke of Anjou to Antwerp (Camden Annals, 1582). In 1585 he served as a volunteer under Leicester in the Netherlands (Motley, United Netherlands, ed. 1869, i. 345; Stowe, Chronicle, p. 711). In 1588 he commanded the White Bear, one of the queen's ships, in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Howard knighted him on 25 July 1588, and in a letter to Walsingham commends him as not only gallant but discreet’ (Laughton, Defeat of the Spanish Armada, i. 210, ii. 322). For these services Elizabeth granted Sheffield in 1591 the manor of Mulgrave in Yorkshire, which was part of the forfeited estate of Sir Francis Bigod (Hatfield MSS. iv. 105). On 21 April 1593 Sheffield was elected a knight of the Garter (Doyle). About 1594 he was a candidate for the wardenship of the west marches, and in 1595 he applied to Cecil for the post of lord president of the north. Suspicions of his religion caused by the fact that he had married a catholic were said to be the cause of his ill-success (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1581–90 p. 145, 1595–7 p. 140, 1580–1625 p. 365). Yet he seems to have been suspected very unjustly, and a letter from the north in 1599 praises his zeal in apprehending priests. ‘He will undertake any service against the papists, for God hath called him to a very zealous profession of religion’ (Cartwright, Chapters of Yorkshire History, p. 174; cf. Laughton, i. 66). On 13 Jan. 1598–9 Sheffield was appointed governor of Brill (Collins, Sidney Papers, ii. 71–80; Egerton Papers, p. 270).
Under James I he obtained the object of his ambition, and became lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire (1 Aug. 1603) and president of the council of the north (19 Sept. 1603). These two posts he held till 1619, when he resigned his presidency to Lord Scrope. This resignation was probably not a voluntary one, for Sheffield having executed a catholic priest without the king's leave, James promised the Spanish ambassador that he should be removed (Doyle, ii. 541; Gardiner, History of England, iii. 137; Court and Times of James I, ii. 136). An accusation of arbitrary conduct was also brought against him, but without result (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603–10, pp. 24, 531, 577).
From 1616 to his death Sheffield was vice-admiral of the county of York. He also interested himself in colonisation, and was a member of the councils of the Virginia Company (23 May 1609), and of the New England Company (3 Nov. 1620). In the latter capacity he was one of the signers of the first Plymouth patent on 1 June 1621 (Brown, Genesis of the United States, ii. 999).
At the coronation of Charles I Sheffield was raised to the dignity of Earl of Mulgrave (5 Feb. 1626). Nevertheless he ultimately
