The New International Encyclopædia/Shirley, Anthony

SHIRLEY (SHERLEY), Sir Anthony (1565-c.1635) . An English navigator. He was educated at Hart Hall, Oxford. In 1591 he accompanied the Earl of Essex on his expedition to Normandy, and was knighted by Henry IV. Queen Elizabeth, angered at his acceptance of this honor without her consent, had him imprisoned until he gave up the order of St. Michael that had been conferred upon him. In 1596 he led a buccaneering expedition to the West Indies and South America. An account of this cruise was published by Hakluyt in Voyages and Discoveries (1598). In 1599 he sailed to Persia, where he was hospitably received by Shah Abbas the Great, who made him ambassador to the Christian courts of Europe. Thoroughly discredited at home, he passed his last years in Madrid, a pensioner of the King of Spain. He died in poverty some time after 1635. In 1613 he published Travels Into Persia, a dull and tedious book. Sir Anthony had two brothers, Sir Robert and Sir Thomas, who were also adventurers. The three brothers were made the subject of Travailes of Three English Brothers (1607), a play written by John Day in collaboration. Consult The Sherley Brothers (Roxburghe Club, 1848).