Robert Shirley
Sir Robert Shirley (also Sherley ; * around 1581; † July 13, 1628 in Qazvin ) was an English traveler and adventurer. He was the younger brother of Anthony and Thomas Shirley.
Diplomatic activities
Robert went to Persia with his brother Anthony in 1598 . Anthony Shirley was sent there with 5000 horses to train the Persian army according to the rules of the English militia; so he stayed from December 1599 to May 1600 in the Safavid Persia. He was also given the task of reforming and retraining the artillery. When he left Persia, he left his brother Robert with 14 English people who eventually stayed in Persia for years.
After marrying Teresia (Teresa), a Circassian woman, he stayed in Persia until 1608, when Shah Abbas I sent him on a diplomatic errand to Jacob I and other European princes; like his brother he was used as an ambassador to several Christian monarchs in order to unite them in an alliance against the Ottoman Empire .
With this order he went first to Poland-Lithuania , where he was supported by Sigismund III. Wasa was received. In June of the same year he traveled to Germany, where he received the title of Count Palatine and was made Knight of the Holy Roman Empire by Rudolf II . Pope Paul V also awarded him the title of Count. From Germany he went to Florence and Rome , where he arrived on Sunday, September 27, 1609, accompanied by an entourage of 18 people. He then visited Milan and Genoa , from where he traveled by ship to Spain ; He reached Barcelona in December 1609. He had his Persian wife come and stayed in Spain, mainly in Madrid , until the summer of 1611.
He returned to Persia in 1613, but returned to Europe in 1615 and from then on lived in Madrid. By chance Shirley's caravan met Thomas Coryate , an eccentric travel writer, in the Persian desert in 1615 . Shirley's third trip to Persia was made in 1627, but shortly after reaching the country he died in Qazvin.
literature
- Sidney Lee: Shirley, Robert (1581? –1628) . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 52: Shearman - Smirke. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1897, pp. 136 - 137 (English).
- Richard Raiswell: Shirley, Sir Robert, Count Shirley in the papal nobility (c.1581–1628). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ History if Iran (Persia). In: History World , accessed March 1, 2011.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Shirley, Robert |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sherley, Robert |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English traveler and adventurer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1581 |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 13, 1628 |
| Place of death | Qazvin |