SHIRLEY or SHERLEY, SIR ANTHONY 1635), English traveller, was the second son of Sir Thomas Shirley (1542-1612), of Wiston, Sussex. Educated at Oxford, he gained some military experience with the English troops in the Nether lands and also during an expedition to Normandy in 1591 under Robert Devereux, earl of Essex; about this time he was knighted by Henry IV. of France, which brought upon him Elizabeth's displeasure and a short imprisonment. In 1596 he conducted a predatory expedition along the western coast of Africa and across to Central America, but owing to a mutiny he returned to Lon don in 1597. In 1598 he led a few English volunteers to Italy to take part in a dispute over the possession of Ferrara; this, however, had been accommodated when he reached Venice, and he decided to journey to Persia to promote trade between Eng land and Persia and to stir up the Persians against the Turks. He was well received by the shah, Abbas the Great, who made him a mirza, or prince, and granted certain rights to all Christian merchants. Then, as the shah's representative, he visited Moscow, Prague, Rome and other cities, but the English Government would not allow him to return to his own country. For some time he
was in prison in Venice, and in 1605 he went to Prague and was sent by the emperor Rudolph II. on a mission to Morocco; after wards he went to Lisbon and to Madrid. The king of Spain ap pointed him to command an expedition in the Levant, which failed. After this he was deprived of his command. Shirley, who was a count of the Holy Roman empire, died at Madrid some time after 1635. His brothers Thomas (1564—c. 162o) and Robert (c. 1581-1628) were also great travellers.
Sir Anthony Shirley wrote: Sir Anthony Sherley: his Relation of his Travels into Persia (1613), the original manuscript of which is in the Bodleian library at Oxford. There are in existence five or more accounts of Shirley's adventures in Persia, and the account of his expedition in 1596 is published in R. Hakluyt's Voyages and Dis coveries (1809-12). See also The Three Brothers; Travels and Adventures of Sir Anthony, Sir Robert and Sir Thomas Sherley in Persia, Russia, Turkey and Spain (1825) ; E. P. Shirley, The Sherley Brothers (1848) , and the same writer's Stemmata Shirleiana (1841, again 1873).