THE TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF SIR ANTHONY, SIR ROBERT, AND SIR THOMAS SHERLEY. THE author of "The Genealogies of the Sherley Family," a Latin manuscript in the British Museum, in his enthusiastic attachment to that house, traces it from the time of Edward the Confessor, in the male line, to the illustrious scions above named, and assures us that it has had the honor to be allied not only to the royal blood of England, both Saxon and Norman, but likewise to that of France, Scotland, Denmark, Arragon, Leon, Castile, the sacred Roman Empire, and almost all the princely houses in Christendom; and amongst the English nobility to the Dukes of Norfolk and Buckingham, Earls of Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland, Shrewsbury, Kent, Derby, Worcester, Huntingdon, Pembroke, Nottingham, Suffolk, Berkshire, and the Barons of B Berkley and if we are to believe him, their achievements have been as noble and as various as their alliances. The actions of the three brothers of that house, whose lives and adventures are the subject of these pages, deserve to be placed by the side of those of the most illustrious of their progenitors. Perhaps no three persons of one family ever experienced adventures at the same time so uncommon and so interesting. Sir Thomas, Sir Anthony, and Sir Robert Sherley, were the sons of Sir Thomas Sherley of Wisneston, or Wiston, in Sussex, by Anne his wife, the daughter of Sir Thomas Kemp, Knight. As Sir Thomas Sherley, though the first in age, was the last in distinguishing himself, "men's activity," as Fuller says, "not always following the method of their register," we shall so far invert the order of chronology as to end instead of beginning with him. Anthony Sherley, the second son, was born about 1565. He was sent to Hart Hall, Oxford, where he was matriculated in 1579, was admitted Bachelor of Arts in 1581, and, in November in the same year, elected Probationer of All Souls' College, being related to the founder of this College by his mother's side; but he left the University, without taking the degree of Master of Arts*. "In my first years," says he, * Fuller, Wood, Birch. in the "Relation of his Travels*," " my friends be were fit for a stowed on me those learnings which gentleman's ornament, without directing them to an occupation; and when they were fit for agible things, they bestowed them and me on my prince's service, in which I ran many courses of divers fortunes, according to the condition of the wars, in which, as I was most exercised, so was I most subject to accidents. With what opinion I carried myself (since the causes of good or ill must be in myself, and that a thing without myself) I leave it to them to speak; my places yet in authority, in those occasions were ever of the best; in which, if I committed error it was contrary to my will, and a weakness in my judgement; which, notwithstanding, I ever industriated * "Sir Anthony Sherley, his Relation of his Travels into Persia, the Dangers and Distresses which befel him in his Passage, both by Sea and Land, and his strange and unexpected Deliverances, his magnificent Entertainment in Persia, his honorable Imployment there-hence as Embassadour to the Princes of Christendome, the Cause of his Disappointment therein, with his Advice to his Brother, Sir Robert Sherley. Also a true Relation of the great Magnificence, Valour, Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and other manifold Virtues of Abas, now King of Persia, with his great Conquests, whereby he hath enlarged his Dominions.Penned by Sir A. Sherley, and recommended to his Brother, Sir Robert Sherley, being now in Prosecution of the like honorable Imployment.-London: Printed for Nathaniel Butter, and Joseph Bagfet. 1613." |