SHIRLEY, Anthony (1624-83), of Preston, Suss.

The Shirleys could trace their ancestors back to the Domesday book, when the family owned property in Warwickshire, and their representation in Parliament back to the fourteenth century. From the reign of Elizabeth the branch long-established at Wiston in Sussex were prominent locally, nationally and internationally owing to their connection with Robert Dudley, 1st earl of Leicester, and Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of Essex.21Stemmata Shirleiana; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 257-8; M.A. Lower, 'The descent of Wiston', Suss. Arch. Coll. v. 1-28. Among others, Sir Thomas Shirley† (1542-1612) was treasurer at war in the Netherlands, and his son Sir Thomas Shirley† (1564-1630), ‘the adventurer’, served in the Low Countries.22HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629; Oxford DNB. Other prominent kinsmen included the Shirleys of Isfield, notably Sir John Shirley† (1568-1631), one of the godly circle in Sussex around Sir Thomas Pelham* and Anthony Stapley I*.23Stemmata Shirleiana, 330-2; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 252-5; Add. Ch. 29663.

Anthony Shirley’s branch of the family, based at Preston, near Brighton, was the least wealthy and prestigious, but was still intimately connected with the county’s foremost political families. Anthony Shirley (d. 1624), great-grandfather of this MP, and Sir Thomas Pelham, 1st bt. (d. 1625) both married daughters of Sir Thomas Walsingham†, and became close friends.24Add. Ch. 30528; E. Suss. RO, SAS/A/106; Preston Manor, Misc 29; Add. Ch. 29649-50, 29726-7; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 261; E. Turner. 'Otehall', Suss. Arch. Coll, xix. 63–5; Stemmata Shirleiana, 307. Such amity was replicated in the next generation: granted a lease in 1628 of the crown property of Preston manor, Thomas Shirley (d. 1637), the MP’s grandfather, chose as his reversionary trustees Sir Thomas Pelham and Anthony Stapley I.25C54/3548/13; PSO5/5, unfol.; Stemmata Shirleiana, 310. The next Thomas Shirley, the MP’s father, also made important connections outside his county through his marriage in 1614 to Elizabeth Stephens, sister of Edward Stephens* and John Stephens*, two Gloucestershire men later prominent parliamentarians in the 1640s.26Stemmata Shirleiana, 311; Preston Manor, ES/ET/18, 24.

These dynastic friendships endured.27Preston Manor, ES/ET/13, 30–33, 39; Add. 33144, ff. 3v, 184v. Anthony Shirley left Oxford at the outbreak of the civil war, shortly after having been admitted to Magdalen Hall, and travelled on the continent with Sir Thomas Pelham’s eldest son, John Pelham*, and at Sir Thomas’s expense, judging by Shirley’s letter of thanks sent from Orleans in October 1644.28Add. 33084, f. 76. It is unclear how long Shirley spent abroad, and evidence of his activity during the latter half of the 1640s is scant. But he had returned to England before 2 July 1650, when he married Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Onslow* and a distant cousin.29Par. reg. St Nicholas, Cranleigh. In a settlement which also involved wider family and friends including Arthur Onslow*, Sir Thomas Pelham and Anthony Stapley I, the bride’s father received in exchange for a portion of £2,000 the remainder of the lease of Preston, with Pelham and Stapley surrendering the reversion.30Preston Manor, ES/ET/41, 43-6; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 258-63; C54/3548/13.

Sir Richard Onslow’s position as the most important gentleman in Surrey was a potentially powerful influence on Shirley’s career, particularly after the deaths in 1654 of Shirley’s father and of Sir Thomas Pelham, although in the 1650s it is easier to infer in general than to pinpoint it at work in particular instances. Shirley was nominated as an assessment commissioner in 1652, but his engagement with public affairs began in earnest two years later.31PROB11/234/170; SP28/181, unfol.; Preston Manor, ES/ET/47; Add. 39483, f. 296. In August 1654 he was appointed a commissioner for scandalous ministers and returned to Parliament for Arundel, as its sole Member under the Instrument of Government. On 5 September, the third day of the session, he was named to the committee for privileges.32CJ vii. 366b. He received only one further committee appointment during this Parliament, regarding abuses of habeas corpus (3 Nov.).33CJ vii. 381b.

In November 1655 Shirley was selected by Major-general William Goffe* as a commissioner for the execution of the protector’s orders ‘for the preservation of the commonwealth’. Goffe regarded Shirley as ‘a very honest gentleman’ and told secretary of state John Thurloe* that ‘if his relation to Sir Richard Onslow do not hinder his acting’ – a reference to Onslow’s uncompromising disdain for the protectorate – ‘he may be useful’.34TSP iv. 161. Reporting on his first meeting with the commissioners that month, Goffe found them generally amenable and asked Thurloe that, ‘if the commission for the peace be yet unfinished’, Shirley might be added.35TSP iv. 190. Duly appointed, Shirley was active until July 1656, after which his name disappears from the records.36C231/6, p. 323; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW3, ff. 17, 18v; ASSI35/97/7.

Association with Goffe may have caused Shirley’s removal. It could have been part of the wider efforts of Harbert Morley*, de facto leader of the protectorate’s strong phalanx of opponents in Sussex, to undermine Goffe after the announcement in June 1656 of fresh elections. In August Goffe noted that he had encouraged the mayor of Arundel to endorse Shirley’s candidacy there, prompted by the fear that Morley would secure the place for his own kinsman, Sir John Trevor*. It is a measure of Goffe’s problems in finding loyal candidates in Sussex that he canvassed for Shirley in two places. The deal struck with the mayor was that, ‘if Mr Shirley were chosen in the county, they would choose Captain [William] Freeman for Arundel’.37TSP v. 341. Goffe’s plan worked in so far as Shirley was returned for the county – securely, unlike other knights of the shire who were to be excluded from the Commons on 22 September – but Morley obtained Sir John Trevor’s return for Arundel.

For the first three months of the session there is no sign of Shirley in the parliamentary record. However, between 24 December 1656 and 9 May 1657 he received nine committee nominations. Five of these related to individuals’ petitions, including those of the royalist Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, and the heirs of the Vanlore estate in Berkshire.38CJ vii. 474b, 484b, 488a, 505b, 532a. Three concerned religion: bills for the better observation of the Lord’s Day (18 Feb. 1657), the division of the parish of St Andrew, Holborn (4 Mar.), and the purchase of impropriations for the maintenance of ministers (31 Mar.).39CJ vii. 493b, 498b, 515b. Although his father-in-law, Sir Richard Onslow, supported the Humble Petition and Advice, Shirley played only a minor role in Parliament’s deliberations. On 20 March he was included in the committee to consider how the new constitution might best secure the nation against royalists, but he was not listed among those who supported the crowning of Cromwell five days later.40CJ vii. 508b; Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 22 (E.935.5). After an interval of nearly six weeks, Shirley’s two committee nominations on 9 May (regarding building in London and a private bill) were his last.41CJ vii. 531b, 532a. He made no further appearance in the Journal before the end of the first session on 26 June, and none at all in the brief second session (20 Jan.-4 Feb. 1658).

Nevertheless, Shirley was active on the commission of the peace during the late 1650s, having been restored to the bench in March 1658. He continued to attend the sessions into the Restoration period.42C231/6, p. 387; ASSI35/98/9, 10; ASSI35/99/9; ASSI35/99/10; ASSI35/100/6; ASSI35/102/7; ASSI35/103/7; ASSI35/103/8; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW3, ff. 42v, 51, 52v, 60v, 80. His work in the county on behalf of the government included taking evidence from those examined in the wake of the abortive royalist plot led by his kinsman, John Stapley*, in May 1658.43TSP vii. 111.

Shirley was returned for Steyning to the Parliament of Richard Cromwell, which assembled on 27 January 1659, doubtless as a ‘court’ candidate. However, he was named to only one committee, investigating elections (28 Jan.).44CJ vii. 594b. Aside from the payment which he made that August of £2 for one month’s pay for army horse raised to counter the summer’s insurrections, his parliamentary-related activity until the Restoration is unrecorded.45SP28/335, f. 82.

Shirley’s activity after the Restoration is equally unclear, and he was not elected to sit in Parliament again. He had powerful friends both at court and in Westminster, however, and by 1666 he been honoured with a baronetcy, through the influence of Secretary of State Sir Henry Bennet†, Baron Arlington. Arlington was a remote kinsman, and was closely connected with Shirley’s father-in-law Onslow, and with another of his kinsmen, Lord Aungier; Shirley’s reputed income of over £1,000 a year clearly stood also him in good stead.46CSP Dom. 1665-6, p. 192. What little is known of Shirley’s activity during this period confirms the central importance of Onslow, with whose political ally, Sir Edward Thurland*, Shirley was engaged in business.47Preston Manor, ES/ET/51.

Shirley lived until 1683, although by 1677 he had ceased to reside at Preston.48Suss. Manors, ii. 361. Having paid £1,000 in 1657 for the moiety of the manor of Brighton-Lewes, he may have spent the last years of his life there.49  VCH Suss. vii. 254. He appears to have died intestate, leaving a widow and two children, both married.50Preston Manor, ES/ET/52. No further members of the family sat at Westminster, and the male line and title became extinct with the death in 1705 of his grandson, Sir Richard Shirley, 3rd baronet.51Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 263.