This is my personal genealogy hobby site. The data contained here has been gathered through 20 years of genealogy. Some of it is my research, much of it has been shared with me.

DISCLAIMER: This is my speculative data. I've verified very little of it. Use it for hints and pointers, but do your own research!

It costs me over $50 (US) a month to have this data on the web, so your support would be appreciated! If clicking on advertisments is not your thing, please consider a donation!

Rob Salzman
e-familytree.net
PO Box 25335
Beaverton, OR
97298-0335

sponsored links

This data changes often. If you've arrived from a search engine, it's could be that you don't see the information you were looking for. The current index for e-familytree.net can be found here. You can email me at genealogy at e-familytree.net for updates, removal requests, etc.

Family Sheet

HUSBAND
Name: Robert Shirley Sir Bart Note Born: Oct 1651 at East Sheen, , , Surrey Married: 1699 Died: 25 Dec 1717 [4] Other Spouses: Elizabeth Washington
Father: Robert Shirley Sir Bart Mother: Dorothy Okeover
WIFE
Name: Selina Finch Note Born: Died: 1762 Father: George Finch Mother: Unknown
CHILDREN
Name: Robert Shirley Sir Born: 27 May 1700 Died: 12 Jul 1738
Name: Selina Shirley Lady Born: 2 Jul 1701 Died: 14 Dec 1777 Husband: Peter Bathurst Mp
Name: Mary Shirley Born: 20 Nov 1702 Died: Husband: Charles Tryon
Name: George Shirley Born: 18 Aug 1704 Died: 21 Dec 1704
Name: George Shirley Born: 23 Oct 1705 Died: 22 Oct 1787 Wife: Mary Sturt
Name: Frances Shirley Born: 5 May 1707 Died:
Name: Anne Shirley Born: 24 May 1708 Died: 26 Feb 1779 Husband: Robert Furnese
Name: Sewalis Shirley Born: 19 Oct 1709 Died: 25 Oct 1765 Wife: Margaret
Name: Stuarta Shirley Born: 19 Aug 1711 Died: 31 Dec 1767
Name: John Shirley Born: 1 Mar 1712 Died: 13 Feb 1768
SOURCES
4). No Title Given
NOTES
1). 1 UPDA 2 DATE 1711 2 PLAC Created Earl Ferrers Robert had several illegitimate children making him the father of 57 children In 1677, he was created a Baronet. In 1682 his Lordship was appointed Master of the Horse to Catharine Queen Dowager and in 1685 Steward of her Household and one of the Privy Council to King James II. In 1692 he was sworn of the Privy Council to King Willam, and in 1708 to Queen Anne, who in 1711 advanced him to the dignity of a Viscount and Earl by the style and title Earl Ferrers and Viscount Tamworth. The title has continued to the present day and Robert Washington Shirley is the 13th Earl Ferrers serving in Parliament in the House of Lords. Notes for Robert Shirley first Earl Ferrers Sir Robert Shirley, seventh baronet, first Earl Ferrers, previously a Knight, second son of Sir Robert Shirley fourth baronet . This gentleman being grandson and heir of Lady Dorothy Devereux, the younger of the two sisters and heirs of Robert Devereux,last Earl of Essex of that family, and the issue of the elder sister becoming extinct, Charles II was graciously pleased, Dec. 14, 1677, to terminate the abeyance of the ancient barony of Ferrers of Chartley in his favor, which, with other baronies, had been in abeyance since the death of the above mentioned last Earl of Essex. Lord Ferrers Robert was of the privy councils of King William and Queen Anne, and was created by the latter sovereign, September 3, 1711, Viscount Tamworth of Co. Stafford and earl Ferrers. Taken from Burke s Peerage 1963 page 938 The following is taken from Stemmata Shirleiana This monument is erected to the Memory of the Right Hon. Robert Earl Ferrers and to his second wife, Selina, daughter of George Finch, of the city of London, Esq. He was called to the House of Lords by King Charles the Second, by the title of Baron Ferrers of Chartley, with the precedency thereto belonging, by writ under the Great Seal of England, dated the 14th of December. Anno 1677. And by the same right Baron Bovchier and Baron Lovain. He was Master of the Horse to Catherine Queen Dowager in 1682, and High Steward of her household, and in 1699 sworn of the Privy Council to King William the III, and in 1711 was one of the Lords of Council to Her Majesty Queen Ann who by patent dated the3rd day of Sept. 1711 advanced him to the dignity of Earl Ferrers and Viscount Tamworth. He was born at the time his father, Sir Robert Shirley was imprisoned in the Tower by the Vsurper Oliver Cromwell and died there not without suspicion of poison. He married to his first wife Elizabeth, daughter and heir to Laurence Washington, of Garesdon, in the county of Wilts, Esq. by whom he had issue ten sons and seven daughters. To his second wife he married Selina, daughter of George Finch, of the city of London, Esq. by whom he had issue five sons and five daughters. He was born in October, 1651 and died the 25th of December, 1717, aged sixty seven years, and lies in the family vault of this church. This family is descended by an heir female from the Ancient Family of Devereaux. Earls of Essex and Ev, Viscount Hereford, and Lord Ferrers of Chartley, by the intermarriage with the second sister of the Earl of Essex the favorite of Queen Elizabeth whowas beheaded about the year 1600 , which intermarriage entitles this noble family to quarter the Kings Arms. On the north side of this monument is a small tablet, which explains why it was not erected at Staunton Harold, but in the south aisle of the church of Lower Ettington in Warwickshire, the ancient burial place of the family The monument to the memory of Robert Earl Ferrers, and his Countess, Selina, was intended and prepared to be erected in the church of Staunton Harold, in the county of Leicester, where he is buried, by the consent of Washington Earl Ferrers, but after being finished was refused to be placed there. It is erected in this church at the expense of the Hon. George Shirley, the Centre Figure in the monument. ASTWELL MANOR HOUSE In 1453 Arthur Brook, of a Warwickshire family, was in possession, and in 1471 his son William exchanged the manors of Astwell and Falcutt with one Thomas Lovett for the manors of Rushton and Great Oakley near Kettering. Thomas Lovett s daughter, Margaret, married John, son of William Brooke. Soon after Thomas Lovett came to Astwell this was Edward IV s reign he set to work to build the manor house anew, and the surviving gate house is part of his work. The rest of the house was built round a courtyard there was a moat, and, said the Ministry of Works in 1958, it must have been an imposing place. Four generations of Lovetts lived here and the family was of some standing in the County, for three different Thomas Lovetts served as High Sheriff in the reigns respectively of Edward IV, Henry VII, and Elizabeth I. The last Thomas Lovett of Astwell, who died in 1586, married Elizabeth Fermor of Easton Neston, and their only child, Jane, by her marriage with John, younger of Francis Shirley of Ragsdale and Staunton Harold in Leicestershire, carried Astwell into the Shirley family. The Shirleys John Shirley, the husband of Jane Lovett, died in 1570 leaving a son, George, who, born in 1559, inherited Stanton Harold in 1571, and Astwell on the death of his Lovett grandfather in 1586. The Shirleys were by far the most interesting of the owners of Astwell, and, in fact, managed to produce contemporaneously a murderer and founder of a religious sect. With George Shirley the light at last begins to shine brightly on Astwell. He was a man highly typical of his age. Educated at Hart Hall, Oxford, he received some training at one of the Inns of Court and later served for a while with the Earl of Leicester in Holland. On succeeding to Astwell, with which he immediately feel in love, he became henceforth a Northamptonshire rather than a Leicestershire man and was sheriff of the County in the year that Queen Elizabeth died. Early in the next reign he demolished the greater part of the manor house, and, smitten with building fever then raging among Northamptonshire squires, built himself a large and beautiful mansion alongside the old Thomas Lovett s tower. The new house, which had gables and mullioned windows in the prevailing style, was completed in about 1606. There were over forty rooms, including a hall, a chapel, a great and a little parlour, and a gallery hung with twenty four pictures, as we know from an inventory of1622 which gives the names of all the rooms. These and also the tower were luxuriously furnished with court cupboards, four poster beds, chairs and stools covered with velvet, needle work or leather, green and red rugs, hangings and carpets of arras, velvet cushions, coloured window curtains, chests, cabinets, long oak tables with benches and joint stools, tow pair of virginals, a harpiscall , a bell to ring to prayers, etc., etc., etc. With a small army of servants inside and out, a stable full of horses, at least three coaches, those were surely the greatest days of Astwell, when for beauty and importance it must have ranked with such places as Gawsley, Deene, or Great Oakley Hall. George signed the work of his period with his initials and coat of arms in several rooms, the example on the stone mantel piece in the sitting room of the present house being the only one now surviving. George Shirley with many gallant gentlemen conducted James I across Northamptonshire on his way south at his accession, and was one of the first batch of baronets created by that monarch. An open handed man, relieving during the great dearth 500 a dayat his gates , he reminds us of his contemporary the first Lord Montagu of Boughton on the other side of the County. The year of the great dearth was 1608. Shirley s religious position was ambiguous, unless, which we doubt, he was an arrant hypocrite. He was an avowed Roman Catholic, and therefore placed on the list of suspected Papists in Northamptonshire. All his armour and weapons were removed from Astwell House in his absence over seas in 1618 on the plea that his servants were recusants. Lord Exeter, then Lord Lieutenant, thereupon wrote to the Privy Council on his behalf that he had always been loyal and forward in service and declared himself no recusant . Three years later his arms were restored to him. He was certainly an outward conformer to the Church of England, and the following letter to Dr. Lambe, Chancellor of the Diocese of Peterborourgh, from four of the local clergy, suggests very strongly that his attendance at their services was more than a mere formality. He was perhaps one of those who had true unity, which is most glorious. May it please you, Sir, Whereas we whose names are hereunder written are intreated by Sir George Shirley of Astwell in your Countie of Northampton Baronet, to certifie our knowledge to your worship of his conformities in coming to the church and hearingdevine service and sermons there, upon Sundays and Holldayes, according to the lawe in that case we do hereby certifie you that the said Sir George Shirley being an old gent. and his house farr from the parish churche and having an auntient privilegedchappell in his house, hathe, according to the booke of Common prayer, service red in the same chappell by Mr. Jones. a Batchelor in Divinitie and Chaplen in his house, who hathe of him a yearely stipend for reading prayer and preaching there, to which service and sermons himselfe, his Ladie and his familie doe come verie orderly, and we doe further certifie your worship that we ourselves doe verifie often every yeare in the absence of his said chaplen, or when we are thereunto entreated by the said Sir George Shirley, come thither and read service and preache in his his said chappell to him, his Ladie and his familie and this with remembrance of our humble dutie we committ you to God, and rest. Your worhip s always to command, Richard Lewis S.T.P. Vicar of Brakley . William Jonnes Clerk Rector of Syreham . Chr. Middleton Clerk Rector of Aston le Walls . Edward Wade Clerk Rector of Holdenby and Church Brampton . Dated the 23 of January 1618 1619 . Sir George Shirley, in the words of his son, Thomas, died on 27th of April 1622, aged 63, in the bosom of his mother, the Roman Catholick Church . On the death of Sir George, his descendants did not entirely desert Astwell. Sir Robert, the 4th baronet, lived there as a boy during the early years of the Civil War, and his widow make it her home for many years. The house was kept up and the family probably came for a part of each year, buy they took little or no part in the affairs of the County and inclined more and more to Staunton Harold and their other residences. Sir Robert Shirley the 7th baronet, became Lord Ferrers of Chartley when this ancient barony was called out of abeyance by Charles II in 1677. In 1711 he was created Earl Ferrers by Queen Anne. His chief claim to distinction, however was the number of hischildren. By his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Lawrence Washington of Garsden Wiltshire Co. he had 17 children and by his second wife 10, besides some 30 natural children . During the life time of his son Washing, the second Earl Ferrers, John Bridges was at work on his history of Northamptonshire, and has preserved for us a glimpse of what Astwell, an old seat of Earl Ferrers as he called it, looked like 240 years ago. Behind the gate house is a little court and entry into the hall. The hall windows project n ronde and have battlements over them. The wainscot and chimney pieces in several rooms are adorned with the arms of the family with other carved work and the window, which are of chrystal, are stained with flowers, birds, horses and other ornaments. At the east end of the great parlour was formerly a chapel, where Dr. Sheldon, afterwards, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dr. Dolben, afterwards Archbishop of York,are said to have successively officiated as chaplains of the family . Of this Lord Ferrers a contemporary wrote He keeps as hospitable an house and entertains as nobly as any peer of the realm , buy on the whole the second and third earls were quite unremarkable people. Not so the fourth, Laurence Shirley 1720 1760who succeeded his uncle, the third earl, in 1745. Of him Burke writes in his Peerage Although not bereaved of intellect, this nobleman frequently evinced strong symptoms of a constitutional violence of temper and in one of the paroxisms of rage habitual with his lordship put to his own confidential land steward, and aged gentleman of the name of Johnson . Lord Ferrers wished to evict Johnson from his farm, and failing to do so, got him into his room at Staunton Harold, locked the door, pulled a pistol out of his pocket and shot him. He was tried by his peers in Westminster hall, found guilty of murder, andsentenced to death. During his imprisonment in the Tower of London before his execution, he was several times visited by his cousin Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. Ferres decided to die in the grand manner even though it was the death of a felon. When the fatal day arrived he put on a suit embroidered with silver and was driven from the Tower to Tyburn in his own landau drawn by six horses, and, according to tradition, was hanged with the silken cord which was the privilege of a peer instead of the hempen rope used for common murderers. A vast multitude of people assembled to watch the execution for which the new drop just introduced instead of the cart, ladder and medieval gibbet was used for the first time. Tyburn gallows stood close to the site of the marble Arch on the boundary of the parishes of St. Marylebone and Westminster.
2).  he had 10  children

						

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
e-familytree.net is a welldesigned.net website