Robert Sherley

Sir Anthony Sherley was in Persia from Dec 1, 1599 to May 1600. He was given 5000 horses to train the Persian army according to the rules and customs of the English militia. He was also commanded to reform and retrain the artillery. When he left Persia, he left his brother, Robert Sherley, behind with 14 Englishmen who lived in Persia for years. "1609 Robert Sherley was employed, as his brother had been, by the Persian monarch, as ambassador to several princes of Christendon, for the purpose of uniting them in a confederacy against the Turks. He first went into Poland, where he was honorably entertained by Sigismond the Third. In June of this same year he was in Germany, and received from the Emperor Rudolph II the title of Earl (Count) palatine and knight of the Roman Empire. Pope Paul the Fifth also conferred upon him the title of Earl. From Germany Sir Robert went to Florence and from thence to Rome, where he entered, attended by a suite of eighteen persons, on Sunday, the 27th of September, 1609. He next visited Milan, and then proceeded to Genoa, from whence he embarked to Spain, arriving in Barcelona in December 1609. He sent for his Persian wife and they remained in Spain, principally at Madrid, until the summer of 1611."