Anthony Shirley Sir Anthony Shirley ( or Sherley ) ( 1565 – 1635 ) was an English traveller , whose imprisonment in 1603 by King James I caused the English House of Commons to assert one of its privileges — freedom of its members from arrest — in a document known as " The Form of Apology and Satisfaction " . Family . Anthony Shirley was the second son of Sir Thomas Shirley of Wiston , Sussex , and Anne Kempe , the daughter of Sir Thomas Kempe ( d . 7 March 1591 ) of Olantigh in Wye , Kent . He had an elder brother , Sir Thomas Shirley , and a younger brother , Sir Robert Shirley , and six sisters who survived infancy . Career . Educated at the University of Oxford , Shirley gained military experience with the English troops in the Netherlands and during an expedition to Normandy in 1591 under Robert Devereux , 2nd Earl of Essex , who was related to his wife , Frances Vernon ; about this time he was knighted by Henry of Navarre ( Henry IV of France ) , an event which brought upon him the displeasure of his own sovereign and a short imprisonment . In 1596 , he conducted a predatory expedition along the western coast of Africa and then across to Central America , but owing to a mutiny he returned to London with a single ship 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 with the twofold object of promoting trade between England and Persia and of stirring up the Persians against the Turks . He obtained money at Constantinople and at Aleppo , and was very well received by the Shah , Abbas the Great , who made him a Mirza , or prince , and granted certain trading and other rights to all Christian merchants . Then , as the Shah ' s representative , he returned to Europe and visited Moscow , Prague , Rome , and other cities , but the English government would not allow him to return to his own country . Two members of his expedition returned to London , where they published the anonymous pamphlet " The True Report of Sir Anthony Shirley ' s Journey " , which , additionally spurred by the actor Will Kempe ' s meeting with Sir Anthony in Rome , evoked two references to " the Sophy " — the Shah — in Shakespeare ' s " Twelfth Night " ( 1601 – 02 ) . For some time he was in prison in Venice , and in 1605 , he went to Prague and was sent by Rudolph II , Holy Roman Emperor on a mission to Morocco ; afterwards he went to Lisbon and to Madrid , where he was welcomed very warmly . The King of Spain appointed him the admiral of a fleet which was to serve in the Levant , but the only result of his extensive preparations was an unsuccessful expedition against the island of Mitylene . 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 . Shirley wrote an account of his adventures , " 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 Richard Hakluyt ' s " Voyages and Discoveries " ( 1809 - 1812 ) . See also " The Three Brothers ; Travels and Adventures of Sir Anthony , Sir Robert and Sir Thomas Sherley in Persia , Russia , Turkey and Spain " ( London , 1825 ) ; EP Shirley , " The Sherley Brothers " ( 1848 ) , and the same writer ' s " Stemmata Shirleiana " ( 1841 , again 1873 ) .