Robert Shirley, 1st Earl Ferrers

Robert Shirley, 1st Earl Ferrers PC (20 October 1650 – 25 December 1717)—known as Sir Robert Shirley, 7th Baronet, from 1669 to 1677 and Robert Shirley, 13th Baron Ferrers of Chartley, from 1677 to 1711—was an English peer and courtier.

Shirley was born at East Sheen, the third son of Sir Robert Shirley, 4th Baronet and his wife Catherine Okeover. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. In March 1669, he inherited his baronetcy from his infant nephew, and received an M.A. from Oxford in 1669. Shirley was suggested as a candidate for Lichfield in 1677 by Thomas Thynne, husband of his second cousin Frances, but he preferred to accept a seat in the House of Lords, the barony of Ferrers of Chartley being called out of abeyance for him in December. He was also appointed a deputy lieutenant of Staffordshire shortly thereafter. In 1683, he was appointed high steward of Stafford, replacing the Duke of Monmouth.

On 18 February 1684, Lord Ferrers was appointed Master of the Horse to the Queen Consort, Catherine of Braganza. After Charles II's death in 1685, he became the Dowager Queen's Lord Steward and "Chief Bailiff of the Revenues", in which post he served until her death in 1705. Among the Queen's property was the honour of Higham Ferrers, part of the Duchy of Lancaster, which had been granted to her for life by Charles II with reversion to the Earl of Feversham, her Lord Chamberlain. Since Feversham avoided open politics after the Glorious Revolution in 1689, the offices of the honour were in Ferrers' gift. This allowed him to choose the Member of Parliament for Higham Ferrers until 1703, when Thomas Watson-Wentworth, whose brother had married Feversham's sister-in-law, purchased from him the reversion of the honour of Higham Ferrers and took over the electoral interest.

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