Sir Robert Slingsby

Sir Robert Slingsby, 1st Baronet (1611–1661) was an English baronet, author and Naval commander, and in his last years a much-loved colleague of Samuel Pepys.

He was born at Bifrons near Canterbury, the second son of Sir Guylford Slingsby, Controller of the Navy, and Margaret Walter. He was the grandson of Sir Francis Slingsby of Scriven, and thus a first cousin of Sir Henry Slingsby, 1st Baronet. His eldest brother Guildford Slingsby was a promising young politician and lawyer who was killed early in the English Civil War.

He entered the Navy as a boy and when he was only 22 was given his first command, the Eighth Lyon's Whelp; in 1636 he commanded the Third Lyon's Whelp, and then the Expedition, in which he transported arms from the Tower of London to Edinburgh in 1640. He then commanded a small squadron in the English Channel, and in 1642 escorted the Portuguese Ambassador to Lisbon in the Garland.

On the outbreak of the Civil War he declared for Charles I, but his men mutinied and he was imprisoned. On his release he joined the King at Oxford and in 1644 went to the Continent to raise funds. He returned to England: he and his brother Walter were with Prince Rupert when he surrendered Bristol, then they went to Brussels to join their brother Arthur, who in 1658 was created first of the Slingsby baronets of Bifrons. Robert later returned to England alone, and in 1650, like so many defeated Royalists, he compounded i.e. paid a fine in return for being left with sufficient means to live on. According to his sister Dorothy Nightingale, he was then living with their widowed mother at York. Robert was then described as being "infirm and wounded, and not likely to live long".

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