Background
Born about 1480, he was the eldest son of Sir John Shelley (died 3 January 1526) and his wife Elizabeth (died 31 July 1513), daughter and heir of John de Michelgrove in the parish of Clapham, Sussex.
Born about 1480, he was the eldest son of Sir John Shelley (died 3 January 1526) and his wife Elizabeth (died 31 July 1513), daughter and heir of John de Michelgrove in the parish of Clapham, Sussex.
The youngest brother, John Shelley, died in 1554. The settlement of an estate which he purchased on the dissolution of Sion Monastery led to the lawsuit known as ‘Shelley"s case,’ and the decision known as the Rule in Shelley"s Case. From the beginning of Henry"s reign he appears on commissions of the peace for Sussex and other counties.
In 1517 he was autumn reader in the Inner Temple, and about the same time became one of the judges of the sheriff"s court in London.
In 1520 he was appointed recorder of London, and in May 1521 was placed on the special commission of oyer and terminer to find an indictment against Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. In the same year he took the degree of the coif.
In 1527 Shelley was raised to the bench as judge of the common pleas, and in 1529 he was sent to demand from Thomas Wolsey the surrender of York House, later Whitehall Palace. Soon afterwards he entertained Henry VIII at Michelgrove.
He was summoned to parliament on 9 August 1529, and again on 27 April 1536.
In 1547 he was consulted by Henry VIII"s executors about the provisions of his will. He died on 4 January 1549. Shelley married Alice (died 1536?), daughter of Sir Henry Belknap, grandson of Sir Robert de Bealknap of Knelle in the parish of Beckley, Sussex.
By her he had four sons:
Sir Richard Shelley;
the third son, Sir James, was, like Sir Richard, a distinguished and widely travelled Knight of Saint John;
the fourth, Sir Edward, was a master of the household of Henry VIII, treasurer of the council of the north, and captain of Berwick, and was killed at the battle of Pinkie on 10 September 1547.
Their daughter Elizabeth married Roger Copley, father of Sir Thomas Copley.
Of the judge"s six brothers, one, John, became a knight of the Order of Street John, and was killed in defending Rhodes against the Ottoman Turks in 1522. From another, Edward, who is variously given as second, third, or fourth son, came the baronets of Castle Goring, Sussex (created 1806), and Percy Bysshe Shelley, the poet.