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. Of the judge's six brothers, one, John, became a knight of the
Order of St 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. 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. Although the eldest son, William was sent to the
Inner Temple not to make a profession of law but in order to understand his own affairs, and according to his son it was against his will that he was made serjeant, and judge, by
Henry VIII. 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. ==Family==