Teresia Sampsonia [SEP] date of birth
Teresa Sampsonia
Teresa Sampsonia (born Sampsonia; after marriage Lady Shirley, 1589–1668) was a noblewoman of the Safavid Empire of Iran. She was the wife of Elizabethan English adventurer Robert Shirley, whom she accompanied on his travels and embassies across Europe in the name of the Safavid King ("Shah") Abbas the Great (1588–1629).
Teresa was received by many of the royal houses of Europe, such as English prince Henry Frederick and Queen Anne (her child's godparents) and contemporary writers and artists such
of the English militia and to reform and retrain the Persian artillery. When Anthony Shirley left Persia, Robert remained in Persia with fourteen other Englishmen. There, in February 1607, he married Sampsonia, a Christian Circassian lady of the Circassian nobility of Safavid Persia. After being baptized by the Carmelites, she adopted the Teresia in addition to her own name. She became known in the west by the name "Lady Teresia Sampsonia Shirley".
In 1608 Shah Abbas sent Robert on a diplomatic mission to James I of England