Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
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Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (October 6, 1573 – November 10, 1624), one of William Shakespeare's patrons, was the second son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, and his wife Mary Browne, daughter of the 1st Viscount Montague.
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[edit] Early life
He was born at Cowdray House, near Midhurst, and succeeded to the title in 1581, when he became a royal ward, under the immediate care of Lord Burghley. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1585, graduating M.A. in 1589: and his name was entered at Gray's Inn before he left the university. At the age of seventeen he was presented at court, where he was soon counted among the friends of the earl of Essex, and was distinguished by extraordinary marks of the queen's favor. He became a munificent patron of poets: Nashe dedicated his romance of Jack Willon to him, and Gervase Markham his poem on Sir Richard Grenville's last fight. His name is also associated with Barnabe Barnes's Parthenophil and Parthenope, and with the Worlde of Wordes of John Florio, who was for some years in his personal service as teacher of Italian.
[edit] Drama and association with Shakespeare
It is as a patron of the drama and especially of Shakespeare that he is best known. "My Lord Southampton and Lord Rutland," writes Rowland White to Sir Robert Sydney in 1599, "come not to the court ... They pass away the time in London merely in going to plays every day" (Sydney Papers, ed. Collins, ii. 132). Venus and Adonis (1593) was dedicated to Southampton in terms expressing respect, but no special intimacy; but in the dedication of Lucrece (1594) the tone is very different. "The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end ... What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours." Nicholas Rowe, on the authority of Sir William Davenant, stated in his Life of Shakespeare that Southampton on one occasion gave Shakespeare a present of £1000 to complete a purchase.
Nathan Drake in his Shakespeare and his Times (1819; vol. ii. pp. 62 seq.) first suggested that Lord Southampton was the person to whom the sonnets of Shakespeare were addressed. He set aside Thomas Thorpe's dedication to the "onlie begetter of these ensuing sonnets, Mr W.H.," by adopting the very unusual significance given by George Chalmers to the word begetter, which he takes as equivalent to procurer. Mr W. H. was thus to be considered only as the bookseller who obtained the manuscript. Other adherents of the Southampton theory suggest that the initials H. W. (Henry Wriothesley) were simply reversed for the sake of concealment by the publisher. It is possible in any case that too much stress has been laid on Thomas Thorpe's mystification.
The chief arguments in favor of the Southampton theory are the agreement of the sonnets with the tone of the dedication of Lucrece, the friendly relations known to have existed between Southampton and the poet, and the correspondence, at best slight, between the energetic character of the earl and that of the young man of the sonnets. Mr Arthur Acheson (Shakespeare and the Rival Poet, 1903) brings much evidence in favor of the theory, first propounded by William Minto, that George Chapman, whose style is parodied by Shakespeare in the 21st sonnet and in Love's Labour's Lost, was the rival poet of the 78th and following sonnets. Mr Acheson goes on to suppose that Chapman's erotic poems were written with a view to gaining Southampton's patronage, and that that nobleman had refused the dedication as the result of Shakespeare's expostulations. The obscurity surrounding the subject is hardly lightened by the dialogue between H. W. and W. S. in Willobie his Avisa, a poem printed in 1594 as the work of Henry Willobie. If the sonnets were indeed addressed to Southampton, the earlier ones urging marriage upon him must have been written before the beginning (1595) of his intrigue with Elizabeth Vernon, cousin of the Earl of Essex, which ended in 1598 with a hasty marriage that brought down Queen Elizabeth's anger on both the contracting parties, who spent some time in the Fleet prison in consequence. The Southampton theory of the sonnets cannot be regarded as proved, and must in any case be considered in relation to other interpretations.
Although the 154 numbered verses of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, printed in 1609, have presented "the greatest puzzle of English literature," additional weight is given to the idea that Wriothesley is the dedicatee of the sonnets by author Hank Whittemore in his book The Monument: "Shake-Speares Sonnets" by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (Meadow Geese Press, February 2005). Whittemore sets forth a consistent and coherent explanation of the sequence of the sonnets as they follow events from Henry Wriothesley’s life. This interpretation argues that the Sonnets comprise an artistic masterwork that is also nonfiction dressed as fiction -- a dangerous political document from a poet (Edward de Vere under the nom de plume William Shakespeare) who was "tongue-tied by authority".
According to Whittemore, the Sonnets comprise a "dynastic diary" for posterity by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who created a "living record" (the Sonnets) of his unacknowledged royal son, (whose mother is believed to be Queen Elizabeth I, the “Dark Lady” of the sonnets) Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. Oxford records his efforts first to save his son Southampton from being executed for Wriothesley’s part in the Essex Rebellion of 1601 (an effort to displace the queen’s powerful advisor Robert Cecil), and then to free him from his subsequent sentence to life imprisonment.
A crucial aspect of the story is that Secretary of State Robert Cecil held Southampton hostage until the Queen died in 1603 and King James succeeded her. While Cecil retained his power, the new monarch released Henry Wriothesley from his being "supposed as forfeit to a confined doom" in the Tower of London. In exchange, Southampton had to relinquish any claim to the throne, while his father Edward de Vere disappeared behind "William Shakespeare," the pen name he had adopted in 1593 in order to publicly support his son.
The Tudor dynasty was over and the truth would stay buried -- except for "the living record" of Southampton preserved for posterity in the "monument" of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Shortly before the revolt erupted on February 8, 1601 (and collapsed by nightfall), Southampton had arranged for Richard II by "Shakespeare" (and its scene of the deposing of the King) to be staged at the Globe, to rouse support for removing Cecil from his control over the aging Elizabeth. Southampton and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex were charged with high treason, with Edward de Vere sharing the disgrace and blame.
In the traditional view, the Sonnets appear to record a "love triangle" involving the poet known as "Shakespeare" with his young friend ("the Fair Youth") and his treacherous mistress ("the Dark Lady"), who steals the younger man away. Instead Hank whittemore posits that the sonnets can be read as fact disguised as fiction. The verses can be interpreted to have been arranged to preserve a record of the truth about the political struggle during the final years of Elizabeth I -- when Secretary Robert Cecil held Southampton hostage in the Tower until after the Queen's death and the succession of King James.
Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the Hamlet-like nobleman who had used "Shakespeare" to support the political goals of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, his unacknowledged son by the Queen. Edward de Vere introduced "Shakespeare" by dedicating "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece" to Southampton, uniquely linking him to the warrior-like name.
When the Rebellion failed, Oxford was forced to sit in judgment of his son at the trial and vote to condemn him to death for treason. Behind the scenes, however, he labored mightily to save him from execution and gain his freedom:
Thy adverse party is thy Advocate
And 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence. Sonnet 35
Oxford and Southampton paid "ransom" by agreeing to remain silent about Southampton's claim to the throne. Cecil held Southampton hostage in the Tower for two years, until the Queen died and James was proclaimed King.
The winners of this struggle got to write the "official" history, but Oxford defiantly built a "monument" of verse to preserve "the living record" of Henry Wriothesley for posterity.
[edit] Association with the 2nd Earl of Essex
In 1596 and 1597 Southampton was employed in Essex's expeditions to Cádiz and to the Azores, in the latter of which he distinguished himself by his daring tactics. In 1598 he bad a brawl at court with Ambrose Willoughby, and later in the same year he attended the queen's principal secretary, Sir Robert Cecil, on an embassy to Paris.
In 1599, during the Nine Years War (1595-1603), he went to Ireland with Essex, who made him general of his horse, but the queen insisted that the appointment be cancelled. Southampton remained on in personal attendance upon the earl, rather than as an officer. During his time in the Irish wars, it was reported to Cecil that he saw most of his active service in bed with a captain Piers Edmunds - he would "cole and hug" his captain in his arms, and "play wantonly" with him. However, Southampton was active during the campaign, and prevented a defeat at the hands of the Irish rebels, when his cavalry drove off an attack at Arklow in County Wicklow. He was deeply involved in Essex's conspiracy against the queen, and in February 1601 was sentenced to death. Cecil obtained the commutation of the penalty to imprisonment for life.
[edit] Life under King James I (and VI)
On the accession of James I Southampton resumed his place at court and received numerous honors from the new king. On the eve of the abortive rebellion of Essex he had induced the players at the Globe Theatre to revive Richard II, and on his release from prison in 1603 he resumed his connection with the stage. In 1603 he entertained Queen Anne with a performance of Love's Labour's Lost by Burbage and his company, to which Shakespeare belonged, at Southampton House.
Southampton took a considerable share in promoting the colonial enterprises of the time, and was an active member of the Virginia company's council. He seems to have been a born fighter, and engaged in more than one serious quarrel at court, being imprisoned for a short time in 1603 following a heated argument with Lord Grey of Wilton in front of Queen Anne. Grey, an implacable opponent of the Essex faction was later implicated in the Main and Bye Plots. He was in more serious disgrace in 1621 for his determined opposition to Buckingham. He was a volunteer on the Protestant side in Germany in 1614, and in 1617 he proposed to fit out an expedition against the Barbary pirates.
[edit] Later life
In 1624 he and his elder son enrolled themselves as volunteers for the United Provinces of the Netherlands against Spain. Immediately on landing they were attacked with fever, to which both succumbed, the father surviving until the 10th of November 1624.
[edit] Images
There exist numerous portraits of Southampton, in which he is depicted with dark auburn hair and blue eyes, compatible with Shakespeare's description of "a man right fair." Sir John Beaumont wrote a well-known elegy in his praise, and Gervase Markham wrote of him in a tract entitled Honor in his Perfection, or a Treatise in Commendation of ... Henry, Earl of Oxenford, Henry, Earle of Southampton, Robert, Earl of Essex (1624).
[edit] Further reading
For further information see Memoirs of Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton, in Boswell's Shakespeare (1821), xx. 427 sqq., where many of the elegies on Southampton are printed; also Nathan Drake, Shakespeare and his Times (1817), ii. 120; Sidney Lee, Life of William Shakespeare (1898); Gerald Massey, The Secret Drama of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1888); Samuel Butler, Shakespeare's Sonnets Reconsidered (1899), where there is some distinctive criticism of the Southampton theory (ch. v.vii); an article by William Archer, Shakespeare's Sonnets. The Case against Southampton, in the Fortnightly Review (Dec. 1897); and Sidney Lee's article on Southampton in the Dict. Nat. Biog., arguing in favor of his identity with the hero of the sonnets.
P Alvor in Das neue Shakespeare Evangelium (Munich, 1906), brings forward a theory that Southampton and Rutland were the authors of the Shakespeare tragedies and comedies respectively, and borrowed William Shakespeare's name to secure themselves from Elizabeth's suspicion.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
| Honorary Titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by The Earl of Devonshire |
Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire jointly with The Earl of Devonshire 1604–1606 1604–1624 |
Succeeded by The Lord Conway |
| Preceded by The Lord Hunsdon |
Custos Rotulorum of Hampshire bef. 1605–1624 |
Succeeded by Sir Henry Wallop |
| Peerage of England | ||
| Preceded by Henry Wriothesley |
Earl of Southampton 1581–1624 |
Succeeded by Thomas Wriothesley |
