Elizabeth Wriothesley (née Vernon), Countess of Southampton (11 January 1572 – 23 November 1655) was one of the chief ladies-in-waiting to Elizabeth I of England in the later years of her reign.
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She was born in Hodnet, Shropshire, England to Sir John Vernon of Hodnet and Elizabeth Devereux. By her mother, Elizabeth was the great-granddaughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and also of Walter Devereux, 1st Viscount Hereford, and a great-great-granddaughter of Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset and his wife Cecily Bonville. By her father, Elizabeth was the descendant of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, William de Ros, 7th Baron de Ros, and the Barons Touchet.
On 30 August 1598 Elizabeth married Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, the dedicatee of Shakespeare's sonnets. The marriage occurred after Elizabeth discovered she was pregnant. Upon discovering this, the Queen had both Elizabeth and her husband locked in Fleet Prison and, after their release, were never again received into her favour.
Elizabeth and Henry had several children, including:
A German professor of English, Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, has proposed a theory, mainly based on an apocryphic sonnet, she claims was written by William Shakespeare, and evidence from portraits, that Elizabeth Wriothesley was a lover of the poet. Her eldest daughter Penelope is, according to this theory, a child of Shakespeare. The author stresses that in this way, Lady Diana Spencer would be a descendant of William Shakespeare.[1] Questions have been raised about this theory, namely why the Earl of Southampton would have risked certain royal displeasure from the Queen by marrying Elizabeth if she was pregnant with somebody else's illegitimate child.