Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton

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Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, 1603, in the Tower, attributed to
John de Critz .

Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton , KG (born October 6, 1573 in Cowdray House near Midhurst , Sussex , † November 10, 1624 in Bergen op Zoom , Netherlands ) was an English nobleman who was the patron saint of William Shakespeare and fellow Founder of the Virginia Colony is known.

Under Elizabeth I.

youth

Henry Wriothesley, 1594, miniature by Nicholas Hilliard

He was the second son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton (1545–1581), and his wife Mary Browne (1552-1607), the daughter of Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu . His father had been brought up as a Catholic, and spent four years on charges in plans to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I to be involved, in the Tower of London . His father died when he was barely eight years old. He inherited his title of nobility as 2nd Earl of Southampton , moved to Midhurst and was then brought up as a royal ward under the supervision of the close confidante of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Treasurer William Cecil . From 1585 he attended St. John's College at the University of Cambridge , where he met the poets Robert Greene , Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe and graduated after four years in 1589 with his Magister Artium. Before that he was admitted to the Gray's Inn as a student . In 1590 he was introduced at court, where he soon became a friend of the then favorite of Queen Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex , and received exceptional favors from the Queen. For example, he was proposed for election as Knight of the Order of the Garter at the unusually young age of 20 (but not elected).

Patron poet

Southampton was very interested in theater and poetry and became its ardent supporter, the (not only literary) much sought after patrons of London poetry circles. Thomas Nashe dedicated his Jack Wilton (1594) to him and Gervase Markham his poem on Sir Richard Grenville's last fight (when Southampton's death in 1624 he also wrote a treatise on Honor to his perfection ). The young Barnabe Barnes , also sponsored by Southampton, dedicates a poem to him in his collection Parthenophil and Parthenope (approx. 1593) and John Florio Worlde of Wordes (1598). The latter worked for him as an Italian teacher for a few years immediately after finishing Southampton's studies. On his death, the poet John Beaumont (1583–1627) wrote an elegy in his honor.

Relation to William Shakespeare

Dedication in Shakespeare's Lucretia , 1594

Southampton is best known today as the patron saint of William Shakespeare. Rowland White wrote in 1599 to Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester : “The Lords Southampton and Rutland are not seen at court. The only thing they spend their time in London is going to the theater every day ” . Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis from 1593 was dedicated to Southampton, but in a tone that betrays respect but no closer acquaintance. The dedication by Lucretia (1594) is clearly 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. (The love I offer your lordship is endless [...] What I have created is yours, what I will still create is yours. You are part of everything I have, yours) ” . Playwright Nicholas Rowe wrote (citing Sir William Davenant) in his Life of Shakespeare that Shakespeare was sponsored by Southampton with £ 1,000 on one occasion.

The Shakespeare biographer Nathan Drake (1766–1836) was the first to suggest that Southampton was the unknown young man to whom many of Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed. In the only edition during Shakespeare's lifetime (1609) the editor Thomas Thorpe dedicated it to " the onlie begetter of these insuing Sonnets, Mr. WH " That would actually contradict a Southampton thesis; But Drake said that begetter ("producer") meant the bookseller where the sonnets were printed. Other proponents of this theory claim that WH stands for a reversal of the initials of Southampton's name (Henry Wriotheseley). The main argument of the proponents of the Southampton theory is the close connection between Shakespeare and Southampton, which z. B. emerges from the dedication of Lucretia , and the well-known role that the handsome youthful nobleman played as patron and lover not only for the literary circles in London. Another well-known proponent of the Southampton theory was Sidney Lee , who wrote the article on Wriotheseley in the Dictionary of National Biography ; see the literature section. In this context, the thesis is also put forward - for the first time by William Munto - that Shakespeare's sonnets outshone George Chapman , his rival poet of erotic poetry , in the favor of Wriotheseley.

Relation to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex

Southampton was close friends with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. In 1595 he had a love affair with his cousin from Essex, Elisabeth Vernon, whom he finally married in 1598, much to the displeasure and without the permission of the Queen, who was reluctant to see this with her ladies-in-waiting. Both were locked up in the Fleet Prison for a while .

In 1596 and 1597 Southampton took part in the Essex campaigns against Cádiz and the Azores , in which he distinguished himself through daring action. In 1598 he had a dispute with Ambrose Willoughby at court and later that year accompanied Queen Robert Cecil's first Secretary of State on a diplomatic mission to Paris. In 1599 he accompanied Essex in the Nine Years War (1595-1603) to Ireland as a cavalry general, but had to return the post on the orders of the Queen and instead accompanied Essex as a friend who - as could be read in the reports to Lord Cecil - the devoted most of his time to a love affair with a Captain Piers Edmunds, but also excelled in combat when he and his horsemen repulsed an attack by the Irish at Arklow, County Wicklow. He had to return to London on the orders of the Queen. As he was also involved in the unsuccessful Essex plot against the Queen (on the evening of the plot he had Shakespeare's Richard II played at the Globe Theater , in which the subject of the deposition of a king is), he was sentenced to death in February 1601, which was commuted to life imprisonment on the use of Lord Cecil. In addition, his titles of nobility were stripped from him.

Under Jacob I.

Henry Wriothesley, around 1618, portrait by Daniel Mytens, National Portrait Gallery

After James I ascended the throne , Wriothesley was released from prison and was again in favor at court. He received his title back by an act of parliament in 1603, became captain of the Isle of Wight and Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter, but was also involved in various court disputes. In 1603 he was even briefly imprisoned in the presence of Queen Anne due to a heated debate by the (old Essex opponent) Lord Gray of Wilton . After his release in 1603 he immediately resumed his connection to the theater and entertained, for example, the Queen Anna with a performance of Shakespeare's Lost Labor in Southampton House by the theater company " Lord Chamberlain's Men " by Richard Burbage , to which Shakespeare belonged. In 1619 he became the King's Privy Counselor , but lost this post in 1621 because of his open opposition to the powerful minister and favorite of James I. George Villiers .

In 1614 he was among the volunteers who fought on the side of the Protestants in Germany. In 1617 he proposed an expedition against pirates in the Mediterranean.

The Virginia Colony

Henry Wriothesley was also a staunch supporter of colonial aspirations in Elizabethan England and was an active member (director) on the council of the Virginia Company (and also the East India Company ). The profit expectations turned out to be illusory (so that the company dissolved in 1624), but as part of the group around Sir Edwin Sandys in the company, he worked tirelessly to establish Virginia as a permanent English colony in North America, which in their eyes new sales markets for would offer English goods and, as a destination for emigrants, would prevent an overpopulation of England. In the end, they were successful in this. Place names such as "Hampton Roads", "Hampton River" and the city of Hampton and Southampton County in Virginia do not necessarily have to go back to him, as the name is common in England and also designates the important port city of Southampton .

Death and burial

In 1624 he and his eldest son James were among the volunteers who defended the Netherlands against Spain ( Eighty Years War ). After landing in the Netherlands, both succumbed to the plague in quick succession. They are both buried in Titchfield , Hampshire .

family

Elizabeth Vernon, Countess of Southampton, around 1618

In 1597 Henry Wriothesley married Elizabeth Vernon (around 1572– around 1655), daughter of John Vernon of Hodnet and Elizabeth Devereux. Elizabeth Devereux was a descendant of Walter Devereux, 1st Viscount Hereford , Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury .

Together they had at least four children:

  • Penelope Wriothesley (1598-1667) ⚭ William Spencer, 2nd Baron Spencer of Wormleighton (1591-1636);
  • Anne Wriothesley (* 1600) ⚭ Robert Wallop of Farley Wallop (1601-1667);
  • James Wriothesley (1605-1624);
  • Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton (1607-1667) ⚭ (1) Rachel de Massue (1603-1639 / 40); ⚭ (2) Elizabeth Leigh († around 1659); ⚭ (3) Frances Seymour.

Others

There are numerous portraits of Southampton showing him as a handsome man with reddish hair and blue eyes, quite comparable to the description of "a man right fair" in Shakespeare's sonnets.

Many of the elegies of Southampton and the Memoirs of Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton are reproduced in James Boswell's Shakespeare . In 1906, Peter Alvor in The New Shakespeare Gospel theorized that the works of Shakespeare actually come from Wriotheseley and Roger Manners, Earl of Rutland , and that they used the name Shakespeare in order not to offend the Queen.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arthur Collins (Ed.): Sidney Papers , Vol. 2, p. 132
  2. ^ Nathan Drake: Shakespeare and his Times , 1819; Vol. 2, pp. 62ff
  3. ↑ See Arthur Acheson: Shakespeare and the Rival Poet , 1903. The rival poet is addressed in the 78th sonnet and the following; Shakespeare parodies Chapman's style in the 21st sonnet and in Lost Love Labor .
  4. ↑ James Boswell: Shakespeare , 1821, vol. 20, p. 427 ff
  5. ^ Peter Alvor: Das neue Shakespeare Evangelium , Munich 1906
predecessor Office successor
Henry Wriothesley Earl of Southampton
1581-1601 		Title forfeited
Title restored Earl of Southampton
1603-1624 		Thomas Wriothesley
personal data
SURNAME Wriothesley, Henry, 3rd Earl of Southampton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman and Patron of Shakespeare, co-founder of the Virginia colony
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1573
PLACE OF BIRTH Cowdray House at Midhurst , Sussex
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1624
Place of death Bergen op Zoom , Netherlands