Patronage and court
Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton
Shakespeare’s dedicatee, Cowdray and the Lewkenor family
Portrait attributed to John de Critz.
Image and source.
Southampton and Shakespeare
Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton (1573–1624), received the dedications of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece in 1594.
The first dedication presents a writer seeking acceptance for the “first heir” of his invention. The second declares a continuing obligation: “What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours.” Both name Southampton as Earl and Baron of Titchfield, and both are signed William Shakespeare.
Venus and Adonis: the dedication, 1593
Title-page image and source.
To the Right Honorable
Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton,
and Baron of Titchfield.Right Honorable,
I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your Lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden; only if your Honor seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised and vow to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honored you with some graver labor. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honorable survey, and your Honor to your heart’s content, which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.
Your Honor’s in all duty,
William Shakespeare.
Venus and Adonis (1593), complete dedicatory address; modern spelling. Folger Shakespeare Library text.
The Rape of Lucrece: the dedication, 1594
To the Right
Honorable, Henry
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton,
and Baron of Titchfield.The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet without beginning is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honorable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship, to whom I wish long life still lengthened with all happiness.
Your Lordship’s in all duty,
William Shakespeare
The Rape of Lucrece (1594), complete dedication; modern spelling. Folger Shakespeare Library text.
The Brownes and the Lewkenors at Cowdray
Southampton’s mother, Mary Browne, was the daughter of Anthony Browne, first Viscount Montagu. Shakespeare’s dedicatee was therefore the grandson of the lord of Cowdray.
The Lewkenor family’s house stood opposite Cowdray. Their proximity was also professional and political: Lewes’s father and uncle undertook legal work for the Brownes. His father, Thomas, represented Midhurst in 1586, and Lewes followed him as the borough’s Member of Parliament in 1597.
Richard Lewkenor drew up or witnessed Montagu’s accounts and served as an executor of his will. Lady Elizabeth Lewkenor left a ring to Magdalen Browne, Viscountess Montagu.
Southampton’s maternal family were thus neighbours, patrons and employers of the Lewkenors. The connection ran through their homes, legal business, parliamentary service and family relationships.
The Queen stops at Richard Lewkenor’s house
Elizabeth’s Sussex progress of August 1591 brought the royal household first to Cowdray and then to Richard Lewkenor’s house at West Dean, where the Queen dined on her way towards Chichester.
The household payment records the work of preparing his house:
To Symon Bowyer for one of thordenarye gen’ ushers of her ma’tie Chamber for thallowaunce of himself, one yeomen usher, three yeomen and two grooms of the chamber, two grooms of the warderobe & one groomporter for making ready Mr Richard Lewkenour’s house for her ma’tie to dine at betwixt Cowdrey and Chichester by the space of two days mense Augustii 1591 as appereth by bill signed by the lord Chambleyne … 39s 4d.
Royal household expenditure, August 1591; transcription reproduced in the master manuscript.
The entry names Richard’s house, its place on the route, the officers preparing it and their payment. The royal party entertained by Southampton’s grandparents at Cowdray was then received by Lewes’s uncle.
Richard was still “Mr Richard Lewkenour” in this contemporary record.
Cowdray and the Montague entertainments
The Brownes’ theatrical history reaches back to the entertainment George Gascoigne devised for the Montague family’s double wedding in 1572.
In A Devise of a Maske, Venetian-clad visitors appeared as Italian kinsmen of the English Montagues. The family’s name and its imagined Italian ancestry had entered aristocratic performance before Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
The royal visit of 1591 added hunting, music, speeches and woodland encounters to Cowdray’s history of entertainment.
Southampton’s descent from Montagu joins these household occasions to the patron named in Shakespeare’s two narrative poems. The Lewkenors’ neighbouring home, legal service and reception of the Queen place their family within the same history.
Read the Romeo and Juliet investigation →
Titchfield and the Southampton household
Titchfield Abbey, converted into the Wriothesley family’s residence after the Dissolution, supplies the Hampshire setting of Southampton’s household.
Historic view published in Memorials of Hampshire (1906).
Image and source.
The house, park and surrounding landscape are considered alongside the setting of Love’s Labour’s Lost. John Florio’s association with Southampton adds the household’s language teaching and continental literary interests to the comparison.
The Cowdray–Titchfield connection follows a family relationship: from Southampton’s maternal grandparents and their Sussex neighbours to his own household and literary patronage.
Love’s Labour’s Lost at Southampton’s
Sir Walter Cope’s letter to Robert Cecil records arrangements for a performance before Queen Anne in January 1605:
Sir, I have sent and been all this morning hunting for players, jugglers & such kind of creatures, but find them hard to find, wherefore leaving notes for them to seek me, Burbage is come & says there is no new play that the queen has not seen, but they have Revived an old one, called Loves Labour Lost, which for wit & mirth he says will please her exceedingly.
And this is appointed to be played tomorrow night at my Lord of Southampton’s, unless you send a writ to Remove the Corpus Cum Causa to your house in the Strand. Burbage is my messenger Ready attending your pleasure. Yours most humbly, Walter Cope.
Sir Walter Cope to Robert Cecil, January 1605; transcription in the master manuscript. See Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury, vol. 16, p. 415.
The letter names the comedy, Burbage, the Queen and Southampton’s house. It brings the patron of Shakespeare’s poems into the arrangements for a royal performance.
By this time Lewkenor was Master of the Ceremonies, serving within the court whose entertainments depended upon aristocratic hosts, players and officers arranging the attendance of royal and diplomatic guests.
Explore related Shakespeare plays
Romeo and Juliet — the Montagues, Cowdray and theatrical ancestry →
Love’s Labour’s Lost — Southampton, Titchfield and court entertainment →
People in this circle
Anthony Browne, Viscount Montagu — Southampton’s maternal grandfather and the lord of Cowdray.
Sir Richard Lewkenor — Lewes’s uncle, lawyer to the Brownes and host to Elizabeth during the 1591 progress.
Source trail
William Shakespeare, complete dedications to Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). Spelling and punctuation follow the linked modern texts.
George Gascoigne, A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres (1573), “A Devise of a Maske”, for the Montague family wedding entertainment of 1572.
The account of Elizabeth’s entertainment at Cowdray, August 1591, and the household expenditure for preparing Richard Lewkenor’s house between Cowdray and Chichester.
Sir Walter Cope to Robert Cecil, January 1605; Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury, vol. 16, p. 415.
The Master of the Ceremonies, master manuscript, 18 October 2026: “Cowdray and Titchfield”, the Southampton dedications, the Lewkenors’ Sussex relationships and the Love’s Labour’s Lost investigation.
Portrait: Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, circa 1603, attributed to John de Critz. Image records for all illustrations are linked in the captions.