Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton

Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton,, was the only son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, and Mary Browne, daughter of the 1st Viscount Montagu. William Shakespeare's two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, were dedicated to Southampton, who is frequently identified as the Fair Youth of Shakespeare's Sonnets.