Southampton in his teens: the Cobbe Portrait, now at Hatchlands Park, Surrey. It was at one time thought to have been the portrait of a woman
(1573–1624) was a patron of
William Shakespeare and thought to have been the "fair youth" mentioned in Shakespeare's sonnets.
A. L. Rowse, in 'Shakespeare the Elizabethan', says that the Earl of Southampton had homosexual relations with Sir Henry Danvers, perhaps also with the Earl of Rutland, and lay in his tent with Captain Piers Edmonds, whom he 'would cull and hug him in his arms and play wantonly with him' during the Irish campaign
[1].
- ↑ British Library, MS M/485/41.Thanks to Rictor Norton for this reference
