Elizabeth Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton was one of the chief ladies-in-waiting to Elizabeth I of England in the later years of her reign.
Background
Elizabeth Vernon was the granddaughter of George Vernon (d1555), and the daughter of John Vernon (d1592) of Hodnet, Shropshire, by Elizabeth Devereux (c1541-c1583) the daughter of Sir Richard Devereux (d 13 October 1547) of Weobley by his wife, Dorothy Hastings, daughter of George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon (1487–1544). Her paternal great-grandfather, Humphrey Vernon, was the grandson of John Talbot, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Butler, the daughter of James Butler, 4th Earl of Ormond.
Career
She was the sister of Sir Robert Vernon, Comptroller of the Household to Queen Elizabeth I, and of Susan Vernon, second wife of Sir Walter Leveson, and a first cousin of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Both of Elizabeth"s maternal grandparents descended from King Edward III. 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.
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.