o the end. Southampton on his release from prison was
immediately installed a Knight of the Garter, and was appointed governor
of the Isle of Wight, while an Act of Parliament relieved him of all the
disabilities incident to his conviction of treason. He was thenceforth a
prominent figure in Court festivities. He twice danced a correnta with
the Queen at the magnificent entertainment given at Whitehall on August
19, 1604, in honour of the Constable of Castile, the special ambassador
of Spain, who had come to sign a treaty of peace between his sovereign
and James I. {380} But home politics proved no congenial field for the
exercise of Southampton's energies. Quarrels with fellow-courtiers
continued to jeopardise his fortunes. With Sir Robert Cecil, with Philip
Herbert, Earl of Montgomery, and with the Duke of Buckingham he had
violent disputes. It was in the schemes for colonising the New World
that Southampton found an outlet for his impulsive activity. He helped
to equip expeditions to Virginia, and acted as treasurer of the Virginia
Company. The map of the country commemorates his labours as a colonial
pioneer. In his honour were named Southampton Hundred, Hampton River,
and Hampton Roads in Virginia. Finally, in the summer of 1624, at the
age of fifty-one, Southampton, with characteristic spirit, took command
of a troop of English volunteers which was raised to aid the Elector
Palatine, husband of James I's daughter Elizabeth, in his struggle with
the Emperor and the Catholics of Central Europe. With him went his
eldest son, Lord Wriothesley. Both on landing in the Low Countries were
attacked by fever. The younger man succumbed at once. The Earl regained
sufficient strength to accompany his son's body to Bergen-op-Zoom, but
there, on November 10, he himself died of a lethargy. Father and son
were both buried in the chancel of the church of Titchfield, Hampshire,
on December 28. Southampton thus outlived Shakespeare by more than eight
years.

IV.--THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON.

Southampton's collection of books.

Southampton's close relations with men of letters of his time give
powerful corroboration of the theory that he was the patron whom
Shakespeare commemorated in the sonnets. From earliest to latest
manhood--throughout the dissipations of Court life, amid the torments
that his intrigue cost him, in the distractions of war and travel--the
earl never ceased to cherish t