Mary Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton (22 July 1552 – October/November 1607), previously Mary Browne, became the wife of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, at the age of thirteen and the mother of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. Widowed in 1581, she was Dowager Countess of Southampton until 1595, when for a few months until his death she was married to the courtier Sir Thomas Heneage. In 1598 she married lastly Sir William Hervey.
Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, KG (pronunciation uncertain: /ˈrɛzli/ "Rezley", /ˈraɪzli/ "Rizely" (archaic), /ˈrɒtsli/ (present-day) and /ˈraɪəθsli/ have been suggested; 6 October 1573 – 10 November 1624), was the only son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, and Mary Browne, daughter of the 1st Viscount Montagu. 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.