WILLIAM Shakespeare has made his mark on the English public like perhaps no other writer and millions flock to his birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, for that reason.

Today marks the 400th anniversary of his death with events planned across the country in the next few months, including in Hampshire.

But the tantalising question remains – did the world’s most famous playwright ever visit Southampton or Titchfield?

This question is bound up in others surrounding his connection to Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton, his patron, which has been debated for years.

Shakespeare dedicated two of his poems in the 1590s, Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece, to the Earl.

In the dedication of the Rape of Lucrece, Shakespeare says “The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end” and this affectionate language has led some to argue that Shakespeare and Southampton were lovers.

Some scholars have maintained that Southampton is the “fair youth” described in Shakespeare’s sonnets and the Hampshire nobleman may have welcomed the Bard to the Beaulieu estate or entertained him at his main residence Titchfield Abbey.

Now, for the first time, a play performed in Southampton written by Nick Dear will explore the relationship between the two men.

Director Sam Hodges said it was in fact the current Lord Montagu at Beaulieu, a direct descendent of the Earl, who was the catalyst behind the play asking if he could help them mark the occasion.

This sparked his interest and after researching the story he got the Nuffield to commission a play.

The Daily Echo can exclusively reveal it will be titled Dedication – Shakespeare and Southampton and premieres at the theatre in September.

Mr Hodges said: “There’s very little fact but there’s a huge amount of what we might call conspiracy theories that may or may not be true.

“The pitch Nick gave me was there are so many different, interesting and exciting versions. Let’s do them all.

“That style of sliding between different versions of what may have happened and that felt exciting to me.”

This link between the Earl of Southampton and Shakespeare has previously been raised as evidence by Titchfield Festival Theatre group that the Bard could have lived in Titchfield.

As reported, three years ago the group announced its intention to bring about a Shakespeare trail in the village to highlight its possible links.

According to Stewart Trotter, who has a blog on Shakespeare, between 1589 and 1592 Shakespeare disappears from view and a theory is that he was in Titchfield working as a schoolmaster at the Old Grammar School and tutoring the Earl’s family.

It was claimed that there are numerous landscapes and locations referred to in the play Love’s Labour’s Lost that fit with those in Titchfield – such as The Place for Place House, The Park, the land around Place House, and a knot garden that existed in the grounds.

Titchfield Abbey was where Henry V stayed before war in France and the group believed that it was these historic surroundings that inspired Shakespeare’s Henry V.

It is even thought, though not proved, that some of his plays may have been first performed in Titchfield.

Professor Michael Dobson, Director of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham, says the Earl of Southampton was a very important person in Shakespeare’s life.

As his patron, he subsidised the writer during the plague when the theatres were closed, which enabled him to write the poems he dedicated to him.

Professor Dobson said: “The poems were immensely successful, which transformed his career.”

He said when the theatres re-opened Shakespeare could join the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, an acting company, and “have the status to be adopted as its principal scriptwriter”.

He said the dedication in The Rape of Lucrece showed the pair “do seem to have become close or he felt incredibly warm gratitude towards Southampton for the support”.

Professor Dobson says the idea that Shakespeare visited Titchfield is “wishful thinking” - he says there is no evidence he lived or visited there.

But he does say: “It would be surprising if he had not come through Hampshire at some point on tour but there’s no definite evidence.

“There’s very little evidence of where he did go.

“The company did, but we don’t know if he was with them.”

He points out that Shakespeare sets the scene in Henry V at Southampton, based on fact.

“There’s absolutely no discussion of what Southampton is like, they don’t wander around commenting, t doesn’t indicate whether he did or didn’t,” he said.

“If you based the vividness of detail on your sense of where Shakespeare had been you’d assume he’d been to ancient Rome.”

However, Professor Elizabeth Shafer, Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway University, said she thought it “extremely likely” that Shakespeare visited Titchfield.

She added: “There was clearly a close relationship between Shakespeare and the Earl of Southampton, otherwise The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis would not have been dedicated to Southampton and the Lucrece dedication, even allowing for the conventions of dedicatory material is extraordinary.”

Professor of English Studies at the University of Southampton, Ros King, said in her opinion the relationship between the two was purely business.

“He[Shakespeare] was a servant as far as the court was concerned,” she said.

“The idea that Southampton was anything but a gracious patron as he was to several other poets does strike me as being tenuous.

“There’s nothing to connect [the Earl of] Southampton with the sonnets or anything else that could point in that direction.

“Although the sonnets appear to be personal outpouring they’re literary artifice.”

She said that the Earl was happily married and it would have been politically risky for Shakespeare to align himself with him.

Professor King said, although no evidence of Shakespeare visiting has yet been found, despite exhaustive searching in the Southampton city records, she said it was not impossible.

True or not, as with so many things involving Shakespeare so much remains open to speculation so, as we celebrate 400 years since his death, it seems it cannot be ruled out that Hampshire residents could be walking in his footsteps.