John Oldcastle

The name of Oldcastle had already appeared in The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, and Shakespeare may simply have borrowed it without considering the connection with Cobham. It was in any case changed, and not without a certain humiliation on ShakespeareБЂ™s part. In an epilogue to the second part of Henry IV he himself came upon the stage and announced that БЂњfor any thing I knowe Falstaffe shall die of a sweat, vnlesse already a be killd with your harde opinions; for Oldecastle died a Martyre, and this is not the man БЂ¦БЂ«(3224-7). Then he danced, and afterwards knelt for the applause. The connection was not wholly erased, however. In a letter to Robert Cecil the Earl of Essex gave out the news that a certain lady was БЂњmaryed to Sir Jo. FalstaffБЂ«-this was the Court nickname now given to Lord Cobham. The name of Oldcastle was also still associated with Henry IV, and in fact the Lord ChamberlainБЂ™s Men played for the Burgundian ambassador a play entitled Sir John Old Castell. ShakespeareБЂ™s inventions have a habit of lingering in the air ...»