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Sir John Oldcastle is anElizabethan play aboutJohn Oldcastle, a controversial 14th-/15th-century rebel andLollard who was seen by some ofShakespeare's contemporaries as aproto-Protestantmartyr.
The play was originally published anonymously in 1600 (Q1), printed byValentine Simmes for the booksellerThomas Pavier. In 1619, a new edition (Q2) carried an attribution toWilliam Shakespeare.[1] The diary ofPhilip Henslowe records that the play was written byAnthony Munday,Michael Drayton,Richard Hathwaye andRobert Wilson. (An entry in Henslowe's Diary records a later payment to Drayton for a second part to the play, which has not survived; because of this fact, the extant play has sometimes been calledSir John Oldcastle, Part I or1 Sir John Oldcastle.)
In 1664, the play was one of the seven dramas added to the second impression of the ShakespeareThird Folio by publisherPhilip Chetwinde.
Like other subjects of Elizabethan history plays, Sir John Oldcastle was an actual person, a soldier andLollard dissenter who was hanged and burned forheresy andtreason in 1417—thus earning himself a place in the seminal text of the Protestant Reformation inTudor England,John Foxe'sBook of Martyrs. Oldcastle was also a minor character in the early Elizabethan history play theFamous Victories of Henry V (c. 1586?), which is generally thought to have been one of Shakespeare's sources for his plays onHenry IV andHenry V.
The genesis ofSir John Oldcastle is crucially linked to the fact that when Shakespeare'sHenry IV plays premiered on stage in 1597–98, the characterSir John Falstaff was called Sir John Oldcastle. This is indicated by abundant external and internal evidence. The change of names, from "Oldcastle" to "Falstaff", is mentioned in seventeenth-century works byRichard James (Epistle to Sir Harry Bourchier, c. 1625) andThomas Fuller (Worthies of England, 1662). It is also indicated in details in the early texts of Shakespeare's plays. In the quarto text ofHenry IV, Part 2 (1600), one of Falstaff's speech prefixes in Act I, Scene ii is mistakenly left uncorrected, "Old." instead of "Falst." In III, ii,25–26 of the same play, Falstaff is said to have been a "page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk"—which was true of the historical Oldcastle. InHenry IV, Part 1, I, ii, 42, Prince Hal calls Falstaff "my old lad of the castle".Iambic pentameter verse lines in both parts are irregular when using the name "Falstaff", but correct with "Oldcastle". Finally, there is the blatant disclaimer at the close ofHenry IV, Part 2 that disassociates the two figures: "for Oldcastle died [a] martyr, and this is not the man" (Epilogue, 29–32).
There is even a hint that Falstaff was originally Oldcastle inThe Merry Wives of Windsor too. When theFirst Folio and quarto texts of that play are compared, it appears that the joke in V,v,85–90 is that Oldcastle/Falstaff incriminates himself by calling out the first letter of his name, "O, O, O!," when his fingertips are singed with candles—which of course works for "Oldcastle" but not "Falstaff." There is also the "castle" reference in IV,v,6 of the same play.[2] The name Falstaff was derived from SirJohn Fastolf, who was also a historical person—allegedly a greedy and grasping individual, who had a (probably undeserved) reputation for cowardice at theBattle of Patay in 1429. Fastolf, however, died without descendants, making him safe for a playwright's use. He had already appeared as a cowardly knight inHenry VI, part 1.
The name change and the Epilogue disclaimer were required, it is generally thought, because of political pressure: the historical Oldcastle was not only a Protestant martyr, but a nobleman with powerful living descendants in Elizabethan England. These were the Lords Cobham:William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham (died 6 March 1597), was Warden of the Cinque Ports (1558–97), Knight of theOrder of the Garter (1584), and member of the Privy Council (1586–97); his sonHenry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham, was granted the paternal post of Warden of the Cinque Ports upon his father's death, and made aKnight of theOrder of the Garter in 1599. Even more so, Frances Brooke, the 10th Baron's wife and 11th Baron's mother, was a close personal favorite of Her Majesty QueenElizabeth I (an Elizabethan could not have been more or better connected than the Cobhams).
The elder Lord Cobham even had a strong negative impact upon the lives of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the theater. The company of actors formed by Shakespeare,Richard Burbage,Will Kempe and the others in 1594 enjoyed the patronage of Henry Carey, first Lord Hunsdon, then serving asLord Chamberlain; they were, famously, theLord Chamberlain's Men. When Carey died on 22 July 1596, the post of Lord Chamberlain was given to William Brooke, Lord Cobham, who definitely was not a friend to the players, and who withdrew what official protection they had enjoyed. The players were left to the mercies of the local officials of the City of London, who had long wanted to drive the companies of actors out of the City.Thomas Nashe, in a contemporary letter, complained that the actors were "piteously persecuted by the Lord Mayor and the aldermen" during this period. This did not last; when Cobham died less than a year later, the post of Lord Chamberlain went to Henry Carey's son George, second Lord Hunsdon, and the actors regained their previous patronage.[3]
Soon after the premier of Shakespeare's Oldcastle/Falstaff in 1597–98, literary and dramatic works began to appear that defended the reputation of the historical Oldcastle; scholars argue that the muse that inspired these works was Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham. In 1601 a narrative poem,The Mirror of Martyrs, by one John Weever, was published; it praises Oldcastle as a "valiant captain and most godly martyr." And two years earlier, in 1599, the playSir John Oldcastle was performed by theAdmiral's Men, the main theatrical rivals of Shakespeare's company. This effort to redeem the Oldcastle name was at best only partially successful; allusions to the Falstaff character under the name of Oldcastle continued to appear in succeeding years—inNathan Field's playAmends for Ladies (1618) and in the anonymous pamphletsThe Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinary (1604) andThe Wandering Jew (c. 1628), among other works.[4]
Sir John Oldcastle treats its subject matter in ways acceptable to the values and biases of its audience, and the interests of Elizabethan officialdom (inevitably; if it did anything else it would never have escaped censorship). Oldcastle is a religious but not a political dissenter; his quarrel is with the Roman Catholic Church, and he remains loyal to the Crown and to Henry V personally (II, iii). The villain of the piece is theBishop of Rochester, aided by his summoner Clun. The same cast of rebels and conspirators is active in this play (II, ii, III, ii, etc.) as inHenry V, but Oldcastle keeps scrupulously separate from them. The play offers a comic character, Sir John ofWrotham, a pale imitation of Falstaff, who interacts with a disguised Henry V (III, iv) much as in Shakespeare's plays. The later scenes are devoted to Rochester's pursuit of Oldcastle and his wife, and their escapes; the play ends on a temporary positive note, with the Oldcastles evading imprisonment. (Presumably, the lost second half of the play would have had the inevitable grimmer ending of Oldcastle's grisly death.)
Media related toSir John Oldcastle at Wikimedia Commons
The full text ofThe First Part of the True and Honorable Historie of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle at Wikisource| Characters |  | |
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