Sir John Oldcastle ("Epistle to Sir Harry Bourchier", c. 1625) and Thomas Fuller ("Worthies of England," 1662). It is also indicated in details in the early texts of Shakespeare's plays. In the quarto text of "Henry 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,25-6 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. In "Henry IV, Part 1", I,ii,42, Prince Hal calls Falstaff "my old lad of the castle." Iambic
Sir John Oldcastle Frances Brooke, the 10th Baron's wife and 11th Baron's mother, was a close personal favorite of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 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 as Lord Chamberlain; they were, famously, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. When Carey died on 22 July 1596, the