Bardolph (Shakespeare character) I", the 1598 quarto, he is called "Rossill" (an archaic spelling of the name Russell) and is at one point specified as "sir Iohn Russel". This is generally taken to mean that he originally had that name in the first performances of the play, just as Falstaff too had originally been given another name: Sir John Oldcastle. Shakespeare may have changed the name when he was forced to change Oldcastle to Falstaff after complaints from the Oldcastle family. It is possible he decided to remove any suggestion that he was ridiculing the Russell family (which included William Russell, 1st Baron
John Shakespeare there is a baptismal record for a "Joan Shakespeare, daughter to John Shakespeare" dated 15 September 1558. The Shakespeares had eight children: Joan (baptised 15 September 1558, died in infancy), Margaret (bap. 2 December 1562buried 30 April 1563), William (bap. 26 April 156423 April 1616), Gilbert (bap. 13 October 1566bur. 2 February 1612), Joan (bap. 15 April 1569bur. 4 November 1646), Anne (bap. 28 September 1571bur. 4 April 1579), Richard (bap. 11 March 1574bur. 4 February 1613) and Edmund (bap. 3 May 1580bur. London, 31 December 1607). John fell on hard times in the late 1570s that would last until