John Oldcastle Oldcastle, mainly based on "The Actes and Monuments" of John Foxe, who in his turn followed the "Briefe Chronycle" of John Bale, first published in 1544. For notes on Oldcastle's early career, consult James Hamilton Wylie, "History of England under Henry IV". For literary history see the Introductions to Richard James's "Iter Lancastrense" (Chetham Society, 1845) and to Grosart's edition of the "Poems of Richard James" (1880). See also W. Barske, "Oldcastle-Falstaff in der englischen Literatur bis zu Shakespeare" ("Palaestra", 1. Berlin, 1905). John Oldcastle Sir John Oldcastle (died 14 December 1417) was an English Lollard leader. Being a friend
Sir John Oldcastle play, which has not survived; because of this fact, the extant play has sometimes been called "Sir John Oldcastle, Part I" or "1 Sir John Oldcastle.") In 1664, the play was one of the seven dramas added to the second impression of the Shakespeare Third Folio by publisher Philip Chetwinde. Like other subjects of Elizabethan history plays, Sir John Oldcastle was an actual person, a soldier and Lollard dissenter who was hanged and burned for heresy and treason in 1417 — thus earning himself a place in the seminal text of the Protestant Reformation in Tudor England, John Foxe's "Book