John Oldcastle alive. His heretical opinions and early friendship with Henry V created a traditional scandal which long continued. In the old play "The Famous Victories of Henry V", written before 1588, Oldcastle figures as the Prince's boon companion. When Shakespeare adapted that play in "Henry IV, Part 1", Oldcastle still appeared, but when the play was printed in 1598, the name was changed to Falstaff (modelled after John Fastolf), in deference to one of Oldcastle's descendants, Lord Cobham. Though the fat knight still remains "my old lad of the Castle", the stage character has nothing to do with the Lollard leader.
Memorials to William Shakespeare is thought to have posed for the statue. It was bequeathed, along with Garrick's books, to the British Museum in 1779; in 2005 it was transferred to the British Library. Garrick later commissioned Roubiliac to produce a bust of the poet for his Shakespeare festival in Stratford in 1769; this is now in the Garrick Club in London. In 1788, in the exterior wall of John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery building, the architect George Dance the Younger placed Thomas Banks's sculpture "Shakespeare attended by Painting and Poetry", for which the artist was paid 500 guineas. The sculpture depicted Shakespeare, reclining against