Sir John Oldcastle rivals of Shakespeare's company. Curiously, 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 — in Nathan Field's play "Amends for Ladies" (1618) and in the anonymous pamphlets "The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinary" (1604) and "The Wandering Jew" (c. 1628), among other works. "Sir John Oldcastle" treats its subject matter in ways acceptable to the values and biases of its audience, and the interests of Elzabethan officialdom (inevitably; if it did anything else it would never have escaped
John Oldcastle in the parliament of 1404, later serving as a justice of the peace, and was High Sheriff of Herefordshire in 1406–07. In 1408 he married Joan, the heiress of Cobham — his third marriage, and her fourth. This resulted in a significant improvement of his fortune and status, as the Cobhams were "one of the most notable families of Kent". The marriage brought Oldcastle a number of manors in Kent, Norfolk, Northamptonshire and Wiltshire, as well as Cooling Castle, and from 1409 until his accusation in 1413 he was summoned to parliament as Lord Cobham. At some point in his