Bardolph (Shakespeare character) Russell of Thornhaugh and Edward Russell, 3rd Earl of Bedford), and so used the name of the rebel. Since the character originally appears to have been a knight (both the Norman-French names "Russell" and "Bardolph" imply knighly status), this suggests that Shakespeare was following closely his source "The Famous Victories of Henry V" in which Prince Hal's disreputable companions are unruly knights rather than vagabonds. However Bardolph is clearly identified as a mere servant of Falstaff's in "Henry IV, Part 2", something that is not explicit in Part 1. In Part 2 Bardolph seems to copy the role of Hal's
John Oldcastle military career Oldcastle became a trusted supporter of Henry, Prince of Wales, later to become King Henry V, who regarded Sir John as "one of his most trustworthy soldiers". Oldcastle was a member of the expedition which the young Henry sent to France in 1411 in a successful campaign to assist the Burgundians in the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War. Lollardy had many supporters in Herefordshire, and Oldcastle himself had adopted Lollard doctrines before 1410, when the churches on his wife's estates in Kent were laid under interdict for unlicensed preaching. In the convocation which met in March 1413, shortly before the