John Weever of a religious tone, "The Mirror of Martyrs" and "An Agnus Dei". "The Mirror of Martyrs or The Life and Death of ... Sir John Oldcastle" may have been part of a backlash. In his preface Weever calls it the "first trew Oldcastle", perhaps on account of the fact that Shakespeare's character Falstaff first appeared as "Sir John Oldcastle". Weever's work is influenced by John Bale's 1544 biography of Oldcastle, which presents him as a proto-Protestant martyr. In the fourth stanza of this long poem, in which Sir John is his own panegyrist, occurs a reminiscence of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar"
John Shakespeare 20th century that showed the original to be very likely genuine. The only non-genuine portion was the first leaf of the document; it had been forged by John Jordan, a man who had acquired the manuscript and attempted to have it published. John Shakespeare John Shakespeare (c. 1531 – 7 September 1601) was the father of William Shakespeare. He was the son of Richard Shakespeare of the Warwickshire village of Snitterfield, a farmer . He moved to Stratford-upon-Avon and married Mary Arden, with whom he had eight children, five of whom survived into adulthood. A well-to-do glover and whittawer (leather