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.
Shakespeare authorship question be "drawn" instead of written with a practised hand. His other daughter, Judith, signed a legal document with a mark. Anti-Stratfordians consider Shakespeare's background incompatible with that attributable to the author of the Shakespeare canon, which exhibits an intimacy with court politics and culture, foreign countries, and aristocratic sports such as hunting, falconry, tennis, and lawn-bowling. Some find that the works show little sympathy for upwardly mobile types such as John Shakespeare and his son, and that the author portrays individual commoners comically, as objects of ridicule. Commoners in groups are said to be depicted typically as dangerous mobs. The