John Oldcastle In "Henry IV, Part 2" an epilogue emphasises that Falstaff is not Oldcastle: "Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man." In 1599, another play, "Sir John Oldcastle", presented Oldcastle in a more kindly light. The record of Oldcastle's trial is printed in "Fasciculi Zizaniorum" (Rolls series) and in David Wilkins's "Concilia", iii. 351–357. The chief contemporary notices of his later career are given in "Gesta Henrici Quinti" ("Eng. Hist. Soc.") and in Walsingham's "Historia Anglicana". There have been many lives of
Sir John Oldcastle Sir John Oldcastle Sir John Oldcastle is an Elizabethan play about John Oldcastle, a controversial 14th-15th century rebel and Lollard who was seen by some of Shakespeare's contemporaries as a proto-Protestant martyr. The play was originally published anonymously in 1600 (Q1), printed by Valentine Simmes for the bookseller Thomas Pavier. In 1619, a new edition (Q2) carried an attribution to William Shakespeare. The Diary of Philip Henslowe records that the play was written by Anthony Munday, Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye and Robert Wilson. (An entry in Henslowe's Diary records a later payment to Drayton for a second part to the