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 Shakespeare there is a baptismal record for a "Joan Shakespeare, daughter to John Shakespeare" dated 15 September 1558. The Shakespeares had eight children: Joan (baptised 15 September 1558, died in infancy), Margaret (bap. 2 December 1562buried 30 April 1563), William (bap. 26 April 156423 April 1616), Gilbert (bap. 13 October 1566bur. 2 February 1612), Joan (bap. 15 April 1569bur. 4 November 1646), Anne (bap. 28 September 1571bur. 4 April 1579), Richard (bap. 11 March 1574bur. 4 February 1613) and Edmund (bap. 3 May 1580bur. London, 31 December 1607). John fell on hard times in the late 1570s that would last until