Bardolph (Shakespeare character) I", the 1598 quarto, he is called "Rossill" (an archaic spelling of the name Russell) and is at one point specified as "sir Iohn Russel". This is generally taken to mean that he originally had that name in the first performances of the play, just as Falstaff too had originally been given another name: Sir John Oldcastle. Shakespeare may have changed the name when he was forced to change Oldcastle to Falstaff after complaints from the Oldcastle family. It is possible he decided to remove any suggestion that he was ridiculing the Russell family (which included William Russell, 1st Baron
Religious views of William Shakespeare Shakespeare's portrayal; the story of Oldcastle was a popular one and telling the tale from the "Papist" perspective (while acknowledging that perhaps this was a perspective with which Shakespeare already had some affinity) was an effective and familiar way to bring it to his audience. A direct explanation, however, comes from the facts of the story in the contemporary accounts of the period; Prince Henry had left his dear friend Oldcastle to his fate after he had failed to persuade the stubborn old knight to recant when he was imprisoned for lollardry. Archdeacon Richard Davies, a 17th-century Anglican cleric, wrote