Religious views of William Shakespeare the Anglican church in Stratford in order for his wedding to be performed as a Catholic sacrament. He was thought to have rushed his marriage ceremony, as Anne was three months pregnant. In 1611 the historian John Speed asserted Shakespeare's links with Catholicism, accusing him of satirising in "Henry IV" the Lollard (or proto-Protestant) martyr John Oldcastle (first portrayed by Shakespeare under his character's real name, then the alias John Falstaff after complaints from Oldcastle's descendants) and linking the playwright with Jesuit Robert Persons, describing them together as "the Papist and his poet". Modern critics have attributed other motives for
John Oldcastle Lollard plots of 1416, and appears to have intrigued with the Scots also. In November 1417 his hiding-place was at last discovered and he was captured by Edward Charleton, 5th Baron Cherleton. Some historians believed he was captured in the upland Olchon Valley of western Herefordshire adjacent to the Black Mountains, Wales, not far from the village of Oldcastle itself in his family's old heartlands. Modern historians believe that he was hiding with some Lollard friends at a glade on Pant-mawr farm in Broniarth, in Wales called Cobham's Garden. The principal agents in the capture were four of the tenants