Sir John Oldcastle
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Sir John Oldcastle is an Elizabethan play about John Oldcastle, the Protestant martyr.
The play was originally published anonymously in 1600. In 1619, a new edition attributed it to William Shakespeare. In fact, the diary of Philip Henslowe records that it was written by Anthony Munday, Michael Drayton, Richard Hathaway and Robert Wilson.
The play's positive depiction of Oldcastle may have been a reaction against Shakespeare's Henry IV plays, in which the fat buffoon Falstaff was originally called Oldcastle before complaints from his descendants forced a name change.
External links
- Sir John Oldcastle eText (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1788) at Project Gutenberg