THE SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE

THE SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE - A LITERARY LONDON PUB

This Wetherspoon, beside Farringdon station, is in a modern building, has an L-shaped interior and plenty of seating.

Werner?and I met for a chin wag. We were well lit sitting at a table beside the floor to ceiling window. Werner had a pint of Pepsi with a little ice,?while I was on the?Greene King IPA.

The pub is named after The Sir John Oldcastle Tavern, which once stood in the grounds of John Oldcastle’s nearby mansion and dated back to the mid-17th century.?The Tavern was named after John Oldcastle, the dissenter who became a Protestant martyr after being hanged and burned for heresy and treason in 1417.

In the history play the?Famous Victories of Henry V, Oldcastle is the Prince's companion, a minor character.

When William Shakespeare adapted this play in?Henry IV, Part 1, Oldcastle still appeared. However, when Henry IV, Part 1 was printed in 1598, ?the name had to be changed to?Sir John Falstaff (after Sir?John Fastolf this time).

Falstaff is in the pub for most of?Henry IV Parts 1 & 2.?For example, Scene 4 of Henry IV, Part 1 takes place in the Boar’s-Head Tavern, @33-35 Eastcheap? and Falstaff (playing the role of king) comments on himself:

'A goodly portly man, i’ faith, and a?corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage, and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by ’r Lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me, for, Harry,?I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then peremptorily I speak it: there is virtue in that Falstaff; him keep with, the rest banish.'

An epilogue in?Henry IV, Part 2?goes out of its way to emphasize 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 Elizabethan play,?Sir John Oldcastle was all about John Oldcastle’s life.

The Sir John Oldcastle, 29-35 Farringdon Road, EC1M 3JF

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