memory in this base service, to be the anvil for every dull wit to strike upon. Nor is our comedian excusable by some alteration of his name, writing him Sir John Falstaff (and making him the property and pleasure of King Henry V. to abuse) seeing the vicinity of sounds intrench on the memory of that worthy knight, and few do heed the inconsiderable difference in spelling."1 Fuller here refers to Sir John Fastolf of Caister (circa 13781459), often referred to in The Paston Letters, who like Oldcastle was a Lollard and, strangely enough, the owner of a Boar's-Head Tavern in Southwark. He won distinction in the French wars and was named lieutenant of Harfleur under Henry the Fifth. After the defeat at Patay he was charged with cowardice and deprived of the Garter, but the charge was afterwards disproved and the Garter restored. In King Henry the Sixth, Part I, he is represented as a coward deserting the post of danger and rightfully deprived of his knight's honors and banished. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his essay On the Character of Falstaff, quotes from an Oxford scholar, Dr. Richard James, who, about 1625, protested that Shakespeare, after offending Oldcastle's descendants by giving his 'buffoon' the name of that noble martyr, "was put to make an ignorant shift of abusing Sir John Fastolf, a man not inferior in vertue, though not so famous in piety." Similarly George Daniel, the seventeenth century poet, complains of the way in which Shakespeare had made use of Fastolf's honored name to escape the charge of having 1In the earlier Quartos Falstaff's name is usually spelled 'Falstalffe'; the later printings omit the '1' in the second syllable. slandered the great Lollard martyr. In an interesting study called The Two Sir John Fastolfs, L. W. Vernon Harcourt brought together evidence for another historical original in Sir John Fastolf of Nacton, who in the reign of Henry the Fourth, shortly before the Scrope rebellion of 1405, became involved with the father-in-law of Sir John Oldcastle in contempt of court and was committed and bound over to keep the peace. Here may be historical foundation for the story of Prince Henry's intervention in behalf of one of his favorites. Evidence is abundant that the name of Oldcastle continued to be identified with Shakespeare's glorious but somewhat disreputable knight until well into the seventeenth century. In 1618, two years after Shakespeare's death, was published Nathaniel Field's play, Amends for Ladies, in which occurs: Did you never see The Play where the fat knight, hight Oldcastle, Here is a transparent allusion to Falstaff's soliloquy in Part I, V, i, 127-140. Such a reference as this makes it probable, as Halliwell-Phillipps suggested, that in performances of King Henry the Fourth actors may have continued to use the name Oldcastle long after Shakespeare had altered it to that of Falstaff. 1 Published in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, London, 1910. II. DATE OF COMPOSITION The date of composition of King Henry the Fourth, Part I, falls within 1598, the later time limit (terminus ante quem), and 1596, the earlier time limit (terminus post quem). The weight of evidence is in favor of 15961597. EXTERNAL EVIDENCE 1. The Stationers' Registers. Andrew Wyse (Wise), the publisher of King Richard the Second and King Richard the Third in 1597, obtained on February 25, 1597-1598, the following license for the publication of King Henry the Fourth. The transcription is from The Stationers' Registers.1 XXV to die Februarij Andrew Wyse Entred for his Copie vnder thandes of Master Dix: and master Warden man a booke intitlued The historye of HENRY the IIIJTH with his battaile of Shrewsburye against HENRY HOTTSPURRE of the Northe with the conceipted mirthe of Sir IOHN FFALSTOFF vjd.2 The play thus entered was issued as a Quarto within the year. (See below, Early Editions.) The author's name is not given either in the entry or on the title-page of the Quarto. 2. Meres's Palladis Tamia. Francis Meres mentions King Henry the Fourth in the Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, Being the Second Part of Wits Commonwealth, 1 Professor E. Arber's Transcripts of The Stationers Registers (1554-1640), 4 vols., 1875-1877. 2 Sixpence. This was the usual price of a Quarto. published in 1598. Meres's famous list of Shakespeare plays in existence at that time is in the following passage: As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among ye English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage: for Comedy, witnes his Gētlemē of Verona, his Errors, his Love labors lost, his Love labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, & his Merchant of Venice for Tragedy, his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King Iohn, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet. Meres quotes in another part of his book, but without acknowledgment, Falstaff's dictum, "There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man" (II, iv, 123–124). INTERNAL EVIDENCE 1. Allusions within the Play. Among the minor allusions within the play which investigators have made much of as pointing to the earlier time limit given above may be mentioned: (1) I, i, 1–7, where, according to Chalmers, is an obvious allusion to England's popular expedition against Spain in 1596; (2) II, i, 12-13, with a probable reference to a much-discussed Proclamation for the Dearth of Corn, issued in 1596; and (3) V, iv, 41, where the somewhat forced introduction of the epithet 'valiant' may be connected with the interest taken in Queen Elizabeth's honoring the Shirley family in 1597. 2. Style and Diction. The sinewy and forceful expression in both verse and prose, the quality of the blank verse, the free use of prose, the proportion of prose to verse, the distinction in the character-drawing throughout, and the management of the scenes of broad humor strengthen the case for the date of composition suggested by the other evidence. III. EARLY EDITIONS QUARTOS Few of Shakespeare's plays were printed so soon after their first production on the stage as King Henry the Fourth, Part I, seems to have been, and only King Richard the Third was printed as often during the poet's lifetime. Five quarto editions appeared within fifteen years-unmistakable evidence of the popularity of the play. 1. The First Quarto. King Henry the Fourth, duly entered in The Stationers' Registers, was printed for the first time in 1598, in the volume which is now called the First Quarto, designated in the textual notes of this edition as Q1. The First Quarto had the interesting descriptive title-page which is reproduced as the frontispiece of this volume. The text of the First Quarto seems to have been printed from authoritative copy, and is in every way most satisfactory. 2. The Second Quarto. In 1599 appeared the Second Quarto, Q2, a reprint of the First, with a few unimportant changes in the text, and the following title-page on which Shakespeare's name first appears in connection with the play: The History of Henrie the Fovrth; | With the battell at Shrewsburie betweene the King and Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Henry Hot- spur of the North. | With the humorous conceits of Sir John Falstalffe. | Newly corrected by W. Shake-speare. | AT LONDON, Printed by S. S. for Andrew VVise, dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at the signe of the Angell, 1599. | 3. The Later Quartos. On June 25, 1603, Wyse made over his interest in King Henry the Fourth, Part I, to |