The Game in Chase: Conflicting Controversies in the Production of Sir John Oldcastle

Abstract

ABSTRACT Critical studies of Sir John Oldcastle often view the play in relation to Shakespeare’s more familiar plays, Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2. Such studies draw attention to a famous controversy, which involves the alteration of Shakespeare’s character from Sir John Oldcastle to Falstaff. In a review of the sources that record that episode, along with select passages from the script to Oldcastle, I contend that an Oldcastle/Falstaff controversy does not adequately account for the ways that the Admiral’s Men’s production responded to their rival company. I also argue that the playwrights had separate interests in Oldcastle, particularly his divided historical reception. In selecting and composing their material, the playwrights emphasized prominent controversies over events that took place during Oldcastle’s life. I give special consideration to Anthony Munday, who appears to have revisited the materials he consulted when he composed his 1584 pamphlet, A Watch-woord to Englande to beware of traytours, including his account of the Ficket Field insurgency, and his passing attention to William Murley, brewer from Dunstable. On the whole, the playwrights evade the religious and political controversies highlighted throughout their script, in favour of chase sequences and disguise plots that make up the play’s final crisis.