Mocking Oldcastle:
Notes Toward Exploring a
Possible Catholic Presence
in Shakespeare's Henriad
by Gary D. Hamilton
University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
IN DEDICATING HIS 1565 TRANSLATION of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England to "Elizabeth … Defendour of the Faith," Thomas Stapleton counseled his Queen that monarchs, as defenders of the faith, were to seek to unite Christendom, as the worthiest of those past "Princes of every singular province in Christendom" had attempted to do after they were no longer "one empire" (Stapleton 1565, >1r). Prominent among the named actions for Elizabeth to imitate was the "extirping of the heresies of John Wicleff and the Bohems," and prominent among the actors to emulate was England's own Henry V, who postponed fulfilling his private political goals until he had acted to promote the cause of Christian unity:
In the history of Polidore we read of that Noble Prince … that having
called a Parlement, and decreed therein a voyage in to Fraunce for recov-
ery of his right… yet the generall Councell of Constance then beinge
appointed, he staied his privat quarrel for Gods cause, directed his legats
unto the Councell… and in the meane while appeased the rebellion of
John Oldecastle labouring by force and disobedience against his
Souverain (as the new Wicleffs do presently in Fraunce and Scotland) to
maintaine the heresy of Wicleff, and pronounced traitours all the adher-
ents of that wicked secte. By this speedy diligence of that gratious
Prince, bothe that heresy was then quailed in your highnes dominions,
and (as Polidore noteth) the Noble victories of that valiaunt prince
-141-
