and agreeing that Bishop Waynflete should transfer the collegiate bequest from Caister to Oxford. Before 1468 Sir Thomas Howes deserted the Paston interest, and joined Yelverton, declaring soon afterwards that the will which he and Paston had propounded was fabricated by them. Howes and Yelverton now asserted that they, as Fastolf's lawful executors, had a right to sell Caister Castle to the Duke of Norfolk, and proceeded to do so. The duke was denied possession by Paston, and took it after a siege (August 1469). The dispute continued, but finally, after the duke's death in 1476, the castle was surrendered to Paston. It was sold by the Pastons to a creditor named Crow in 1599, and is now a complete ruin. In 1474 an agreement was made between Waynflete and Sir John Paston to attach Fastolf's collegiate bequest to the new foundation of Magdalen College, Oxford, for the support of seven priests and seven poor scholars. Pope Sixtus IV authorised this diversion. At the same time Waynflete received the manor of Drayton. Thus Fastolf proved one of the early benefactors of Magdalen College. His armorial bearings are emblazoned on shields both on the wainscot and in the windows of the hall, and in the statutes of the founder (1481) the performance of masses for his soul was repeatedly enjoined on the college authorities. An old college joke nicknamed the seven ‘demies,’ or scholars, who benefited by Fastolf's bequest, ‘Fastolf's buckram-men’ (Chandler, Waynflete, p. 207; Hearne, Diary, quoted by Bloxam, i. 89–90).
Fastolf's posthumous reputation was somewhat doubtful. Drayton eulogises him in his ‘Poly-Olbion’ (song xviii.), but Shakespeare is credited with having bestowed on him a celebrity that is historically unauthorised. In the folio edition of Shakespeare's works Fastolf's name is spelt Falstaff when introduced into the ‘First Part of Henry VI.’ This may seem to give additional weight to the theory that the Sir John Falstaff of Shakespeare's ‘Henry IV’ and ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’ is a satiric portrait of Sir John Fastolf. Shakespeare represents Falstaff to have been brought up in the household of the Duke of Norfolk, as Fastolf is reported to have been. Fastolf had a house in Southwark, and his servant, Henry Windsor, wrote to John Paston, 27 Aug. 1458, that his master was anxious that he should set up at the Boar's Head in Southwark (Paston Letters, i. 431). Falstaff is well acquainted with Southwark, and the tavern where he wastes most of his time in the play is the Boar's Head in Eastcheap. The charge of cowardice brought against Fastolf at Patay supports the identification. Shakespeare was certainly assumed by Fuller to have attacked Fastolf's memory in his Falstaff, for Fuller complained in his notice of Fastolf that ‘the stage have been overbold with his memory, making him a thrasonical puff and emblem of mock valour.’ The nickname bestowed on Fastolf's scholars at Magdalen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of ‘Fastolf's buckram-men’ is consistent with Fuller's view. But that the coincidences between the careers of the dramatic Falstaff and the historic Fastolf are to a large extent accidental is shown by the ascertained fact that in the original draft of ‘Henry IV’ Falstaff bore the title of Sir John Oldcastle, and the name of Falstaff was only substituted in deference, it is said, to the wish of Lord Cobham, who claimed descent from Oldcastle. Mr. Gairdner suggests that Fastolf's reputed sympathy with Lollardism, which is by no means proved, encouraged Shakespeare to bestow his name on a character previously bearing the appellation of an acknowledged Lollard like Oldcastle. Shakespeare was possibly under the misapprehension, based on the episode of cowardice reported in ‘Henry VI,’ that the military exploits of the historical Sir John Fastolf sufficiently resembled those of his own riotous knight to justify the employment of a corrupted version of his name. It is of course untrue that Fastolf was ever the intimate associate of Henry V when prince of Wales, who was not his junior by more than ten years, or that he was an impecunious spendthrift and greyhaired debauchee. The historical Fastolf was in private life an expert man of business, who was indulgent neither to himself nor to his friends. He was nothing of a jester, and was, in spite of all imputations to the contrary, a capable and brave soldier.
