Note 228 — Chapter X · ON THE GENERAL USE OF FIREARMS BY THE ENGLISH, IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. [213]

Sir John Fastolf, was of Caistor Castle, near Yarmouth, in Norfolk, of an old and respectable family, and a reliant soldier, who distinguished himself in the wars in France, in the reign of Henry VI., and especially on the 12th of February, 1429, when having the command of a body of men, convoying provisions and supplies for the English, who were engaged in the siege of Orleans, he was attacked on his march thither, near Rovray St. Denis, by a much superior body of French and Scotch: but he obtained the victory, and succeeded in delivering the convoy in safety to the besiegers. He died on the 6th of November, 1459, aged about 80 years. There are some interesting particulars respecting him given in Fenn’s Collection of Original Letters, vol. i. pp. 52, 54, 72, 104, 120, 125, 150, 155, 164, 166, 170, 182, 240; and vol. ii. p. 48. Notwithstanding there is a degree of similarity in the names, Sir John Fastolf, who lived in the time of Henry VI., must not, however, be confounded with the fictitious character so admirably drawn by Shakespeare, the Sir John Falstaff, represented by him as living in the time of Henry IV., and dying in the reign of Henry V. As far as I can discover, there is not any old historian who mentions such a person as the imaginary Sir John Falstaff, or any person of a name similar to the latter, living at that period, whose habits and associates resemble those of the amusing character described by Shakespeare: a character which seems to have been only the offspring of our immortal Bard’s playful imagination.