or the
office, being aided in his suit by the Earl of Essex and others of his
friends in Essex's party. Sir Robert Cecil, while encouraging Sidney and
professing friendship, secretly aided Lord Cobham for the post. Sidney's
military fitness for so responsible a charge was constantly urged
against Cobham's lack of martial experience, but the Queen, after a long
delay, during which much heat developed between the contestants and
their friends, finally decided in favour of her relative, Lord Cobham.
The Earl of Southampton was one of Sir Robert Sidney's most intimate
friends and ardent admirers, and must have taken some interest in this
long-drawn-out rivalry. It is possible that Shakespeare, instigated by
Southampton, may have introduced some personal reflections suggestive of
Cobham's military inadequacy into the performance of the play at this
crucial period, Cobham's alleged descent from the historical Oldcastle
lending the suggestion its personal significance.

The sixth _book_ of Sonnets was written either late in 1596, or in 1597.
A line in the first Sonnet of this book (Thorpe's 66) implies, on
Shakespeare's part, a recent unpleasant experience with the authorities:

"And art made tongue-tied by authority."

It is apparent that whatever was the cause, some difficulty arose in
about 1597 regarding the name Oldcastle. Nicholas Rowe's report is
substantiated by Shakespeare's own apologetic words in the Epilogue to
_Henry IV., Part II._:

"If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will
continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair
Katherine of France; where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die
of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for
Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man."

If Shakespeare was compelled to alter this name for the reasons reported
by Nicholas Rowe, it is not unlikely that Florio and his literary allies
helped in some manner to arouse the resentment of Lord Cobham. In
altering the play in 1598, and changing the name of Sir John Oldcastle
to Sir John Falstaff, I am convinced that Shakespeare intentionally made
his caricature of John Florio more transparent by choosing a name having
the same initials as his, and furthermore, that in altering the
historical name of _Fastolfe_ to _Falstaff_, he intended to indicate
Florio's relations with Southampton as a _false-staff_, a misleader of
youth. The E