The stage-history of Henry IV begins in the innyards, perhaps before Shakespeare came to London. Tarlton, who died in 1588, and was the Glown of the Queen's Company, is reported to have taken part in performances, ‘at the Bull at Bishopsgate’, of a play in which a madcap Prince Hal struck the Lord Chief Justice with his fist; and this play, of which the first half of the extant Famous Victories of Henry V, 1598, is obviously a ‘maimed and deformed’ report, was as obviously in some way related to Shakespeare's twindrama. In The Famous Victories the chief of the Prince's companions is called Sir John Oldcastle and, as all the world knows, was also called so by Shakespeare, until descendants of Oldcastle's widow, powerful at Court, put pressure upon him to change the name. Yet the old name persisted. Falstaff is Falstaff in the printed texts of 1 and 2 Henry IV, but traces of his former title remain in both (v. notes 1. 2. 41–2, 156; 2. 1. 2.118; Ep. 30–1), and he reappears as Oldcastle in an account of the first recorded performance of the play, a private one given at the instance of the Lord Chamberlain for the entertainment of the Flemish ambassador in 1600; while Oldcastle recurs in documents, plays, and books down to 1651, though Falstaff is more frequent and triumphs in the end.