John Fastolf

Sir John Fastolf KG (1380 – 5 November 1459) was an English knight during the Hundred Years War, who has enjoyed a more lasting reputation as the prototype, in some part, of Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff. Many historians consider, however, that he deserves to be famous in his own right, not only as a soldier, but as a patron of literature, a writer on strategy and perhaps as an early industrialist.

Lineage and early career

John Fastolf was the son of a Norfolk gentleman, Sir John Fastolf of Caister-on-Sea. The Fastolf family is recorded at Great Yarmouth from the thirteenth century: notable members of the family in earlier generations included Thomas Fastolf, Bishop of St David's, and his brother, Nicholas Fastolf, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

Fastolf is said to have been squire to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, before 1398, and to have served with Thomas of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Clarence, in Ireland during 1405 and 1406. He claimed to have visited Jerusalem as a boy, which must have been in the company of Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV.