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32-487: The Southampton Plot was a conspiracy to depose King Henry V of England , revealed in 1415 just as the king was about to sail on campaign to France as part of the Hundred Years' War . The plan was to replace him with Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March . Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March , was the great-grandson of Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence , second surviving son of King Edward III , and his claim to

64-515: A closed system that is unfalsifiable , and therefore "a matter of faith rather than proof." Conspiracy comes from the Latin word conspiratio . While conspiratio can mean "plot" or "conspiracy", it can also be translated as "unity" and "agreement", in the context of a group an example of this "Kirri and Adele commenced the conspiracy at the secret thursday gin meeting". Conspiratio comes from conspiro which, while still meaning "conspiracy" in

96-427: A lack of evidence for them. Political scientist Michael Barkun has described conspiracy theories as relying on the view that the universe is governed by design, and embody three principles: nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and everything is connected. Another common feature is that conspiracy theories evolve to incorporate whatever evidence exists against them, so that they become, as Barkun writes,

128-399: A legitimate part of the sport. Furthermore, a conspiracy must be engaged in knowingly. The continuation of social traditions that work to the advantage of certain groups and to the disadvantage of certain other groups, though possibly unethical, is not a conspiracy if participants in the practice are not carrying it forward for the purpose of perpetuating this advantage. On the other hand, if

160-512: A narrative poem, The Mirror of Martyrs, by one John Weever, was published; it praises Oldcastle as a "valiant captain and most godly martyr." And two years earlier, in 1599, the play Sir John Oldcastle was performed by the Admiral's Men , the main theatrical rivals of Shakespeare's company. Curiously, this effort to redeem the Oldcastle name was at best only partially successful; allusions to

192-485: A second part to the play, which has not survived; because of this fact, the extant play has sometimes been called Sir John Oldcastle, Part I or 1 Sir John Oldcastle .) In 1664, the play was one of the seven dramas added to the second impression of the Shakespeare Third Folio by publisher Philip Chetwinde . Like other subjects of Elizabethan history plays, Sir John Oldcastle was an actual person,

224-702: A soldier and Lollard dissenter who was hanged and burned for heresy and treason in 1417—thus earning himself a place in the seminal text of the Protestant Reformation in Tudor England , John Foxe 's Book of Martyrs . Oldcastle was also a minor character in the early Elizabethan history play the Famous Victories of Henry V (c. 1586?), which is generally thought to have been one of Shakespeare's sources for his plays on Henry IV and Henry V . The genesis of Sir John Oldcastle

256-423: A year later, the post of Lord Chamberlain went to Henry Carey's son George, second Lord Hunsdon, and the actors regained their previous patronage. Soon after the premier of Shakespeare's Oldcastle/Falstaff in 1597–98, literary and dramatic works began to appear that defended the reputation of the historical Oldcastle; scholars argue that the muse that inspired these works was Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham. In 1601

288-536: A young child. The three ringleaders of the plot were Edmund Mortimer's brother-in-law, Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge (also grandson of Edward III through his fourth surviving son, Edmund of Langley , and thus also Mortimer's first cousin twice removed); Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham (whose uncle Richard le Scrope had been executed for his part in a 1405 revolt ); and Sir Thomas Grey , whose son, Thomas, had been betrothed in 1412 to Cambridge's only daughter, Isabel . The nominal principal,

320-648: Is a religious but not a political dissenter; his quarrel is with the Roman Catholic Church, and he remains loyal to the Crown and to Henry V personally (II, iii). The villain of the piece is the Bishop of Rochester , aided by his summoner Clun. The same cast of rebels and conspirators is active in this play (II, ii, III, ii, etc.) as in Henry V, but Oldcastle keeps scrupulously separate from them. The play offers

352-513: Is also indicated in details in the early texts of Shakespeare's plays. In the quarto text of Henry IV, Part 2 (1600), one of Falstaff's speech prefixes in Act I, Scene ii is mistakenly left uncorrected, "Old." instead of "Falst." In III, ii,25–26 of the same play, Falstaff is said to have been a "page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk"—which was true of the historical Oldcastle. In Henry IV, Part 1 , I, ii, 42, Prince Hal calls Falstaff "my old lad of

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384-442: Is crucially linked to the fact that when Shakespeare's Henry IV plays premiered on stage in 1597–98, the character Sir John Falstaff was called Sir John Oldcastle. This is indicated by abundant external and internal evidence. The change of names, from "Oldcastle" to "Falstaff", is mentioned in seventeenth-century works by Richard James ( Epistle to Sir Harry Bourchier , c. 1625) and Thomas Fuller ( Worthies of England, 1662). It

416-404: Is generally not considered to be a conspiracy so long as their goal is to fulfill their official functions, and not something like improperly enriching themselves. Similarly, the coaches of competing sports teams routinely meet behind closed doors to plan game strategies and specific plays designed to defeat their opponents, but this activity is not considered a conspiracy because this is considered

448-613: Is shown in The King (2019 film) . Conspiracy There are some coordinated activities that people engage in with secrecy that are not generally thought of as conspiracies. For example, intelligence agencies such as the American CIA and the British MI6 necessarily make plans in secret to spy on suspected enemies of their respective countries and the general populace of its home countries, but this kind of activity

480-520: The Bargate . Satisfied, Henry sailed for France on 11 August. Scrope's involvement in the conspiracy surprised contemporaries, and continues to puzzle historians, as he was a royal favourite. Ian Mortimer claims Scrope had merely insinuated himself into the confidence of Cambridge and Grey to betray the conspiracy, just as Edward, Duke of York had done with the Epiphany Rising in 1400, but

512-573: The Cold War , the United States tried to covertly change other nations' governments 66 times, succeeding in 26 cases. A " conspiracy theory " is a belief that a conspiracy has actually been decisive in producing a political event of which the theorists strongly disapprove. Conspiracy theories tend to be internally consistent and correlate with each other; they are generally designed to resist falsification either by evidence against them or

544-538: The First Folio and quarto texts of that play are compared, it appears that the joke in V,v,85–90 is that Oldcastle/Falstaff incriminates himself by calling out the first letter of his name, "O, O, O!," when his fingertips are singed with candles—which of course works for "Oldcastle" but not "Falstaff." There is also the "castle" reference in IV,v,6 of the same play. The name Falstaff was derived from Sir John Fastolf , who

576-594: The Earl of March, informed King Henry of the plot on 31 July, stating that he had only just become aware of it. Richard, Scrope, and Grey were promptly arrested. The trial took place in Southampton; traditionally it is claimed that trial took place on the site now occupied by the Red Lion Inn , but there are no contemporary records of this. Grey was beheaded on 2 August and the two peers on 5 August, both in front of

608-635: The Falstaff character under the name of Oldcastle continued to appear in succeeding years—in Nathan Field 's play Amends for Ladies (1618) and in the anonymous pamphlets The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinary (1604) and The Wandering Jew (c. 1628), among other works. Sir John Oldcastle treats its subject matter in ways acceptable to the values and biases of its audience, and the interests of Elizabethan officialdom (inevitably; if it did anything else it would never have escaped censorship). Oldcastle

640-662: The Mortimer claim to the throne on the Earl of March's death; later in life Richard would use this claim to try to dethrone King Henry VI . The Southampton Plot is dramatised in Shakespeare's Henry V , in which it is portrayed as a French-financed betrayal of the king to stop Henry's invasion plans. It is also portrayed in the anonymous play, The History of Sir John Oldcastle (c.1600) and in William Kenrick 's Falstaff's Wedding (1760). The Southampton Plot

672-491: The castle". Iambic pentameter verse lines in both parts are irregular when using the name "Falstaff", but correct with "Oldcastle". Finally, there is the blatant disclaimer at the close of Henry IV, Part 2 that disassociates the two figures: "for Oldcastle died [a] martyr, and this is not the man" (Epilogue, 29–32). There is even a hint that Falstaff was originally Oldcastle in The Merry Wives of Windsor too. When

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704-782: The historical Oldcastle was not only a Protestant martyr, but a nobleman with powerful living descendants in Elizabethan England. These were the Lords Cobham: William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham (died 6 March 1597), was Warden of the Cinque Ports (1558–97), Knight of the Order of the Garter (1584), and member of the Privy Council (1586–97); his son Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham , was granted

736-601: The indictment, was fabricated to ensure that Cambridge, Grey and Scrope did not escape the death penalty as a well-deserved punishment for the various other offences that they undoubtedly had committed". With the death of the Duke of York , the Earl of Cambridge's elder brother, at the Battle of Agincourt later that year, Cambridge's son Richard Plantagenet became heir to the title, which would eventually be returned to him after Henry V's death. Through his mother , he also inherited

768-399: The intent of carrying out a conspiracy exists, then there is a conspiracy even if the details are never agreed to aloud by the participants. CIA covert operations , for instance, are by their very nature hard to prove definitively, but research into the agency's work, as well as revelations by former CIA employees, has suggested several cases where the agency tried to influence events. During

800-493: The lives of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the theater. The company of actors formed by Shakespeare, Richard Burbage , Will Kempe and the others in 1594 enjoyed the patronage of Henry Carey, first Lord Hunsdon, then serving as Lord Chamberlain ; they were, famously, the Lord Chamberlain's Men . When Carey died on 22 July 1596, the post of Lord Chamberlain was given to William Brooke, Lord Cobham, who definitely

832-439: The modern sense, also means "I sing in unison", as con - means "with" or "together", and spiro means "I breathe", literally meaning "I breathe together with others". Sir John Oldcastle Sir John Oldcastle is an Elizabethan play about John Oldcastle , a controversial 14th-/15th-century rebel and Lollard who was seen by some of Shakespeare 's contemporaries as a proto-Protestant martyr . The play

864-470: The paternal post of Warden of the Cinque Ports upon his father's death, and made a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1599. Even more so, Frances Brooke, the 10th Baron's wife and 11th Baron's mother, was a close personal favorite of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I (an Elizabethan could not have been more or better connected than the Cobhams). The elder Lord Cobham even had a strong negative impact upon

896-519: The throne was thus superior, should one allow female intermediaries (he was the grandson of Philippa of Clarence , daughter of Lionel), to that of Henry V and his father, Henry IV , who derived their claim from Henry IV's father, John of Gaunt , third surviving son of Edward III. Moreover, Edmund Mortimer's father, Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March , had been widely considered heir presumptive to King Richard II , who had no issue, and Edmund Mortimer himself had been heir presumptive to Richard II while

928-543: Was also a historical person—allegedly a greedy and grasping individual, who had a (probably undeserved) reputation for cowardice at the Battle of Patay in 1429. Fastolf, however, died without descendants, making him safe for a playwright's use. He had already appeared as a cowardly knight in Henry VI, part 1 . The name change and the Epilogue disclaimer were required, it is generally thought, because of political pressure:

960-461: Was forestalled by Mortimer's revelation of the conspiracy to the King on 31 July. Pugh, however, finds Scrope's exculpatory statements at trial unconvincing, and states that Scrope never pretended that he had intended to inform the King of the conspiracy. Pugh also contends that "there was no plot in 1415 to assassinate Henry V and his three brothers and that heinous charge, by far the most sensational in

992-553: Was not a friend to the players, and who withdrew what official protection they had enjoyed. The players were left to the mercies of the local officials of the City of London, who had long wanted to drive the companies of actors out of the City. Thomas Nashe , in a contemporary letter, complained that the actors were "piteously persecuted by the Lord Mayor and the aldermen" during this period. This did not last; when Cobham died less than

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1024-464: Was originally published anonymously in 1600 (Q1), printed by Valentine Simmes for the bookseller Thomas Pavier . In 1619, a new edition (Q2) carried an attribution to William Shakespeare . The diary of Philip Henslowe records that the play was written by Anthony Munday , Michael Drayton , Richard Hathwaye and Robert Wilson . (An entry in Henslowe's Diary records a later payment to Drayton for

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