Student Essay on Sir John Fastolf

Sir John Fastolf was an English soldier who was born in 1378 and died in 1459. He was married in January 1409. Before becoming a soldier he was a squire for Thomas Mowbray, 1st duke of Norfolk. He is noted for his services in France during the last phase of the Hundred Years' War. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Agincourt in October 25, 1415; he was knighted after this battle. He became Henry V's Lieutenant and regent in Normandy in 1423. He was governor of Anjou and Maine from 1423-1426. In 1426, he was knighted the knight of Garter.

He also distinguished himself at the Battle of the Herrings in February 12, 1429, so called because, while conveying supplies to the English besiegers of Orleans. Fastolf formed a defensive barrier of herring barrels and with his archers beat off a much larger French army. His conduct at the defeat of the English by Joan of Arc at Patay in 1429, where he retreated after a panic of his men, has been variously described as common sense or cowardice, later he was cleared of the charge. Fastolf continued, however, to exercise responsible commands until his final return to England in 1440. He amassed a considerable fortune by somewhat sharp methods. About 1440 he retired from military service and invested profits from the wars in wool trade, setting up textile mills on his estates at Castle Combe near Bristol. He built a castle at Caster in Norfolk, where he spent his retirement.

On June 18 the united forces of Fastolf and John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, were defeated at Patay by the French national heroine Joan of Arc. During Cade's Rebellion Fastolf was imprisoned in 1450 in the Tower of London on a charge of having contributed to the English failure in France. After his release he devoted most of his time to the affairs of his estates, including a magnificent castle in Caister-on-Sea in Norfolk, which he built in 1454 with a fortune gained in the wars. The papers left by his Norfolk neighbor and friend John Paston picture Fastolf as an irascible, acquisitive old man who was utterly ruthless in his business dealings. Childless, he intended to leave his possessions for pious works, but the Pastons got most of them. These papers are called the Pastons Letters and the letters derived from the circle of the career soldier Sir John Fastolf (c. 1378-1459), and part is from the correspondence of the Paston family, Fastolf's neighbors in eastern Norfolk. The papers are said to include John Fastolf's will.

One of Fastolf's servants, William Worcester, collected material for personal historical research as well as evidence for several lawsuits involving Fastolf. The Pastons involved in the letters include William (d. 1444), who became a justice of the Court of Common Pleas; his son John I (d. 1466), a London lawyer; John's two sons, John II (d. 1479) and John III (d. 1503), both of whom were knighted; and their respective wives and children. The collection of more than 1,000 items contains legal records, local and national news, and gossip; through all this, the characters of the writers emerge vividly.

The benefits of his life were as followed: his ownership of the Boar's Head Inn at Southwark, appear in the characterization of Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts I and II but, the courageous Fastolf bears little resemblance to the cowardly, dissolute, clowning Falstaff of Henry IV, parts I and II, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. The bishop of Winchester, however, managed to salvage a portion for his new Magdalen College at the University of Oxford.