09/25/2025
Before the reformation, John Wycliffe stood against the Roman Church. After his death John Oldcastle took over the torch. He spoke out against transubstantiation, the infallibility of the papacy and the false merits of indulgences. Shakespeare’s character Falstaff in Henry IV was modeled after Oldcastle.
On September 25, 1413 John Oldcastle was arrested. Given the opportunity to have none other opinion than the universal belief of the Holy Church of Rome, he denied and said “I will none otherwise believe in these points than I told you afore. Do with me what ye will…though ye judge my body…yet I am certain that ye can do no harm to my soul. He that created that will of His infinite mercy save it; I have therin no manner of doubt. Concerning these articles, I will stand to them to the very death by the grace of my God.”
Oldcastle was sentenced to death.
Luckily he escaped the Tower of London and lived for four more years before being arrested a second time, hanged then burned by the Roman Catholic Church.
