He is the original of Shakespeare’s Falstaff, but had very little in common with that creation of the dramatist’s fancy. Shakespeare admits this in an epilogue where he says, “For Oldcastle died a martyr and this is not the man.” In Tennyson’s poem, _Sir John Oldcastle_, this brave old man exclaims, “God willing, I will burn for Him,” and, truly, he suffered a terrible death for his convictions. After Agincourt we have another notable prisoner in the Tower in the person of Charles, Duke of Orleans, who was sent to the White Tower “with a ransom of 300,000 crowns on his head.” This captive, as did James of Scotland before him, passed many of the weary hours of captivity writing poetry. In the British Museum there is preserved a manuscript volume of his poems which is invaluable as containing the oldest picture of the Tower which is known to exist. This picture, beautifully coloured, shows the great keep of William the Conqueror whitewashed--hence its present name--and, in the background, the steep grassy slope of Tower Hill, old London Bridge, and the spires and towers of ancient London. It is a remarkable work of art, and is accessible to all in its many reproductions. Charles was liberated in 1440, in the reign of Henry VI. The early days of the sixth Henry were not marked in Tower annals by events of great interest, and during the later Wars of the Roses the number of captives sent here was small, for most of them were murdered in cold blood, on the battlefields. Little quarter was given after those fights-to-the-death, and during the weary years of warfare the peerage, as one writer has it, “was almost annihilated.” The Cade rebellion broke out in 1450, in which year William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, who had been charged with supporting it, was murdered. He was one of the most distinguished noblemen in England, yet the tragedy that ended his life was a sordid one. Upon a wholly unsubstantiated charge of treason he was shut up in the Tower; as he could not be proven guilty, he was released and banished the country. He took ship at Dover to cross to Calais, but was captured in the Channel by the captain of a vessel named _Nicholas of the Tower_. This was a name of ill-omen to Suffolk, to whom it had been told, in prophecy, that could he avoid the “danger of the Tower” he should be safe. As captive he was brought back to Dover, and his last moments are described in _King Henry VI._, Part II., Act iv., Scene 1, with realism. In the summer of 1450 Lord Say was sent to the Tower by the King “to propitiate the rebels,” and they had him forth and beheaded him in Cheapside. Cade and his followers were attacking the fortress from Southwark, but at nightfall a sortie was made from the Tower, London Bridge was barricaded, and, a truce being called, the rebellion gradually subsided. Cade’s capture in a garden in Kent is told by Shakespeare in the tenth scene of the fourth act of the play just mentioned.