Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor is not what it seems.

William Shakespeare was obsessed with Sir John Oldcastle. This is hardly surprising, Oldcastle had been a close friend of the young Henry V, before he became King, fighting alongside him heroically. After Henry was crowned, Oldcastle joined the heretical, Protestant Lollard sect, more than a century before Martin Luther. He fought to kidnap Henry V, in 1414, and to stage a military coup in England, in order to force Protestant religious reforms. He escaped, was a fugitive for three years, and was captured in 1417. His manner of execution was particularly bizarre, he was chained and hung up by his midriff, and set on fire, to symbolize the twin crimes of rebellion and heresy. Shakespeare was born in the early years of the reign of Elizabeth I, and just following the reign of Bloody Mary, and her persecution of English protestants. Hundreds were burned at the stake. Naturally, Shakespeare was fascinated and terrified of religious persecution. To Shakespeare, John Oldcastle was the perfect tragic hero, as a protestant martyr, but, as a rebel against the crown, he was simply too controversial to be dealt with directly. So, he created the character of John Falstaff, and turned it into a caricature of John Oldcastle. effectively inverting his characteristics. Instead of a puritan martyr, he becomes a profligate, greedy, sensual drunkard. Effectively, Shakespeare's way of dealing with John Oldcastle parallels the nursery rhymes, particularly: Mary Mary, quite contrary How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, And pretty maids all in a row. This is about Bloody Mary, expanding cemeteries, instruments of torture, and people awaiting execution. Shakespeare is inverting reality, to deal with it, as nursery rhymes do. Falstaff seeks money and seduction, Oldcastle seeks religious reform. Falstaff escapes, Oldcastle escapes. Falstaff is beaten, Oldcastle is captured. Falstaff is pinched and burned with tapers, Oldcastle is hung in chains and burned alive. Falstaff is accepted at the end of the play, Oldcastle is accepted as a protestant martyr by Shakespeare's time.