Early life
A Soldier of the Welsh March
John Oldcastle was born around 1378 into a gentry family of Almeley in Herefordshire, near the Welsh border. He made his name as a soldier, serving Henry IV in Scotland in 1400 and in the long war against the Welsh rising of Owain Glyndŵr, where he fought alongside the young Prince Henry, the future Henry V. The two became friends. He served as sheriff of Herefordshire and sat in Parliament.
In 1408 he married Joan, Lady Cobham, an heiress with estates in Kent, and from 1409 he was summoned to Parliament as Lord Cobham. By then he was the most prominent supporter of the Lollards in England.
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