Nicholas Fastolf

He was probably the direct ancestor of Sir John Fastolf, who is generally thought to have inspired Shakespeare's character Falstaff.

Hugh Fastolf, who was MP for Great Yarmouth from 1361 to 1377, is thought to have been his nephew, a son of his brother Alexander.

[4] He exchanged the position for that of Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas in 1328,[4] but returned to his earlier office the following year.

He made a special contract with the Mayor of Dublin for a private water supply, which involved inserting a narrow pipe "the width of a goose quill" into the cistern of his neighbour and fellow judge Walter de Islip.

[3] He returned to England in 1330, and is heard of there acting as an itinerant justice, but died soon after 1330; his executors were his widow and his brother Lawrence.