He appears in act I, scene I, and act II, scene II as a supporter of the Duke of York; the first time just after the Battle of St Albans, and is portrayed "conspicuously associated with opposition." This is ahistorical, as Mowbray was still loyal to King Henry at this point. His second appearance in the play is at the Battle of Towton. The play has been adapted for the screen several times. In the 1960 BBC TV serial An Age of Kings, the character appears in the episode "Henry VI: The Morning's War" portrayed by Jeffry Wickham. In 1965 the BBC again adapted the history plays for television, this time based on the 1963 theatre production The Wars of the Roses. Mowbray appears in the episode "Edward IV" portrayed by David Hargreaves. In the Elizabethan play The Merry Devil of Edmonton, Mowbray does not appear as a character on stage, but the comical figure Blague repeatedly claims that: "I serve the good Duke of Norfolk." Exactly what period the play is set is the subject debate among scholars. Suggestions range from the reign of King Henry VI (1421–1471) to the 1580s (in Queen Elizabeth I's reign). The 20th-century Shakespeare scholar W. W. Greg places it in the reign of Henry VI, basing his conclusion in part on Thomas Fuller's posthumously published History of the Worthies of England (1662). If this is the case then the "Duke of Norfolk" referred to in the play would be Mowbray. According to J. M. Bromley, the play evokes "the similarities between poaching and treason", and the anonymous author deliberately links this Duke of Norfolk to both. Rudolph Fiehler noted how Blague's service to the duke was very much based upon the unsavoury characteristics of "cowardice, poaching and thievery". It has further been suggested that his comic catchphrase was deliberately intended to invoke Sir John Falstaff, one of Shakespeare's best-known characters, for the audience. In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2, Justice Shallow refers to Falstaff as having once been a page to "Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk", Mowbray's grandfather. Falstaff is commonly considered to be a fictional representation of either Sir John Oldcastle or Sir John Fastolf—or possibly an amalgamation of the two—both of whom are variously associated with Mowbray. Notes References Bibliography 1415 births 1461 deaths 103 6th Earl of Norfolk 24 Barons Mowbray 10 Earls Marshal People of the Wars of the