Raphael Holinshed, or Holingshed, an English chronicler of the Elizabethan age. He is said to have been descended from a respectable family in Cheshire; and from his own will it appears, that in the latter part of his life he was steward to Thomas Burdet, Esq., of Bromcote, Warwickshire. The “Chronicles of Holinshed” were first published in 1577; and prefixed to them is one of the most curious and interesting memorials existing of the manners and domestic history of the English, in the 16th century. Died about 1580.

Chronicle

  They have reprinted at London the castrated sheets of Holinshead’s “Chronicle,” but done so as there is a great quarrell between some of the London booksellers on this score, some of them having one impression, and some another; so that there are two new impressions of these sheets, in one impression of which Fletcher Gyles, a bookseller, is concerned, and he was urgent with me to correct them, but I declined it, being sensible that the reprinting them might disoblige some gentlemen, who had given great prices for their books, as it seems it hath done. But, however, the booksellers are not like to be very great gainers by this work, the castrated Hollingsheads being now like to be dearer than those that are perfect.

  Are by far the most popular and important of our historical records, in print, during the time of Queen Elizabeth; and from which, indeed, all modern historians have freely and largely borrowed.

  The pages of Holinshed more truly reflect the living language of Queen Elizabeth’s time than the stanzas of Spenser.

  The total absence of the critical spirit in his work seems to show that he could not have belonged to the general literary fraternity of Europe.

  A homely, honest, simple-hearted chronicler (somewhat thievish, as all the old chroniclers were) but whose name is specially worth keeping in mind, because he—in all probability—supplied Shakespeare’s principal historic reading, and furnished the crude material, afterward beaten out into those plaques of gold, which we call Shakespeare’s Historic Plays. Therefore, we must always, I think, treat Holinshed with respect.

  The “Chronicles” form a very valuable repertory of historical information. The enormous number of authorities cited attests Holinshed’s and his successors’ industry. The style is clear, although never elevated, and the chronicler fully justified his claim “to have had an especial eye unto the truth of things,” although his protestant bias is very marked throughout and his treatment of early times is very uncritical. The patriotic tone of the book led Holinshed’s assistants to insist so strenuously on the rights of the English sovereigns to exact homage from the Scottish rulers, that Sir Thomas Craig was moved to write a reply, entitled “De Hominio,” in 1605. The Elizabethan dramatists drew many of their plots from Holinshed’s pages, and nearly all Shakespeare’s historical plays (as well as “Macbeth,” “King Lear,” and part of “Cymbeline”) are based on Holinshed’s “Chronicles.” At times (as in the two parts of “Henry IV”) Shakespeare adopted not only Holinshed’s facts, but some of his phrases.

  Holinshed was an Elizabethan among the Elizabethans. His style, cumbrous with reflection, spangled with wise saws and modern instances, and curious with grammatical inversions, is of a vivid picturesqueness. If he does not criticise his materials, if he is prone to the marvellous, and unable to resist a telling story, he is capable none the less of the boldest plain-speaking in defence of his convictions, and tells the truth to the Queen and Privy Council. His conception of accuracy is different from ours: he is at little pains to establish the exact conditions of a given fact, but he bestows endless patience in revealing that state of mind in the actor which made the fact a possibility. Every detail of history is food for his psychology; and his “Chronicles” are an epitome of the work of conscience in the human soul, and a record of the marvellous ways of God to Man. The very fashion of his wisdom is different from ours; it is often trite if always judicial, it is less original than profound; it is constantly preoccupied with the moral root of the matter. There is little irony in it, for his abuse of analysis never soured in Holinshed the milk of human kindness, and his liberal humanity is backed up by an unshakable religion. Such as he is, large and slow and solid, he is so sure a guide in the desperate places of the human conscience, that the dramatists of his time, and especially Shakespeare, conveyed from his chronicles whole characters, entire scenes, with scarce an alteration.