Mini: Holinshed’s Chronicles

Ever wonder where Shakespeare got his inspiration or ideas for plays? In this episode, we explore the history behind one of Shakespeare's major sources for many of his plays: Holinshed's Chronicles. 

Transcript:

Kourtney Smith (KS): Welcome to another Shakespeare Anyone mini-episode! In these mini-episodes, we’ll be exploring topics that are related to Shakespeare but aren’t necessarily connected to whatever play we’ve been discussing. 

Elyse Sharp (ES): And they’re mini, because well, they’re shorter than our other episodes. They’re like quartos if the regular episodes are folio editions.  

KS: In today’s episode, we’ll cover Holinshed’s Chronicles--one of the sources Shakespeare used to write his plays. 

ES: Now what is Holinshed’s Chronicles? Holinshed’s Chronicles, also known as Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, is a large and comprehensive work published in several volumes that chronicles British history. It was first published in 1577, when Shakespeare was about thirteen years old, and the second edition was published ten years later, in 1587. And, for simplicity's sake, it was published in three volumes according to countries -- England, Scotland and Ireland.

KS: And this was an incredibly influential source to Shakespeare and many other playwrights of his time. The chronicles are extensively linked to many of Shakespeare’s history plays, as well as Macbeth, King Lear and Cymbeline.

ES: But who is Holinshed, the owner of said Chronicles? And what is his work that had such an effect on Shakespeare?

KS: Raphael Holinshed was an English chronicler most famously known for the historiography named after him. Little is known about Holinshed, including concrete details on his parents, birth and education; but it’s assumed he received his education at Christ's College in Cambridge. Shortly after, he moved to London and worked for the printer Reginald (or Reyner) Wolfe, who gave him the project that soon became Holinshed’s Chronicles. He then retired to the countryside and died in 1580.

ES: But independent scholar Katrina Marchant of Reading the Past with Dr. Kat argues that the title Holinshed’s Chronicles is incredibly deceptive because it hides how collaborative the project actually was. Yes, Raphael Holinshed was very much involved… but he didn’t come up with this idea, nor was he alive at the completion and publication of its second edition, the one that Shakespeare used.

KS: Holinshed’s Chronicles was published by Raphael Holinshed (hence, the possessive title). However, this grand idea of a collective history of England, Scotland and Ireland was not his. The idea was conceived by his employer Reyner Wolfe, a Dutch-born Protestant London printer, in 1548. Wolfe wanted to create a “Universal Cosmography of the whole world, and therewith also certain particular histories of every known nation.” He wanted this text to be complete with maps and illustrations.

ES: In order to accomplish this large task, Wolfe acquired the previous works of John Leland, the “father of English local history and bibliography”, to construct a chronology, as well as up-to-date maps. But he realized that he couldn’t accomplish all of this on his own and hired Raphael Holinshed, as well as William Harrison, an English clergyman, to join the team and help complete his vision.

KS: Unfortunately, Wolfe didn’t live to see the completion of his project. He died in 1573 and his printing business was left to his wife, Joan. She died a year later, and in her will, she stipulated that the project should continue and be brought to publication. The project was left to four printers and booksellers who were associates of Reyner and Joan Wolfe and the executors of Joan's will. They retained Holinshed, who hired Harrison, as well as three additional men--Richard Stanyhurst, an Anglo-Irish historian, Edmund Campion, an English Catholic Jesuit priest, and John Hooker, an English historian.

ES: This new team completed and published Wolfe’s vision in two volumes in 1577 after some censorship of Stanyhurst’s history of Ireland by the Privy Council. So, yes, they did get this chronicle published; however, they changed the project from a “universal cosmography of the whole world” to a work on only the British Isles. The aim was to establish the national, royal, chivalrous and heroic ideals of the empire, monarch, government and their subjects.

KS: And it might be easy to dismiss this work as pro-Britain propaganda. The chronicles are, after all, a retelling of history for British pride. But The Holinshed Project, a team of early modern historians working to coordinate a new 15-volume edition of the chronicles with the Oxford University Press, note on their homepage that the voices in the room were not all from one perspective.

ES: “Among the authors and revisers were moderate Protestants (Raphael Holinshed and John Hooker), militant Protestants (William Harrison and Abraham Fleming), crypto-Catholics (John Stow), and Catholics (Richard Stanihurst and Edmund Campion). The upshot was a remarkably multi-vocal view of British history not only because of the contrasting choices of style and source material but also because the contributors responded very differently to the politics and religion of their own age.”

KS: So, in spite of the country’s tensions surrounding religious freedoms, national pride and the like, the chroniclers seemed to have been able to collaborate and provide valuable multi-vocal views in spite of their differing religious beliefs. (But we’re going to put a pin in this fascinating circumstance and its impact on the Chronicles for the moment.)

ES: When the Chronicles were published in 1577, they were met with generally favorable reception. Lord Burghley, also known as William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, an English statesman and adviser to Elizabeth I, used it as a reference book. Also, poets and artists used it as inspiration. One poet, Philip Sidney, even suggested that a friend read it. But not everyone was delighted by the volumes. English writer Gabriel Harvey, a minority in his opinion, described Holinshed and the other chroniclers like him as “asses.” Apparently Harvey’s beef was that he didn’t like it compared to the works of classical historians like the Roman historian and politician Tacitus.

KS: But that edition wasn’t the last of the Chronicles. By the time it was decided to publish a second edition, Raphael Holinshed was dead and the revision and extension was directed by Abraham Fleming, an English clergyman, writer and translator. Fleming and his team extended the history of Britain and Ireland and intensified the religious tones of the work. There was even sharp contrast between two chroniclers, John Hooker and John Stow, in their writing on Ireland. Hooker’s writing, like Fleming, was very much anti-Catholic in tone; while Stow was wrongly suspected of Catholic sympathies and of being a crypto-Catholic because of his work.

ES: We see many differences between 1577 and 1587 with regards to its physical appearance (like size, font, woodcuts versus no woodcuts), spelling and word substitutions, as well as paragraph restructuring. One example of a word substitution that influenced Shakespeare specifically is the description of the weird sisters in Macbeth from “straunge & ferly” to “strange and wild”. The Holinshed Project describes many of these changes as serving a more superficial purpose rather than a substantive one and describes the changes as “detrimental to the narrative content and flow”.

KS: But there were substantive changes that were made. We see many additions to the history of Britain, Ireland, and Scotland, as well as the history of England under Henry V and Henry VI during this extension. The chroniclers of the revisions extended almost every section of the existing text with varying degrees of thoroughness. And we know who contributed to what revision because authorship is acknowledged in the margins with a simple name or initial.

ES: One example, William Harrison expanded nearly every chapter of the “Description of Britain” and wrote several new ones as well. John Hooker replaced the original Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, loosely based on Giraldus Cambrensis’s 1188 Expugnatio Hibernica, with his own footnoted translation. Hooker also amended versions of the Irish History’s account of the reign of Henry VIII. And that revision was prevented from being published due to censorship.

KS: Another substantive change was done by Francis Thynne who, thanks to his marginal notes, we can see, used the writings of John Mair, a Scottish philosopher; John Lesley, a Scottish Roman Catholic bishop and historian; and George Buchanan, a Scottish historian and scholar, to revise the history of Scotland. He amplified the writings from the late thirteenth century onward and used Buchanan’s 1582 history of Scotland to recount in incredible detail the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots.

ES: The history of England, specifically its coverage of sixteenth-century domestic affairs, was expanded with the writings of John Foxe, an English historian, and Edward Hall, an English lawyer and historian. Hall’s referenced work is called Hall’s Chronicle… wouldja look at that… It was published in 1548 and was heavily used to detail the festivities at Henry VIII’s court. Another resource that the chroniclers used in the 1587 edition is the “pseudo-Elmham” life of Henry V. In total, the Holinshed Project estimates about a million words were added in the extension of the Chronicles in 1587.

KS: While the 1577 edition seems to have been (mostly) published without a hitch, the 1587 edition wasn’t so lucky. There were many problems with censorship in a number of passages due to contemporary politics. Thynne’s additions to the history of Scotland were hit hard. But after some revisions by Fleming, the second Chronicles was published. The second edition was expensive, just like the first, but appears to have circulated widely.

ES: And Shakespeare wasn’t the only artist in his time using Holinshed’s Chronicles as inspiration for their work. Christopher Marlowe’s play Edward II; Edmund Spenser’s poem “The Faerie Queene”, Samuel Daniel’s poem “The Civil Wars”; and Michael Drayton’s poems “Piers Gaveston”, “Matilda” and “The Battle of Agincourt” are also influenced by the Chronicles.

KS: And if you want to get inspired like these early modern artists, you can order a copy from your favorite local bookstore, or head over to The Holinshed Project online, to sort through the 1577 and 1587 edition in full. You can also break up your search by regnal years or chapters, depending on your interests. If you choose to search by regnal year, (which means the year reckoned from the date or anniversary of a sovereign’s ascension for all us non-Brits), you can go as far back as William the Conqueror in 1066 up to Elizabeth I in 1577. If you choose to search by chapters, the Chronicles go back further to the ancients of the island.

ES: We can also use this source to examine the multi-vocal perspectives of people of the time. One incredibly famous example that Dr. Kat walks us through in her video Dr Kat and Holinshed’s Chronicles is the retelling of the execution of Anne Boelyn in the regnal year 28 of Henry VIII. On page 940 of Volume 6 of the 1587 edition, one section of text provides an account of the facts of the execution of Anne Boelyn, as well as a quotation of her scaffold speech. In the next section of the page, another author voices a different perspective of Anne Boelyn, calling her “this noble queen” and writes of her innocence.

KS: But how did Shakespeare use the Chronicles? Here’s a few examples:

ES: As we previously mentioned, the depiction of the weird sisters in Macbeth came from Holinshed’s Chronicles, specifically a passage in History of Scotland where Duffe, a 10th century king, was a victim of attempted murder by witchcraft. There’s also a woodcut illustration of Macbeth and Banquo meeting three women who are “unnatural” in appearance.  Later, Duffe was actually murdered by Donwalde who was spurred on by his wife, and the husband and wife team got Duffe’s personal attendants drunk, then blamed them for the murder--with Donwalde killing the attendants in a false fit of rage at discovering Duffe’s murder. Another king, Kenneth, killed Duffe’s son in order to secure his son’s succession and was then plagued with guilt and sleepless nights. Holinshed’s Chronicles also provide character descriptions that Shakespeare likely used: Duncan is portrayed as a soft, gentle, and weak king while Macbeth is cruel, valiant, and effective as a ruler. The Chronicles also depict Duncan naming his son Prince of Cumberland and cutting off Macbeth's claim to the throne. However, the portrayal of Duncan in the Chronicles is now believed to be more legend than actual historical fact. 

KS: Shakespeare also loosely follows the Chronicles depiction of King Lear: the major differences are that in Holinshed, Regan and Goneril marry the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall after the test and Lear initially only divides half of his kingdom between them and keeps half for himself. Holinshed also depicts Cordelia’s love for her father as more natural and true compared to the love Regan and Goneril show for Lear. 

ES: And if you are particularly jazzed about how William Shakespeare used Holinshed’s Chronicles, the Holinshed Project provides a side-by-side comparison of a few sections that would have informed the playwright. Those include Macbeth’s encounter with the witches (from the History of Scotland), the deposition of King Richard II from 1399, and Henry VIII’s reformation from 1534-35. 

KS: We know Shakespeare used the 1587 edition for his history plays because of similarities between Shakespeare’s writings and parts of the Chronicles that only appear in the later edition, as we mentioned earlier. So you’d think, wow, that’s great that Shakespeare is able to write a seemingly accurate historical play about any of the English monarchs, up to Elizabeth I. But, remember, he was writing historical fiction. The Chronicles themselves were not necessarily straight-up fact. Some sections are likely myth or lore. And Shakespeare’s interpretation of the Chronicles involved many artistic liberties. Which leads fans and students of Shakespeare to misinterpret historical characters like Richard III and King Lear, as well as any of the Henrys or Macbeth.

ES: So, basically, if you choose to read Holinshed’s Chronicles (it’s totally okay if you don’t… we didn’t), it may be wise to read it with a grain of salt. Different chroniclers had different perspectives and motivations that informed their writing. That, in and of itself, makes the work super fascinating because it was not a homogeneous account of British exceptionalism and propaganda. We can read the 1587 edition specifically to observe the contradictions and complexities embedded in Britain’s history. Which chroniclers were lying? Exaggerating? Omitting information? Writing propaganda? 400+ years later, we may never fully know. But, hey, at least it gave us some incredible Shakespeare plays!

KS: And that’s Holinshed’s Chronicles!

ES: Thank you for listening to this episode.

Quote of the Episodes:

ES: From Love’s Labour's Lost, act five, scene two, said by Katherine, “Lord Longueville said I came o'er his heart/And trow you what he called me?”

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Note: When this episode was recorded, Kourtney Smith was "Korey Leigh Smith".

Episode written and researched by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Our theme music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

Works Referenced:

Clegg, Cyndia Susan. “Which Holinshed? Holinshed's ‘Chronicles’ at the Huntington Library.” Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 4, 1992, pp. 559–577. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3817633. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.

“Holinshed's Chronicles, 1577.” The British Library, The British Library, 23 Nov. 2015, www.bl.uk/collection-items/holinsheds-chronicles-1577#.  

Kewes, Paulina, et al. The Holinshed Project, Oxford University, 2013, www.cems.ox.ac.uk/holinshed/.

Marchant, Katrina. Dr Kat and Holinshed's Chronicles. Reading the Past with Dr. Kat: Dr. Kat and Holinshed's Chronicles, YouTube, 13 Sept. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzK4Y2EEYUM.

PASUPATHI, VIMALA C, et al. “Shakespeare & Holinshed's Chronicles.” DHSHX, University of Southern California, 14 Jan. 2017, scalar.usc.edu/works/dhshx/holinsheds-chronicles.

Zaller, Robert. “King, Commons, and Commonweal in Holinshed's Chronicles.” Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, vol. 34, no. 3, 2002, pp. 371–390. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4054738. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.