Chronicles
From Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles (London: Henry Denham, 1587)
Para1Leir, the son of Bladud, was admitted ruler over the Britons in the year of the world
3105, at what time Joash reigned in Judea. This Leir was a prince of right noble demeanor,
governing his land and subjects in great wealth. He made the town of Caerleir, now
called Leicester, which standeth upon the river of Soar. It is written that he had
by his wife three daughters without other issue,1 whose names were Gonorilla, Regan, and Cordeilla, which daughters he greatly loved,
but specially Cordeilla, the youngest far above the two elder. When this Leir therefore
was come to great years, and began to wax2 unwieldy through age, he thought to understand the affections of his daughters towards
him, and prefer her whom he best loved3 to the succession over the kingdom. Whereupon he first asked Gonorilla the eldest
how well she loved him, who calling her gods to record,4 protested that she “loved him more than her own life, which by right and reason should
be most dear unto her”. With which answer the father being well pleased, turned to
the second, and demanded of her how well she loved him; who answered (confirming her
sayings with great oaths) that she “loved him more than tongue could express, and
far above all other creatures of the world”.
Para2Then called he his youngest daughter Cordeilla before him, and asked of her what account
she made of him, unto whom she made this answer as followeth: “Knowing the great love
and fatherly zeal that you have always borne towards me (for the which I may not answer
you otherwise than I think, and as my conscience leadeth me) I protest unto you, that
I have loved you ever, and will continually (while I live) love you as my natural
father. And if you would more understand the love that I bear you, ascertain5 yourself, that so much as you have, so much you are worth, and so much I love you,
and no more”. The father being nothing content with this answer, married his two eldest
daughters, the one unto Henninus the Duke of Cornwall, and the other unto Maglanus
the Duke of Albany, betwixt whom he willed and ordained that his land should be divided
after his death, and the one half thereof immediately should be assigned to them in
hand,6 but for the third daughter, Cordeilla, he reserved nothing.
Para3Nevertheless it fortuned that one of the princes of Gallia (which now is called France)
whose name was Aganippus, hearing of the beauty, womanhood, and good conditions of
the said Cordeilla, desired to have her in marriage, and sent over to her father,
requiring that he might have her to wife, to whom answer was made, that he might have
his daughter, but as for any dower he could have none, for all was promised and assured
to her other sisters already. Aganippus, notwithstanding this answer of denial to
receive anything by way of dower with Cordeilla, took her to wife, only moved thereto
(I say) for respect of her person and amiable virtues. This Aganippus was one of the
twelve kings that ruled Gallia in those days, as in the British history it is recorded.
But to proceed.
Para4After that Leir was fallen into age, the two dukes that had married his two eldest
daughters, thinking it long yet the government of the land did come to their hands,
arose against him in armor, and wrest7 from him the governance of the land, upon conditions to be continued for term of
life, by the which he was put to his portion, that is, to live after a rate assigned
to him for the maintenance of his estate, which in process of time was diminished
as well by Maglanus as by Henninus. But the greatest grief that Leir took, was to
see the unkindness8 of his daughters, which seemed to think that all was too much which their father
had, the same being never so little.9 In so much that going from the one to the other, he was brought to that misery, that
scarcely they would allow him one servant to wait upon him.
Para5In the end, such was the unkindness, or (as I may say) the unnaturalness which he
found in his two daughters, notwithstanding their fair and pleasant words uttered
in time past, that being constrained of necessity, he fled the land, and sailed to
Gallia, there to seek some comfort of his youngest daughter Cordeilla, whom before
time10 he hated. The lady Cordeilla, hearing that he was arrived in poor estate, the first
sent to him privily a certain sum of money to apparel himself withal, and to retain
a certain number of servants that might attend upon him in honorable wise, as appertained
to the estate which he had borne,11 and then so accompanied, she appointed him to come to the court, which he did, and
was so joyfully, honorably, and lovingly received, both by his son-in-law Aganippus,
and also by his daughter Cordeilla, that his heart was greatly comforted, for he was
no less honored than if he had been king of the whole country himself.
Para6Now when he had informed his son-in-law and his daughter in what sort he had been
used by his other daughters, Aganippus caused a mighty army to be put in readiness,
and likewise a great navy of ships to be rigged, to pass over to Britain with Leir,
his father-in-law, to see him again restored to his kingdom. It was accorded, that
Cordeilla should also go with him to take possession of the land, the which he12 promised to leave unto her, as the rightful inheritor after his decease, notwithstanding
any former grant made to her sisters or to their husbands in any manner of wise.
Para7Hereupon, when his army and navy of ships were ready, Leir and his daughter Cordeilla
with her husband took the sea, and arriving in Britain, fought with their enemies,
and discomfited13 them in battle, in which Maglanus and Henninus were slain, and then was Leir restored
to his kingdom, which he ruled after this by the space of two years, and then died,
forty years after he first began to reign. His body was buried at Leicester in a vault
under the channel of the river of Soar beneath the town.
Notes
1.Children.↑
2.Grow.↑
3.The wording suggests suggests perhaps that Leir thought that Cordeilla would be most
eloquent in returning his love, so he would be able to give her most land.↑
4.Take note.↑
5.Assure.↑
6.Under their authority.↑
7.Stripped by force.↑
8.Unnaturalness.↑
9.However little it was.↑
10.In earlier days.↑
11.His earlier status and dignity.↑
12.I.e., Leir.↑
13.Vanquished and overthrew.↑
Prosopography
Andrew Griffin
Andrew Griffin is an associate professor in the department of English and an affiliate
professor in the department of Theater and Dance at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. He is general editor (text) of Queen’s Men Editions. He studies early
modern drama and early modern historiography while serving as the lead editor at the
EMC Imprint. He has co-edited with Helen Ostovich and Holger Schott Syme Locating the Queen’s Men (2009) and has co-edited The Making of a Broadside Ballad (2016) with Patricia Fumerton and Carl Stahmer. His monograph, Untimely Deaths in Renaissance Drama: Biography, History, Catastrophe, was published with the University of Toronto Press in 2019. He is editor of the
anonymous The Chronicle History of King Leir (Queen’s Men Editions, 2011). He can be contacted at griffin@english.ucsb.edu.
Anonymous
Eric Rasmussen
Helen Ostovich
Helen Ostovich, professor emerita of English at McMaster University, is the founder
and general editor of Queen’s Men Editions. She is a general editor of The Revels Plays (Manchester University Press); Series
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and series co-editor of Late Tudor and Stuart Drama (MIP); play-editor of several
works by Ben Jonson, in Four Comedies: Ben Jonson (1997); Every Man Out of his Humour (Revels 2001); and The Magnetic Lady (Cambridge 2012). She has also edited the Norton Shakespeare 3 The Merry Wives of Windsor Q1602 and F1623 (2015); The Late Lancashire Witches and A Jovial Crew for Richard Brome Online, revised for a 4-volume set from OUP 2021; The Ball, for the Oxford Complete Works of James Shirley (2021); The Merry Wives of Windsor for Internet Shakespeare Editions, and The Dutch Courtesan (with Erin Julian) for the Complete Works of John Marston, OUP 2022. She has published
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Seventeenth Century, Ben Jonson
Journal, Borrowers and Lenders, and
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Conference (2020), and the Digital Humanities Summer Institute’s Project Management
in the Humanities Conference (2021). While her primary research focus was sixteenth
and seventeenth century England, she completed her honours thesis on Soviet ballet
during the Russian Cultural Revolution. She is currently a student at the University
of British Columbia’s iSchool, working on her masters in library and information science.
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of Victoria. She researches early modern drama and her Jamie Cassels Undergraduate
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Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions, of which he was the Coordinating Editor
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Electronic Shakespeares,and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.
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directing King Leir, The Famous Victories of Henry V, and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (2006) and he is the performance editor for our editions of those plays. The process
behind those productions is documented in depth on his website Performing the Queen’s Men. Also featured on this site are his PAR productions of Clyomon and Clamydes (2009) and Three Ladies of London (2014). For the PLS, the University of Toronto’s Medieval and Renaissance Players,
he has directed the Digby Mary Magdalene (2003) and the double bill of George Peele’s The Old Wives Tale and the Chester Antichrist (2004). He also directed An Experiment in Elizabethan Comedy (2005) for the SQM project and Inside Out: The Persistence of Allegory (2008) in collaboration with Alan Dessen. Peter is a professional actor and director
with numerous stage and screen credits. He can be contacted at cockett@mcmaster.ca.
Raphael Holinshed
Tracey El Hajj
Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD
from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science
and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched
Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on
Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life.Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.
William Shakespeare
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https://www.uvic.ca/Metadata
Authority title | Chronicles |
Type of text | Primary Source |
Short title | Leir: Holinshed |
Publisher | University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform |
Series | Queenʼs Men Editions |
Source |
Born-digital, peer-reviewed document written by Andrew Griffin. First published in the QME 1.0 anthology on the ISE platform. Converted to TEI-XML
and remediated by the LEMDO Team for republication in the QME 2.0 anthology on the LEMDO platform.
|
Editorial declaration | Edited according to the ISE Editorial Guidelines |
Edition | Released with Queenʼs Men Editions 2.0 |
Sponsor(s) |
Queenʼs Men EditionsThe Queen’s Men Editions anthology is led by Helen Ostovich, General Editor; Peter
Cockett, General Editor (Performance); and Andrew Griffin, General Editor (Text).
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Encoding description | Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines |
Document status | published, peer-reviewed |
Licence/availability | Intellectual copyright in this edition is held by the editor, Andrew Griffin. The critical paratexts, including these Chronicles, are licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that they are freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the editor, QME, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of QME, the editor, and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical use of the critical paratexts in the classroom. Production photographs and videos on this site may not be downloaded. They appear freely on this site with the permission of the actors and the ACTRA union. They may be used within the context of university courses, within the classroom, and for reference within research contexts, including conferences, when credit is given to the producing company and to the actors. Commercial use of videos and photographs is forbidden. |