This is a leaf (pp. 269-70) from the first volume of Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, 2 vols. (London: Lucas Harrison, 1577).
Perhaps the book is now best-known as the probable source of Shakespearean history plays, Macbeth, and part of King Lear, and of Cymbeline. It is also said to be probable that Christopher Marlowe and Edmund Spenser used it as a source of their works.
Originally, it began as a very big publishing project planned by a London printer and bookseller Reginald Wolfe (d. in or before 1574), who wanted to publish a world history with many maps and illustrations. He found it impossible to complete it on his own, and hired Raphael Holinshed and William Harrison as assistants. Wolfe died before it was completed, and after his death, the project was taken over by three menbers of the London stationers, who reduced it to a history of the British Isles. Holinshed kept working for the project, employing William Harrison, Richard Stanyhurst, Edmund Campion, and John Hooker as assistants/coauthors. The end product was published in two volumes in 1577. Shakespeare is said to have consulted its revised second edition published in 1587.
The leaf above covers the history of late Anglo-Saxon England, from 1040s to early 1050s, dealing with events happening after the death of Harthacnut (c. 1018-1042) and chiefly related to Edward the Confessor and his mother Emma of Normandy.
I also have a copy of the first two volumes of the second impression of the second edition.
PR
