Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/138

Holinshed  immediately after its publication. In the ‘Historie of Scotland’ (vol. ii.) four sheets (pp. 421–4, 433–6, 443–50), chiefly dealing with contests of political parties in Scotland in 1677, and with Elizabeth’s negotiations with the two sides, were excised. In the ‘Historie of England,’ in vol. iii. pp. 1828–1831 and all between pp. 1419 and 1538, were cancelled. The censures on Leicester, Cecil, Bromley the chancellor, and other statesmen, which were described by the council as ‘malevolentes seu nimium subtiles,’ account for most of these castrations. The later passages chiefly treated of Leicester’s Proceedings in the Netherlands (by Stow), abington’s conspiracy, and Drake's return to England, and they included lives of the archbishops of Canterbury and accounts of the Lords Cobham, both by Francis Thynne. The living Lord Cobham [see under , eighth ] is incorrectly said by Bishop Nicolson to have been then out of favour at court, and to this circumstance Nicolson attributes the council’s objections to the ‘treatise’ on his ancestors. o other explanation has been suggested, and the grounds of the council’s censure are not obvious. Whitgift took an active part in the expurgation of the volumes, and Abraham Fleming, after offering explanations, conducted the typographical revision. Original uncastrated copies are extremely rare. One is in the Grenville collection; another is at Britwell. In castrated copies of vol. iii. new passages were introduced to supply the excisions on pp. 1828–1331, but the space between 1419 and 1538 is filled by four new leaves, paged respectively 1419–20, 1421–90, 1491–1536, and 1537–8. The title of the uncastrated vol. iii. begins ‘The Chronicles of England from Will. the Conqueror,’ and ends ‘Cum privilegio regiæ majestatis.’ The title of the castrated vol. iii. begins ‘The Third Volume of Chronicles, beginning at Duke William the Norman,’ and ends ‘Historiæ placeant nostrates et peregrinæ’ (see, Bibl. Brit., and , Animadversions on Speght’s Chaucer, Early Engl. Text Soc., ed. Dr. Furnivall, 1865, pp. lxiv–xc.)

Fleming’s manuscripts contained copies of letters and papers dealing with the council’s action, and in 1732 these were in the possession of Francis Peck, who printed the titles at the end of the first edition of his ‘Desiderata Curiosa,’ vol. i. (1782), and promised to print them all in full in a second volume, together with an historical and bibliographical account of the mutilations of the chronicles. But this purpose was not fulfilled, and the papers are not now known to be in existence.

In February 1722–3 three London booksellers (Mears, Gyles, and Woodman) published in a thin black-letter folio the castrated pages, so that possessors castrated copies might perfect them. The volume was carefully edited by [q. v.], and the publishers at the time warned the public against a rival (and, as they declared, a very careless) reprint of boas ag ‘secretly handed about’ by less reputable booksellers (, Lit. Anecdotes, i. 249–51). Another folio volume containing the castrated sheets is said to have been edited by Dr. Drake, and to have appeared in 1728.

The uncastrated edition was reprinted by a syndicate of the chief London booksellers in six volumes, 4to, in 1807–8.

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 aapecial 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 [q. v.] 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 (cf. Shakespeare’s Library, ed. Collier, and  Commentaries on Shakespeares’s Historical Plays). Many extracts from Holinshed’s work have been printed by the editors of Shakespeare’s historical plays, to illustrate the sources of his information. The dramatist seems to have used the edition of 1586–7.

 HOLKER, JOHN (1719–1786), Jacobite, was the son of John Holker of Stretford, Manchester, by Alice, daughter of John Morris. The founder of the family, Alexander Holker, is said to have been presented by