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The second edition of Holinshed's Chronicles (1st ed., 1577; 2d ed., 1587) is the chief historical source of Richard III. Often the account in Holinshed is a paraphrase of Halle, The Vnion of the two noble and illustre famelies of Lancastre and Yorke (1550), which in turn is based upon Sir Thomas More's History of King Richard the thirde, published 1513. The authorship of More's history has been attributed to Cardinal Morton, who died in 1500. For matter not in More, Halle was indebted to Polydore Vergil's Historia Angliæ, Basel, 1555. Textual references to Holinshed, Halle, and More in this edition are derived from Shakspere's Holinshed, edited by W. G. Boswell-Stone, London, 1896. Boswell-Stone's references to More's history are from the text of More's Workes, edition of 1557, the paging from J. R. Lumby's edition, 1883.

Matter relating to Richard III in the second edition of Holinshed, that is not to be found in the first, is as follows: Holinshed, iii. 702 (the fire-new stamp of Dorset's title, I. iii. 255, 256); Holinshed, iii. 754 (Richard's friends resorting to him through fear, but wishing and working his destruction, V. ii. 20, 21); Holinshed, iii. 757 (Richmond's oration to his army, V. iii. 236); Holinshed, iii. 756 (Richard's oration to his army, V. iii. 313); Holinshed, iii. 756 (Richmond kept in Brittany by Richard's mother's means, V. iii. 325).

Two plays on Richard's life preceded the first publication of Shakespeare's in 1597. These were Dr. Thomas Legge's Richardus Tertius, a tragedy in Latin