Description:Shakespeare's source for the story of Cymbeline and his son Guiderius.
The Chronicles include ‘history’ of the early mythical rulers of Britain at the time of the Romans, long before the Norman invasions of 1066. These included King Guiderius whose reign provided a character name and background for Shakespeare’s play about Kymbeline in the time of the Roman Emperor Augustus. When Raphael Holinshed made his will in 1579 he was steward at Bramcote, in Warwickshire. Shakespeare may have encountered him, or knowledge of his work from this connection, or from the fact that the Chronicles were printed by George Bishop, to whom Shakespeare's contemporary at Stratford's grammar school, Richard Field, was apprenticed in London.
Page 46, above the engraving of an army of footsoldiers the text continues from ‘He [Kymbeline (i.e. Cymbeline)] was: brought up at Rome, and there made knight by Augustus Caesar, under whom he served in the wars and was in such favour with him that he was at liberty to pay his tribute, or not.
Little other mention is made of his doings except that during his reign the Saviour of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only son of God was born of a Virgin about the 23rd year of the reign of this king Kymbeline and in the 42nd of the reign of the emperor Octavius Augustus, that is to wit, in the year of the world 3966, in the second year of the 194th Olympiad, after the building of the city of Rome -750, nigh [nearly] at an end after the universal flood - 2311, from the birth of Abraham - 2019, after the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt -1513, after the captivity of Babylon - 535, from the building of the Temple by Solomon – 1034, and from the arrival of Brutus – 1116 complete [years]. Touching the continuance of the years of Kymbeline’s reign is some discordance amongst writers, but the best approved affirm that he reigned 35 years, and then died, and was buried at London, leaving behind him two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus.
But here is to be noted that although our histories do affirm that as well this Kymbeline as also his father Theomantius, lived in quiet with the Romans, and continually to them paid the tributes which the Britons had covenanted with Julius Caesar to pay. Yet we find in the Roman writers that after Julius Caesar’s death, when Augustus had taken upon him the rule of the Empire, the Britons refused to pay that tribute, whereat as Cornelius Tacitus reports, Augustus being otherwise occupied was contented to wink, howbeit through earnest calling upon to recover his right by such as were desirous to see the uttermost of the British kingdom, at length to write in the 10th year after the death of Julius Caesar, which was about the thirteenth year of the said Theomantius, Augustus made provision to pass with an army over into Britain, and was come forward upon his journey into Gallia Celtica [i.e. Britanny], or as we may say into these higher parts of France...
[The page continues with discussion of the tribute owed to Rome, about which Shakespeare writes in his play of Cymbeline. Page 47 begins:]
... that Kymbeline, being brought up in Rome, and made a knight in the court of Augustus ever showed himself a friend to the Romans, and chiefly was loth to break with them because the youth of the British nation should not be deprived of the benefit to be trained and brought up among the Romans, whereby they might learn both to behave themselves like civil men and to attain to the knowledge of the feats of war...
[The page continues with the reign of Guiderius:]
Guiderius, the first son of Kymbeline (of whom Harrison says nothing) began his reign in the seventeenth year after the incarnation of Christ. This Guiderius being a man of stout courage, gave occasion of breach of peace between the Britons and Romans, denying to pay the tribute, and procuring the people to new insurrections, the which by one means of another made open rebellion, as Gildas [had done.] Whereupon the Emperor Caligula (as some think) took occasion to levy a power and as one utterly misliking the negligence (as he called it) of Augustus and Tiberius his predecessors, he meant not only to reduce the island unto the former subjection, but also to search out the uttermost bounds therof to the behoof of himself, and of the Roman monarchy....
[The page continues about Caligula’s plans to invade Britain.]
Full title: Raphael Holinshed, The firste [laste] volume of chronicles of England, Scotlande and Irelande. Conteyning the description and chronicles of England from the first inhabiting unto the conquest; the description and chronicles of Scotland from the first originall of the Scotts nation, till the yeare of our Lorde 1571; The description and chronicles of Yrelande likewise from the firste originall of that nation untill the yeare 1547. Faithfully gathered and set forth by Raphaell Holinshed. London, imprinted for George Bishop, 1577.