Raphael Holinshed

Holinshed, Raphael, a distinguished chronicler, or rather collector of chronicles, was an Englishman, who seems to have been educated at one of the English universities, and to have taken orders in the church; but the only fact in his history known with tolerable certainty is that he died in 1580. In the six-volume 4to. edition of his Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, published in London in 1807-8, the portion relating to Ireland occupies the sixth volume. It consists chiefly of excerpts from Stanihurst, Cambrensis, Flatsburie, and Marlborough, continued to the end of the Desmond war, by John Hooker, alias Vowell, a native of Devonshire, who came to Ireland as agent for Sir Peter Carew, represented Athenry in the Parliament of 1568, and died about 1605. The real value of Holinshed's work "depends on its learning and research, which have made it an invaluable aid to all who have since undertaken to illustrate the early annals of England [the United Kingdom]."

Sources

16. Authors, Dictionary of British and American: S. Austin Allibone. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1859-'71.

124. Encyclopaedia Britannica. London, 1860.

164. Holinshed, Ralph: Chronicles. 6 vols. London, 1807-'8.