Note 219 — CRIPPLESGATE WARD

“Reyne Wolf, a grave antiquary, collected the great chronicles, increased and published by his executors, under the name of Ralph Holonshead.”—Stow.

The first edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was printed for John Harrison the elder in 1577. From Holinshed’s dedicatory epistle to Lord Burleigh, it would seem that Reginald Wolfe projected and even executed the greater part of the work, it having “pleased God to call him to his mercie after xxv. years travail spent therein.” Wolfe, in fact, intended to make these Chronicles the foundation of “An Universall Cosmographie of the Whole World.”