ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the structure and implications of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles in relation to Edward Hall's Chronicle and the earlier accounts of Richard II's reign, focusing especially on what the author argues is the extended critique of child monarchy and strict primogeniture in Holinshed. These two most important English chronicles of the sixteenth century can be understood to embody in several significant ways a radical transformation of the chronicle history genre. In Edward III's case, despite his inherent virtues and his ability to overcome the debilitating instabilities created by a headless government under a child-king, either fortune, God, or both, brought him as much grief as glory, and left England vulnerable to similar future assaults. Having established the duties and responsibilities of the monarch implicitly through the history of Edward II, and the potential difficulties in having a child take the throne through the history of Edward III, Holinshed's chronicle moves on to the reign of Richard II.
