ABSTRACT
The Chronicle History of King Leir, that are in Wales when this occurs is suggested by the fact that involvement of shockingly behaved Welshwomen in combat had been made notorious in Henry IV, Part 1. Cymbeline acknowledges both this alterity and this vulnerability to attack by having its early Britain. The question of whether Wales did or did not have such ties is one on which Cymbeline equivocates; allowing at least some scope for the dangerous possibility that to be British is indeed to be Brutish. John Curran detects 'a general tendency in Cymbeline for William Shakespeare to be fairly immune to the spell of Geoffrey and actually to advocate moving on from him'. Locrine, brings together the names of both the hero and the heroine of Cymbeline, and to consider Cymbeline as part of a family of plays which address not just past and long-gone British history but present and future issues of succession to the rule of Britain.
