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Updated: June 19, 2025
All the speeches made by the challengers and defenders are reported by Holinshed, who thus winds up his description of the first day's triumph: "These speeches being ended, both they and the rest marched about the tilt-yard, and so going back to the nether end thereof, prepared themselves to run, every one in his turn, each defendant six courses against the former challengers, who performed their parts so valiantly on both sides, that their prowess hath demerited perpetual memory, and worthily won honour, both to themselves and their native country, as fame hath the same reported."
Old Holinshed tells us, that "the gallery or place at the end of the tilt-yard, adjoining to her Majesty's house at Whitehall, where, as her person should be placed, was called, and not without cause, the Castle or Fortress of Perfect Beauty, for as much as her highness should be there included." And he also gives a curious description of the framework used by the besiegers of the fortress.
This sequence is supposed to be retained in other of the sisters' speeches; but a perusal of these will soon show that it is only in the second of the above quotations that it is recognizable with any definiteness; and this, it must be remembered, is an almost verbal transcript from Holinshed, and not an original conception of Shakspere's, who might feel himself quite justified in changing the characters of the speakers, while retaining their utterances.
If this be so if it can be proved that the supposed "goddesses of Destinie" of the play in reality possess no higher powers than could be acquired by ordinary communication with evil spirits, then no weight must be attached to the vague stage direction in the folio, occurring as it does in a volume notorious for the extreme carelessness with which it was produced; and it must be admitted that the "goddesses of Destinie" of Holinshed were sacrificed for the sake of the witches.
Allowance must also be made for the fact that the gospel is written in the Greek language, whilst the first-hand traditions and the actual utterances of Jesus must have been in Aramaic, the dialect of Palestine. These distinctions were important, as you will find if you read Holinshed or Froissart and then read Benvenuto Cellini.
Still another feature may have been acquired from the Macbeth story. It is said that Hroar and Helgi were transferred to a neighboring island. Holinshed says that Donaldbane fled to Ireland. The Macbeth story has been treated by a number of chroniclers, who, though they agree in the main, occasionally disagree in regard to details.
In the yere of our Lord 1172 was founded the abbey of Stanlaw by the lord Iohn Lacy Constable of Chester, and lord of Halton, who deceased in the Holy land the yere following: which was in the twentieth yere of king Henry the second. The voyage of William Mandeuile to Ierusalem. Holinshed pag. 101. A great supply of money to the Holy land by Henry the 2.
This tragic affair so touched the imagination of the time that not only did Holinshed relate it in detail, but some unknown writer who, by not a few, has been taken for Shakespeare himself, used the story as the plot for a play. Arden of Faversham, according to the dramatist, was a noble character, modest, forgiving, and affectionate.
He must be instigated from without, if the deed is not to be put off until the Greek calends. Lady Macbeth from the very beginning feels it her task to strengthen her laggard and doubting husband in his ambition. This Shakespeare had already found in Holinshed.
The portraits begin with that of bluff King Hal, very bluff and strident. According to Mr. Hare's account, which he has taken from Holinshed, Henry VIII. got St. James's when it was an hospital for "fourteen maidens that were leprous," and having pensioned off the sisters, "reared a fine mansion and park" in the room of the hospital.
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