Winceham the vii. day of December. 1586. Your most humble in the Lord, IOHN HIGINS.[79] “I. HIGGINS TO THE READER. “Amongst diuers and sondry chronicles of many nations, I thinke there are none (gentle reader) so vncertaine and brief in the beginning as ours: at which I cannot but maruayle, sith at all tymes our Ilande had as learned wryters (some singuler men excepted) as any nation vnder the sunne. Againe, those which now are our best chroniclers as they report, haue great antiquities; but what they publish of late yeares may be enlarged in many places by chronicles of other nacions: whereby it is manifest they are either ignoraunt of the tongues, or els not giuen to the studie of that, which they most professe. For if they were, me-thinkes it were easie for them, with such antiquities as they brag they haue, to fetche our histories from the beginning; and make them as ample, as the chronicles of any other country or nation. But they are faine, in steede of other stuffe, to talk of the Romains, Greekes, Persians, &c. and to fill our histories with their facts and fables. This I speake not to the end I wold have ours quite seperate from other, without any mention of them; but I would haue them there only named, where th’ affayres of both countries, by warre, peace, truce, mariage, trafique, or some necessary cause or other, is intermixed. I haue seen no auncient antiquities in written hand but two: one was Galfridus of Munmouth, which I lost by misfortune; the other, an old chronicle in a kind of Englishe verse, beginning at Brute and ending at the death of Humfrey Duke of Gloucester; in the which, and diuers other good chronicles, I finde many thinges not mentioned in that great tome engroced of late by Maister Grafton; and that, where he is most barraine and wantes matter. But as the greatest heades, the grayest hayres, and best clarkes, haue not most wytte; so the greatest bookes, titles, and tomes, contayne not most matter. And this haue I spoken, because in wryting the Tragedies of the first infortunate princes of this Isle, I was often fayne to vse mine owne simple inuention, yet not swaruing from the matter: because the chronicles (although they went out vnder diuers men’s names) in some suche places as I moste needed theyr ayde, wrate one thing, and that so brieflye, that a whole prince’s raigne, life, and death, was comprysed in three lines; yea, and sometimes mine olde booke, aboue mentioned, holpe mee out when the rest forsoke mee. As for Lanquet, Stowe, and Grafton, [they] were alwayes nighe of one opinion: but the Floure of Histories somewhat larger: some helpe had I of an old chronicle imprinted the yeare 1515.