King Leir and his Daughters, Cordelia on the Right.

Leir, a legendary ancient king of the Britons in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, is often linked to the Welsh and Irish sea-gods Llyr and Ler (Celtic Leros = "Sea”). Geoffrey says Leir's father lived at the same time as the Biblical prophet Elijah, and that Leir founded Leicester (Cair Leir in Old Welsh). Leir’s kingship of Britain was the longest at sixty years. He had three daughters: Goneril, Regan - and Cordelia whom he favoured most. Nearing death, he planned to divide the kingdom among his daughters and their husbands. Goneril and Regan flattered him and married the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall. Cordelia refused to flatter him, so was given no land, but the king of the Franks still married her. When the dukes seized the whole kingdom, Lear fled to Gaul. Nearing insanity, he was nursed back to health by Cordelia. Leir, Cordelia, and the Franks invaded Britain and Leir reclaimed the throne for three more years. Cordelia succeeded, and buried him in the River Soar near Leicester.

Looking at the ancient roots of western societies, Shakespeare uses Lear like Theseus, as a focus for discussion of basic family relationships, adding a second family, Gloucester's, to enrich the exploration. Moreover, by introducing the later Anglo-Saxon names of Edgar, Edmund, and Oswald, Shakespeare adds a further layer of chronology, implying that the successful later King Edgar transcends Lear's excessive concern with formal justice. (See the essay after the Lear single-play bibliography.)

The illustration is from a 13th c. manuscript in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York: image and some data courtesy of the Yorck Project, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share- Alike License (Wikipedia)