He is best known for his once disputed but now acknowledged role as chief editor of and major contributor to the second edition of Holinshed's Chronicles (1587).
He is remembered for building Turvey House and sheltering the future martyr Edmund Campion there; for his impressive tomb in Lusk Church; and for the eulogy to him in Holinshed's Chronicles.
Though he is known for printing Holinshed's Chronicles for a group of wealthy stationers in 1577, he did not so under his royal patent, which he did not yet have.
In 1548 Reginald Wolfe, a London printer, conceived the idea of creating a "Universal Cosmography of the whole world, and there with also certain particular histories of every known nation."
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Shakespeare used the revised second edition of the Chronicles (published in 1587) as the source for most of his history plays, the plot of Macbeth, and for portions of King Lear and Cymbeline.
According to Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, following Hall's Chronicle and Holinshed's Chronicles, John Clifford, after the Battle of Wakefield, slew in cold blood the young Edmund, Earl of Rutland, son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, cutting off his head, crowning it with a paper crown, and sending it to Henry VI's Queen, Margaret of Anjou, although later authorities state that Rutland was slain during the battle.
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English fears and prejudices were deeply rooted, drawing on stereotypes as seen in Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles and politically edged material such as George Chapman's Eastward Hoe in 1605, offended King James with its anti-Scottish satire, resulting in the imprisonment of the playwright.
Holinshed was only one contributor to this work; others involved in its production included William Harrison, Richard Stanyhurst, and John Hooker.
Among the sixteenth-century luminaries who were familiar with the work and drew upon it in their own writings were John Leland, John Bale, Abraham Ortelius, Henry Sidney, Philip Sidney, Edmund Campion, Hooker, Holinshed, Hanmer, William Herbert and William Camden.