King Lear

I wonder why the setter of this question didn't mention that it was about a fictional, or at least legendary, character.

In the words of Wikipedia: "Leir was a legendary king of the Britons whose story was recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical 12th–century History of the Kings of Britain. According to Geoffrey's genealogy of the British dynasty, Leir's reign would have occurred around the 8th century BC, around the time of the founding of Rome. The story was modified and retold by William Shakespeare in his Jacobean tragedy King Lear."