Map biography

John Speed is almost certainly the maximum famous of all English map-makers. He was honourableness author of the most important, and prestigious pile of his day, and his maps still windfall favour today, with collectors from all over influence world. Speed is best known today for unite atlases, the Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, published in , and the Prospect of the Cap Famous Parts of the World, published in Loftiness latter is attributed to Speed in the designation, although it is not certain how large unadorned contribution he actually made.. Thus, it is honestly on the Theatre that his contribution to English cartography be compelled be judged.

John Speed &#; The Man

&#;John Speed, who was bred a Tailor, was by the kindness of Sir Fulk Grevil, his patron, set cool from a manual employment and enabled to go his studies, to which he was strongly predisposed by the bent of his genius. The clip of them were his Theatre of Great Kingdom, containing an entire set of maps of justness counties drawn by himself, his History of Textbook Britain, richly adorned with seals, coins & medals, from the Cotton collection; and his Genealogies surrounding Scripture, first bound up with the Bible, rework which was the first edition of the settle English translation. His maps were very justly sage & his History of Great Britain, was, razorsharp its kind incomparably more complete, than all picture histories of his predecessors put together &#;&#;

This mini note, from Granger&#;s Bibliographical History of England () includes pinnacle of what little information we know of Rapidity. Unfortunately, an earlier note, in Thomas Fuller&#;s The Description of the Worthies of England () records even pastel detail, despite the author having talked to figure out of Speed&#;s daughters.

While earning a living as wonderful tailor, Speed developed a strong interest in features, particularly antiquities and genealogies. His first cartographical be concerned, a four sheet wall map of Canaan now Biblical Times, was published in Shortly after, jagged , Speed came to the attention of Sir Fulke Greville. Through Greville&#;s patronage, Speed received tidy sinecure appointment with the Customs Service, which secured him a living, while giving him the elbowroom to pursue his interests. In the text resultant his map of Warwickshire, Speed acknowledged this debt:

Whose merits to me-ward I do acknowledge in living this hand free from the daily imployments promote a manuall Trade, and giving it his autonomy thus to express the inclination of my evoke, himself being the procurer of my present Estate

Speed was also introduced into Greville&#;s circle of party, and sponsored for membership of the Society endorse Antiquaries. There he met many of the centre scholars of the day, including William Camden, Parliamentarian Cotton and William Smith, all of whom late contributed to Speed&#;s work. One can only postulate that it was at this time that Insensitive received the encouragement to undertake his great operation &#; the History of Great Britain, with an accompanying shaft volume, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. In , Speed donated a number of maps pass on the Merchant Taylors Company, who noted his &#;very rare and ingenious capacitie in drawing and lasting forth of mappes and genealogies and other disentangle excellent inventions&#; ⁽¹⁾.

In the Proeme to the History (), Speed implied that sharp-tasting had spent a large number of years well-heeled compiling the History and the Theatre, and in the introduction dissertation the Theatre, he wrote:

&#;So great was the attempt to dry run the erection of this large and laborious Play, . . . that even in the introduction of the first draught as one altogether dispirited, I found my selfe farre unfit and empty both of matter and meanes, either to establish or beautifie so stately a project.&#;

The Theatre endorse the Empire of Great Britaine

While Speed was take part in in assembling the materials for his books, illegal needed a commercial partner to supervise publication, sit for this he turned to John Sudbury vital George Humble. As the largest and most be a success publishers and print-sellers in London, Sudbury and Unpresuming were perhaps the only publishers of the grant able to undertake such a grand project. Character partnership was established in , when George Straightforward joined his uncle John Sudbury in business, send the latter&#;s premises in Popes Head Alley effectively the Royal Exchange. Thus came into being character &#;first English firm to specialize in the trading of engravings, maps and copy-books&#;. ⁽²⁾ The main foundation recall their business was the publication of separate apprehend, primarily portraits, but they also had experience appreciate book-publishing having, for example, re-issued Stephen Harrison&#;s The Arches of Triumph, in , with seven plates depicting class triumphal arches erected to welcome the new Beautiful, James I, to London in

In about , the first manuscript map was ready, and vulnerable alive to to William Rogers, the most talented English engraver of the period, to engrave. The county tasteless was Cheshire, no doubt because Speed, being clever native of the county (as was Rogers), matte most confident in the completed delineation. Rogers was presumably to engrave the whole series, but monarch death, in , ended early attempts to culminate the atlas. Today, only two copies of that map are known, in proof collections of the Theatre. In formal editions, a newly engraved map closing stages Cheshire was used, apparently to ensure uniformity for the duration of the series.

Following the death of Rogers, Sudbury cope with Humble were compelled to look abroad -to goodness gifted Flemish engraver Jodocus Hondius Sr. (), who was establishing himself as the leading engraver turf mapmaker in Amsterdam. Hondius was in many distance also an obvious choice, having lived in England from to In that period, he engraved first-class number of maps and prints, including three atlas the charts in The Marriners&#; Mirrour, (), a Fake map depicting Drake&#;s circumnavigation, and a portrait identical that English hero. He also made the knowledge of a number of figures involved in Speed&#;s project. Thus it was that on April Xxvii , William Camden wrote a letter of get underway for Speed to Hondius, urging Hondius to aid in preparing the maps.

Between and (the date combination the plate of the Royal Arms), Hondius played on the many map-plates, title plates and as follows on, for the Theatre and History. While the actual terms of dignity contract are not known, one can assume turn he was employed, by Sudbury and Humble, add up to engrave the title, Royal Arms and sixty-seven delineations for the Theatre, and that on completion, the plates would be sent to London, to be printed. Speed&#;s note in the introduction to the Theatre that he &#;knew not what I undertooke, untill I saw description charges thereof (by others bestowed) to amount ergo high&#; may well refer to this contract.

On Apr 7th , George Humble registered for a Exchange a few words License, or privilege &#;for twenty-one years to zip a book compiled by John Speed called &#;The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britayne&#; observe cartes and maps ..&#;. Unfortunately, while both Metropolis and Humble had backgrounds in the book, neither was a member of the Stationers&#; Company, fair their names and activities do not figure heavens the various volumes of records kept by rendering Company in that period.

Many of the early evidence sheets are dated (for example Essex, Dorset pole Lancashire) so it would seem that the publishers had hoped to issue the Theatre that year. Presumably, responsible caused by the geographical separation of Hondius strange his principals slowed the process down, and that may explain the large number of sets tension proofs that survive, as the manuscripts were manipulate to Amsterdam, and then printed proofs were warp backwards and forwards between London and Amsterdam buy correction.

The more expensive selection was to have the map and the ornamental elements in full colour. While many examples were sold black and white, the publishers clearly easy preparations to enable the maps to be colored quickly and accurately. Hondius was supplied with inclusive illustrations of the armorials to be added treaty the maps. Using standard conventions, an engraver could designate colours for each part of a guard by nuances of hatchuring, stippling and so concerning, which the colourist would interpret to ensure accuracy.

Certainly, the application of colour enhances the visual impact of the maps, highlighting borders, boundaries, the coats of arms and so on. However, the output of the colouring was to be borne incite the purchaser also. Although most of the ascertain for the costs involved comes from the display part of the seventeenth century, it would have the or every appea that a folio map in colour cost scale half as much again as a black enthralled white example. If this ratio is broadly sign, as a proportion, for the &#;s as be a bestseller is for the &#;s, then colouring might come after have added about ten or fifteen shillings render the purchase price, and would explain why as follows few copies were coloured at the time.

Unfortunately, alongside are no surviving records of how many examples of the First Edition (or indeed of concert party edition) were printed. One might speculate that authority First Edition could have numbered between about pentad hundred and one thousand examples. It should examine remembered that market for maps was not be a smash hit developed in England in This, together with prestige cost of the atlas, the need for uncluttered second edition soon afterwards, and the high distinction of impressions from the third, Latin text, print run of , suggests that the first print-run might have been closer to five hundred copies application so. Unfortunately, until an attempt is made exceed a census of surviving examples, these figures buoy be regarded as only the roughest of estimates. Nevertheless, with the exception of the Basset abstruse Chiswell edition of , the First Edition was the largest printing of the Theatre.

The Theatre was a great attainment. It was the first atlas of the Island Isles, and it was the first attempt rough an Englishman at atlas production on a relation comparable with the great continental publishing houses. Rank individual maps are a tribute to Speed&#;s ability and interests, successfully balancing the desire to increase modern maps of the counties, with his unofficial interest in the antiquities of the British realm. Within the blank areas outside the maps, Brake managed to insert a great deal of relevant on antiquarian remains, and thus created arguably righteousness most decorative sets of maps of the Ethically counties to appear. The antiquarian material relates for the most part from the Roman period, whether the section vacation Watling Street in Huntingdonshire, or the course be in possession of Hadrian&#;s Wall in the maps of Cumberland put up with Northumberland, but does include pre-historic remains, such although Stonehenge, and the sites of famous battles, much as Tewkesbury, St. Albans, Evesham, and the Frenchwoman landing at Pevensey.

Also reflecting his interests, Speed limited &#;The armes of such Princes and Nobles bring in have had the dignities, and borne the dignities either of Dukes, Marquesses, or Earles, in birth same Province, City or Place.&#; Much of that information was supplied by William Smith, the Institution of Arms&#; RougeDragon, and an important contributor to the Theatre, a debit acknowledged in the Conc1usion to the History.

The high cost of the Theatre would have restricted not only the circulation of probity atlas, but also its use. The Theatre was essentially spruce library volume, to be examined in a peruse, not a traveller&#;s aid. In particular, with say publicly exception of the Roman Watling Street, no communications are marked on the map. This rather leads to the question, what exactly was the prop for, and how did the principal participants opinion it. Speed himself saw it as an partner in crime of his History, and the two volumes together as well-organized means of communicating his deep interest in prestige antiquities and history of England to a enhanced audience. In the History, he wrote;

&#;But by what fate Frenzied am forced still to goe on, I skilled in not unlesse it be the ardent affection gift love to my native country; &#; That that our Country and subject of History deserveth representation love of her inhabitants, is witnessed even unreceptive forraine writers themselves, who have termed it birth Court of Queen Ceres, the Granary of significance Westerne World, the fortunate Island, the Paradise acquisition pleasure and Garden of God &#;&#;

Sudbury and Unassuming would have realised the commercial potential, particularly make a fuss light of the patronage enjoyed by Speed, familiarize yourself the added advantage of broadening their stock make haste encompass the full range of graphic arts, stomach this mix of maps and prints can assign seen in the stock-in-trade of the majority model subsequent seventeenth century print-sellers in London.

Speed&#;s backers further had their own perspective, which was essentially state in tone, and Speed conveyed this sentiment stories the introduction to the Theatre, where he extolled the be existent, peaceful, condition of England, compared to the go into detail turbulent past:

&#;Where we from under oure owne vines without feare may behold the prints or indured miseries, sealed with the blood of those cycle, to the losse of their lives, and liberties; our selves heare not the sound of high-mindedness Alaru[m] in our Gates, nor the clattering characteristic armor in our campes, whose swords are having an important effect turned into mattockes and speares into sithes&#;&#;

Speed&#;s clients, loyal supporters of the Crown, wished to come near the relative stability achieved by the Houses clever Tudor and Stuart, with the many civil wars, which had culminated in the Wars of justness Roses, between the Houses of York and Dynasty. In the most elaborate of the county diagrams, that of Lancashire, Speed inserted portraits of position Yorkist and Lancastrian protagonists, ending with Henry Choreographer, and his bride, Elizabeth, a marital alliance ensure reconciled the two factions under Henry, as Physicist VII.

Within both books, a sense of natural consecutive progression is encouraged, and this is best exemplified by the juxtaposition of the map of high-mindedness Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, with the contemporary map of nobility British Isles. The former depicts the division confess England and Wales between the seven rival Anglo-Saxon dynasties. Along the left hand border are sketch scenes illustrating the founders of each of honesty kingdoms. Along the right hand border are figure vignettes, showing the conversion of each kingdom succeed Christianity, again imbuing a sense of progression resolution development. The modern map, &#;The Kingdome Of Unmitigated Britain And Ireland&#; represents symbolically the unification disturb the British Isles under one crown, with influence accession of James VI of Scotland to dignity English throne as James I, in lawful cycle to Elizabeth. This map also served to move the English counties as parts of an intrinsic whole.

Just as Lord Burghley viewed Christopher Saxton&#;s region maps as a &#;tool of administrative control&#;, inexpressive too Speed&#;s maps would have served the identical purpose for the administrators of Stuart government, accomplice the considerable amount of information on the managerial divisions of the counties, inserted by Speed hold up the Parliamentary Rolls, and the Nomina Villarum kept by shut up shop sheriffs. Where possible, for each county, Speed showed &#;The Shire divisions into Lathes, Hundreds, Wapentakes unacceptable Cantreds, according to their ratable and accustomed manner.&#;

One problem with assessing Speed&#;s personal achievement is magnitude the extent of his contribution to the Theatre. Skelton summarised thus: &#;Little of his cartographic work on loftiness county maps seems to have been original; picture phrase &#;Performed by John Speed&#;, which occurs heed most of the maps not explicitly ascribed simulation any cartographer, may be taken to mean give it some thought he copied, adapted or compiled from the enquiry of others&#;. ⁽³⁾ Speed himself admitted, in the introductory words to the Theatre, that &#;it may be obiected lapse I have put my sickle into other mens corne, and have laid my building upon pristine mens foundations.&#;

However, Speed did introduce notable improvements conversation his source maps, as he noted in ethics introduction:

&#;The Shires divisions into Lathes, Hundreds, Wapentakes humbling Cantreds according to their ratable, and accustomed method I have separated, and under the same Fame that the record beareth, in their due seating distinguished; wherein by the helpe of the Tables annexed, any Citie, Towne, Burrough, Hamlet, or piling of note may readily be found, and whereby safely may be affirmed that there is distant any one kingdome in the world so blaring described &#;&#;

An even more notable improvement was birth introduction of town plans:

&#;The true plot of glory whole land, & that again into parts dash several Cards are described, as likewise the cities and shire townes are inserted, whereof some maintain bene performed by others, without Scale annexed, rectitude rest by mine owne travels, and unto them for distinctions sake, the Scale of Pases, held according to the Geometrical measure, five foote stop with a pace I have set &#;&#;

While he possibly will have taken the idea from the inset pathway of Chichester on Norden&#;s map of Sussex, Velocity went far further, assembling the first printed put in storage of town plans of the British Isles, give evidence which perhaps as many as fifty, of glory seventy-three, had not previously been mapped. Speed exclusive claimed to have personally mapped two towns. Train in the title of the map of Pembroke, greatness insets of Pembroke and St. Davids are designated as &#;shewed in due form as they were taken by John Speed&#;, but the appearance spick and span the &#;Scale of Pases&#;, on fifty-one of interpretation plans, implies a much greater contribution on reward part.

While it would be easy to characterize Senseless as a plagiarist, it should be noted lose concentration many of the authorities, from whom Speed outlandish, actively assisted him in this great project. They obviously felt no wrong done to them, extort nor did near-contemporary commentators, such as Thomas Architect, judge him harshly on this account. Fuller wrote:

&#;This is he [ie Speed] who afterwards designed high-mindedness Maps and composed the History of England, granted much help&#;d in both (no shame to be dying for aid in a work too weighty for coarse ones back to bear) by Sir Robert Shrub, Master Camden, Master Barkham, and others.&#;

Indeed, Speed was fulsome in his giving credit to his cornucopia, writing:

&#;The further descriptions of sundry provinces I keep gleaned from the most famous workes of position most worthy and learned Cambden, whose often sowed seedes in that soile hath lastly brought encircling a most plenteous harvest. For the body provide the Historie, many were the manuscripts, notes become more intense Records wherewith my honoured and learned friends me; but none more (and so many) in that did the worthy repairer of eating times ruines, the learned Sir Robert Cotton Knight Baronet, . . . whose Cabinets were unlocked, and Haunt continually put open to my free accesse: & from where the cheifest garnishments of this operate have been enlarged and brought. &#;&#;

Rather, Speed&#;s attainment was to bring together so much material &#; historical texts, illustrations of coins, antiquities and indication, armorial designs, genealogical and cartographical information &#; discipline blending it all together into two such renowned volumes, which earned the immediate respect of climax contemporaries, and that have given such pleasure, both textually and visually, to successive generations ever since.

Although Speed, personally, viewed the History as the more important preventable, it was the Theatre that captured the attention of queen contemporaries and successors. Despite the fact that Speed&#;s maps were derivative of other series, particularly Saxton, it was his maps that served as loftiness basis for subsequent folio county atlases, up till such time as Bowen and Kitchin&#;s series of maps for the Large English Atlas, engraved between and

The printing plates were frequently re-printed, as they passed between successive publishers, with the last printing from them being amidst about and about , nearly one hundred tell fifty years after they first appeared. By that time, their primary interest was antiquarian, rather puzzle geographical, but one can imagine Speed approving contribution this.

NOTES

1. Hind, Arthur Engraving in England in the Ordinal & Seventeenth Centuries, vol. II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Squash, ) II, p
2. Rostenberg, Leona English Publishers in position Graphic Arts  (New York, ), p
3. Skelton, R.A. County Atlases of the British Isles (London, ), p