Two Sixteenth Century Maps of Kent with further notes on Early Road-Books

( 48 ) TWO SIXTEENTH CENTURY MAPS OF KENT WITH FURTHER NOTES ON EARLY ROAD-BOOKS. BY E. G. BOX. THE two maps are (1) the thumb -naU map of Kent on a Playing Card dated 1590,1 and (2) the map of Kent in a smaU atlas of great rarity engraved by Peter Keer, dated 1599.* I have added some further notes on Kent in three seventeenth century road books about which I wrote in Arch. Cantiana, XLIV, including a suggestion that the new maps in A Direction for the English Traviller, published in 16433 were prepared for mihtary use by officers of the Parhamentary armies in the Civil War which commenced in August, 1642. IncidentaUy I have described the Quartermaster's Map, dated 1644 which was engraved and sold expressly for use in the Civil War. {1) THE PLAYING CABD MAP OE KENT. This thumb-naU map is engraved on a Playing Card, one of a sheet of fifteen cards, thirteen of which have engraved on them simUar thumb-naU maps of the Enghsh counties. This sheet, with two others simUar, has lately been acquired by the Royal Geographical Society, who have had two of the sheets reproduced, including the one with the map of Kent. The date 1590 is engraved on one of the fifteen cards. There was originaUy a fourth sheet now lost. No other copy of these Playing Cards is known. 1 Plate I. 2 Plate II. These two plates are reproduced (by leave of the Trustees) from copies in the British Museum. 3 Arch. Cant., XLIV. Plate VII reproduces the map of Kent in A Book of the Names, etc., 1665. This map is the same as in A Direction, 1643, being from the same engraved plate. MlDDLESEXtbxrff ***!**/&, In Quantitii fuffirudl 12 $• fa Ctrruitr 81 hLryri/rtm Btrbftmr to Rflpc *t • b Rrrtithjrom Knt ro HartforJJhrr H • "x -M f O OLE 5 EX"/iWry iM'v"ik-t yi/Snrff- [',-IU-KTtb Cantii. South cxix.Surxic.ci cxiac.eo PLATE II. PETER KEERVS MAP OF KENT. SUSSEX, SURREY AND MIDDLESEX. 1599. (Reproduced by leave of the Trustees of the British Museum.) Harl. 3813, No. 7. f. 32. (Actual size.) WITH NOTES ON EARLY ROAD-BOOKS. 51 Atlas, 1579. Its title in Keer's atlas is " Cantu, Southsexiae, Surriae et Middlesexiae Co." The map measures less than 4f inches by 3 | inches. By itseU the map of Kent is very smaU, measuring only 2f by 1\ inches. I have a copy of this atlas with forty-four maps, the copy in the British Museum having only thirty-seven. Neither copy has a title page. The authorship of the atlas and its date has been inferred from the fact that aU the maps (including that of Kent) were engraved by the same hand and some of the maps are signed by Peter Keer—" Petrus Kaerius caelavit " and some are dated 1599. The map of Kent, etc., is not signed nor dated. The maps of Scotland are derived from Ortelius's map, 1595, and the maps of Ireland from Boazio's map, 1578-80. There is an uncoloured copy of Keer's map of Kent, etc. in Camden's Angliae, Scotiae Hiberniae, etc. . . . Descriptio, 1617, and a larger map of Kent by itseU in Speed's England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, Described and Abridged, etc., 1627, which also it would seem was engraved by Keer.1 A DIRECTION EOR THE ENGLISH TRAVILLER, 16432 AND THE CIVIL WAR, 1642-1648. An interesting question in connection with the new edition of A Direction pubhshed in 1643 is whether its larger maps were prepared for the use of soldiers in the CivU War. It is well known that Thomas Jenner,8 the London bookseUer who had it prepared for sale in 1643 prepared 1 See Chubb's Atlases, 1627, p. 16 et seq. The date, 1620, assigned to a copy of Speed's book is certainly incorrect. The copy to which this date is assigned in the British Museum has the title page cropped, losing the date, but I have a copy not cropped with the date 1627, whioh corresponds in collation to Chubb's No. XI and does not correspond to Chubb's XII. 2 See Arch. Cant., XLIV, Plate VII. The map of Kent in A Book of the Names, 1668, is the same as the map of Kent in A Direction, 1643. 3 Thomas Jenner was a London bookseller who sold tracts and books for the Parliament. He has been described as " one of the Commonwealth men" (Plomer, English Printing, 1900, p. 190). He printed some of Milton's Tracts ; Also Three Letters out of the North, 1648 ; A Copy of the Letter from the Lord-Qenerall Cromwell, 1656, and Former Ages never heard of, and After Ages will Admire, or A Brief Review of the most Materiall Parliamentary Transactions, 1656. 5 2 TWO SIXTEENTH CENTURY MAPS OF KENT, expressly for military use the Quartermaster's Map. This large map of England and Wales in six sheets is dated the foUowing year (1644). Its title page declares that the map be " VsefuU for aU commanders for Quarteringe of souldiers & aU sorts of Persons that would be informed where the armies be."1 But the new title page of A Direction makes no such claim. It only repeats with an altered date and the name of a new pubhsher the title page of the earher edition of 1636,2 which declared that the thumb-naU maps and tables of distances would enable the traveUer " to coast about aU England and Wales." In 1643, however, there can have been few peaceful traveUers who wanted new maps wherewith to coast about England and Wales. The need of the moment was for maps for mihtary use. The Civil War began in August, 1642, and soon aU England was taking sides either on behaU of King or of the ParUament. It would seem probable that if Thomas Jenner was employing Wencelaus HoUar to engrave his Quartermaster's Map for express mihtary use to be published in 1644, he is hkely to have employed him or some other engraver to engrave the smaller maps of A Direction to be published in 1643 for a similar purpose. There must have been soon after August, 1642, when the Civil War began, an urgent demand for maps of those counties in which there were Ukely to be mihtary operations. At that date there were few maps in existence which could have been used by mUitary commanders. The great foUos of Saxton, Speed and Camden could not have been used in the field. Keer's Atlas of 15993 or the maps in Speed's abridged descriptions of England of 1627 might have been used, but the maps are not much bigger than the new ones in A Direction. These when folded and bound in a compact form could have been more easUy carried in a coat pocket than any others known to have been in existence in 1643.4 In none of the 1 Geographical Journal, 1927, p. 60, an article by Sir George Fordham. 2 Arch. Cant., XLIV, Plate III. 3 Plate II. 4 My copy of A Direction, 1643, measures only 6 inches by less than 3 inches. WITH NOTES ON EARLY ROAD-BOOKS. 53 maps mentioned are marked any roads, but the smaUest of them indicate what was the relative position of towns. This, in the absence of roads, must have been their main use. The strongest evidence that Thomas Jenner in 1643 brought out the new edition of A Direction for mihtary use is the fact that it was brought out in a hurry. This hurry is evidenced by the fact that though the pubhshed catalogues1 of road-books describe one edition only of A Direction, 1643, there were in fact in aU three issues of that edition, two of which were prior to the editions recorded in the books. These two are not mentioned in any book. Both of these earher issues were issued in an incomplete form, one after the other, with an interval between their pubUcation. Both contained two kinds of maps, some the new better maps, and some the old thumb-naU maps of the edition of 1636.2 The maps of the counties in these three issues are as foUows :— 1. Twenty-five new maps, and thirteen old ones. 2. Thirty new maps and eight old ones. 3. Thirty-eight new maps, and no old ones. I know of two copies only of these two early issues, one which is a copy of the first issue, is in private hands, the other which is a copy of the second issue, is in the Bodleian Library. It is certain that Thomas Jenner would not have sold incomplete issues of his new edition unless there was an urgent demand for the new maps, which in 1642-1643 could only have been a demand for military use. AU the new maps, hke the old ones, were engraved. When the engraver had engraved twenty-five maps and had thirteen left to do, some demand caused Thomas Jenner to bind up the book with the twenty-five new maps in it and thirteen old ones. At a later date when the engraver had engraved only five more of the new maps a further demand arose and Thomas Jenner bound up the thirty new maps which then were ready, with eight old thumb-naU ones. At 1 Chubb, Atlas, 1927, 54 ; Fordham, Catalogue of Road-books, 1924, 8. 2 Arch. Cant., XLIV, Plate V. 54 TWO SIXTEENTH CENTURY MAPS OF KENT, a stiU later date, when the engraver had had time to engrave the remaining eight new maps, the book in a complete form with its thirty-eight new maps was bound up and sold in the form recorded in the books. It must have been an urgent demand which induced a bookseUer who had begun to re-engrave a new edition of a road book of 1636, to seU two incomplete issues of his new venture. That the War was the cause of this demand is proved, I think, by the fact that the new maps were not re-engraved in the alphabetical order in which they are both in the earher edition of 1636 and in the edition of 1643 in its final form, but were engraved to some extent in accordance with the course of the War. The twenty-five new maps of the first of the two incomplete issues, included aU the southern counties except Devon and Somerset. Essex was a new map, but not the rest of East Anglia. These would have been the maps most in request by the officers of the armies of the Parhament in the Autumn of 1642 and the Winter of 1642-1643. The eastern counties were mainly for the Parhament and were undisturbed by war, but the southern counties were either entirely for the King or were the scene of active warfare. In the second incomplete issue Devon and Somerset were new maps. In both of the early issues the five northern counties and Herefordshire, Staffordshire and Suffolk were stUl the old thumb-naU maps. These eight counties were represented by new maps in the final issue of the new edition of 1643. This progressive pubUcation seems to agree to some extent with the course of the War. It must have been a somewhat slow business. Not only had thirty-eight maps to be engraved, but part of each old engraved plate had to be erased, including not only the old thumb-naU maps, but part in most cases of the Tables of Distances which in the edition of 1635 and 1636 reproduced the original tables invented and pubUshed by John Norden in 1625. WITH NOTES ON EARLY ROAD-BOOKS. 55 It is clear that in his new edition, Thomas Jenner thought the maps to be more important than the rest of the book. The engraver was aUowed to erase any part of the Tables which interfered with the new maps including even the outer hne of figures which gave the distances to London from the twenty-six towns in each county and which had been added to A Direction in the second issue of the edition of 1636 only seven years earher. In this way the engraver in most cases (though not in the case of Kent) erased figures even in the midst of the tables in order to insert outlying names of towns. In one case he erased ten out of fifteen columns of figures. This was for his new map of Essex, but this, in its mutilated form, is included only in one of the two early issues. In the final issue of 1643 these erased columns and figures were re-engraved and squeezed in among the names of towns. These erasures did not provide sufficient room for the new maps to be properly orientated, so that these were in most cases placed diagonaUy and even in one case upside •down. There is perhaps other evidence of hurry discernible in the new maps in their want of uniformity. A third of the thirty-eight maps are different in one or two respects to the others, having the names of the counties inserted in the middle of the maps, and in some of these maps the names of the adjoining counties or of some of them inserted at the sides. Kent, however, is not peculiar in these respects, nor have the figures of the Table of its Distances suffered as in most of the other maps.1 The fact of the issue of the new edition in three consecutive forms suggests that though the title page bears the •date 1643, the new maps were in course of engraving at an earher date. The precise date of the appearance for sale of the new edition in 1643 is not, so far as I know, recorded, but it may be that Thomas Jenner instructed the engraver in the Autumn or Winter of 1642, soon after the 1 See Arch. Cant., XLIV, Plate VII. The map reproduced from A Book, 1668, is the same engraved map as in A Direction, 1643. 5 6 TWO SIXTEENTH CENTURY MAPS OF KENT, commencement of the CivU War. This is conjecture, but the facts stated seem to support it. How long the process of erasure of the old and engraving of the new thirty-eight maps lasted is again a matter for conjecture only, but it lasted long enough to make it worth the whUe of Thomas Jenner to bind and seU the new maps in two incomplete forms. The copy of the first of the two early issues which I have seen, though incomplete, is carefuUy bound and is, I think, in its original sheep-skin covers. The Quartermaster's Map, 1644, must have been of much more use to soldiers than A Direction though much more cumbersome to carry in the field. The map of Kent in it is twice as large as the one in A Direction, 1643. The latter embraces tiny bits of Essex, Middlesex, Surrey and Sussex, while the sheet of the Quartermaster's Map which includes Kent, includes parts of Essex and WUtshire, Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and aU of Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. The map which is one of England and Wales in six sheets was intended for use out of doors. It was sold bound " in a veUum case eight inches long by three inches broad . . . fit for the pocket." My copy of the later edition of 1688 corresponds to the advertisement of the first edition of 1644, except that its original covers are of rough leather with the original metal clasps stiU intact. But each of the six sheets is tattered and torn by hard usage. Eight inches of each is stUl fastened to the covers, but the rest, though surviving, was long ago torn from the upper portion of each sheet. Copies of the map of 1644 used by Quartermasters on active service must soon have become simUarly torn and battered, for Quartermasters who were commissioned officers had the onerous duties of the quartering, that is biUeting the army, obtaining provisions and forage, and sometimes searching and obtaining horses.1 1 Peacock, Army Lists of Roundheads and Cavaliers, 1863, pp. 22-28 ; Firth, Cromwell's Army, 1902, p. 42 ; Designs of tlie Rebels in Kent, 1648. WITH NOTES ON EARLY ROAD-BOOKS. 57 It is difficult to estimate the use of these maps in the CivU War. Very few maps had any roads marked on them. Symonson's map of Kent of 1596 is an exception, but it could hardly have been used out of doors. Yet in the seventeenth century even the thumb-nail maps of A Direction, 1636 were thought to be of use to the peaceful traveUer, and therefore not without use to the soldier. If these skeleton maps with the position of the towns indicated only by their initial letters were useful, the soldiers of 1643 must have found the larger maps of the edition of 1643 more useful, and yet more useful the still larger Quartermaster's Map. It may be that the use of these roadless maps, even the smaUest of them, was to indicate the position of towns in relation to natural features such as hUls, woods and rivers and to other towns. In Kent, in 1642, a troop of horse was sent from London by the Parhament to search the houses of suspected malignant squires for arms and horses. Many vUlages in West Kent are named in contemporary orders sent by the deputylieutenants to a chief agent at Tonbridge. Hadlow, Pembury, Peckham, Teston, Earleigh, Aylesford, MaUing, Ightham are named as places to be searched for malignants.1 The map of Kent in A Direction marks none of the villages named except MaUing, though it marks Tonbridge, Maidstone and Rochester. Keer's map of 1599 gives no more help. Symonson has aU the names but is too big for outdoor use. The Quartermaster's Map, not in existence in 1642 or 1643, marks most of the vUlages. Lambarde's Carde of this Shyre, though a smaU map, marks aU the vUlages named and folded in a case would have been convenient to carry on horseback in a pocket. At a later date in the CivU War, when Fairfax marched from Eltham to the " storming of Maidstone " along the hne of the Dover Road, and turned south at Northfleet and marched south in two days by Meopham and MaUing to Farleigh Bridge over the Medway, the map of Kent in A Direction, 1643 would have given his officers their direction,. 1 Proceedings in Kent, 1642-1646, Camden Miscellany, Vol. 3. 5 8 TWO SIXTEENTH CENTURY MAPS OF KENT, though neither Meopham nor Farleigh are in the map. The Quartermaster's Map, 1644, then avaUable and probably to be found in the knapsacks of every Quartermaster, would have been useful, as it gives ah the places his army touched.1 LIST OF EARLY ROAD-BOOKS CONTAINING MAPS OF KENT. 1. 1635. A Direction for the English Traviller. Imprint: " sold by Mathew Simons." Map : Thumb-nail (engraved) names of places indicated by letters only. (See Arch. Cant., XLIV, 1. Chubb : Atlases, 1927, p. 53, XLIV. Fordham, Catalogue of Road-books, p. 8.) 2. 1636. The same, with same imprint and map. Two issues, one with additional figures giving the distances to London. (See Arch. Cant., XLIV, 1 and p. 49, ante; Chubb, p. 53, XLV, Fordham, p. 8.) 3. 1643. The same, with same imprint, but larger map with names of places in full. (See Arch. Cant., XLIV, 1 and p. 50 ante; Chubb, p. 54, XLVI. Fordham, p. 8.) As to two early issues containing both thumb-nail maps and larger maps, see ante, p. 53 et seq. [As to editions of A Direction, 1645 and 1650, with the larger maps, and imprint, " John Garrett," see Chubb, p. 54. These are not in Fordham which gives two editions of 1677 and 1680 from the Term Catalogues. The editions 1645 and 1650 (Chubb, p. 54, XLVII and XLVIII), whose title pages are undated, are probably wrongly dated, as Garrett's name is not in the Term Catalogues until 1676.] 1 The " storming of Maidstone" on a wet June evening—the fight lasted from 7 till 1 a.m.—was, so Fairfax said in his report to the Parliament, through narrow streets—' 'the strongest fortified and stoutliest defended of any I have known in the late unhappy wars." The royalists, badly led, had not fortified Farleigh bridge, but even across the Medway the fight was for a mile through " barricaded lanes," by hedges " loyn'd with Musqueteers " and house by house, where the royalists " shot out of windows and at doors." The royalists lost 200 men killed and 1,400 taken prisoners. (Contemporary Tracts, 1648 ; Arch. Cant., IX, 31; Hasted, IV, .269 ; Gardiner, Great Civil War, 1893, IV, 139-142.) WITH NOTES ON EARLY ROAD-BOOKS. 59 4. 1657. A Book of the Names of all Parishes, etc. Imprint: " M.S. for Thomas Jenner." Map : The same engraved map as No. 3. This edition, and the two foUowing 1662 and 1668, has the engraved title page with date 1643 as in No. 3, and the printed title page, dated 1657. (See Arch. Cant., XLIV, 1, Plates VI and VII. Chubb p. 54 ; Fordham, p. 10.) NOTE.—Copies without the printed title page are probably defective. 5. 1662. The same as No. 4 with same imprint and map, and two title pages. (See Arch. Cant., XLIV, 1 ; Chubb, p. 55 ; Fordham, p. 10.) 6. 1668. The same as No. 5 and same references. 7. 1677. The same as No. 5, but imprint" S.S. for John Garrett." (See Chubb, p. 56. Fordham, p. 10.)