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Add MS 44839
- Record Id:
- 032-002017407
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002017407
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000037.0x00037f
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165150353.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 44839
- Title:
- Chart of the Thames estuary drawn by Robert Adams, showing existing and proposed defences on the Thames, against the Spanish Armada
- Scope & Content:
-
A pictorial chart of the Thames estuary, drawn in pen-and-ink with coloured wash, in 1588 by Robert Adams (b. 1540, d. 1595), architect and surveyor of buildings for Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), and endorsed across the end, in a contemporary hand, 'Thamesis Descriptio'. The chart shows the preparations undertaken to defend London against the Spanish Armada in the same year. Oriented to the south, with Kent marked uppermost and Essex below, the chart runs from Westminster on the right to Tilbury Hope at the mouth of the Thames on the left, passing Lambeth, Southwark, Deptford, Limehouse, Greenwich, the Isle of Dogs, Woolwich, Northfleet and Gravesend.
Lines radiating across the Thames indicate the position and reach of cannon that could be fired from nine batteries located between 'the olde Blockhouse' on Coalhouse Point and Woolwich. Also shown are two defence booms (chains of ship masts across the river), the first between Gravesend and Tilbury and the second at Lee Ness, just before Blackwall Reach. A force of about 25,000 men was gathered at West Tilbury, under the leadership of Robert Dudley (b. 1532. d. 1588), Earl of Leicester. It was envisaged that these men would defend the realm by engaging the Spanish in battle should they attempt to sail up the Thames and land.
Following the Battles of Gravelines (21 July-early August 1588) and the disruption of the Armada, it was feared that the Spanish fleet might regroup and attempt another invasion. On 8 August, Elizabeth journeyed down the Thames to Tilbury Camp to join the Earl of Leicester and review the assembled troops. Robert Adams added a 'Pricked Line' to the chart, made with pinholes, to indicate Elizabeth's progress to the camp.
A similar chart made by Adams in the same year, showing the military defences of London against attack by river, is now King's Maps VI 17.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
Medieval and Renaissance Women - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002017407", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 44839: Chart of the Thames estuary drawn by Robert Adams, showing existing and proposed defences on the Thames, against the Spanish Armada" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002017407
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002017407
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 roll
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100165150353.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1588
- End Date:
- 1588
- Date Range:
- 1588
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 700 mm. x 110 mm.
Foliation: f. 1.
Script: 16th-century secretary hand.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Robert Adams (b. 1540, d. 1595), architect and surveyor of buildings for Queen Elizabeth I: drawn by him in 1588.
Presented to the British Museum by Major Maurice Rawlence (b. 1885, d. 1945) on behalf of him and his four brothers and sisters, 2 January 1936 (see note, dorse).
- Publications:
-
A. J. Collins, 'The Progress of Queen Elizabeth to the Camp at Tilbury, 1588', British Museum Quarterly, 10 (1936), pp. 164-67.
John Summerson, 'Three Elizabethan Architects', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 40 (1957), 202-28 (p. 205).
Adrian H. W. Robinson, Marine Cartography in Britain: A History of the Sea Chart to 1855 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1962), pp. 31-32.
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1936-1945 (London: British Museum, 1970), pp. 1-2.
Sir Francis Drake: An Exhibition to Commemorate Francis Drake's Voyage Around the World, 1577-1580 (London: British Museum Publications Ltd for the British Library, 1977), no. 134.
Armada: 1588-1988: An International Exhibition to Commemorate the Spanish Armada, ed. by M. J. Rodriguez-Salgado (London: Penguin Books in association with the National Maritime Museum, 1988), no. 14.35 [exhibition catalogue].
Mary E. Hazard, Elizabethan Silent Language (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), p. 73.
Clark Hulse, Elizabeth I: Ruler and Legend (Bristol: University Presses Marketing, 2003), p. 107.
Elizabeth: The Exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, ed. by Susan Doran (London: Chatto & Windus in association with the National Maritime Museum, 2003), no. 239.
Peter Barber, 'Mapmaking in England, ca. 1470-1650', in The History of Cartography, III: Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. by David Woodward, 2 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), II, pp. 1589-1669 (p. 1611).
Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens, ed. by Susan Doran (London: The British Library, 2021), no. 134 [exhibition catalogue].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)