A beautifully coloured map of Northamptonshire, with inset maps of Northampton and Peterborough, and a vignette with text of the Battle of Edgecote Moor, where Richard Neville, Duke of Warwick, defeated Edward IV during the Wars of the Roses.

John Speed (1552-1629) was the outstanding cartographer of his age. His ‘Theatre of Great Britain’ was the first atlas of the British Isles: Speed prepared the maps himself about two years before they were published. His maps and books dominated the seventeenth-century English market. The present map is taken from the 1627 English edition published by George Humble.