John Speed

Patronage

Speed came to the attention of learned individuals, among whom was Sir Fulke Greville: Greville, "perceiving how his wide soul was stuffed with too narrow an occupation" (as Thomas Fuller has it), thereafter made him an allowance to enable him to devote his whole attention to research:

[His] merits to me-ward I do acknowledge, in setting this hand free from the daily employments of a manual trade, and giving it his liberty thus to express the inclination of my mind, himself being the procurer of my present estate.

In around 1590 Speed was working with the Puritan scholar Hugh Broughton, and developing their work on the genealogies of Jesus Christ. By 1595 he published a map of biblical Canaan, and in 1598 he presented his maps to Queen Elizabeth. As a reward for these efforts, Elizabeth granted Speed the position of a Waiter (a customs officer):

Mr Fulke Greville has just brought me word of Her Majesty's pleasure that I should write you that there is a waiter's room of the Custom-house fallen in, which she has long determined might be bestowed upon John Speed, who has presented her with divers maps; she therefore desires you will bestow the place upon him, whom she takes to be a very sufficient man to discharge the same.

— William Killigrew to Lord Burghley

He was by then a scholar with a highly developed pictorial faculty. In 1600 he presented three maps of his own making to the Merchant Taylors, who hung them in their Hall or Parlour and made provision for them to be protected by curtains. This gift was remembered in 1601 when Speed sought a lease from the company on a property in Fenchurch Street, a request which failed owing to a higher claim:

he is a man of very rare and ingenious capacitie in drawing and setting forthe of mapps and genealogies and other very excellent inventions... three severall mappes of his own invention, which he freely gave unto this Companie...

In 1598 he contributed a genealogical and heraldic frontispiece to Thomas Speght's edition of the Works of Geffrey Chaucer, reprinted 1602.

Career

"I shall not fear to commend in the first place, that famous Man John Speed", wrote Degory Wheare in 1637. "He having travell'd over all Great Britain, read diligently all our own Historians, and those of our neighbour Nations, together with a diligent search in the Publick Offices, Rolls, Monuments, and Ancient Writings, or Charters, built up a Splendid and Admired Theatre of the British Empire; which, with great Expedition and Labour, he perfected in XIV. years..." In 1611–1612 the first collated edition of Speed's celebrated atlas and history of Great Britain was published, his son perhaps assisting Speed in preparing surveys of English towns. At the same time, with royal consent, his Sacred Genealogies became incorporated into the first editions of the King James Bible.

In May 1612 Prince Henry asked the Merchant Taylors for his lease on the Company's house in Fenchurch Street to be renewed for Sir Arthur Ingram, as reward for Ingram's good service as Master of the Customs House - which was granted, "to the prejudice" of their brother John Speed. In the 1611 conclusion of his History Speed wrote of "my disease growne dangerous, and life held in suspence." His friend Alexander Gill contributed one of the commendatory verses of the work to Speed, "being very sicke", and wrote that his "...cruell symptomes, and these thirteene yeers assay / For thy deare country, doth thy health & strength decay." (This dates the commencement of the project to about 1598, as Degory Wheare thought.) But it was as a very renowned person that in 1614 Speed negotiated for the Merchant Taylors the renewal of their lease of the gardens and "tayntor" grounds (racks for the drying of dyed cloths) in the prebendary lands at Moorfields, London which the Company held from the Chapter of St. Paul's.

In 1615 Speed requested of the Company the renewal and extension of the lease on a garden and tenement, granted by them in 1594 to George Sotherton, which Speed had since held and upon which he had built "a fayer house", but which he had afterwards surrendered to them with nine years of his tenure still outstanding. A new term of 31 years as from Christmas 1614 was approved. Speed then purchased an adjacent garden and plot of taynter to enlarge his own grounds, and in 1618 (after inspection by the Master and Wardens) obtained the Company's permission to annex it and to enclose it with a wall, together with another new lease. As the lease of the premises was later renewed to his heirs, it appears that this house and grounds remained John Speed's residence until his death.

During the same period Speed greatly enlarged his work on the sacred chronologies and genealogies, as A Clowde of Witnesses (1616, 2nd 1620): and after re-issue in various forms, his History and Theatre were newly presented as a Second, revised Edition, in 1623. In his last years, Speed was working on further revisions and adaptations of his atlas in other formats, and on the materials for his world atlas, which took shape as his Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World in 1627. He continued to maintain his annals, though by April 1626 he had become blind and suffered from the stone.

Death

John Speed died in July 1629 at the age of 77 or 78. He was buried alongside his wife (who had died in the previous year) in London's St Giles-without-Cripplegate church on Fore Street. According to Fuller, his funeral sermon was delivered by Josias Shute. A monument to John Speed was soon afterwards erected on the south side of the chancel of the church. (See Monument and epitaph below.)

Family

The pedigree for "Speed of Southampton", as prepared by the antiquary Benjamin Wyatt Greenfield in 1896, has the marriage of John Speed and Susanna daughter of Thomas Draper, Esq., of London, at its head, and shows the descendants of their son John. Although stating that Speed was born in 1542, and giving other dates which conflict with variant sources, it presents the names of six children. They are shown as:

• John Speed (1595-1640), M.D. (1628), studied at Merchant Taylor's School (1603–04), and was Scholar (1612), B.A. (1616), M.A. (1620) and Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. He married Margaret, daughter of Bartholomew Warner, M.D., of St John's College (Professor of Physic). John died testate in 1640 and is buried in the chapel of St John's College. Their sons:
  • John Speed was a student of St John's College, Oxford in 1652, and was Mayor of Southampton in 1681 and 1694.
  • Samuel Speed, D.D. of Christ Church, Oxford, died in 1674.
• Samuel Speed, Merchant Taylor of London, who married Joan, daughter of Richard Joyner, alias Lloyd, of Abingdon, and had a son Samuel who died in 1633
• Nathan Speed
• Joan Speed, who married John Hayley, Esq., of London
• Sarah Speed, who married Edward Blackmore, Esq., of London
• Anne Speed, who married Benjamin Wesley, citizen and Merchant Taylor of London

His arms, granted by William Camden, are: "Gules, on a chief or, two swifts volant proper". Crest: "On a wreath or and gules a swift volant proper." His monument, in the escutcheon within the broken pediment above the niche, shows these arms impaling "Azure a chevron Ermine between three estoiles Or."

From their funeral monument, it appears that John and Susanna Speed had 12 sons and 6 daughters in all.

Monument and epitaph

Wall monument

Richard Newcourt described the monument to John Speede at St Giles without Cripplegate. "...the famous Chronologer and Historiographer John Speed, lies buried here, and hath a Monument on the South-side of the Chancel, with this inscription on one side for him, and on the other for his Wife":

Piæ Memoriæ Charissimorum Parentum -
Johannis Speed, Civis Londinensis Mercatorum Scissorum Fratris, servi fidelissimi Religiarum Majestatum, Eliz., Jacobi & Caroli nunc superstitis: Terrarum nostrarum Geographi accurati, & fidi Antiquitatis Britannicæ Historiographi, Genealogii sacræ elegantissimi delineatoris, qui postquam Annos 77. superaverat, non tam Morbo confectus, quam Mortalitatis taedio lassatus, Corpore se levavit, Julii 28. 1629. & jucundissimo Redemptoris sui desiderio sursum elatus carnem hic in custodiam posuit, denuo cum Christus venerit recepturus.
(To the Pious Memory of Most Beloved Parents" – [that is to say,]
of John Speed, Citizen of London of the Brethren of Merchant Taylors, a very faithful servant of their Devout Majesties Elizabeth, James and Charles that now is: the accurate Geographer of our Lands, reliable Historiographer of the Antiquity of Britain, and most elegant delineator of the sacred Genealogies, who, after he had lived 77 years, not so much defeated by illness as wearied out by the burden of Mortality, arose from the Body on 28 July 1629, and, being borne aloft in the joyous desire of his Redeemer, he laid down his flesh here in keeping, to be received anew when Christ shall come.)

Susannae suae suavissimae, quae postquam duodecim illi filios, & sex filias pepererat quinquaginta septem annos junctis utriusque solatiis, cum illo vixerat; liberos gravi et frequenti hortamine, ad Dei cultum solicitaverat; Pietatis et Charitatis opere quotidiano praeluxerat, emori demum erudiit suo exemplo. Quae septuagenaria placide in Christo obdormivit, et Fidei suae mercedem habuit, Martii vigesimo octavo, Anno Domini MDCXXVIII.
(Also of his sweetest Susannah, who after she had borne him twelve sons and six daughters, lived jointly in companionship with him for fifty seven years; she encouraged her children in their duty to God by serious and frequent exhortation; she shone brightly in the daily work of piety and charity, and at last gave instruction by her example of how to surrender life. Who as a septuagenarian placidly fell asleep in Christ and received the reward of her faith on 28 March, in the Year of Our Lord 1628.)

Although the monument was damaged by enemy action in 1940–1941, an engraving of 1791 by John Thomas Smith shows how the panels carrying the inscriptions were originally disposed as if forming the opened hinged doors of a cabinet. The church's website notes that it was "one of the few memorials that survived the bombing" of this church during the London Blitz of 1940–1941: a modern plaque records that the monument was restored in 1971 by the Merchant Taylors' Company, in which John Speed was a citizen and brother.

Monumental brass

In 1944 Sir William Burrell and Constance, Lady Burrell included a monumental brass, stated to be for the cartographer John Speed, among their collection donated to the city of Glasgow. It is described as a tomb brass representing a full-length male figure, 62.7 cm tall, facing three-quarters to the right [i.e. his left side turned away], his hands joined in prayer. He has short hair with a trimmed beard and moustache, and wears a gown and cape over a buttoned tunic surmounted by a ruff. The expression "tomb brass" suggests that this figure may have belonged to a group set into the covering slab of a stone table tomb (as opposed to a floor matrix), an inference supported by the comparatively unworn condition of the engraving.

The latten is torn away at the toe, suggesting a forceful detachment, but the rivet-holes by which the brass was originally attached to its stone matrix are neatly preserved, suggesting careful removal. The position of the figure indicates that there was once a corresponding, facing plate representing a wife. The squared edge of the brass plate below the foot possibly rested against another brass plate bearing an inscription. The descriptions by Newcourt, Strype and Granger of Speed's monument agree with the text (including the words "On the other side of him" to introduce the inscription for Susanna) given in Anthony Munday's 1633 edition of Stow's Survey of London, and all clearly refer to the wall monument and inscriptions depicted by Smith and now remaining in restored form. If, however, the attribution of this brass to a tomb monument for John Speed is correct, it may enlarge the view of the original appearance of Speed's monument as it stood on the south side of the chancel of St Giles. The brass is on display in the Burrell Collection.

Interpretations

John Speed and William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare had near connections with St Giles, Cripplegate parish, of which John Speed was a parishioner. In his account of the reign of King Henry V, John Speed mentions that the character of Sir John Oldcastle, a Lollard martyr in Henry V's time, was falsely represented in the theatres as a stock buffoon and rogue. He wrote,

The author of The Three Conversions hath made Oldcastle a ruffian, a robber and a rebel, and his authority, taken from the stage players, is more befitting the pen of his slanderous report, than the credit of the judicious, being only grounded from this papist and his poet, of like conscience for lies, the one ever feigning and the other ever falsifying the truth.

The author of The Three Conversions was the Jesuit Robert Persons, and the references to the Lollard martyr Oldcastle are in the third part of the work. Speed is saying that Persons the Catholic author had infamously falsified the historical character of Oldcastle the Lollard martyr by representing him as the cowardly rebel portrayed in the late Elizabethan stage plays. Thomas Fuller, in his Church-History of Britain (1655), evidently echoes Speed where he remarks:

Stage-poets have themselves been very bold with, and others very merry at, the memory of Sr John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon Companion, a jovial Royster, and yet a Coward to boot, contrary to the credit of all Chronicles, owning him a Martial man of merit. The best is, Sr John Falstaffe, hath relieved the Memory of Sr John Oldcastle, and of late is substituted Buffoone in his place, but it matters as little what petulant Poets, as what malicious Papists, have written against him."

While Shakespeare's character of Sir John Falstaff is evidently based on the stage-Oldcastle model, under a different name, the inference drawn by some editors (since Nicholas Rowe) that Speed was referring specifically to Shakespeare, or (if he was), that he intended to associate Shakespeare directly with Robert Persons and his Catholic sympathies, has long been debated. Possibly, Speed was referring to the author of a different play in which the Oldcastle figure appeared by name. A summary of the argument was presented by Edmond Malone's editors.

John Speed's maps and associated commentaries are sometimes employed for the interpretation of William Shakespeare's plays. Speed's historiography employs "theatrical metaphors" and makes use of medieval mythical content.

Appreciation

In later years, Robert Sheringham (who recited Speed's text to his map of the Isle of Wight) referred to him as "summus et eruditus Antiquarius" (a foremost and erudite antiquary), and he was called "our English Mercator"; "a person of extraordinary industry and attainments in the study of antiquities" (by William Nicolson); an "honest and impartial historian... who was furnished with the best materials from some of the most considerable persons in this kingdom" (by Stephen Hyde Cassan), a "faithful Chronologer" (in a text of 1656), and "our Cheshire historian...a scholar...a distinguished writer on history" (by Charles Hulbert). Richard Newcourt called him a "celebrated chronologer and historiographer"; James Granger observed, "his History of Great Britain was in its kind incomparably more complete than all the histories of his predecessors put together."

"And thus" (says Thomas Fuller), "we take our leaves of Father Speed, truly answering his name, in both the acceptions thereof, for celerity and success."

Persistence

His maps were used in high-income circles, and therefore Speed's influence was long-lasting and far-reaching. In 1673 and 1676 long after his death, other maps were published under his name obviously being counterfeits abusing the brand to represent the British Isles, the Chesapeake Bay region, and specifically Virginia and Maryland, the East Indies, the Russian Empire (then ruled by Peter the Great), Jamaica, and Barbados, and other locations. With these printings and many others, Speed's maps became the basis for world maps until at least the mid-eighteenth century: his British maps formed an important topographical resource long after their original publication.

Published works

• The Theatre of The Empire of Great Britaine, Presenting an exact geography of England, Scotland, and Ireland (London 1611–12). Full text (including the History) at Umich/eebo.
• Theatrum Imperii Magnae Britanniae, Latin Edition (London 1616). Page views at gallica (Bibliothèque Nationale Française).
• History of Great Britaine Under the Conquests of Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, 1st Edition (London 1611), text at Umich/eebo. Re-issue (London 1614) Second, Revised Edition (London 1623).
• The Genealogies recorded in the Sacred Scriptures according to euery family and tribe with the line of Our Sauior Jesus Christ obserued from Adam to the Blessed Virgin Mary (London 1611). 1636 printing bound into 1637 Robert Barker bible.
• A Cloud of Witnesses: and they the holy genealogies of the sacred scriptures. Confirming unto us the truth of the histories in Gods most holie word; and the humanitie of Christ Iesus 1st Edition (London 1616). Second Edition (London 1620), text at Umich/eebo.
• England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland: Described and Abridged with Ye Historic Relation of Things Worthy Memory: from a Farr Larger Voulume (London 1627) The "Farr Larger Volume" is The Theatre of The Empire of Great Britaine.
• A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World (London 1627)

Miscellanea

• In 1969, the first residential block to be completed on the Barbican Estate in London was named Speed House. All the Barbican's residential buildings are named after famous people with a connection to the locale.
• Speed's descendants included Sir Keith Speed, MP (1934–2018).