Great Britain's Coasting Pilot: Carto-iconography in a baroque sea-atlas

The notion that Britain has only been successfully invaded twice, by the Romans and the Normans, while commonly expressed, remains a subject of speculation and debate. The events of the Dutch invasion of 1688, known as the “Glorious Revolution”, can be viewed from multiple historical or political perspectives and this study aims to explore one way in which the events of 1688 were narrated, examining the depiction of events and personalities involved from a cultural and cartographic perspective. The propaganda fight of the period was intense, from both Jacobite and Williamite sides and amongst the propaganda was the timely coincidence of a small naval operation, established by Charles II in 1681, to map the coastline of Great Britain. It is the result of this survey, Great Britain's Coasting Pilot, the proto-atlas of the British coastline, surveyed and drawn by Captain Greenvile Collins of the Merlin, Monmouth and Mary yachts and published in 1693, that forms the subject of this dissertation. Great Britain's Coasting Pilot resonates with the political moods of the era. Artistic elaboration mixes with scientific advances in cartography and a web of connections to the political and naval elite of the nation. This study of the intersections of art and cartography aims to uncover new levels of meaning and political leaning in a work which is every bit as much a mapping of times as of places. The atlas is explored in its political, cartographic and artistic context, and the symbolism and propaganda subtext of the major figures featured as dedicatees is examined. The publication sits at the boundary of a visual shift in hydrographic mapping, between the baroque and enlightenment approaches, but as a propaganda work it remains both politically and artistically part of a revolution.