Jan Jansson; 1588 - 1664.

Also known as Johannes Jansonius, Jan was born in Arnhem in a publisher's family, he married the daughter of famed cartographer Jodocus Hondius, and soon set up his own book making business is Amsterdam. In partnership with his brother-in-law (Henricus Hondius) he published reprints of the Mercator atlases.
In appearance, Jansson's map are very similar to Blaeu's, in good part since he recycled Mercator's plates acquired by Blaeu from the Hondiuses; and also because he copied extensively the production of his chief cartography rival.
After his death, quite a few of his plates were acquired by Pieter Schenk and Gerald Valk, who continued printing them till 1683.
Of note:
- 1628: Atlas Minor (another remake of the 1607 Mercator's reduced maps).
- 1638: Atlas Novus, starting with only two volumes, grew up to six volumes,
was re-edited till 1666.
- 1647: Atlas Major, produced in four different languages till 1683.

Anglia Regnum.

This large map (19 9/16" X 15 ¼") was originally designed for the1636 edition of the Mercator/Hondius/Jansson Atlas.
It is directly derived from a 1634 J. Blaeu map (with the same title), itself strongly inspired from a 1622 J. Speed "The Kingdome of England" (itself quite similar to an earlier Saxton work).
The major difference with the Blaeu map being the addition of two coats of arms: Ireland and Scotland.
The present item seems to have been printed for the 1646 volume IV of a latin edition of the Atlas Novus.
Most of the place names and county lines are simply copied from the Speed masterpiece and are very up to date.
But its single most interesting feature is of course the crests: Ireland, Scotland. England,. and in the upper right corner: Great Britain. In 1603 James VI of Scotland inherited the Tudor throne of England and Ireland, of which he became king under the name of James I. The two political entities remained independent, they had their own parliament and flag. In an effort to pull together these two, the notion of Great Britain was created with a flag of the "united crowns" (the English red cross of St George over the white Scott cross of St Andrew) and the coat of arms of the two countries were combined: quarter by quarter: England, Scotland, Ireland, England.
Notes:
- Wales is not shown since it had been "absorbed" by England long ago at the end of the XIII the century.
- England arms still show the three Lily flowers, pretense of ruling France was not abandoned until 1801.
Latin text on verso.