The third and FINAL STATE KNOWN BY ONLY THIS EXAMPLE of Jan Baptiste Vrients’ classic map of England, Wales and Ireland issued to celebrate the accession of James I to the throne. It first appeared in the English text edition of Abraham Ortelius’ ‘Theatre of the World’ published in 1606. On the death of Queen Elizabeth I in March 1603, James VI of Scotland inherited the throne. Along with uniting the Scottish and English thrones he claimed historical rights to the throne of France. The dedication of the English edition of the atlas is to “James by the grace of God, King of Great Britaine, France and Ireland” and was clearly made to cultivate sales. A similar claim appears on this map upper right on the first state.In 1608 Vrients published an Italian edition dedicated to the Pope. The Catholic Church did not recognise James I, a Protestant, as King of France then ruled by Henry IV. This was also the case for Ireland. Therefore Vrients issued variants of the map in which a pasted label re-written would be placed over the offending part of the map; this did however still leave one further reference to the claim still visible in almost all known examples. These are known as variants of the first state. All references to James I being King of France and Ireland were removed from the plate for the second state. Below these references in the upper right is an attractive family tree of the English royal family from William the Conqueror. Further editions were published through 1612, the year in which Vrients died. The plate was believed not to exist in any further state until in 1985 an example of the matching Irish map was located in the Braunschweig Municipal Library in a later state bearing the imprint of ‘Joannes Gallaeus’. Laslo Grof in ‘Cartographica Hungarica’ had already identified a similar imprint on Ortelius’ map of Hungary but in that case dated 1664. This date was given as a guide for the newly found Irish map. Then in 1995 van der Heijden recorded this example of the matching England, Wales and Ireland map as being found in the ‘Atlas Iprensis’, a composite atlas in a private collection in Belgium containing 68 maps. It was recorded that similarly the imprint of Joannes Galle replaces that of Vrients. Closer examination reveals that this appears to be the only alteration to the plate. Joannes Galle (1600-75) was the son of Theodore Galle (1571-1633) and was an engraver and publisher in Antwerp. He re-issued maps published by his father and grandfather Philippe Galle (1537-1612).The map itself is derived from the Anonymous map printed in London 1594 which itself is derived from that of Jodocus Hondius of 1592. The engravers are believed to the Arsenius brothers who have produced a magnificent map, one of the finest ever produced for the atlas. Its desirability along with the fact that it only appears in a handful of editions makes this one of the rarest. Provenance: ‘Atlas Iprensis’, private Belgium collection. Bonar-Law (2013) p. 17; Kelly (2007) ‘Maps of the British Isles, England and Wales, and Ireland’, in ‘Mappae Antiquae Liber Amicorum Günter Schilder’, pp. 221-38; refer Shirley (1991) no. 275, see also 164 & 177; refer Van den Broecke, M. (1996) no. 17; Van der Heijden, Hank (1995) ‘Atlas Imprensis, 1570-1639’, in Caert Thresoor 14 no. 2 pp. 25-34, no. 13.