Emery Molyneux - Later Life

Later Life

In the 1590s, Molyneux sought Elizabeth I's patronage for the production of a cannon, which he described as his "new invention, of shot and artillery, to be used principally in naval warfare: protection of ports and harbours, a new shot to discharge a thousand musket shot; with wildfire not to be quenched". In March 1593, Molyneux was issued with a royal warrant. Two years later, the merchant Robert Parkes purchased coal, saltpetre, pitch, oils and waxes for him, possibly for the cannon. On 4 November 1596 the Privy Council urged the Lord Admiral "to speak to Molyneux, Bussy and the two Engelberts about their offensive engines" as part of measures to defend England's south coast. It appears the request was ignored. On 27 September 1594, the Queen granted Molyneux a gift of £200 and an annuity of £50. He chose to surrender the latter when, some time between March or April 1596 and 4 June 1597, he and his wife Anne emigrated to Amsterdam, Holland. Wallis has conjectured that he took with him the printing plates for the globes and sold them to Hondius, who had returned to Amsterdam in 1593.

Why Molyneux left England for Holland is unclear. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography suggests it was to be able to personally distribute his globes to European princes, since Amsterdam was then quickly establishing itself as the centre of globe- and map-making. However, this could not have been his intention if he had sold the globes' plates to Hondius. It is possible that he had decided to concentrate on manufacturing ordnance. On 26 January 1598, the States-General, the parliament of the United Provinces, showed interest in Molyneux's cannon and granted him a 12-year privilege on an invention. On 6 June he lodged a second application, but he died in Amsterdam almost immediately afterwards. His wife was granted administration of his estate in England later that month. It seems that Molyneux died in poverty, because Anne was granted a Dutch compassionate pension of 50 florins on 9 April 1599. Molyneux apparently had no surviving family, and the English globe-making industry died with him. No other globes appear to have been manufactured in England until the appearance in the 1670s of globes by Robert Morden and William Berry, and by Joseph Moxon. However, over 40 years after Molyneux's death, William Sanderson the younger wrote that his globes were "yet in being, great and small ones, Celestiall and Terrestriall, in both our Universities and severall Libraries (here, and beyond Seas)".