MEDIA
Merchants of Virginia
Original Author: Unknown
Created: 1720
Medium: Engraving

Merchants of Virginia

The coat of arms for the Virginia Company of London—referred to here as "The Company of Merchants, called Merchants of Virginia, Bermudas, or Summer-Lands"—bears the Latin motto En Dat Virginia Quintam, indicating that Virginia was the Crown's fifth realm, or domain. When this coat of arms was first used in 1607, the English monarch claimed the realms of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and Virginia.

This engraving is from the two-volume 1720 edition of John Stow's Survey of London. There are a number of editions of Stow's work, which was initially published in England in 1598.

Citation: A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster: Containing the Original, Antiquity, Increase, Modern Estate and Government of Those Cities. DA680 .S87 1720. Special Collections, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.