ABSTRACT
Henry IV Part 1, captures the moment at which the unifying power of Henry V still lies in the future and nothing less than the integrity of England is under serious threat. This chapter argues that the shift from focusing on the monarch to focusing on the territory, the revolution in the perception of England described by Richard Helgerson and Bernhard Klein, shows not only in maps but also on the stage. It analyses the new medium traces of the map in the equally new medium of the history play, highlights the impact of the cartographic perspective on the theatre. In a circulation of social energies' to borrow Stephen Greenblatt's phrase the cartographic perspective, and with it the questioning of royal authority, permeates from the medium of the map to the theatre. Whether cartographers are mapping the globe or a playwright such as Shakespeare is mapping the Globe, they are all making the world accessible to their audiences.
