Bartlett (Barthelet), Richard (d. 1603?), cartographer, of Norfolk, England, may have been related to Thomas Berthelet (c.1490–1555), king's printer under Henry VIII, or to Edward Barthelet of Attleborough (d. 1605). He is thought to have taken part in the Ulster and Kinsale campaigns (1600–03), holding junior military rank under Sir John Brockett and the lord deputy, Charles Blount (qv), Lord Mountjoy, and to have been decapitated in Tyrconnell early in 1603 by inhabitants who resented his mapping their territory. His maps – predominantly of ‘bird's-eye plan’ type – of regions, localities, and fortifications are distinguished by grasp of source material, by discreet decorative humour, and by meticulous representation of buildings and landscape, making them valuable historical evidence and a visual counterpart to the ‘Itinerary’ of Fynes Moryson (qv). Bartlett's work seems to have been used by the celebrated cartographer John Norden (1548–1625?), but was generally unknown till twelve of his maps were presented to the NLI in the 1950s; several survive in other collections.
Sources
Ulster and other Irish maps c.1600, ed. G. A. Hayes-McCoy (1964); J. H. Andrews, review, IHS, xiv (1964–5), 267–71; Philip Robinson, ‘Vernacular housing in Ulster . . .’, Ulster Folklife, xxv (1979), 10–12