Welsh antiquary and mapmaker Humphrey Llwyd died at Denbigh in August 1568 after suffering a severe fever. The Dictionary of Welsh Biography gives his death as 21 August, although the date is uncertain. Abraham Ortelius recorded 31 August, and that date also appears in a contemporary note attached to Llwyd’s final surviving letter.

Llwyd was born in Denbigh around 1527 and educated at Oxford. He worked as a physician and antiquary and served in Parliament, first for East Grinstead and later for the Denbigh boroughs. He also helped promote the measure that allowed the Bible and Book of Common Prayer to be translated into Welsh.

His work as a cartographer grew out of his interest in Welsh and British history. During a continental journey with the Earl of Arundel in 1566–67, Llwyd met the Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius, who sought his help with Britain’s geography and old place names.

Llwyd subsequently prepared maps of Wales and England. He did not live to see them published.

After becoming seriously ill in 1568, Llwyd returned to Denbigh. On 3 August, while mortally ill, he wrote to Ortelius and sent material including his maps and historical work.

Ortelius later published Llwyd’s map of Wales in a 1573 supplement to his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The National Library of Wales describes it as the first published map of Wales as a country.

The work for which Llwyd became best known therefore appeared five years after his death.