Yorke - Shrowesbury - Lancaster - Richmont.

Four city plans by Braun & Hogenberg on one sheet : Plans of York, Shrewsbury and Lancashire and a view of the castle of Richmond.
On each side of the four views are four figures in historical dress: Briton / Roman / Saxon / Dane; king and queen / English nobles / English burghers / English peasants.
The four views are engraved after views published by Speed in his atlas "The theatre of the empire of Great Britaine, 1611".

With text on verso with a comment by Braun:
YORK

"After London this is the most distinguished city in the whole of England. [...] It is a large and splendid city with an abundance of people and goods, well protected by walls and ramparts and embellished with fine houses and buildings. [...] There William the Norman built a mighty castle, which is now falling into decay. [...] Towards the Ouse was a monastery called St Mary's, which has been converted into a royal palace and used for worldly purposes."
This view of York, depicted in the manner of a town plan, indicates that north is at the top. The minster (S. Peters) stands out, together with the Benedictine abbey of St Mary, which had stood empty since the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 and was falling into decay. The Council of the North had its seat in the former house of the abbot. The Gothic Minster, England's biggest cathedral, was completed in 1472. The castle can be seen at the confluence of the Ouse and the Foss. York, under the name Eboracum, was once the capital of the Roman province of Britannia Inferior, and in the Middle Ages it was a flourishing center in the north of England as a trade city and an episcopal see, but its importance declined after the 15th century.

SHREWSBURY
"This city belongs to the County of Wiltshire. According to Camden, it is the old Sorbiodunum mentioned in the Itinerarium Antonini. But it used to be at another place, where today the village of old Shrewsbury is. That the inhabitants left the Old Town is said to be due to the lack of water. After the town had been moved, Bishop Richard began to build a most splendid church, which was fully completed within 40 years."
This plate, which indicates that north is at the top, neatly depicts the city of Shrewsbury in central England, which can be deduced from the names of the streets, the city gates and its characteristic position in a meander of the River Severn. But the text refers to the southern English episcopal city of Salisbury, which due to lack of water was moved about 3 km from Old Sarum to the banks of the Avon in 1220 under the aegis of Bishop Richard Poore; the cathedral was begun in the same year, and consecrated in 1258.

LANCASTER
"According to Camden's account, this city was known in Roman times. [...] Today there are not many fine buildings, with the exception of the castle, the church and the bridge. The castle lies on a hill of the same name, and is not very big, but handsome and well fortified. Not far from it, where the hill is steepest, part of an old wall can be seen, which based on its appearances was erected by the Romans."
Lancaster, mentioned for the first time in 1086, is shown from the south in a bird's-eye perspective. The only recognizable buildings are the Norman castle (The Castel) and the priory church of St Mary. Lancaster was probably included because the castle was the seat of the ruling House of Lancaster, which fought the House of York for the throne in the Wars of the Roses in the 15th century.

RICHMOND PALACE
"As a princely palace Richmond was formerly called Sheen. [...] Under King Henry VII it was almost completely burned down, but immediately, like a phoenix from the ashes, it rose again more beautiful and more splendid than before, and was given this name by the said king, who was previously the Earl of Richmond. A few years ago Queen Elizabeth, who was particularly fond of staying here, died in this palace."
This is a view from the southwest from a slightly elevated position of the Gothic palace surrounded by Richmond Park. The earlier Sheen (or Shene) Palace was a manor house near the village of Sheen, close to London, in the royal hunting grounds. Mentioned for the first time at the beginning of the 12th century, it served as a residence of the English kings from the 14th century. After a disastrous fire in 1497 Henry VII had it rebuilt and in 1501 he renamed it and the town Richmond. The palace was destroyed in the 17th century, during the English Civil War.
(Text by Taschen)
From the greatest publication in this genre!. The plates from Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg's landmark Civitates Orbis Terrarum are the most valuable source for the study of Renaissance urban topography, and among the most evocative bird’s-eye ever published.
For the first time, the Civitates provided an extensive series of town views with the goal of rendering them in an accurate and meaningful way. Earlier collections of town views were far more limited in scope, and often made no real attempt to render cities with any degree of fidelity.
These works were more often an attempt to show that cities existed than to illustrate the form they took, and they normally contained no more than a handful of views. The Civitates, by contrast, included hundreds of views, many showing smaller towns for which no earlier topographical studies are known.
Even for the larger, important cities, such as Paris, the Civitates was of the utmost importance in tracing the history of their topography.
This massive collection was conceived to serve as a sort of companion work to the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern world atlas, published by Abraham Ortelius in Antwerp beginning in 1570 (indeed, Hogenberg had first-hand knowledge of that impressive and influential work, having been commissioned by Ortelius to engrave many of the plates for the maps it included).
The text for the Civitates was compiled and written by Braun, the Canon of Cologne Cathedral, and a total of five hundred views were eventually included. The majority of the engraving was completed by Hogenberg and Simon Novellanus, many after drawings by Joris Hoefnagel, a talented topographical artist. For the Civitates, drawings and plans were solicited from the best artists and mapmakers from all over Europe.
As a result, it took over forty years to collect the hundreds of plans contained in the folio volumes that form the complete work. The artistic merit of this particular plate is extremely high, and it reflects many of the same high standards of quality, in terms of color, engraving, and decoration, that characterizes the maps of Ortelius.

More about Braun and Hogenberg, Civitatus [+]

Reference: Van der Krogt IV, 4895.