Larger globes were acquired by royalty, noblemen and academic institutions, while smaller ones were purchased as practical navigation aids for sailors and students.

[7] Through his trade, Molyneux was known to the explorers Thomas Cavendish, John Davis, Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, the writer Richard Hakluyt, and the mathematicians Robert Hues and Edward Wright.

[14] Raleigh came by the information from Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, a Galician explorer sent by King Philip II of Spain to fortify the Strait of Magellan after Francis Drake had passed through it.

[3] A legend in Latin on the terrestrial globe, explaining why Molyneux had left out the polar lands and corrected the distance across the Atlantic Ocean between The Lizard and Cape Race in Newfoundland, concluded: Quod equide[m] effeci tu[m] ex meis navigationibus primo, tum deinceps ex felici illa sub clariss.

Drako ad Indos Occident, expeditione, in qua non-modo optimas quasqu[e] alioru[m] descriptiones, sed quidquid mea quantulacu[m]que, vel scie[n]ta vel experientia ad integru[m] hoc qui[n]quen[n]io pr[a]estare potuit, ad hujus operis perfectione[m] co[m]paravi ... [I have been able to do this both in the first place from my own voyages and secondly from that successful expedition to the West Indies under the most illustrious Francis Drake: in which expedition I have put together not only all the best delineations of others, but everything my own humble knowledge or experience has been able to furnish in the last five years to the perfecting of this work.

][16]On the terrestrial globe, tracks of the voyages of Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish around the world are marked by red and blue lines respectively.

[7] In 1889, Sir Clements Markham, an English explorer, author and geographer, pointed out that a Latin legend on the terrestrial globe, placed off the Patagonian coast, states: "Thomas Caundish 18 Dec. 1587 hæc terra sub nostris oculis primum obtulit sub latitud 47 cujus seu admodum salubris Incolæ maturi ex parte proceri sunt gigantes et vasti magnitudinis".

[20] However, Helen Wallis, former Map Curator of the British Library, observed in 1951 that this was unlikely, because Molyneux incorrectly plotted Cavendish's course in Maritime Southeast Asia.

[22] The mathematician and cartographer Edward Wright[23] assisted Molyneux in plotting coastlines on the terrestrial globe and translated some of the legends into Latin.

[7] It appears that after Molyneux had prepared the manuscript gores (the flat map segments attached to the globes), he had them printed by the celebrated Flemish engraver and cartographer Jodocus Hondius, who lived in London between 1584 and 1593 to escape religious difficulties in Flanders.

[7][28] In 1589, Richard Hakluyt announced the forthcoming publication of Molyneux's terrestrial globe at the end of the preface to The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation.

[29] Referring to the map that was inserted into the volume—a reproduction of the "Typus Orbis Terrarum" engraved by Franciscus Hogenberg for Abraham Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570)[30]—he wrote: I have contented myselfe with inserting into the worke one of the best generall mappes of the world onely, untill the comming out of a very large and most exact terrestriall globe, collected and reformed according to the newest, secretest, and latest discoveries, both Spanish, Portugall and English, composed by Mr. Emmerie Molineux of Lambeth, a rare Gentleman in his profession, being therin for divers yeeres, greatly supported by the purse and liberalitie of the worshipfull merchant M. William Sanderson.

In 1599, Edward Wright published Certaine Errors in Navigation,[43] which included commentary on the use of the terrestrial and celestial globes developed by Molyneux.

[7][47] The globes provided navigators and students with methods for finding the place of the sun, latitude, course, distance, amplitudes, azimuths, time and declination.

[48] In the dedication of his 1595 book The Seamans Secrets[49] to the Lord High Admiral, Charles Howard, the 1st Earl of Nottingham, navigator John Davis spoke of "the mechanical practices drawn from the Arts of Mathematick, [in which] our Country doth yield men of principal excellency", and he noted "Mr Emery Mullenenx for the exquisite making of Globes bodies".

On 4 November 1596 the Privy Council urged the Lord Admiral "to speak to Molyneux, Bussy and the two Engelberts about their offensive engines"[52] as part of measures to defend England's south coast.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography suggests it was to be able to personally distribute his globes to European princes, since Amsterdam was then quickly establishing itself as the centre of globe- and map-making.

[55] However, over 40 years after Molyneux's death, William Sanderson the younger wrote that his globes were "yet in being, great and small ones, Celestiall and Terrestriall, in both our Universities and severall Libraries (here, and beyond Seas)".

[56] In the second volume of the greatly expanded version of his book The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation (1599),[57] Hakluyt published what is known today as the Wright–Molyneux Map.

[60] On 31 October 1598, despite a legal challenge by rival globe-maker Jacob van Langeren, Hondius obtained another privilege for ten years.

[36] Elizabethan dramatist Thomas Dekker wrote in one of his plays published in The Gull's Horn-book (1609):[7] What an excellent workman, therefore, were he that could cast the globe of it into a new mould.

And not to make it look like Molyneux his globe, with a round face sleeked and washed over with white of eggs, but have it in plano as it was at first, with all the ancient circles, lines, parallels and figures.

Northumberland, known as the "Wizard Earl" for his interest in scientific and alchemical experiments and his library,[70] was suspected of being involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 because his relative Thomas Percy was among the conspirators.

One of Molyneux's "great globes", measuring 2 feet 1 inch (0.64 m) in diameter, it was reported in 1952 to be in poor condition despite restoration by the British Museum the previous year.

[72] The restoration work revealed that the globe is weighted with sand and made from layers of small pieces of paper overlaid with a coat of plaster about 1⁄8 inch (3 mm) thick.

Ashley's books formed the nucleus of the Inn's original library and included copies of the second edition of Hues' Tractatus de Globis and other works on cosmography.

[81] The most extensive revision altered the Northeast Passage to take account of discoveries made on Willem Barentsz's third voyage to Novaya Zemlya in 1596.

[72] At the start of World War II, the globes were sent to Beaconsfield and stored with part of the Wallace Collection at Hall Barn in the care of Lady Burnham.

[85] In 2004, Middle Temple proposed selling the Molyneux globes, valued at over £1 million, to create a scholarship fund for the education and training of needy would-be barristers.

They were first mentioned in 1765 in the index of the Mathematische Kammer (Mathematics Chamber) of the Fürstliches Kunsthaus (Princely Art Gallery) in Kassel, during the reign of Landgrave Frederick III.