CHAPTER X 
SIR MARTIN FROBISHER 
It was more than 20 years after the expedition of 
Willoughby to the north-east that the efforts towards 
the north-west were commenced. Their inception was due 
to Martin Frobisher, one of the greatest of the Elizabethan 
seamen. 
Born at Altofts, in the parish of Normanton in 
Yorkshire, about 1535, Martin was a nephew of Francis 
Frobisher, who had been Mayor of Doncaster. His 
father, Bernard Frobisher, died in Martin's infancy, and 
his mother sent the boy, being one of several children, 
to the care of her brother, Sir John Yorke, in London. 
Martin is described as " a youth of great spirit and bold 
courage, and natural hardiness of body/' His uncle 
seems to have found him more than he could manage, 
so he sent him to sea. Martin's first voyage was to 
the coast of Guinea in 1554, and for many years he 
continued to make voyages to Africa and to the Levant, 
becoming a thorough sailor, but without much book 
learning. Yet he was deeply impressed with the im- 
portance of Arctic discovery very early in his career. 
His great ambition was to lead an expedition and to 
discover the strait which must, he thought, lead into 
the ocean discovered by Magellan on the north side of 
America, as Magellan's Strait leads into it on the south. 
Frobisher saw service in Ireland, and it has been 
suggested with much probability that he there became 
acquainted with Sir Henry Sidney, the Lord Deputy. 
This was the friend of the young King, Edward VI, who 
on the part of his sovereign, took an active interest in 
the expedition of Sir Hugh Willoughby, and obtained the 
appointment of Richard Chancellor as second in command. 
Sidney would naturally take an equal interest in the 
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