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number was frequently much higher and often entire ships had to be abandoned due to a shortage of crew. Since the Portuguese were acclimatised by birth to a hot climate men questioned how English sailors, brought up on the frosty fringes of northern Europe, could hope to return in rude health.
    The expedition ran into trouble before it even set sail. During delays at Harwich, it was discovered that a large part of the provisions was already rotten, while the wine casks had been so badly assembled that the wine was leaking freely though the joints in the wood. But with the wind in their favour the captains decided there was no time to restock the ships and the expedition set sail on 23 June 1553.
    So long as the vessels stuck together under the capable direction of Richard Chancellor they were unlikely to run into trouble. But as they rounded the rocky shores of northern Norway, 'there came such flows of winde and terrible whirlewinds' that Willoughby's ship was blown off course. Chancellor had planned for such an eventuality, suggesting that the ships regroup at Vardohuus, a small island in the Barents Sea. He waited for seven days but, hearing nothing of either the Bona Esperanza or the Confidentia, the third ship of the fleet, he pushed on eastwards towards the White Sea.
    The other two vessels had also survived the storm. After riding out the gale, Sir Hugh re-established contact with
    Disaster strikes Dutch explorer William Barents, who believed there was a quick route to the 'spiceries' via the North Pole. The engravings (shown here and on pp. 17, 167 and 169) illustrate how his ship was wrecked on 'a great store of ice' and how his men survived the winter.

     
    the Confidentia and both headed towards the coastline. Here Willoughby's inexperience began to tell. He sounded the sea floor, pored over charts and scratched his head before concluding that 'the land lay not as the globe made mention.' Failing to locate Vardohuus's or Chancellor’s vessel, he decided to press on with the expedition without the flagship.
    On 14 August 1553, he 'descried land', apparently un­inhabited, at 72 degrees latitude but failed to reach it due to the quantity of ice in the water. If this reading is correct, his ship must have reached the barren islands of Novaya Zemlya which lie, remote and isolated, in the Barents Sea. From here he appears to have sailed south-east, then north­west, then south-west, then north-east. The ignorance of Willoughby and his men is staggering, for their course, more than three hundred miles inside the Arctic Circle, must have taken them in a giant arc through a dangerous sea littered with melting pack-ice. On 14 September, they again sighted land and shortly afterwards 'sailed into a faire bay' somewhere close to the present border between Finland and Russia. Willoughby s men were cheered by the sight of 'very many seal fishes, and other great fishes; and upon the main we saw beares, great deere, foxes with divers strange beasts'. They planned at first to spend a week here but 'seeing the yeare far spent, and also very evill weather, as frost, snow, and haile', they decided to winter in the bay.
    The expedition's directors in London must by now have hoped that their ships had found the North-East Passage, broken through it, and be well on their way to the Spice Islands. But instead of balmy evenings and gently swaying palm trees, Willoughby and his men had met with freezing fog, impenetrable ice, and the realisation that London's merchants had made a terrible mistake when they chose the route over the North Pole. Those merchants had voc­iferously defended their decision, presenting logical and compelling arguments to support their theories. As far back as the year 1527, Robert Thorne, an English trader living in Seville, had written to King Henry VIII with the exciting (and highly secret) news that the Spice Islands could be reached by way of the North Pole: 'I know it is my bounden duty to manifest this