48 Facts About Martin Frobisher

Sir Martin Frobisher was an English seaman and privateer who made three voyages to the New World looking for the North-west Passage.

Martin Frobisher probably sighted Resolution Island near Labrador in north-eastern Canada, before entering Frobisher Bay and landing on present-day Baffin Island.

Encouraged, Martin Frobisher returned to Canada with an even larger fleet and dug several mines around Martin Frobisher Bay.

Martin Frobisher carried 1,350 tons of the ore back to England, where, after years of smelting, it was realized that the ore was a worthless rock containing the mineral hornblende.

Martin Frobisher was later knighted for his service in repelling the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Martin Frobisher was probably born in 1535 or 1536, the son of merchant Bernard Frobisher of Altofts, Yorkshire, and Margaret York of Gouthwaite.

Martin Frobisher was the third of five children when his father died prematurely in 1542.

In hopes of better opportunity, young Martin Frobisher was sent to London in 1549 to live with a maternal relative, Sir John York.

York was an investor in the enterprise and Martin Frobisher accompanied the fleet in an unknown capacity.

Undaunted by his first experience, Martin Frobisher joined the new expedition and served as an apprentice merchant working for York's trading representative, John Beryn.

Martin Frobisher volunteered to serve as the hostage and discussions were allowed to proceed.

The expedition abandoned Martin Frobisher and went elsewhere to trade, eventually returning to England with a valuable cargo of gold, pepper, and ivory.

Martin Frobisher must have returned to the sea soon after his release.

Little is known of their domestic life, but having spent all her inheritance to finance his ventures, Martin Frobisher seems to have left her and her children by the mid-1570s; Isobel's death in a poorhouse in 1588 went unremarked by the ambitious captain.

In 1563, Martin Frobisher became involved in a privateering venture with his brother, John Martin Frobisher, and a fellow Yorkshireman, John Appleyard.

Martin Frobisher was promptly arrested by officers of the Privy Council because his ship had participated in the seizure of a Spanish ship which resulted in the death of 40 Englishmen.

Martin Frobisher was released from prison in 1564 and 1565 he purchased two ships, the Mary Flower and William Baxter.

Martin Frobisher's stated intention was to outfit the ships for a trading expedition to the Guinea coast.

Martin Frobisher was imprisoned briefly by the admiralty court.

However, Martin Frobisher refused to limit his depredations to French Catholic vessels and seized Protestant ships carrying English goods.

Martin Frobisher might have remained there for some time if not for the intervention of the lord admiral, Edward Fiennes de Clinton and the secretary of state, William Cecil.

The terms of his release are unknown but it appears that Martin Frobisher was required to undertake certain assignments at the direction of the Privy Council.

Martin Frobisher was briefly associated with a plan to help the Earl of Desmond flee England; then a proposal to lead a group of disaffected English mercenaries to seize Flushing for the Spanish king; and finally, in 1573 a plot to capture the English rebel, Thomas Stukley.

In 1574, Martin Frobisher petitioned the Privy Council for permission and financial support to lead an expedition to find a north-west passage to "the Southern Sea" and thence to Cathay.

In 1576, Martin Frobisher persuaded the Muscovy Company to license his expedition.

The landmass was actually the southernmost tip of Baffin Island; Martin Frobisher named it "Queen Elizabeth's Foreland".

The boat's crew disobeyed and five of Martin Frobisher's men were taken captive.

Martin Frobisher took no account of the black rock but kept it as a token of possession of the new territory.

Michael Lok, meanwhile, was petitioning the queen for his own charter, by the terms of which the Company of Cathay would have sole rights to exploit the resources of all seas, islands and lands to the west and north of England, as well as any goods produced by the peoples occupying them; Martin Frobisher would be apportioned a much smaller share of the profits.

Martin Frobisher had exceeded the assigned quota of crewmen by at least twenty men, and perhaps by as many as forty.

Hall and Martin Frobisher each attempted landing in the ship's boat but were driven back by fog and the certain knowledge of unseen ice in the water before them.

Several weeks were now spent in collecting ore, but very little was done in the way of discovery, Martin Frobisher being specially directed by his orders from the Company of Cathay to "defer the further discovery of the passage until another time".

Martin Frobisher brought with him three Inuit who had been forcibly taken from Baffin Island: a man called Calichough, a woman, Egnock, and her child, Nutioc.

Martin Frobisher was received and thanked by the queen at Windsor.

Martin Frobisher was again received by the queen, whereupon she threw a chain of fine gold around his neck.

Stormy weather and dangerous ice prevented the rendezvous, and, besides causing the wreck on an iceberg of the 100-ton barque Dennis, drove the fleet unwittingly up a waterway that Martin Frobisher named 'Mistaken Strait'.

Martin Frobisher believed that the strait, now known as Hudson Strait, was less likely to be an entrance to the North-west Passage than Frobisher Bay.

Martin Frobisher applied to a major shareholder in the Arctic enterprise, Sir William Wynter, one of the Queen's most trusted naval commanders, who was leading a fleet of four heavily armed vessels to Ireland under orders to put down the Desmond rebellion against the English Crown.

Martin Frobisher joined Francis Drake on his 1585 raids of Spanish ports and shipping in the West Indies as vice-admiral of Drake's fleet, appointed to that position by the Queen; his flagship was the Primrose.

Shortly after the voyage began, Martin Frobisher was admitted to a select group of advisors to Drake.

Martin Frobisher was made commander of one of these and assigned Triumph, as well as Lord Sheffield's White Bear, Lord Thomas Howard's Golden Lion, and Sir Robert Southwell's Elizabeth Jonas, all heavily armed vessels.

Three days later, the English fleet was reinforced by Lord Seymour's channel patrol of thirty-five or forty sail, and Martin Frobisher assumed command of his newly formed squadron.

Martin Frobisher used his boats to manoeuvre Triumph with good effect and managed to escape when the wind shifted again, allowing him the weather gage.

In 1590, Martin Frobisher visited his native Altofts and found himself welcomed in the homes of the peers and landed gentry of Yorkshire county as an honoured guest.

Martin Frobisher made Whitwood his chief residence, befitting his new status as a landed proprietor, but found little leisure for country life.

The fleet was divided into two divisions, with Martin Frobisher's squadron patrolling the waters off the coast of Portugal near the Burlings, while Sir John Burgh and John Norton's squadrons sailed for the Azores where they captured a rich prize, the Madre de Deus, much to the discomfiture of Martin Frobisher when he learned the news.

Martin Frobisher's heart was buried at St Andrew's Church, Plymouth, and his body was then taken to London and buried at St Giles-without-Cripplegate, Fore Street.

Martin Frobisher is a minor character in The Sea Hawk, where he is played by Robert Warwick.