Willoughby, SIR HUGH

Willoughby, SIR HUGH, explorer, probably a native of Risley in Derbyshire, of whom little is certain save his unfortunate fate. In 1553 an expedition was fitted out at an expense of £6000 by the merchants of London 'for the discovery of regions, dominions, islands, and places unknown,' and Willoughby was appointed its commander 'both by reason of his goodly personage (for he was of tall stature) and his singular skill in the services of war.' On the 10th of May he sailed from Deptford with three vessels, the Bona Esperanza of 120 tons, his own ship, carrying thirty-five persons; the Edward Bonaventure, 160 tons burden, commanded by Richard Chancellor, and carrying fifty men; and the Bona Confidentialia of 90 tons, under command of Cornelius Durfoorth, with twenty-eight men. After sailing along the east coast of England and Scotland, they crossed the North Sea in company, and sighted the coast of Norway about the middle of July. In the middle of September the Edward Bonaventure, at Senjen during a storm, parted company with the two other vessels, which were tossed about until they reached the coast of Russian Lapland, where they found a good harbour at the mouth of the river Arzina, in which Sir Hugh determined to pass the winter. Here Willoughby and his sixty-two companions all perished during the course of the winter, doubtless of scurvy. The following year Russian fishermen found the ships with the dead bodies of the crews, together with the commander's journal and a will witnessed by Willoughby, showing that some of the mariners were alive in the January of 1554. Chancellor, after being separated from his comrades, sailed with the third vessel to Vardoeus, where he waited seven days for Willoughby, set out again, and finally reached the mouth of the river Dwina in the White Sea. Here he was well received by the natives, and news of his arrival immediately despatched to the Czar Ivan Vasilievitch, who invited the mariners to the court of Moscow, where they spent a part of the winter, returning in the following summer to England.