English Voyage Reaches Russia by the White Sea

In 1553, an English expedition sailed around the northern tip of Scandinavia and reached the White Sea, opening a direct maritime link between England and Russia. The voyage was meant to find a northeast passage to Asia. It failed at that, but it brought Richard Chancellor to the court of Ivan IV and founded one of England's earliest long-distance trading ventures.

The background was commercial anxiety. By the mid-sixteenth century, English merchants relied heavily on the cloth trade with Antwerp, and a downturn in that market made new outlets attractive. Spain and Portugal controlled the known sea routes to the Indies and the Americas, so some English promoters, notably the navigator Sebastian Cabot and a group of London merchants, backed a search for a northern route to Cathay. They formed a joint-stock company, later known as the Muscovy Company, and in 1553 sent out three ships under Sir Hugh Willoughby, with Chancellor serving as pilot-general and commanding the Edward Bonaventure.

The ships left England in the spring and were separated by a storm off the Norwegian coast. Willoughby continued eastward, but his two ships were caught by the Arctic winter somewhere along the coast of the Kola Peninsula. The crews are generally believed to have died of cold, and the vessels were found by Russian fishermen the following year. Chancellor, who had waited at an agreed meeting point and then pressed on, entered the White Sea and anchored near the mouth of the Northern Dvina, close to the monastery of St Nicholas, where the port of Arkhangelsk would later rise.

Chancellor learned that he had reached the realm of the Russian tsar, a land little known to most Englishmen. He was escorted overland, a long journey, to Moscow, where he was received by Ivan IV. Accounts of the audience come mainly from English sources, so details of the encounter should be treated with some caution. The tsar was evidently interested in commerce with the West, and Chancellor returned to England with letters favorable to trade.

The consequences were considerable. The Muscovy Company received a royal charter in 1555 and obtained trading privileges in Russia. English merchants imported cloth and exported furs, wax, tallow, hemp and other goods. The northern route gave Russia a rare access point to Western Europe at a time when the Baltic coast was contested. Over time the White Sea trade faded in importance as other ports developed, but the company survived for generations. The voyage also encouraged later English exploration of Arctic waters, even though a practical northeast passage remained elusive for centuries.