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 SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY AND RICHARD CHANCELOR 181 Islands. He eventually reached Archangel, and ob- tained from the Russian sovereign, Ivan the Terrible, a grant of freedom of trade for English ships. On his return a new company was formed to take advantage of this grant, with a charter from Queen Mary in 1554, under the title of " the Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Lands, Countries, Isles, etc., not before known or frequented by any English." Persons not members of the company nor licensed by it, who should venture into the Russian dominions, were to forfeit their ships and merchandise, one-half to the English crown and one-half to the company. The monopoly grew into the powerful organization known as the Russian or Muscovy Company, which by many voyages, perils, and diplomatic arrangements, established a trade through Russia to Persia; was a rival of the great East India Company; and lasted till toward the end of the eight- eenth century. This sea-and-overland expedition by the northeast had been chartered by Queen Mary in 1554 for the purposes of trade as well as of discovery. I must not pause to relate how Chancelor and Burrough promptly started in 1555 - 1556 to open up the path, or how its agent Anthony Jenkinson reached Moscow in 1557, dined with the Tsar " at six o'clock by candle-light," and penetrated to Bokhara, where he met the traders from India and Cathay. It was not an overland route, but a northern passage by sea that had taken hold of the English imagination; and the trade by way of the Volga and the Caspian formed no answer to the