DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

an ambassador from the Czar of Muscovy. It is said that they rode forth to meet him in procession, dressed in velvet, with chains of gold round their necks, so that they might impress the imperial envoy favourably and make his country desirous of trading with them ; but it was only later, and under Eliza- beth, that the peacefulness of her reign enabled these merchants to develop these commercial trans- actions. Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Martin Frobisher came after Chancellor; and in their search for the North- west Passage, were the first English seamen who met the icebergs of the Arctic regions, and by discovering Greenland and Labrador, opened out a new field of financial venture in the whale-fisheries, which soon rapidly increased in value. George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, and Thomas Cobham, who followed in the wake of F robisher, displayed the distinct features of the corsair. That Lord Cumberland’s piracies were not disagreeable to Elizabeth, she proved by admitting him to her tournaments. Once, as he knelt before the Queen to receive the prize, she dropped her glove, which he thenceforward wore as a favour, encircled with diamonds. Cobham, the son of Lord Cobham, half a pirate, half a knight-errant of the Reformation, did battle on his own account with the enemies of the Reformed