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Richard Chancellor d. 1556, English navigator. When, largely under the inspiration of Sebastian Cabot, a group of men in England undertook to finance a search for the Northeast Passage to Asia, Chancellor was chosen as second in command under Sir Hugh Willoughby. They sailed in 1553, and Chancellor and Stephen Borough, in the Edward Bonaventure, managed to get through dangerous arctic waters to the White Sea. Chancellor then traveled overland across Russia to Moscow at the invitation of Ivan IV. His negotiations prepared the way for trade with Russia and the formation of the Muscovy Company. Returning from a second voyage to Russia, he was shipwrecked and perished off the coast of Scotland. Since Willoughby had earlier come to grief, it was Stephen Borough who continued the work of opening the northern route to Russia for the Muscovy Company.
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