lthough less a seaman
than a soldier, having served the Queen in Ireland as that capacity
(and doing so again immediately following Frobisher's expeditions),
Edward Fenton was made Captain of the ship Judith and Lieutenant
General of the entire fleet during Frobisher's 1578 voyage, thus being
Frobisher's second-in-command. In that role he recruited the miners for
the expedition, was in charge of the troops assigned to the mission,
and was to have commanded the new colony intended to winter on Kodlunarn
Island.
Originally with sufficient supplies for eighteen months, about 100 men
including miners, shipwrights, carpenters and soldiers, as well as the
ships Judith, Gabriel and Michael, were to
remain through the winter of 1578-1579 to protect the mines and perhaps
locate more ore. Fenton was to keep a journal of observations on the
nature of the land, the weather and the ice in "Frobisher's
Strait". The loss of construction materials and provisions
prevented the realization of this plan.
Although Fenton offered to stay with a smaller contingent, the
mission's masons and carpenters reported that there was not enough
time to build proper accommodations even for a smaller colony, with
only a few weeks left of the summer season. Fenton had to content
himself with ordering the construction of one
small house on Kodlunarn
Island, to test the sturdiness of English construction methods in an
Arctic winter and to placate the Inuit through gifts left inside;
both reflected the expectation of a further colonization attempt the
following year. The structure was referred to as "Fenton's
Watchtower". Fenton returned to England with the rest of the fleet.
Frobisher may have perceived Fenton as a potential rival. The two men
certainly found themselves holding opposing opinions or judgements on
occasion; one quarrel led to Frobisher attacking him with a knife. Not
surprisingly, Fenton ended up in the camp hostile to Frobisher once the
venture had deteriorated to assigning blame for its failure.
The Privy Council appears to have trusted Fenton more than it did
Frobisher. Fenton's calmer, more systematic and scientific manner was
illustrated in his translating and publishing Boasistuau's ancient
work Certaine Secreate Wonders of Nature in 1569, in his
careful search for additives needed by
Burchard Kranich in 1577, and
in his work in early 1578 on identifying and cataloguing ores discovered
at a Cornish mine.
The Earl of Leicester proposed a new expedition to reach Asia, following
the southwest route through the Straits of Magellan and across the
Pacific. Frobisher had originally been nominated to command the
expedition, but the Privy Council had lost confidence in him. Edward
Fenton was chosen instead. The resulting voyage of 1582-83 was a costly
failure. During the Armada
campaign Fenton captained a ship whose
construction had originally been commissioned by one of Lok's brothers,
before its sale to the navy.
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