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Martin Frobisher: Elizabethan Privateer
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About Martin Frobisher: Elizabethan Privateer
Product Description Details the life and exploits of the privateer who served Elizabeth I, battled against the Spanish Armada, and attempted to find the Northwest Passage. From Publishers Weekly Frobisher Bay in the Canadian subarctic and a plaque at St. Giles Cripplegate in London are all that remain of the memory of Sir Martin Frobisher (1535-1594). McDermott's crowded biography, as thorough a life of the elusive adventurer as the relatively few available facts make possible, traces his checkered career from a stark Yorkshire boyhood to the coasts of Africa and North America, and his privateering on the Atlantic to his later undertakings for Queen Elizabeth. McDermott fills in the gaps with supposition and parallel descriptions of such seafaring contemporaries as Drake and Hawkings, veering off into material that few readers, other than aficionados of privateering and particularly those knowledgeable about antique nautical terms, would care to know. Frobisher's three unrewarding voyages to barren "Meta Incognita" (now Baffin Island) in search of a northwest passage to the Orient and failed get-rich-quick scheme to mine for gold in Inuit country left him in need of money, and so he resumed his semi-official piracy of foreign ships. Elizabeth, who in 1588 was in need of a tough captain, made Frobisher a vice-admiral, and his role in thwarting the Spanish Armada earned him a knighthood. Despite the dry prose, independent historian McDermott, who has been researching his hero for 30 years, successfully evokes the life of an admittedly unlikable character, as he survived the downside of ambition and climbed upward no matter what the cost to others. Ultimately, the fame of his "brief asides" into legitimacy, even his heroic death during a mission "under the authority of the Broad Seal of England," McDermott concludes with apparent sadness, "should not disguise the truth of a career whose despoliations had defined Martin Frobisher." Color illus. not seen by PW. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal This is the first full-length biography of Frobisher since the publication of William McFee's Life of Martin Frobisher in 1928. Independent scholar McDermott worked his way through a labyrinth of archival documents to create this compelling portrait of a true Elizabethan sea dog and his world. McDermott is quick to point out that Frobisher was more than just an unscrupulous privateer but also the point man for England's nascent colonial ambitions. By examining his subject's life, McDermott exposes the intricate web of public and private ambitions that compelled Elizabethan England to take to the seas. It was Frobisher's courage and nautical skills that made him the natural choice to lead the search for the Northwest Passage that brought English exploration to the shores of North America. Frobisher never found fabulous wealth, but his prowess as a sea warrior helped crush the Spanish Armada and establish England's proud maritime tradition. McDermott tells his story with wit and style. Recommended for public and academic libraries. Jim Doyle, Sara Hightower Regional Lib., Rome, GA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Frobisher has never achieved the near mythological status of a Drake, Raleigh, or a few other Elizabethan swashbucklers. Yet his accomplishments as a naval commander, explorer, and privateer who often operated on both sides of the law are impressive, and they provide the makings of an exciting biography. McDermott, an independent scholar and leading authority on Frobisher's career, has ambivalent feelings toward his subject. McDermott pays tribute to Frobisher's audacious spirit, physical courage, and maritime skills, yet he also stresses the man's tendency to become obsessed with his narrow self-interest, and Frobisher was capable of shockingly ruthless brutality even by the standards of a brutal age. This well-written and balanced account provides a port
