The Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands was an early joint stock association, which began with private exploration and enterprise, and was to have been incorporated by King Edward VI in 1553, but received its full royal charter in 1555.
The circumstances are described at the opening of the Charter of 1566: "divers very good Subiects of this Realme of England in the latter end of the reigne of the late right high and mightie prince our Soueraigne Lord king Edward the sixt, at the gracious incouragement and right good liking of the said king, and by his Maiesties liberall example, did at their aduenture, and to their exceeding great charges, and for the glory of God, the honor and increase of the reuenues of the Crowne, and the common vtilitie of the whole Realme of England, set forth three ships for the discoverie by sea, of Iles, lands, territories, dominions and Seigniories vnknowen, and by the Subiects of the sayd late king not commonly by seas frequented: and after that Almightie God [...] called to his mercie the said king, who died before the finishing and sealing of his most ample and gracious letters of priuiledges promised to the sayd Subiects..."[4]The purpose of the Company was to seek a new, northern trade route to Cathay (China) and the Spice Islands (the Moluccas, now part of Indonesia).
Chancellor returned to the White Sea in March 1554 and arrived back in London in the autumn, bearing a letter from Tsar Ivan to the English king, welcoming trade between the two Christian nations.
In 1555 the Company received its formal royal approbation in a Charter of Incorporation issued under the date 6 February 1554/5 (but long afterwards amended to 26 February) by King Philip and Queen Mary, of which the full name was "The Marchants Adventurers of England for the Discovery of Lands, Territories, Iles, Dominions and Seigniories Unknowen, and Not before that Late Adventure or Enterprise by Sea or Navigation Commonly Frequented"[6] as one body and perpetual Fellowship and Commonalty.
[8] The Company sent Richard Chancellor again to the White Sea in 1555, in the Edward Bonaventura and the Philip and Mary, where he learnt of the fate of Willoughby and spent 1556 in further exploration and negotiations with the Tsar.
It continues to explain that there has since arisen unlicensed trade: "divers subiects of this realme... minding for their peculiar gaine, vtterly to decay the trade of the said fellowship, haue contrary to the tenor of the same letters patents, in great disorder traded into the dominions of the said mightie prince of Russia, &c., to the great detriment of this common wealth:" and therefore, that in future no part of these places "shall be sailed or traffiqued vnto, visited, frequented or haunted by any person being or that shalbe a citizen or denizen of this realme, by themselues, their factor or factors" other than by the order, agreement, consent and ratification of the Fellowship, on penalty of the forfeit ipso facto of their ships and goods so trafficking, half to the Crown and half to the Fellowship.
Established merchants of York, Boston, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Hull who were already continually involved in such trade and were invested before 25 December 1567 were to be accounted free of the Fellowship and bound by its statutes.