At this time the competition for trade advantages in the east and northeast were becoming of larger import to England. A half-century earlier, in 1360, in Edward the third’s reign, a Franciscan friar, mathematician, and astronomer, Nicholas de Linna, of Oxford, had made a voyage into the north parts, “all the regions situated under the North-pole,” had taken valuable observations, and had reported his discoveries to Edward with a description of the northern islands. In 1390 Henry, earl of Derby, afterward King Henry the fourth, made a voyage into Prussia; and the next year the duke of Gloucester, Edward the third’s youngest son, also penetrated Prussia. As early as 1344 the island of Madeira had been discovered by an Englishman, and sometime occupied. The latter, however, was not a commercial discovery, but a romantic one, and England at the time, and for long after, was not aware of it. Hakluyt takes the story from a Portuguese history. It was regarded by most later historians as apocryphal, but its genuineness has been finally demonstrated through the historical researches of the English geographer, R. H. Major. It runs in this wise. The discoverer was one Robert Macham, when fleeing from England to France with his stolen bride, Anna d’Arfet. His ship was tempest-tossed out of its course and cast toward this island. He anchored in a haven (which years afterward was named Macham in memory of him) and landed on the island with his lady and the ship’s company. Soon with a fair wind the ship and part of the company “made sail away.” After a while the young woman died “from thought,” perhaps homesickness; and Macham built a tomb for her upon which he inscribed their names, and “the occasion of their arrival there.” Then he ordered a boat made of a single great tree, and when it was done, he put to sea with his few companions that were left. At length they came upon the coast of Afrike (Africa) without sail or oar. “And the Moors which saw it took it to be a marvellous thing and presented him unto the king of that country for a wonder, and that king also sent him and his companions for a miracle unto the king of Spain.”