Ivan the Terrible (52 page)

After further talks in Novgorod, and fervent appeals from the Swedish envoys to the Tsar's sons and to his boyars to intercede for them and protect Sweden from attack by his army, they were received in solemn audience and prostrated themselves to the ground before the Tsar who observed sardonically that ‘as a Christian prince and lord he did not require us to throw ourselves to the ground before him’. Ivan continued his previous discourse, reverting to the negotiations with Erik for the surrender of Catherine ‘who was then Duke John's widow’, an assertion that Ivan and everyone else knew was false at the time and since. Finally Ivan acknowledged that he had given way to the appeals of his sons and would not visit his wrath on Sweden, and would allow the envoys to
return to Stockholm, if their King came to his senses and ceded all Livonia to Ivan as his patrimony. If he refused it would be war. Ivan then graciously invited the envoys to dine (it was an excellent repast), himself poured them wine and gave them his hand to kiss.
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The envoys returned to Stockholm (leaving the unfortunate Juusten behind) where King John contemptuously rejected Ivan's terms and war now broke out on the frontiers between Russia and Sweden in Livonia and on the Finnish border, and was carried on for many years.

As far as relationships with England were concerned the ball was at present in Elizabeth's court. Not only had Ivan revoked, in October 1570, all the privileges he had granted to the Russia Company, in December 1570 he had seized all the company's goods. He explained to Elizabeth that Russia had done without English goods in the past and could do so again. Elizabeth now took the obvious course of complying with Ivan's repeated request to send ‘Anthonie’ as her ambassador, who was further in the Tsar's confidence than any other Englishman.

Jenkinson, carrying some written, but also secret verbal, instructions, duly arrived in Russia on 26 July 1571.
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Some of the background to Ivan's displeasure was now discovered by him, namely Savin's ill-natured and unjustified reports of the way he had been treated in England.
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The mystery of Ivan's demand that Elizabeth's ‘Council’ should countersign every paragraph addressed by Elizabeth to Ivan was now explained: as Ivan put it,

In his first dispatch home, Jenkinson painted a very dark picture of the situation he found which is worth mentioning, because he was less xenophobic than most of the English envoys to Russia. He was clearly briefed by English members of the Company in Kholmogory and Vologda. The company had suffered as a result of the behaviour of a number of interlopers, i.e. renegade English who traded in Russia though they were not members of the Company, as a result of which Ivan had admitted other nations to what had previously been an English monopoly. Jenkinson gave a horrifying account of the ravages of the recent famine and plague in north-east Russia, which delayed his
messenger and his own journey, and also reported that the Tsar had recently put to death ‘by soundry torments’ a large number of people, evidently a reference to the executions of July 1570. He described the Russian defeat by the Crimean Tatars and the destruction of much of Moscow by fire as ‘a juste punyshment of God for such a wycked natyon’.
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Presumably because Ivan was busy, Jenkinson did not in fact see him until some eight months after his arrival, on 23 March 1572 in Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda.

Jenkinson was given a proper formal reception with fulsome enquiries after Elizabeth's health, in the presence of Ivan's splendidly attired boyars, who were then dismissed, leaving the Tsar and the ambasssador alone with the chief secretary, presumably Andrei Shchelkalov. Ivan explained that having confided his policy to ‘Anthonie’ in 1567 he had expected Jenkinson to return as ambassador, but other people had always turned up. Ivan was very gracious to Jenkinson, who, at the banquet, was sent food from his table. After each side had argued its case, but without any decision being taken, Jenkinson was dismissed and told to wait for a reply as Ivan was about to fulfil his Easter obligations. He was sent to wait for Ivan in Tver', and finally saw him again on 13 May 1572 in Staritsa. He was again received formally by the Tsar ‘with a riche crowne upon his head’ and in the presence of his son and surrounded by his boyars. Ivan explained that his displeasure had been aroused by the failure of Elizabeth to send an ambassador who would be authorized to conclude on his secret affairs at a time when Ivan was ‘much grieved’ at the evil behaviour of the English merchants. Now he was satisfied with what Jenkinson told him of Elizabeth's disposition, but because the ‘princely and secret affaires were not finished to our contentation’ he would now ‘leave all those matters and set them aside for the time … and would renew the privileges of the English merchants’, though he did not renew them in full. Jenkinson was offered the imperial hand to kiss and Ivan served him ‘to drinke with his own hande’.
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Jenkinson left for England in July and had arrived by September 1572. Ivan sent a letter to Elizabeth by him confirming that he was leaving aside ‘the business you wrote to us in your secret letter’. Jenkinson departed while Ivan was in daily expectation of a further major assault by the Khan of Crimea, and of news of the death of Sigismund Augustus, which was now known to be imminent. This may have led him to be less exacting in his negotiations with Elizabeth. Clearly relations had been restored to their former harmony, but the reason was the change in Ivan's policy. The Tsar dropped for the time being the proposal for a formal alliance (not much use against the Crimeans). He also dropped
the formal demand for mutual asylum in England and in Russia respectively, which Elizabeth would not make as he required it, i.e., for herself. Yet Elizabeth had maintained the position that she would not take the part of his enemies against him and would endeavour to maintain supplies of such goods as England never exported to anyone else, i.e., arms, by the northern route, thus evading the Swedish and Polish privateers off Narva. But Ivan did raise the matter of the report that some English subjects were joining the Swedes in fighting against the Russians.
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At the same time he was preparing for hostilities with Sweden, by raiding the Finnish coasts, with a force commanded by Sain Bulat, Khan of Kasimov.

Ivan had taken a number of steps to repopulate the devastated city of Novgorod by the forcible resettlement of dwellers from other parts of the old Republic but, after the demotion of Archbishop Pimen, he left it for two years without an archbishop, a very humiliating situation for the city which had a very special relationship with the Church, and where the senior ecclesiastic wore the legendary white cowl. During this period the Tsar removed from the jurisdiction of the house of St Sophia (Novgorod's cathedral) many of the lands of the north which had previously belonged to the Republic of Novgorod and which were now handed over to the bishopric of Vologda in the
oprichnina
. Towards the end of 1571 Archimandrite Leonid, a man already closely associated with the
oprichnina
, was appointed to the see and proceeded to milk it for all it was worth, relying on his closeness to the Tsar, who in turn prepared for his stay in Novgorod by somewhat more yielding treatment of the Church and by the restoration of some of the icons looted in January 1570.
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The two Livonian advisers of Ivan, Taube and Kruse, now gave up any hope of success in their aims of achieving, under Ivan's suzerainty, an autonomous Livonian principality through King Magnus, and entered upon secret talks with the Lithuanians. They planned to seize the town of Dorpat in Livonia on 21 October 1571 and hand it over to Sigismund Augustus, in exchange for grants of land and status similar to those they had enjoyed in Russia.
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Unfortunately for them the rising they organized was put down almost at once by the Russian garrison, and the two men had to flee to Lithuania.

Waiting anxiously in Novgorod for the Crimeans’ next move Ivan had greatly impaired the efficiency and the trustworthiness of the
oprichniki
and the armed forces in general by the purge of the bulk of the boyars which he had carried out on the urging of Maliuta Skuratov, and their replacement by mainly younger men of princely families. Taube and
Kruse condemn the young princes surrounding Ivan as a lot of ‘good for nothings’ (
rotozei
) introduced to spruce up the façade of the
oprichnina
before the foreigners, while the heads of
prikazy
remained mostly unchanged. Skuratov, and his relative Bogdan Bel'sky (no connection with the princely Lithuanian Bel'skys who died out in the fire of Moscow in 1571), continued in charge – ‘those disgusting parasites and maniacs’, according to Kurbsky, though V.G. Griaznoi was disgraced and deprived of his estates, and then was unlucky enough to be taken prisoner by the Crimean Tatars.
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To his appeals to the Tsar to be ransomed from captivity, Ivan replied in his usual taunting and sarcastic tone: ‘Did you believe it was the same thing to make jokes in the Crimea as when you are eating with me?’
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Even the
oprichniki
began to feel uncertainty about their relations with the Tsar, who had begun occasionally to eliminate men who had made exceptionally outrageous and illegal demands.
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Though Maliuta Skuratov seemed to have become Ivan's principal adviser, both in political and in domestic affairs, the Tsar also relied a great deal on his chosen astrologer, magus and physician, Dr Bomelius. However, the personal policy of Ivan remains perplexing: there was no system in his elimination of ‘dangerous’ or useless boyars. For instance the brother-in-law of Vladimir of Staritsa, Prince N.P. Odoevsky, one of the Upper Oka princes on the borders of Lithuania, whose sister had been forced to take poison, was promoted in the army, made a boyar and a member of the
oprichnina
Council soon after May 1571. In early 1570 V.A. Buturlin had been executed in Novgorod; his brother D.A. Buturlin was invited to the Tsar's wedding in October 1571.
⁴⁸

Returning to Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda in January 1572, Ivan continued to devote much time and thought to warding off the expected renewed attack by the Crimeans, again supported by Ottoman forces, and to strengthening his support or alliances on the Polish-Lithuanian and English fronts, while his forces continued their raids on the Swedish border. In the years 1571 to 1572 the imminent death of Sigismund Augustus caused more and more tension between the powers as different candidates for the succession were considered in advance both in Russia and in the Commonwealth. The great Lithuanian magnates, still smarting under the forcible transfer of Podolia and Volhynia to Poland, before the Union of Lublin, inclined towards a Habsburg candidate, Archduke Ernst, younger brother of the Emperor Maximilian II (favourite nephew and brother-in-law of Philip II and educated largely in Spain) in secret talks in spring 1572. Ernst, aged nineteen, would marry the princess Anna Jagiellonka then aged forty-five (b. 1527), but
Maximilian turned the proposal down, and in any case many in the Commonwealth doubted whether the Empire had sufficient military power to defend it against the Tatar raids in the south which were now merging into a systematic Ottoman assault on south-eastern Europe into which Lithuania did not wish to be drawn.
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A Russian candidate might provide stronger military support, but the Lithuanians knew enough about Tsar Ivan and Ivan Ivanovich to prefer the Tsar's younger son, Fedor, with many restrictions designed to preserve their rights and freedoms and with a redistribution of the old Kievan lands between the two powers, assuring the lion's share to Lithuania. Sigismund Augustus was anxious to maintain the truce with Russia, and in response to a request from Ivan he sent ambassadors to treat with him in the spring of 1572.

Military problems were superseded by domestic issues while Ivan argued before a Church Council on 28 April 1572 that he had not consummated his marriage with Marfa Sobakina, and that she was still a virgin when she died. There had been no marriage, and thus the prohibition of a fourth marriage did not apply to him. He declared that in view of the discord in the Christian world, and his motherless children he had decided to marry again a fourth time. He took advantage of the death of the Metropolitan, Kyrill, on 8 February 1572, and the fact that the Church therefore had no leader, to persuade the Church Council to give him an exclusive permission to enter on a fourth marriage with Anna Koltovskaia. He was, however, subjected to a penance, namely that he should not enter a church for a year until Easter and after a year he should attend services only at the door with other sinners, remaining on his knees, and only in the third year should he be admitted into the building and be allowed by his confessor to take communion at Easter.
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There does not appear to have been a bride-show. The new bride may have been included in the previous parade, or may have been presented to the Tsar in some other way. The marriage took place in May 1572, and in June Ivan left for Novgorod where he intended to sit out the impending battle with the Crimeans.

The Khan, with Crimean and Nogai forces, appeared on the banks of the Oka on 27 July 1572. The main Russian corps was placed under Mikhail Vorotynsky, in Serpukhov, and other
voevodas
were drawn both from the
zemshchina
and from the
oprichnina
such as Prince D. Khvorostinin. After fierce fighting in a pitched battle the Crimeans broke through the Russian defences, and Devlet Girey, with the whole Tatar army streamed over the Oka and advanced on Moscow. The pursuing Russians managed to halt them some thirty-five
versts
from Moscow at
a place called Molodi. This was clearly no sudden tip and run raid, in the usual Tatar style, but a determined assault with the ultimate conquest of the Lower Volga in mind, supported by a major power, the Ottoman Empire.
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It was a serious threat, particularly in view of the depleted Russian army, the plague and the famine which had been endemic for the last two years and the general shortage of military and food supplies because of the burning of Moscow. The banks of the Oka River were lined with palisades to shelter the harquebusiers while they fired on the advancing Tatars.
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The Russian armies were divided into the usual formation of five regiments, and in addition they brought with them a frequently used contrivance, the
guliai-goroda
(walking town), the prefabricated moveable fortress on wheels whose wooden sections were carried on waggons and could be bolted together, and behind which the Russian troops could shelter while they bombarded the enemy with artillery.
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