Ivan the Terrible (85 page)

37
Morgan and Coote,
Early Voyages
, II, pp. 297–8.

38
See account in R. Hakluyt,
The Discovery of Muscovy, 1589
, Cassell, London and New York, 1904.

39
Tolstoy,
England and Russia
, pp. 148ff., for the Russian text dated 20 August 1574 which refers back to 1570; at p. 150: ‘a ty to delo polozhila na svoikh boyarakh a sama esi dlia devecheskogo chinu togo dela ne delala’. English text pp. 153ff.

40
Morgan and Coote, op. cit., II, pp. 335–8.

41
Tolstoy, op. cit., pp. 128ff. and 140ff.; Willan,
Early History of the Russia Company
, pp. 117ff. R. Hakluyt,
The Principal Navigations of the English Nation
, II, Dent, 1936, pp. 136ff., dated after July 1572. Jenkinson had also raised a number of specific problems of the Russia Company (unpaid debts, arrests of interlopers, compensation for losses in the fire of Moscow). Not all were granted and in any case they were left for discussion with the secretary.

42
Willan, op. cit., pp. 123ff. These were probably Scotsmen.

43
Skrynnikov,
Sviatiteli i vlasti
, pp. 247ff.

44
Taube was given a barony. Was he the ancestor of the legal historian?

45
A.M Kurbsky,
Correspondence
, p. 243.

46
Likhachev and Lur'e, eds,
Poslania Ivana
, p. 193.

47
Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, pp. 456–7. Staden,
Land and Government
, p. 35.

48
Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, pp. 436–7.

49
Dembkowski,
The Union of Lublin
, pp. 197ff.; Floria,
Russko-Polskie
, pp. 46–7.

50
Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 275. Solov'ev,
Istoria Rossii
, III, p. 703. There is some doubt whether Ivan actually fulfilled these requirements, which were in any case lifted while he was on campaign. But see also A. Possevino,
The Moscovia of Antonio Possevino, SJ
, tr. H. Graham, University of Pittsburg, 1977, p. 48, who states that Ivan was no longer taking communion in 1582 as he was under a penance imposed on him for marrying four times. Karamzin says Koltovskaia was the daughter of a merchant, but this is denied by other historians who say she was the daughter of a minor noble.

51
Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 282. Ivan had sent an envoy to Constantinople in April 1571, making certain concessions to Turkish demands and demanding in return that the Crimeans should cease attacking him. A Turkish reply was received in December 1572, in which the Sultan demanded the cession of Astrakhan' to him, of Kazan' to the Khan of Crimea, and that Ivan should become the Sultan's vassal. It came too late.

52
Staden, op. cit., p. 53.

53
R.I. Frost,
The Northern Wars, 1558–1721
, Longman, London, 2000, p. 50.; for a description see Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, pp. 447–8, and Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, pp. 281ff.

54
Ibid., pp. 282–3.

1
S.B. Veselovsky, ‘Dukhovnoe zaveshchanie tsaria Ivana, 1572’, in
Issledovania po istorii oprichniny
, Moscow, 1963, pp. 302ff.

2
See below for a fuller discussion. Zimin,
Oprichnina
, pp. 478ff. points out that Ivan IV thought he had completed the unification of Russia and therefore no longer needed the
oprichnina
. Zimin censures Ivan for building the unity of Russia on the bones of so many of its people, mired in despotism and violence. On centralization see, for instance, award of an appanage to Bogdan Aleksandrovich of Moldavia when he was expelled from his throne by the Ottomans in 1574.

3
Staden,
Land and Government
, p.130. Skrynnikov (
Tsarstvo terrora
, p. 9) also concludes that the weakening of the army led to the abandonment of the terror.

4
R.G. Skrynnikov,
Rossia posle oprichniny
, Leningrad, 1975, p. 8.

5
Veselovsky,
Issledovania po istorii oprichniny
, pp. 292ff. at p. 300: ‘Chto daet genealogia dlia ponimania nekotorykh sobytii…’.

6
I have drawn largely on Zimin,
Oprichnina
and his
V Kanun groznykh potriasenii
, Moscow, 1986; Skrynnikov,
Rossia posle oprichniny
; Veselovsky,
Issledovania po istorii oprichniny
; and A.P. Pavlov,
Gosudarev dvor i politicheskaia bor'ba pri Borise Godunove
, St Petersburg, 1992, to reconstruct the events of the 1570s.

7
Staden was one of those who lost his estates. See
Land and Government
, p. 130.

8
Skrynnikov,
Rossia posle oprichniny
, p. 13.

9
Planning of a sort had taken place in the Commonwealth. Particularly in 1570 to 1571, when a rumour was circulating that Ivan had died. Sigismund wrote to N. Radziwill the Red warning him not to allow either of Ivan's sons to succeed to the Polish-Lithuanian throne. Talks between Lithuanian magnates and the Habsburg party hoping for the election of the Archduke Ernst of Habsburg also continued, and the candidature of Kurbsky was even contemplated by Sigismund Augustus. See Floria,
Russko-pol'skiye
, pp. 44–6 and note 44.

10
Solov'ev, III, pp. 620–3.

11
Karamzin, IX, 1, p. 137.

12
Skrynnikov,
Sviatiteli i vlasti
, p. 250.

13
See above, Chapter IX.

14
See above, Chapter XIV.

15
See above, p. 269, and see Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, p. 475. The inquiry into Mstislavsky's alleged treasonable contacts with the Crimeans rumbled on for a number of years, conducted by A.F. Nagoi who seems to have replaced Maliuta Skuratov in the role of investigator of possible treason.

16
Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 11.

17
On casting spells by whispering, see Ryan,
In the Bathhouse at Midnight, ad indicem
. M.I. Vorotynsky died on 12 June 1573 according to Zimin, ‘Sostav boyarskoi dumy’, p. 73, n. 380.

18
Veselovsky,
Issledovania po istorii oprichniny
, p.120. Kurbsky,
History
, pp. 197ff.

19
Veselovsky, ‘Poruchnye zapisi’, in
Issledovania po istorii oprichniny
, pp. 123ff.; see also Zimin,
Oprichnina
, pp. 463ff. for 1571.

20
Kurbsky,
History
, pp. 201–3: Kurbsky goes on to explain that with the help of magicians and sorceresses, two sons were born from Vasily's ‘foul seed’, one of them so savage and bloodthirsty that he exceeded even the evil Nero, and the other one, just as strange and wondrous, born without mind, memory or speech.

21
Horsey,
Travels
, pp. 279–80. The Pskov Chronicle of 1570 describes Bomelius as a ‘savage witch and evil heretic’ (Brockhaus and Efron,
Encyclopaedia
, under Bomelius; Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, p. 484).

22
Floria,
Ivan Groznyy
, pp. 52ff.

23
Ed. and tr. by J.L.I. Fennell, Cambridge, 1965. This is Zimin's dating and politically the period after the death of Sigismund Augustus seems likely, but there is evidence that incidents which occurred after 1573 are included in the text.

24
Floria,
Russko-Polskie
, pp. 49–51; Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, pp. 469ff.; Solov'ev, III, ch. 6, p. 619.

25
V. Novodvorsky,
Bor'ba za Livoniu mezhdu Moskoviu i rech'iu pospolitoiu 1570–1582
, St Petersburg, 1904, p. 14.

26
Floria,
Russko-Polskie
, pp. 52–3.

27
Solovy'ev, III, ch. 6, pp. 624–5.

28
I am not convinced by Pelenski's article, ‘The Origins of the Official Muscovite Claims to the Kievan Inheritance’, which does not seem to me to understand dynastic as distinct from nationalist ideas.

29
Ivan Ivanovich had already repudiated his first wife and sent her to a convent.

30
Solov'ev, III, ch. 6, pp. 626ff.

31
Ibid., for a long summary of the talks.

32
See above, Chapter XIV, p. 225–6.

33
Novodvorsky, op. cit., p. 18.

34
Floria,
Russko-Polskie
, p. 55.

35
Solov'ev, III, ch. 6, p. 631 (‘tiazhelo emu bylo unizit'sia do iskatel'stva’).

36
Frost,
The Northern Wars
, p. 41.

37
J.H. Elliott,
Europe Divided, 1559–1598
, Fontana, London 1968, pp. 232ff. The nearest case of an act of toleration was the edict passed by the Transylvanian diet in 1571.

38
Karamzin,
Istoria
, IX, 1, p.149 and notes p. 90 note 434.

39
Novodvorsky, op. cit., p. 17; cf. Karamzin, op. cit., 3, pp. 148–9.

40
‘Russkie akty Kopengagenskogo gosudarstvennogo arkhiva’,
Russkaia istoricheskaia biblioteka
, XVI, p. 103, no. 28, 31 July 1573, asking Frederick in his name and that of Maximilian to close the Sound to Henri of Valois.

41
Skrynnnikov,
Rossia posle oprichniny
, p. 19.

42
Ibid., p. 11. See also Ivan's question regarding those taken to the torture chamber: ‘who among our boyars betrays us? Kolychev, Tulupov, Mstislavsky, Fedor Trubetskoi, Ivan Shuisky?’ Ibid., note 31.

43
Ibid., p. 19, note 25 where the author states that I.F. Kolychev and his wife acted as the principal
druzhki
(friends) of the bride at Anna Vasil'chikova's wedding to Ivan, and nineteen Kolychevy are recorded as playing some part in the ceremonies. There is some doubt about the date. See discussion in Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 14. Solov'ev, III, 6, p. 703 and note 136, regards Anna Vasil'chikova and Vasilisa Melent'eva, Ivan's sixth wife, as concubines. He states that they were not called ‘tsaritsa’.

44
Zimin, op.cit., pp. 12ff, and see notes 40 and 41.

45
Skrynnikov,
Sviatiteli
, pp. 251ff.

46
See above, pp. 211–12.

47
Examples of martyrdom are the refusal to eat pork, or the refusal to eat meat on a fast day.

48
Ivan Groznyi,
Sochinenia
, ed. T. Chumakova, pp. 145–168: ‘chelom b'em do zemli’. The letter takes up twenty-three printed pages! Priscilla Hunt (‘Ivan IV's Personal Mythology’) regards this farewell as expressing humility.

49
Horsey,
Travels
, pp. 292–3. Horsey suggests that Bomelius had denounced Leonid – possibly as a rival witch. Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, p. 494.

50
Horsey, op. cit. pp. 292–3; Skrynnikov,
Rossia posle oprichniny
, pp. 16ff; Skrynnikov,
Svatiteli i vlasti
, pp. 255ff.

51
Zimin,
V Kanun
, pp. 32–3. Various versions and dates are given for his death. I have followed Zimin.

52
Prinz von Buchau, ‘Nachalo i vozveshchenie Moskovii’, tr. from the Latin by A. Tikhomirov,
Chteniya
, III, p. 29.

53
According to A. Possevino, ‘Missio Moscovitica’, tr. and ed. by H. Graham,
Canadian American Slavic Studies
, VI, 3, Fall, 1972, p. 49.

54
Ivan Groznyi,
Sochinenia
, ed., T. Chumakova, pp. 120–38.

55
Solov'ev, III, 5, pp. 641ff.

56
Tolstoy,
England and Russia
, pp. 159.

57
Or it may be that Ivan thought he would be in a better position to acquire the Polish crown and actually rule in the Commonwealth if he was not ruling in Russia.

58
Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 26 suggests that Vasily only decided to marry a second wife after the death of Tsarevich Peter, whom he had regarded as his heir, in the absence of children of his own.

1
Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, p. 485.

2
Ivan's formal title now became Prince Ivan of Moscow, Pskov and Rostov, Staritsa and Dmitrov; but he also held on to Riazan, and some of the Novgorod lands were annexed to his appanage. See Skrynnikov,
Rossiia posle oprichniny
, p. 25.

3
Horsey,
Travels
, p. 275 (probably written after Fletcher's
Of the Russe Commonwealth
was printed). Peers is taken to mean members of the Boyar Council, Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, p. 485. However I do not accept Skrynnikov's conception of the Boyar
duma
as ‘the representative organ of the boyar aristocracy’, nor does the English notion of peers and a peerage apply to Russia. And Ivan told the English envoy Sylvester that Simeon had not been crowned.

4
The words ‘appointed by popular choice’ do not ring true of Ivan, since no Russian ruler had ever been appointed by popular choice; it is possible that Sylvester inserted them precisely because he was more aware of the role performed by representative institutions in other countries. On the other hand it is possible that Ivan did use them, since he was at that time very much aware of the role of a representative institution in the election of a ruler as in Poland. The seven crowns are Moscow, Kazan', Astrakhan', Riazan, Tver', Novgorod and Pskov, the most recent acquisitions of the House of Moscow; the crowns frequently reposed on a bench next to the Tsar.

5
Tolstoy,
England and Russia
, 29 January 1576, pp. 186–8 at p. 188.

6
Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 35, attributed to V.O. Kliuchevsky.

7
V.I. Koretsky, ‘Zemskiy sobor 1575 g. i postanovlenie Simeona Bekbulatovicha Velikim Kniazem vseia Rusi’,
Istoricheskii Arkhiv
, 2, 1959, pp. 148ff. Koretsky argues that just as in foreign policy Ivan had used a put-up figure, King Magnus, so in internal policy he was sheltering behind a dummy, Tsar Simeon (p.149). Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, pp. 484–5 rejects the view that there was a meeting of a
Zemskii sobor
.