Ivan the Terrible (87 page)

10
Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 248, note 41.

11
The message was sent by his courier Lopatinsky. Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 55. There were also very secret talks about the King divorcing Anna Jagiellonka in order to marry again and produce an heir.

12
Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 352. Solov'ev does not mention this incident.

13
See Alfonso de Valdés,
Diálogo de Mercurio y Caron
, Bk II. Valdés was Charles V's secretary at the time. He was also a close friend of Johannes Dantiscus, the Polish ambassador to the court of Charles, and kept him well informed of the incident. I am grateful to Professor M.-J. Rodriguez-Salgado for advance information from her forthcoming book,
Monarch of the World. The International Politics of Charles V,
Yale University Press. See also R.J. Knecht,
Francis I
, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1982, pp. 211 and 214–16.

14
Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 55; as I write the US-led coalition is doing the same in Iraq. There is nothing new under the sun.

15
Zimin,
V Kanun,
pp. 55 and 258, note 47. The archive copy dates from 1626.

16
Karamzin, IX, 5, pp. 188–9.

17
See D. Rowland, ‘Biblical Military Imagery in the Political Culture of Early Modern Russia: the Blessed Host of the Heavenly Tsar’ in M.S. Flier and D. Rowland, eds,
Medieval Russian Culture
, II, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1994, pp. 182–212; see also Bogatyrev, ‘Battle for Divine Wisdom’, where the author underlines the emphasis on the symbolic significance of the recovery of the cathedral of Santa Sophia in Polotsk, which had its origins in Kiev–Constantinople.

18
Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 57.

19
Ibid.

20
Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 358

21
See the very useful article by Lt Col. Dianne Smith, ‘The Sixteenth-Century Muscovite Army’.

22
See Frost,
The Northern Wars
, pp. 28–9.

23
Tolstoy,
England and Russia
, p. 183. See above, Chapter XVIII, pp. 298–9.

24
Horsey,
Travels,
pp. 289–90. Again an evil omen for Ivan?

25
Ibid., pp. 294–8. Horsey also saw Francis Walsingham, and Leicester, and was evidently very well received. It is possible that he executed some commercial commissions for both Leicester and Walsingham. No doubt the Queen enjoyed the story of his journey, which makes very good reading.

26
Ibid., pp. 292–3. See Staden,
Land and Government
, pp. 123–4; Taube and Kruse, ‘Poslanie loganna …’, p. 54; J. Hamel,
England and Russia
, London, 1854, pp. 98–9; Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 258, note 56; it is possible that some of this took place in Pskov, since Bomelius is mentioned briefly in a Pskovian chronicle as being there with Ivan. He is described as a
lyutyi volkhv
(savage magician) (ibid., p. 58). Jerome Bowes, ambassador from Elizabeth to Ivan in 1583, secured the repatriation of Bomelius's widow, Jane Ricards; see note to the effect that Bomelius was ‘rosted to death in Mosco’ in 1579 in R. Hakluyt,
Principal Navigations of the English Nation
, p. 259.

27
Karamzin, IX, notes, p. 127, note 603, quoting Oderborn's report of the comet and his many exaggerations.

28
I am grateful to Mrs G. Learner and Peter Hingley, Librarian of the Royal Astronomical Society, for having guided me to the relevant literature on comets: C.D. Hellman:
The Comet of 1577: its Place in the History of Astronomy
, Columbia University Press, New York, 1971 edition; D.K. Yeomans,
Comets, A Chronological History of Observation, Science, Myth and Folklore,
Wiley, Chichester, 1991, pp. 33ff.; Gary W. Kronk,
Cometography, A Catalog of Comets,
I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, pp. 317ff.

29
Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 353. The Russian reply has only fairly recently been found, states Floria, but in any case it was not sent as fighting broke out.

30
Skrynnikov,
Rossia posle oprichniny
, pp. 50–1.

31
Pierling,
La Russie et le Saint-Siège,
II, pp. 3–5. I shall be drawing extensively on this work in this chapter. See also Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 364, who argues that Ivan was responding to an imperial decision to ban the export to Russia of lead, tin and copper, essential for armaments.

32
For the earlier papal soundings in Russia see Pierling, op. cit., I, passim.

33
See for instance, A. Tourguéniev,
Historica Russiae Monumenta
, I, St Petersburg, 1841, p. 258, Caligari (nuncio in Warsaw) to Cardinal Commendone, in Rome, 3 July 1579, on the Polish Catholics' hope that the Muscovites would accept the Catholic faith, and pointing out that if Ivan were
offered the title of King, the King of Poland–Lithuania would still be better off as Ivan's title would be lower in rank and later than his. Evidently Caligari did not realize that Ivan would notice this too!

34
Pierling, op. cit., II, pp. 12ff. It was Antonio Possevino who later discovered the truth about this episode. Shevrigin's letter to the Doge is in the Venetian archives, while the Doge's reply to Ivan was ‘lost’ by Shevrigin on the return journey.

35
Ibid., pp. 17ff., for the discussion of Ivan's letter in the Vatican and the resolution of 6 March 1581. Shevrigin, in his report to Ivan, left out the detail about kissing the Pope's slipper and kneeling before him.

36
For details on Possevino see H. F. Graham's introduction to ‘The Missio Muscovitica’ of Antonio Possevino, pp. 437–77, partly based on information from Possevino's travelling companion, Father John Paul Campano; and see also Possevino,
The Moscovia of Antonio Possevino
, which deals in more details with Possevino's actual negotiations in Russia.

37
Pierling, op. cit., II, p. 42.

38
Karamzin, IX, notes, pp. 116–17, note 554, states that a bride-show was held, and then quotes Bathory's Polish secretary, G. Heidenstein, who gives a very fanciful description of the procedure.

39
Possibly in childbirth? See Skrynnikov,
Rossia posle oprichnina,
pp. 99–100, and notes 56 and 57.

40
Daughter of Fedor V. Sheremetev.

41
Pierling, op. cit., II, pp. 53–5.

42
Zimin,
V Kanun,
pp. 62ff and 71–2; Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 361.

43
The delay was due to the funeral of Bathory's brother, Christopher, Prince of Transylvania.

44
Ibid., pp. 55–65

45
Pierling, op. cit., II, p. 69.

46
There were atrocities on both sides, but the Russian atrocities are better documented because of the flood of printed and illustrated propaganda issuing partly from Poland and partly from printing presses in Germany.

47
See
Poslania Ivana Groznogo
, pp. 390–415; Ivan IV,
Sochinenia
, pp. 186–219.

48
Ibid. Floria,
Ivan Groznyi,
pp. 363–5, argues that this missive is not really aimed at Bathory but at the Papacy and above all the Empire, and is designed to show that the Polish King supports the Ottomans and will not support an anti-Turkish coalition, and is appealing to some of the magnates in the Commonwealth who previously had supported the Emperor.

49
It exists in Polish, Russian and Latin versions.

50
The letter was circulated together with the work of Guagnini (based on Schlichting) and that of Taube and Kruse. See Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 367; Pierling, op. cit., II, pp. 77–9.

51
Ibid.

52
Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 73.

53
Pamiatniki diplomaticheskikh snoshenii
, X, p. 53, instruction to the
pristav
meeting Possevino at the Polish border, 29 July 1581. There is frequently a discrepancy between the accounts of Possevino and the Russian sources.

54
Pierling, op. cit., II, p. 87.

55
Ibid., Pierling suggests that Bogdan Bel'sky who, with Nikita Romanovich Iur'ev Zakhar'in, led the negotiations offered a financial inducement to Possevino which was indignantly brushed aside.

56
Roberts,
The Early Vasas,
pp. 263–4.

57
Possevino,' ‘Missio Moscovitica’, p. 462.

58
Pierling, op. cit., II, 94;
Pamiatniki diplomaticheskikh snoshenii,
tom. X, cols
206–35. Ivan writes to Possevino explaining their correspondence, more in sorrow than in anger and with his usual sarcasm over twenty-nine printed columns. The text was translated for Possevino. He accuses Bathory of taking Polotsk by treachery, having suborned his captains to let the Lithuanians in, and at the end he introduces a new claim to the lordship of the East and the West. It is a long process of self-defence and slightly mad.

59
Kurbsky,
Correspondence,
pp. 181–5.

60
Ibid., pp. 187ff.

1
Zimin,
V Kanun
, pp. 59–60.

2
Ibid. Skrynnikov argues that this resolution echoes the policy enacted in 1572, but Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 60, argues that the decree of 1572 only forbade acquisition of land by large monasteries for prayers for the dead, whereas the decree of 1580 corresponded to the interests of the service gentry and the state treasury, and in any case it was not put into effect because of the war. Horsey is probably referring to the
ukaz
of 1581 for he refers also to Ivan quoting Possevino's insistence on the restoration of papal supremacy. He also states that Ivan raised 300,000 marks sterling by this means. See Horsey,
Travels,
pp. 382ff. See also Skrynnikov,
Rossia posle oprichniny
, pp. 73ff. who compares Horsey's memoirs with the official resolution.

3
This is a very abbreviated summary of a very complex question, based on Zimin,
V Kanun,
pp. 64ff.

4
Possevino, ‘Missio Moscovitica’, pp. 462–4. Father Campano was to return to Rome, while Possevino's other companion, Father Drenocki, a Croat, was to remain in Russia until Possevino returned. Drenocki was held very closely while in Moscow, and was unable to proselytize.

5
Possevino has left a description of the place and a journal of the twenty-one sessions over which the negotiations stretched, from 13 December to 15 January 1582. See Possevino,
The Moscovia of Antonio Possevino
, pp. 106ff.

6
See Mattingly,
Renaissance Diplomacy
, passim.

7
Pierling, op. cit., II, p.110. Pierling attempts to clear Possevino of the charge of bias, but inevitably, committed as he was to the defence of the Papacy, he found it difficult to be completely objective, though he lodged with the Russian delegation at Kiverova Gora.

8
Possevino,
The Moscovia of Antonio Possevino
, pp. 128–9.

9
Ibid., pp. 128–9.

10
It should be pointed out that this did not refer to the concept of ‘Moscow the Third Rome’ which played no part in the negotiations, nor as far as I can see in any negotiations.

11
Skrynnikov,
Rossia posle oprichniny
, pp. 61–2.

12
Horsey,
Travels
, p. 300.

13
Quoted from the ‘Stepennaya Kniga’ Chronicle by Karamzin, IX, notes, p. 28, note 609.

14
Tsar' Ivan Vasil'evich Groznyi,
Dukhovnie pesnopenia i molitvoslovia,
Obshchestvo sviatitela, Moscow, 1999, pp. 186ff.

15
Karamzin, IX, notes, p.128, note 608.

16
See above, p. 293.

17
Skrynnikov,
Rossia posle oprichniny
, pp. 92–3.

18
Ibid. The source is Oderborn, quoted in Karamzin.

19
See Perrie,
The Image of Ivan the Terrible,
pp. 76ff., and for the actual text of one of the songs about the Tsar and his sons, in English translation, see pp. 209ff.

20
G.V. Zharinov, ‘Zapisi o raskhode lekarstvennykh sredstv 1581–1582’,
Arkhiv russkoi istorii
, 4, 1994, pp. 103–25. An English apothecary, John Frensham and a physician, Dr Robert Atkins arrived in Russia, highly recommended by Queen Elizabeth, just too late to attend the Tsarevich, on 15 November 1581.

21
Tolstoy,
England and Russia
, p, 194, A Memorial for Her Majesty, May 1582.

22
Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 265, note 30.

23
Possevino,
Moscovia of Antonio Possevino
, pp. 12ff.

24
Irina did give birth to a daughter, Feodosia in 1592 who lived very briefly. Horsey, as usual full of gossip about his own important activities, says that on one of his visits to England he was charged with consulting physicians in Oxford, Cambridge and London to procure their advice on matters of ‘conception and procuration of children’, for Irina Godunova. The relevant words are written in English but in cyrillic in the original text. Horsey,
Travels
, p. 319. His tactlessness in this field contributed to his final disgrace at theRussian court.

25
Pastor Oderborn (who was never in Russia) reports a rumour that at the time of the death of the Tsarevich, Boris Godunov had been in the room when Ivan attacked his son. He had intervened to restrain the Tsar, and had in turn been beaten and even injured by the irate monarch. Ivan had apparently not forgotten and was harbouring a grievance against his favourite, which might have led him to exclude Boris from any regency council. See Floria,
Ivan Groznyi,
p.389.

26
Willan,
History of the Russia Company
, pp. 157ff.

27
Solov'ev,
Istoria
, III, pp. 677ff. See also ‘Stateinyi spisok’ of F. Pisemsky in
Zapiski russkikh puteshestvennikov XVI–XVII vv.,
N.I. Prokof'ev and L.I. Alekhinoi, eds, for F. Pisemsky's official report of his mission to England.