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 letters to the tsar into Russian in a personal interview, and laid before him a pedigree of the English royal family. Elizabeth (Meyrick declared) had selected a daughter of the Earl of Derby as the tsarevitch's bride; but she was eighteen years old, and seeing that the Russian prince was only thirteen, Meyrick argued that the union was undesirable. Meyrick remained in Russia till June. On the 22nd of that month he had a final audience with the tsar, who promised full protection to English merchants, and sent cordial greetings to Elizabeth, besides entrusting Meyrick with four Russian youths of high birth to be educated in England. Meyrick journeyed home in July. A full account of his embassy, written by himself, is in the British Museum (MS. Cott. Nero B. viii.); it was printed by Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1824, pt. ii. pp. 226 sq.

Meyrick soon returned to Russia. In 1603 he forwarded as a gift to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, two Russian manuscripts—a bible and ‘Canones Patrum Muscov.’ (, Annals of the Bodleian Library, p. 30). In October 1603 his partner and brother, Richard, died in London, and John was described in the dying man's will as ‘then residing in Muscovy.’ After the death in 1605 of the Tsar Boris, probably by poison, the utmost confusion prevailed at Moscow. An impostor named Demetrius seized the throne, but Meyrick obtained from him protection for English commerce, and when in 1606 Basil IV (Vassily Shuiski) became tsar, Meyrick was again successful in obtaining a renewal of the privileges previously accorded to his fellow-countrymen. Political disturbances compelled Meyrick to remove at times from Moscow to Archangel and Cholmogorü, and late in 1606 he returned to England to report the progress of affairs. He was soon, however, again acting as ‘agent’ in Russia, but paid another visit to London in 1611. In 1614 he was reappointed English ambassador to the tsar's court, with full powers to use his influence to reduce the anarchy prevailing in the Russian government. Before his departure James knighted him at Greenwich (13 June 1614). He travelled with forty-four persons, and with a large sum of money to be advanced, if need be, to the tsar and his ministers. Meyrick's mission proved successful. Michael, of the house of Romanoff, was securely installed on the throne, and Meyrick took part in the negotiations for bringing to a close the long-standing warfare between Russia and Sweden. In 1615 he journeyed to Staraia-Russa, and met envoys from the two countries, as well as commissioners from Holland, who agreed to take part in the mediation. On 4 March 1616 an armistice for three months was arranged under Meyrick's guidance; on 20 Nov., owing to his intercession with Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedes raised the seige of Narva; and on 27 Feb. 1617 he helped to secure the final peace of Stolbovo, which bore his signature as that of one of the contracting parties. In November 1617 Meyrick came again to England, accompanied by an elaborate embassy from Russia, and bearing rich presents from the tsar to James I. On 19 Oct. 1620 he was reappointed the English envoy at Moscow, and was directed to negotiate a commercial treaty and to recover the money recently lent to the tsar. In 1623 a commercial treaty with Russia—the first of its kind—was duly signed by Meyrick and the tsar's councillors (, Fœdera, xvii. 504). In 1628 he was still in Moscow, and was then governor of the Russia Company. He died ten years later, and was credited at the time with more knowledge of Russia than any other Englishman (cf., Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century, Hakluyt Soc., p. 265). In his will he desired that he might be buried in his parish church of St. Andrew Undershaft, if he died in London, and he bequeathed 100l. to the Merchant Taylors' Company, with 300l. to be lent to scholars of the company's school on their commencing business; he also left legacies to many London parishes and hospitals. His wife Frances, daughter of Sir Francis Cherrie, also a Russia merchant, predeceased him; she had no issue. 

MEYRICK, JOHN (d. 1659), parliamentary general, was the fifth son of Sir Francis Meyrick of Fleet, in the parish of Monkton, Pembrokeshire, by Anne, daughter of Francis Laugharne of St. Brides in the same county. Bishop Rowland Meyrick [q. v.] was his grandfather. Like his father, who died in 1603, and his uncle, Sir Gelly [q. v.], John adopted a military career. His influence with the Devereux family procured him a troop under Robert Devereux, third earl of Essex [q. v.], whom he accompanied to Flanders in 1620; he fought another campaign in the United Provinces in 1624. In 1625 he served in the expedition against Spain, and it was probably on his return that he received the honour of knighthood. In 1630 he had a subordinate command in General Morgan's regiment in the service of