Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/202

 178 was stopped by the Livonians, with his troop of followers, cast into prison, and kept there until all his men, some 100, or even 300—the authorities contradict each other as to the exact figure—had dispersed. Another reason. Once Novgorod had been incorporated into the Russian Empire, the conquest of Livonia became necessary to that Empire. The new masters of the city had begun by destroying the German counting-house, or niémiétskii-dvor; but the trade thus taken from the Hansa at once passed to the Livonian towns, Riga and Narva, fresh centres of operations by which Moscow suffered—hostile cities where foreigners were forbidden to learn Russian, and all credit given to Russian merchants was punished with fines (Richter, Geschichte der Ostsee Provinzen, 1857, ii., p. 422).

What pretexts? In old days, between the Livonian town of Neuhausen and Pskov, there had lain a belt of wild country, over which, after many years of contest, the Russians had obtained a sort of suzerainty, based on an annual tribute of 10 pounds of honey, paid by the Livonian husbandmen living on the land. When the bee-swarms disappeared, together with the forests in which they had lived, this tribute had first of all been converted into a money payment—fixed, according to some authorities, at six crowns a year—and had finally fallen into disuse. In 1503, Moscow revived the ancient memory, and endeavoured to confuse the issue with her pretensions on Derpt, the Iouriév of the old Russians. In 1554, just after the taking of Astrakan, Ivan added more recent griefs: violations of his frontiers and confiscations of orthodox churches by Protestant fanatics. In 1556, having insured the safety of his new possessions in the East, he began to use sterner language. One of his predecessors had already sent the Livonians a whip as an admonitory hint. The Tsar's Ambassador seems to have borne this precedent in mind. The tribute of 10 pounds of honey or six crowns was transformed, in his mouth, into a tax of one mark for every member of the population, and he claimed arrears amounting to 50,000 crowns.

The Bishop of Derpt flattered himself he would get out of the difficulty by a diplomatic quibble; he promised full payment, but made the execution of his engagement dependent on the Emperor's approbation. And to the Emperor the Livonians forthwith wrote, in what sense my readers will easily imagine. Terpigorev, the Ambassador, pretended he did not understand all these artifices. The Emperor? What had the Emperor to do with it?

'Yes or no—will you pay the money?' Instead of the coin, they brought him an explanatory letter for Ivan.

'Ho, ho!' said he, as he carefully put the paper into a silken