Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/217

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Sigismund-Augustus tried to draw in even the Low Countries, but he only succeeded in vexing the States by the measures he took to cut off the Narva trade. In 1565, while success and reverse were pretty evenly balanced in Livonia, the Poles taking Pernau and the Swedes harrying Oesel, two successive disasters overtook Sweden: in January, Frederick II. closed the Sound, and so cut her off from Europe; and in November, the Emperor Maximilian, yielding to the remonstrances of Frederick of Saxony—the real Agamemnon of this war between the nations—published a manifesto which laid the Swedes under a ban, as breakers of the peace, allied with a barbarous monarch. This paralyzed Erik's progress in Livonia, and his brother's party began to lift its head. Yet Maximilian was being constantly worked on in an opposite sense by the representatives of certain German trading-houses which had interests at Moscow. Their agents were busily employed in turning public opinion. One of them, Veit Zenge by name, the Duke of Bavaria's commercial envoy at Lubeck, went further than his fellows. Did not Ivan glory in his own German origin? This was, in fact, one of the Tsar's manias. Veit Zenge even felt sure he had Bavarian blood in his veins! In return for the honour of entering into closer relations with the Emperor, and receiving one of his orders, the Muscovite Sovereign would give 30,000 of his best cavalry to fight against the Turks, and a large sum of money into the bargain; he would even relinquish his claims to Livonia, and place his Church under the Pope's authority! Matrimonial arrangements might set a convenient seal on this agreement, so desirable in the interests of Christendom in general. Ivan had a son and daughter, both of marriageable age, and in the Moscow terems there were beauties who might well set all the Princes in Germany a-dreaming. These conceits, discussed at all the German Tagen, did not fail to produce their effect on the decisions of the Empire and its ruler, both of them already inclined to an indolent and prudent neutrality.

In 1566, Magnus, hard pressed by the Swedes, sought a reconciliation with Poland. His pretensions were high: he asked the hand of Sigismund-Augustus' second sister, with Livonia as her dowry. The last of the Jagellons did not take the proposal seriously, and set himself, in 1567, to strike a mighty blow, and personally lead a campaign against Livonia. There was a stir at Dantzig. This sea-coast town, which had scant taste for the Polish domination, and was discontented with its own lot, had shown a preference, from the very outset, for the