Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/221

 Rh awful threats and the most tempting promises, showed the King's emissaries a ring engraved with the words 'Death only. …' The miserable monarch, at the end of his arguments and his resources, threatened himself by the rising rebellion around him, and, dreaming of a safe refuge in Russia, ended, as his most determined apologists admit (Celsius, 'History of Erik,' xiv., French translation, 1777, ii. 139)—though Persson denied it, even on the scaffold—by thinking the advice of his gloomy counsellor the best that offered. John's death would settle everything. The Muscovite envoys were actually making ready to receive their prey, when Erik's reason, already trembling on the steep abyss of his meditated crime, gave way completely. Confusing their mutual positions, he fancied himself the prisoner, restored the captive of Gripsholm to freedom, and besought his pardon. The attack lasted till towards the close of the following year, and Ivan's envoys still hoped to turn it to account for the attainment of their ends. But the Swedish Council continued its opposition, and in a lucid interval, Erik, instead of granting the Tsarevitch his sister's hand, thought he was doing quite enough when he offered him that of Virginia Persdotter, the daughter of one of his many concubines! Ivan was deeply angered, and in 1568, the last scenes of the drama approached: Catherine's husband ascended the Swedish throne, threw the brother who had so nearly been his executioner into a dungeon, and thus inaugurated a new era in the more and more complicated struggle of which Livonia continued to be the object. In this struggle, Magnus was about to claim a leading part.

The new King of Sweden, married to a Jagellon, was the natural ally of Sigismund-Augustus and the chosen instrument of the Catholic reaction against Protestantism. The treaty of 1563 between Sweden and Russia was practically annulled, and the Swede passed over to the enemy's camp. A gifted politician, well trained in matters of war, though more of a theorist than a fighting soldier, John, by the struggle he was soon to begin with Moscow, by the heroic defence of Revel in 1570–1571, and the brilliant victory of Wenden in 1577, was to endow his country with a military glory which was to endure a century and more, until the disastrous day of Poltava. In November, 1568, at Roeskilde, he believed himself on the point of obtaining peace with Denmark and Lubeck, but he was unable to ratify the concessions his plenipotentiaries had allowed their opponents to wring from them. In the mediating hands of the Emperor and the King of Poland, the negotiations dragged on