Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/222

 198 till 1570, and then the Danish cause was compromised by an understanding between Magnus and the Muscovites, while Sigismund-Augustus, who interfered with the preparation of the treaty, and demanded that Sweden should give up all her conquests in Livonia and make common cause against Russia, still further complicated the problem. For had not the Polish King just signed a three years' truce with Ivan, thus leaving the Tsar free to support Magnus against the Swedes?

I am tempted to fear my readers' heads must be beginning to swim, but I am helpless. I am simplifying and abridging to the best of my ability, though my efforts, no doubt, make little show. Was Magnus acting as the representative of Denmark in Livonia? This point, which is still disputed, was unendingly discussed in those days. There were perpetual diplomatic gatherings and congresses, the litigious question of the dominium maris Baltici, and the quite as thorny one of the navigation of the Narova, were both called up, and the end of it all was a treaty, signed at Stettin in February, 1571, in which almost the whole of Europe, the Empire, and, through the Emperor's agency, France, Spain, England, Scotland, and even the Hanse towns—though they were not overpleased—figure alongside of the contracting parties, and express their agreement—which treaty was not put into execution any more than its fellows had been.

Theoretically, this arrangement, which reconciled Sweden and Denmark, left Ivan at war with the Swedes and the Poles, who would now be free to join all their forces against him. But, in exchange for the free passage of the Sound granted by Denmark, and that country's proffered mediation with the Tsar and Magnus, Sweden had undertaken to respect the traffic on the Narova; now the King of Poland was to interfere, and Sweden was soon to break her promise. The Emperor had undertaken, on his side, to buy back the territories Sweden had been holding in Livonia; neither he nor his successors ever thought of doing this, any more than Livonia ever thought of acknowledging the Emperor's suzerainty. Denmark emerged triumphant from the struggle, and kept an apparent supremacy over the Baltic; but the key to the dominium maris Baltici remained in Livonia, and through Magnus, whom he was soon to convert into his tool, Ivan still held the dominant position there.

Neither Poles nor Swedes could contrive to check him. Sigismund-Augustus' dreamt-of fleet continued a dream, and the German and Flemish corsairs the Emperor managed to equip were always fought by others, sent out by the Tsar under a famous leader, Kersten Rhode, who pushed on as far as Dantzig. Thereupon Denmark intervened, and seized the bold