Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/223

 Rh pirate's person; but Denmark's attempts to gain a footing on the Livonian coast were fruitless, likewise. Ivan exchanged artillery fire with Erik's successor in Finland, whither he sent an army and Ambassadors; but the Swedish envoys found themselves checked by the Tsar's claim for the execution of the 1567 treaty in its integrity. First of all they were kept at Novgorod, and then dragged from Moscow to Mourom, and from Mourom to Kline, in a state of genuine captivity, embittered, according to their own reports, by the most odious acts of violence. Under the twofold pretext of the Swedish failure in keeping the undertaking, and of some affront of which the Russian envoys would seem to have had to complain when they reached Stockholm, the unlucky messengers of peace were treated as if they had been captives of war. Their hands were tied behind their backs, they were marched through the streets amidst a hooting mob, and threatened with the bastinado if they did not give the Tsar satisfaction on every point, including the surrender of Catherine's person. The ex-Duke of Finland was not dead, since he was a reigning Sovereign, and Catherine had become Queen of Sweden; but Ivan pretended to know nothing about that. So many stories were going about the world!

In the midst of his struggle with the internal crisis his reforms had evoked, the Tsar had just had to endure another and a terrible trial. From 1563 to 1570, he had vainly striven to stem the Tartar invasion with which Poland threatened him. In vain had his envoys, Nagoï and Revski, carried conciliatory messages and splendid gifts to the Khan. Poland did as much, and more, and the Sultan, irritated by the conquest of Kazan and Astrakn, supported Poland. In 1569, a combined Tartar and Turkish expedition threatened Astrakan, and Simon Maltsev, the Tsar's envoy to the Tartars, who had been taken captive by the Cossacks, was a rower on one of the Moslem galleys. In 1570, Ivan agreed to pull down a fort he had lately built on the Terek, but Selim II. instantly claimed Kazan and Astrakan, and the Tsar's acceptance of his suzerainty. Naturally enough, the negotiations were broken off, and in May, 1571, the Tartars, having crossed the Oka unopposed, appeared before Moscow. This time Ivan followed the tradition of his ancestors, and took refuge first at the sloboda of Alexandrov, and finally at Rostov. The capital, thus left to its fate, was put to fire and sword. According to testimony which is probably exaggerated, 800,000 men perished in the flames, while the Metropolitan, shut up with part of his clergy in the Cathedral of the Assumption, waited for death; and Prince Ivan Dmitriévitch Biélski, who had been left in charge of the defence, was stifled in the cellar in which he had sought refuge.