Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/304

 280 sador, according to a method of diplomatic procedure not uncommon in the history of the Moscow of that period, found himself a prisoner in the house assigned as his residence, isolated there, and quite unable to perform his functions. When, after three months' waiting, he at last succeeded in obtaining an audience, the usual honours were not paid him, and the Tsar omitted to invite him to his own table, which was the established custom. What transpired in the course of that first interview? We know not; but it seems to have altered the monarch's views, for some days afterwards Ivan invited Randolph to take his way to the palace once more, this time in the greatest mystery, at dead of night, and wearing a disguise. This conversation lasted three hours, and as to what may have passed at it we are reduced to conjecture. The next morning the Tsar departed for his Sloboda, and did not come back till the following April. But when he did return, a sudden and total alteration in his attitude became apparent. Not only did he agree to restore the Russian company to the enjoyment of its former privileges, but he granted it fresh and greater advantages—free trade with Persia, power to mine for iron at Vytchegda, and to recoin money for its own benefit at Moscow, Novgorod, and Pskov, and the closing of the port of Narva to the newly-formed English company, while the old one was authorized to drive away the ships of any other nation that ventured into the White Sea.

Randolph had evidently flattered the Sovereign with some new hope, the performance of which was to be claimed by another Russian embassy to London.

Nepiéia's successor bore the name of Savine. Alas! all he brought back, after ten months spent on the banks of the Thames, was a letter from Elizabeth couched in somewhat vague and anything but satisfactory language. To a promise of help, on which it would not have been very easy to reckon, the Queen merely added a fresh assurance of the pleasure it would give her to welcome the Tsar, with all the honours due to his rank, whenever it suited him to become her guest, and to undertake all the charges connected with his entertainment. Instead of the coveted alliance, she offered him alms!

Ivan's behaviour, indeed, proved he had been wakened out of a beautiful dream, and when disturbed he was habitually bad-tempered. As usual, he lost all self-control, and sent Elizabeth an answer quite in the style of the epistles with which he was obliging the King of Sweden just at that time. He would not admit that the Queen herself would have treated a Sovereign who traced his descent from the Cæsars in so cavalier a fashion, and wrote to her as follows: 'I had thought thee mistress in thine own house, and free to follow thine own will.