Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/320

 296 whom we might choose a wife, and thou wilt not give us their names. Yet how can we take any steps on such vague information as this? It appears there are more than a thousand marriageable girls in England, several of them kitchen wenches; would you have us pay our addresses to them all?'

These interviews, which constantly recurred during the two first months of the year 1584, culminated, on February 14, according to the Russian records, in another and most violent altercation. Bowes, after having undertaken to give the Tsar's Ambassador to the King of France a passage on board his ship, backed out of his promise, saying the Queen had ordered him to go back to England overland.

'So as to sell me to my enemies!' cried Ivan, beside himself with rage. 'I'll not permit it!'

Since Russia had lost Livonia, the overland route ran through Poland. Recovering his self-control, though still furious, Ivan continued: 'As thou didst not come here to treat seriously, thou hast my leave to go, and take away all thou broughtest in with thee! This very hour we will dismiss thee!'

Bowes was well accustomed to such angry outbreaks, and this one, as the Russian records admit, by no means overwhelmed him. He was not dismissed, and three days later the envoy was summoned to listen to the reading of a suggested treaty, in which the Tsar had caused the minimum of his wishes and demands to be embodied. All our knowledge of the sense of this document is gathered from the objections made to it by Bowes. Substantially, what Ivan demanded was an offensive alliance for the reconquest of Livonia. As always, the Ambassador. gave prevaricating answers. His mistress, a very pious lady, had a horror of conquests. The Low Countries had vainly besought her to take them under her protection, and even France would have been thankful to pass under her rule. …

'But this is not a matter of conquest,' replied the Tsar; 'Livonia is our ancient patrimony!'

'Are you quite sure of that?'

Ivan was furious.

'We do not ask your Queen to judge between us and Poland!'

And this time the farewell audience was fixed for February 20. It was put off on account of the monarch's illness, and on March 18, Chtchelkalov had Bowes informed that 'his English Tsar was dead.' Like Randolph, in former days, the envoy was kept a prisoner in his own house, and exposed to every kind of ill-treatment, until the month of May, when Ivan's son sent him back to Elizabeth with a letter which