Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/323

 Rh country where everybody talked too much. At the election of 1575, he was the Sultan's candidate, in opposition to the Emperor's; for Ivan, as we have seen, had retired, and Maximilian's son based his claim on the Austrian alliance against the Turks. Whether to make war against the Turks, backed by Austria, or to make war against the Muscovites, backed by the neutrality, at all events, if not the assistance, of the Porte—there lay the dilemma! But the Polish electors, wrapped up in their own concerns, were moved and divided by other considerations. The aristocracy leant towards Maximilian, because he offered it titles and money; the lesser nobles went over in a body to the Hungarian, because they were convinced so modest a personage would be their King and their slave too, and that either he would govern through them or they would govern without him, against the oligarchy of the great lords.

The stranger, as it turned out, wanted to be everybody's King, and he knew how to get what he wanted. He began by outstripping his rival at Warsaw. That was easy enough, for haste, on Maximilian's part, meant considerable risk—the Turk had his eye upon him. The Emperor's death, which took place in October, 1576, left Batory alone. All he had to do now was to unravel the difficulties of a position in which Henry of Valois had not even tried to see his way. The ex-voiévode proved himself the possessor of an unexpectedly clear insight, and an unrivalled knowledge of the art of government. Physically, as we see him in a portrait painted in 1583 by an unknown artist, and now preserved in the Church of the Missionary Fathers at Cracow, he was a typical Magyar—short and thick-set, with prominent cheek-bones, a long nose, and a low forehead. The countenance is massive, energetic, rugged. We see no regard for effect, no elegance ; he looks fierce and uncouth. The new King, who, both from necessity and because it suited his tastes, had lived in a most simple way, never dreamt for a moment of changing his habits, nor imagined he had been given a crown so that he might lead an easy life. It was noticed that he never wore gloves, and the story goes that, though he was shod with Polish boots, he scorned the stockings then coming into general use. His health was anything but good. He had been suffering, for a considerable time, from a mysterious complaint which seems to have hastened his end. He had an open sore on his left leg, and a belief grew up, when this trouble grew worse, that, in spite of all his appearance of strength, he had suffered, during his residence at the Emperor's Court, from attacks of epilepsy or apoplexy. The doctors of that period were not over clear-sighted. But the new King showed no sign of anything of this sort when he arrived in Poland. He worked his secretaries to death, spent