Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/355

 Rh purse of 100 florins, and then the comrades parted—the Russian proceeding to Lubeck, while the Jesuit took his way to Vilna, there to begin his duties as a mediator.

The Papal Nuncio, Caligari, had already informed the King of Poland of the Legate's approaching arrival, and requested passports for him. His reception had been cool in the extreme. The Rector of the College of Wilna, Skarga, himself a Jesuit, considered the mission most inopportune. Batory, in addition to the general reasons which made him share this opinion, had others of a more private nature, which led him to suspect the present policy of the Holy See. For some time the Pope had been holding him out hopes of a conquest of Wallachia, then just about to change masters, and it was a- well-known fact at Warsaw that Gregory XIII. was secretly assisting the candidature of Peter Czerczel, who was supported by the French. Advices from Rome also made it evident that Cardinal Madrucci, a former Papal Nuncio in Germany, had been present at the Congregation which had decided on the appointment of Possevino, and the conferences between the Legate and the Archduke Ernest could not fail to stir suspicion in the King of Poland's mind.

The passports were granted, nevertheless, and Possevino found Batory in a more friendly frame of mind. The delay about opening his campaign had something to do with this, we may be sure. In the Sovereign's immediate circle there was open talk of putting an end to the business by a peace of some sort or kind. When, towards the close of July, 1581, the Pope's envoy started for Ivan's residence, and the King marched away to Pskov, the best wishes of many Poles attended the Jesuit’s progress. On August 20, after some misadventures, one at Smolensk especially, when, believing he was going to a dinner (obiéd), he very nearly attended an obiédnia (Orthodox Mass), Possevino reached Staritsa, and was permitted to 'contemplate the calm eyes of the Tsar.'

Nothing that could have ensured the Roman representative a favourable reception had been overlooked by the Papal Court. To his brief for the Tsar the Pope had added a letter addressed to the Tsarina Anastasia, whom the Pontiff, unaware that she had been dead for years, and her place filled several times over, addressed as his 'well-beloved daughter.' The Sovereign Pontiff's gifts—a crucifix carved in rock crystal, enriched with gold; a copy, in the Greek language, of the records of the Council of Florence, splendidly bound; a rosary of precious stones mounted in gold; and a crystal