Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/226

36 “knes”; nor, as I have already said, have they ever had any higher title than that, with the addition of the word “great”, for all the other dukes who held only one principality, were simply called “knes”; but those who held several principalities and other “knesi” under their command, were called Veliki Knesi, that is, grand dukes. The lowest title or dignity amongst them, is that of the Boyars, who hold the rank of our nobles or knights. In Croatia, indeed, the superior nobles are likewise called Knesi; but with us, as also in Hungary, they only obtain the names of counts. Some gentlemen of princely rank have not hesitated to tell me, by way of casting it in my teeth, that the present Prince of Russia used to produce letters of the Emperor Maximilian of sacred memory, in which the name of king was given to his father Gabriel,—who subsequently changed his name, from preference, to that of Basil;—they say also, that he declares that I myself was the bearer of those letters to him; and on this ground he has desired that, in the recent negotiations with the King of Poland, he should be styled king, or else all treaties between them should be null and void. But although I ought to be by no means moved by these assertions, which are neither true nor probable, yet not so much for my own sake, as for that of my late excellent and most gracious prince, I am compelled to say a word in contradiction when I see that his sacred shade is thus cited upon an invidious question.

It is well known that there was once a quarrel between the Emperor Maximilian and Sigismund, king of Poland, viz., at the time when Sigismund took to wife the daughter of Stephen, Count of Scepus,i.e., Zips; for some made it appear that the matter was so arranged, that John, the brother of the bride, was to receive in marriage Anne, daughter of Vladislav’, king of Hungary, through the influence and management of his brother Sigismund; and by this means the right