request to be allowed to see the young lady and have her portrait painted, the Queen seemed very much put out. She would have been heartily glad to enter into family relations with the Tsar, but she had heard he cared very much for beauty, and Mary Hastings was not a beautiful woman. Besides, she had only just got over the small-pox, and the idea of having her picture painted at the present moment was not to be dreamt of. Nevertheless, the wily Sovereign pretended to discuss the conditions for the marriage. She expressed special anxiety about any daughters her niece might have. 'Our Sovereigns,' answered Pissemski proudly, 'always marry their daughters to foreign potentates!' And he quoted the case—unique, indeed, in the course of several centuries—of the Princess Helena, married in 1495 to Alexander of Poland. But before any marriage could be settled, the alliance must be arranged. The Ambassador had handed in a memorandum on this subject, and was waiting for his answer. Elizabeth promised to hasten it, and that was all.
Thus two more months slipped by, and when the envoy, whose patience was very nearly worn out, received his answer, what disappointment was his! The Queen agreed to make an alliance with the Tsar, and give him armed help against all his enemies, but in return she demanded a monopoly of all the external trade of Russia for England! Pissemski proved his simplicity once more, for he did not realize that Elizabeth was making a mock of his master and himself. He quibbled and argued over the terms of the document, as if its substance did not suffice to make it utterly unacceptable. It described his overtures as 'requests,' and called the Tsar the Queen's 'nephew.' The English negotiators offered to alter the terms of the agreement, but they refused to change their conditions. In April they invited the Ambassador to a banquet, to which seventeen great dignitaries of the State—Edward Clinton, Earl of Lincoln; George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury; Thomas Radclyffe, Earl of Sussex; Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick; Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford; and others—sat down with him, and at which the Queen drank to the Tsar's health. When the feast was over they informed the importunate diplomatist that the Queen was about to give him his farewell audience. For as he assured them he had no instructions to accept the English counter proposals, would not his best course be to go back to his own country, and there obtain fresh powers?
Loudly the poor fellow objected, 'But what about the marriage?' In reply, the Englishmen showed him gazettes, which announced that Maria Nagaïa had borne the Tsar a son. Once more Pissemski feigned ignorance, and the ignorance of the man who has no desire to be enlightened. 'Wicked
