know nothing about cloths,' quoth Bowes, with an air of offended dignity.
I have summed up the pith of a score of meetings, the result of which was nil.
The private audience took place on December 13, 1583. Bowes had to present himself unarmed and unattended, for the Tsar was going to receive him tête-à-tête to discuss the 'secret business'—in other words, the marriage. This tête-à-tête did not exclude the presence of a dozen persons, amongst whom was the reigning favourite, Boris Godounoy, shortly to be Tsar himself. In presence of this company the whole of the farce arranged by Elizabeth was played again. Ivan desired to be informed of the Queen's intentions as to Mary Hastings, and Bowes declared the Queen had sent him to find out the Tsar's. But the envoy, now he had his back against the wall, entangled himself in a series of miserable shifts and excuses. 'The Queen’s niece was ill—very ill indeed; and besides, he did not think she could agree to change her religion. … And, further, she was one of Her Majesty's most distant relations. There were a dozen other ladies whom the Tsar might very well prefer . . . . Ivan broke in sharply:
'Who are these ladies? Are they the daughters of appanaged Princes or subjects of the Queen? … Speak! Explain thyself! …'
'I have no instructions.'
This time the Tsar could not control his rage. According to his usual tactics, he executed a flank movement, so as to have his opponent more completely in his hands. Several times Bowes had fallen out with the Russian negotiators, and in the course of their altercations he had dropped various offensive expressions. With these Ivan now taxed him, and when the envoy denied them, he flew into a rage, as was his wont. The Russian record omits this episode, but Bowes gives a full account of it. Certain persons have objected to the dialogues I have introduced into my narratives of a less remote past, believing they may be an alteration of the original texts on which my story is based. If my critics will be good enough to consult the documents of which the sense is here reproduced, they will acknowledge that if I have been guilty of any alteration at all, it has been in my avoidance of the conversational form, infinitely more frequent in documents of this kind than they will imagine. In Bowes' report he gives the dialogue as follows:
The Tsar (to Bowes): '… You have assumed airs of superiority over my plenipotentiaries which cannot be endured; for I know Sovereigns among my own equals who take precedence of your mistress!'
