strengthening the pacific inclinations to which both sides were beginning to lean. At the close of November the besiegers' courage was warmed by an intercepted message from Chouïski to the Tsar. According to its tenor, the town, which was starving, could not hold out much longer unless help was sent. A few days later, indeed, two boïars of the garrison, who had been captured by the Poles, told quite a different tale. The besieged, they said, had plenty of bread and of everything else, except meat. But at that moment Batory's plenipotentiaries were actually starting to meet Ivan's envoys at Iam-Zapolski, and there, under Possevino's mediation, to treat for peace.
The part played by the Pope's Legate in this business has been viewed in various ways. To shed light on the controversy, I must go back to the origin of a mission which, from a more general point of view, marks an epoch in the diplomatic relations between Rome and Moscow.
CHAPTER II
THE LOSS OF LIVONIA—ROME AND MOSCOW
I.—CHÉVRIGUINE'S MISSION. II.—THE PAPAL MEDIATION. III.—THE TRUCE OF IAM-ZAPOLSKI. IV.—POSSEVINO AT MOSCOW. V.—THE DAY AFTER THE TRUCE.
I.—Chévriguine's Mission.
The despatch of Chévriguine to Rome was an unprecedented event. Advances, up to that time, had always come from the Papal Court, and Poland had always interposed, and brought every attempt to nought, while Venice, to whose interest it was that commercial relations with Muscovy should be opened, vainly strove against the opposition of a watchful and suspicious diplomatic system. Batory's predecessor had stopped Pius IV.'s emissaries—Canobio, Giraldi, and Bonifaccio—on their way.
In 1570, Pope Pius V.'s Nuncio in Poland, Vincenzo del Portico, had endeavoured to mediate between Ivan and Sigismund-Augustus, with a view to forming a league against the Turks. But Ivan's envoy at Constantinople was at that very moment representing his master as exceedingly well disposed towards the Sultan. This fact became known at Rome, and the perusal of a memorandum drawn up by Albert Schlichting, a soldier of Prussian origin, who had escaped
