Ivan the Terrible (88 page)

28
Ibid., Pisemsky, ‘Stateinyi spisok’, pp. 220ff., at pp. 264ff.;
SIRIO
, 38, correspondence with England, pp. 1ff. The negotiations were to be carried on with Bogdan Bel'sky, the Tsar's closest adviser, and Afanasii Nagoi, the uncle of the Tsar's present wife.

29
Tolstoy, op. cit., p. 194, Memorial of May 1582; Willan, op. cit., pp. 161ff.

30
Willan, op. cit., p. 163.

31
See Prokof'ev and Alekhina, eds, op. cit., pp. 67ff. In the meantime the Tsaritsa Maria Nagaia had given birth to the Tsarevich Dmitri.

32
As Pierling assumes, op. cit., II, pp. 163ff.

33
Kukushkina,
Kniga v Rossii,
pp. 165ff., printed in Ostrog.

34
Possevino,
The Moscovia of Antonio Possevino,
pp. 67ff. Possevino submitted two further memoranda on the differences between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches to Ivan, see ibid., pp. 80ff., and a work on the English breach with Rome, to counter the book in which the Anabaptist heretic had tried to ‘prove that the Pope is Antichrist’ ibid., pp. 97ff.

35
See above, Chapter XVIII, p. 314.

36
Ibid., pp. 163–4;
Pamiatniki diplomaticheskikh snoshenii,
X, cols 277ff.

37
For Bowes, see Hakluyt,
Principal Navigations of the English Nation
, II, p. 251, ‘A brief discourse of the voyage of Sir Jerome Bowes … in the yeere 1583’; for Pisemsky see
SIRIO
, 38, pp. 104ff.

38
Hakluyt, op. cit., II, p. 253: their names are given as Mekita Romanovich and Andrew Shalkan. The Dutch trader was apparently from Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands, and known as Ivan Beloborodov.

39
Drawn from Hakluyt, op. cit., II, pp. 255f.;
SIRIO
38, 104ff.; Solov'ev, III, pp. 678ff., Tolstoy, op. cit., pp. 201ff. (Bowes is asked to procure the return of John Frensham, the apothecary, to England, in which he was successful.)

40
Solov'ev, III, p. 680.

41
Ibid., pp. 681ff.; Denmark had been bought off by Elizabeth who had privately
agreed to pay for the right to sail through allegedly Danish waters to the White Sea, instead of paying the Sound dues. Willan, op. cit., pp. 158–9.

1
V.A. Rogov,
Istoria ugolovnogo prava, terrora i repressii v russkom gosudarstve XV–XVII vv,
Moscow, 1995, pp. 156–7 (cf. law of 1582 on false denunciations mainly by
kholopi
).

2
Skrynnikov,
Rossia posle oprichniny
, pp. 97–8.

3
Early Slavic Studies Internet.
http://www.h-net.org/~ess/
24 September 2002, posting by Sergei Bogatyrev; Horsey,
Travels,
p. 304 reports that Ivan was being carried.

4
Graham, ed. and tr., ‘Paul Juusten's Mission to Muscovy’,
Russian History
, 13, no. 1, 1986, p. 81. Graham, ed. and tr., ‘Johann Boch in Moscow’,
Russian History,
13, No. 1, 1986, pp 93–110, note 5, where Ivan is described as being on horseback.

5
Ibid.

6
See W.F. Ryan, ‘Alchemy and the Virtues of Stones in Muscovy’, in
Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and 17th Centuries
, ed. P. Rattansi and A. Clericuzio, Kluwer, Dordrecht and London, 1994, pp. 149–59. See also Horsey, op. cit., pp. 304–5. Ivan declared his aversion to the diamond: ‘It restrains fury and luxury and abstinacy [abstinence] and chastity.’ Horsey writes in a headlong way, leaving out many pronouns, which makes him difficult to follow at times.

7
Ibid., p. 306. The angel's form is the monk's robe. V.I. Koretsky, ‘Smert' groznogo tsaria’,
Voprosy istorii
, No. 9, 1979, pp. 93–103. Koretsky quotes a Moscow Chronicle of 1591, and also the
Vremennik Ivana Timofeeva
, 1951, pp. 15 and 178, where Timofeev actually names Godunov and Bel'sky as the criminals. See Ivan Timofeev,
Vremennik
, ed. and tr. O.A. Derzhavina, Moscow-Leningrad, 1951. Dr Eyloff was charged with providing the poison. He was not only the Tsar's physician but traded on his own account in a big way.

8
Jerome Bowes said later that Ivan died of a surfeit, and he could have died as a result of choking over food.

9
Prinz von Buchau, ‘Nachalo Rusi, i vozvyshchenie Moskovii,’ p. 28.

10
Zimin,
V Kanun
, pp. 98ff. Horsey, op. cit., pp. 310 and 313.

11
Iuzefovich,
Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia,
p. 49.

12
Boils are frequently caused by vitamin B deficiency. But see Keenan, ‘Ivan IV and the “King's Evil”’, pp. 5–13.

13
Advice from Dr S. Sebag Montefiore.

14
See the lengthy correspondence on the Early Slavic Internet, following posting referred to in note 3 above.

15
Abraham Lincoln suffered from violent outbursts of rage, which were eventually attributed to ‘blue pills’ of mercury compounds, which he had been prescribed; they ceased when he gave up the pills on becoming President.

16
His real name was Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. His adopted name signifies ‘beyond Celsus’ (an early Roman writer on medicine). For an introduction to his theories and his influence see H.E. Midelfort,
Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany
, University of Virginia, 1994, pp. 9ff.

17
‘Paracelsus made opium, mercury, lead, sulphur, iron, arsenic, copper sulphate and potassium sulphate a permanent part of the pharmacopoeia’. Quoted from P.H. Kocher, ‘Paracelsian Medicine in England: the First Thirty Years (1570–1600)’,
Journal of the History of Medicine,
II, 1947, pp. 451ff. at p. 452, note 2.

18
Fax from Beverley Berry to Dr S. Sebag Montefiore, 8 March 2002.

19
H. Trevor Roper, ‘The Court Physician and Paracelsianism’, in
Medicine at the Courts of Europe, 1500–1837
, ed. V. Nutton, Routledge, London and New York, 1990, pp. 79–94.

20
Woolley,
The Queen's Conjuror
, p. 104 and passim.

21
Dictionary of National Biography
, Bomelius, Eliseus or Licius. He was highly thought of by Philipp Melanchthon, which strengthens the connexion with Paracelsus.

22
See above, Chapter XX.

23
Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 267, note 59. Ivan Timofeev, in his
Vremennik
, suggests that Bel'sky was now Ivan's homosexual partner. Quoted by D. Rowland, ‘Did Muscovite Literary Ideology Place Limits on the Power of the Tsar (1540–1660s)?’
Russian Review
, 49, 1990, p. 133.

24
Isaac Massa reports that he was poisoned by Bogdan Bel'sky, who supervised Dr Eyloff, then in charge of the pharmacy. See his
A Short History of the Muscovite Wars
, ed. and tr. by G.E. Orchard, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1982, p. 21. Koretsky, ‘Smert’ groznogo tsaria', p. 100.

25
Zharinov, ‘Zapisi o raskhode …’, pp. 104–25; among the many herbs and spices listed are cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, asparagus, saxifrage, pumpkin, water-melon, cucumber, mint, parsley.

26
Zimin,
V Kanun
, p. 98 quotes a report by the unreliable Oderborn to the effect that Ivan had tried to rape (
ovladet'
) Irina, and when she resisted he urged Fedor to repudiate her for sterility.

27
V.I. Koretsky, ‘Smert’ groznogo tsaria', pp. 95ff. gives various rather highly coloured accounts of the alleged poisoning of Ivan IV, by Irina, on behalf of Bel'sky and Godunov, but the evidence is not very reliable.

28
Yet Horsey also implies that Boris Godunov and Bel'sky were both perturbed at this possibility.

29
The head of the
zemshchina
was Prince I.F. Mstislavsky, now, according to Zimin (and Horsey) over eighty years old: he was more probably in his sixties. His first wife had been a daughter of Gorbaty-Shuisky, executed in 1564, his second wife a daughter of V.I. Vorotynsky, who died naturally but belonged to the group of Upper Oka princes viewed with deep suspicion by Ivan. The wife of Nikita Romanovich was a sister of Mstislavsky's Vorotynskaya wife. See Zimin,
V Kanun
, pp. 108–9.

30
Pavlov,
Gosudarev dvor
… pp. 27ff.

31
V.M. Zhivov and B.A. Uspensky, ‘Tsar i Bog: semioticheskie aspekty sakralizatsii monarkha v Rossii’, in
Iazyki kul'tury i problemy perevodimosti
, ed. B.A. Uspensky, Moscow, 1988, pp. 55ff.

32
Horsey,
Travels,
pp. 283–4.

33
Kappeler,
Ivan Groznyj
, passim.

34
See H.F. Graham's comparison, in his ‘Johann Boch in Moscow’, pp. 106ff; for Oderborn, see p. 108; Horsey, op. cit., p. 299 and J. Margeret,
Un Mousquetaire à Moscou
, ed. A. Bennigsen, Paris, 1983, pp. 56–7.

35
I have already briefly explained in the Foreword the reasons why I do not accept Professor Keenan's theory that this correspondence is a seventeenth-century forgery.

36
It has been suggested in modern Spanish historiography that Don Carlos suffered from autism. I am grateful to Professor M. Rodríguez Salgado for the information. Edward VI received a good, strictly Protestant, education but he seems to me to have been extraordinarily impervious to the execution of his uncles, and a young religious fanatic.

37
Rowland, ‘Muscovite Literary Ideology’, p. 133 specifies Ivan Khvorostinin, Simon Shakhovskoy and the author of the
Khronograf
of 1617.

38
Kurbsky,
Correspondence,
pp. 186ff. Ivan's letter written in Wolmar around September 1577.

39
Ibid., Ivan to Kurbsky, p. 193: ‘
Ia khotel vas pokoriti v svoiu voliu
…’.

40
See, for a very perceptive account of Ivan's mental processes, R.O. Crummey, ‘New Wine in Old Bottles? Ivan IV and Novgorod’, in
Russian History
, 1987, 14, pp. 61–76.

41
As usual with Ivan the language of prayer is very eloquent, and he draws on many sources, including the Pseudepigrapha (books which do not even form part of the Apocrypha).
Ivan Groznyi – Sochinenia
, ed. T. Chumakova, p. 1.

42
Act of Supremacy, 8 May 1555 (Elton, ‘The Reformation’, p. 273). See also King James I, quoted in Crummey, ‘New Wine in Old Bottles?’ Many historians will disagree with me here, but that is because they believe in the existence of a political system called autocracy. I do not. I hope my readers will note that I have not used the word so far in this book. As for the word ‘autocratic’, it belongs to the world of
Alice Through the Looking Glass
.

43
I do not find convincing the suggestion that the Basmanovs and Maliuta Skuratov might have been ruling Russia in Ivan's name. When the time came Ivan disposed of the first two easily, and Maliuta remained close until his own death. See Crummey, ‘New Wine in Old Bottles?’, p. 71. Ivan was perfectly capable of ruling and taking decisions, though he might often take the wrong ones.

44
Mstislavsky and Nikita Romanovich had both signed a vast surety bond for M.I. Vorotynsky when he was released from captivity in 1567, but they refused to act as witnesses to his will in 1570. Was this because they suspected him of plotting? Was he denounced to Ivan and then killed?

45
I have not seen one single reference to the calling in of a surety bond, though Ivan was chronically short of money.

46
In this discussion, in addition to sources mentioned in previous footnotes I have drawn upon a large variety of Russian and Anglophone sources, notably, S.N. Bogatyrev, ‘Povedenie Ivana Groznogo i moral'nye normy russkogo obshchestva XVI veka’, in
Studia Slavica Finlandensia
, XI, Helsinki, 1994, pp. 1–20; idem, ‘Groznyi Tsar ili groznoe vremia? Psikhologicheskii obraz Ivana Groznogo v istoriografii’,
Russian History
, 22, no. 3, Fall 1995, pp. 285–308; Crummey, ‘New Wine in Old Bottles?’, pp. 61–76; R. Hellie, ‘What Happened? How Did he Get Away With It? Ivan Groznyi's Paranoia and the Problem of Institutional Restraints’,
Russian History
, 14, 1987, pp. 199–224; Lehtovirta,
Ivan IV as Emperor
. To sum up my own view, I find the interpretations of Kliuchevsky, and Veselovsky most convincing among older historians and of Crummey, Bogatyrev and Lehtovirta among contemporary historians writing in English.

1
See M. Perrie,
The Cult of Ivan the Terrible in Stalin's Russia
, Palgrave, London, 2001; Professor Perrie deals with both the Stalinization of Russian history and the Stalinization of Ivan the Terrible, and with several novels as well as Eisenstein's film.

2
Notably by V.B. Kobrin,
Ivan Groznyi
, Moscow, 1989.

3
I find profoundly moving two brief remarks by Zimin quoted by A.L. Khoroshkevich in the preface to the second edition of his
Oprichnina Ivana Groznogo
(1964), which came out in 2001: ‘I (Zimin) wrote the Oprichnina in one breath. The whole of it. To the end (probably in half a year).’ Khoroshkevich adds, ‘He was afraid that he would not be able to publish it in that short period of semi-liberation from the previous Stalinist dogmas.’ ‘A donkey's hide sticks to the skin – tearing it off costs blood’ (p. 5).

4
Though it no longer applies today, ‘it was a common maxim of medieval writers that “royal service ennobles”’. See Given-Wilson,
The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages,
p. 17.

5
See Rowland, ‘Muscovite Literary Ideology’, pp. 125–55. It will be remembered that
muchitel
' is also the Russian translation for the Greek
tyrannos
.

6
See the way in which this is portrayed in the tales of Vlad
epe
(see above, Chapter III, pp. 44–5).