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1592.]
Successes over the
Russians.
john and charles.
Sigismund elected king
of Poland.
1c5
The Swedes indeed succeeded in maintaining their
principal garrison of Reval, as well against attempts
by treachery as open assault, and more than once the
town bade defiance to the whole Russian power;
but in 1576 it was the only place still left to them
in the country, whilst the Russians overspread
Fill-land, devastated Livonia up to Riga, and
perpetrated the most appalling cruelties under the eye of
the inhuman Ivan. Mutiny and quarrels among
the Scots and Germans in the Swedish service
(alternately they attacked one another, and fifteen
hundred Scots were cut down) facilitated the
success of the savage foe; until war breaking out afresh
between Russia and the Poles with the Crim
Tartars, who both sought alliances with Sweden,
together with the military success of Pontus de la
Gardie, changed the whole face of affairs. This
officer, a French nobleman, who was at first in
Eric’s service, and afterwards contributed to his
overthrow, was often employed by John in war and
negotiation. He was raised to the rank of free
baron, married to the king’s natural daughter,
Sophia Gyllenhielm, and in 1580 named for the second
time general against the Russians. Supported by
Henry Classon Horn and his son Charles, who
earlier in the Livonian war had gained themselves
an honourable name, he not only won back all that
Sweden had lost in Lifland, but even carried his
victorious arms across the Russian frontier. Narva
was taken by storm ; Ingermanland with its
fortresses, Kexholm with its government were
reduced. To the honour of John be it said, that he
forbade his generals to take revenge on the
Russians by a like barbarous system of warfare, and
prayed to God that neither upon himself nor his
kingdom might be visited the atrocities committed
against his orders by Henry Horn in his incursion
into Russia in 1578, when he spared neither women
nor children6. At the same time Russow, the
priest of Reval7, writes upon his unhappy country:
" Of all the potentates who have occupied Livonia
there is none who has done more for it than the
king of Sweden. Had other kings and princes
troubled themselves alike therewith, the Muscovite
might well have wondered." Even as barbarians,
and under a Czar who was a monster, the Russians
began to display the qualities which established
their power. " That the Russians are stout and
hardy in a fortress,"—says a Swedish chronicle 8,
after having related how the Swedes in 1574 three
times stormed in vain that of Wesenberg,—" comes
hence, that they from their youth upward are
inured to continuous labour and much fasting, and
can make shift long enough with scant food, as with
meal, salt, aud water. They know also that when
they give up a fortress they are butchered with the
most contemptuous mockery, how great soever the
need may have been that drove them thereto, and
that they cannot remain in another country. There-
fore they choose rather to defend themselves to the
last man. But they hold it, moreover, for a deadly
and unpardonable sin to surrender a fortress ; and
prefer to die blissfully for their lord and father-land
than to commit such a sin."
Let the motive be what it may, he is powerful
who bargains not with his duty. It is that principle
which guards the frontier of a state, and lends
increase to dominion.—After more than a hundred
years the Russ still acknowledged the superiority
of the Swede in martial discipline. This was one
of the causes why Ivan Wasilievitz II. at his death
in 1584 advised his son Feodor to peace 9. The
latter offered to renounce the Russian claims on
Estland and Narva. It was the same condition, on
which Charles, when administrator eleven years
afterwards, concluded peace. John, in the
arrogance of good fortune, refused it. The Russian
war, interrupted from 1583 by prolonged truces,
was kindled afresh in 1590, and before it was ended
the king died.
With Poland differences existed, respecting
partly John’s demands of money, partly the
Swedish garrisons in Lifland. The common danger
on the side of Russia did indeed for some time
extinguish the discord, and even united in 1578
the Polish and Swedish arms ; but the Poles had
hardly concluded peace (on the 15th January,
1582) with Russia, when they demanded the
cession of all that the Swedes possessed in Livonia.
War with them appeared unavoidable, when king
Stephen Bathor’s death in 1586 procured for John’s
son, what he in 1572, after the death of his
father-in-law, had sought for himself, namely, the Polish
crown. Stephen’s widowed queen Anne, and
Catharine, the spouse of John, the last princesses of the
house of Jagellon, were sisters. Anne employed
all her influence to devolve the election on the
Swedish crown-prince Sigismund.
Notwithstanding that the opposition-party were loud in favour
of the arch-duke Maximilian, the adherents of
Sigismund obtained preponderance, principally
from the circumstance, that the widowed queen
with her whole property, and the two Swedish
councillors who were present, Eric Sparre and
Eric Brahe, with their pledge guarantied, " that
that portion of Livonia which the king of Sweden
possessed, should be incorporated with the other,
belonging to the kingdom of Poland and the grand
duchy of Lithuania." The councillors already named
acted in this against their warrant, and sought
afterwards an evasion in the ambiguity of the
words employed 1 ; which the Poles however
considered so clear, that when subsequently the con {+-+}
dition was not fulfilled, the grand chancellor
Za-moisky requested the surrender of those Swedish
envoys, in order to punish them as perjurers.
Sigismund himself, arrived in Poland, refused to
confirm the cession of Estland. Nevertheless, he
6 jEgidius Girs, Chronicle of king John III. 70.
7 Chronicle of the Province of Livonia (Chronica der
Pro-vintz Lyfflandt, Rostock, 1578), towards the end.
8 ..Egidius Girs, who wrote in 1G27. He relates also, "At
the castle of Hapsal the youths were of such good cheer on
the entry of the Russians into the castle, that they sat and
played with their damsels, having each two upon their knees.
The Russians wondered at the Germans as strange people,
and said to one another, Had we Russians so lightly
rendered up such a fortress, so could we never a ;ain lift up our
eyes before an honest man, and scarcely would our grand
duke know what kind of death to lay upon us." This is a
feature characteristic of the power of the knights, which in
Livonia was overthrown.
9 Karamsin, ix. 176. German translation.
1 Livonise partem, quam serenissimus Suetia; rex nunc
possidet, ad reliquum corpus Livoniae regni Polonise et
magni ducatus Lithuanice adjungere tenebitur, pro quo, ut
serenissimi regis legati sposponderunt, ita Serenissima Anna,
regina Polonias, cavit cavetque omnibus bonis suis.—Eric
Sparre began his speech on Livonia to the Poles with these
words, " Vestra erit Livonia "
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