Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

332IVAN ASSUMES THE COWL.

In conclusion, the Queen adds these lines:

" Promising ourselves that we shall unite our forces to combat together our common enemies, and that we shall observe all that is contained in this letter, so long as God shall grant us life; and this is confirmed by our word and royal faith.

" Given at our palace of Hampton Court, this 18th day of May, in the twelfth year of our reign, and in the year of our Lord 1570."

This friendship lasted during the life of the Czar, who was even at one time on the point of contracting an eighth marriage with Mary Hastings, a relative of the Queen of England: but the reputation of Ivan IV. had not, for the imagination of the betrothed, the same fascination that it had for the masculine spirit of Elizabeth. Happily there are not many hearts that can be seduced by the attractions of barbarity.

The negotiations connected with this project of marriage had been opened by Robert Jacobi, one of the physicians of the English court ,¢whom Elizabeth sent to her " beloved brother" together with surgeons and apothecaries, a little before his death. These relations suffice to exhibit the character of the feeling which the instinct of despotism and commercial interests, thenceforward the first for England, had established between the two tyrants. I must now finish the sketch of the tyranny of Ivan.

One day he took it into his head to assume the habit of a monk, and clothed his companions in debauchery with the same dress. Disguised in this manner, he continued to horrify heaven and earth by his inhumanity and monstrous libertinism. He