red for war. Ivan IV. could not allow so favorable
an opportunity to interfere in the politics of Poland to escape him.
He immediately sent embassadors to Maximilian, offering to assist him
with all the power of the Russian armies against Stephen Bathori.
Maximilian gratefully acknowledged the generosity of the tzar, and
promised to return the favor whenever an opportunity should be
presented. At the same time, Stephen Bathori, who had already been
crowned King of Poland, sent an embassador to Moscow to inform Ivan of
his election and coronation, and to propose friendly relations with
Russia. Ivan answered frankly that a treaty already existed between
him and the Emperor Maximilian, but that, since he wished to live on
friendly terms with Poland, whoever her monarch might be, he would
send embassadors to examine into the claims of the rival candidates
for the crown. Thus adroitly he endeavored to obtain for himself the
position of umpire between Maximilian and Stephen Bathori. The death
of the Emperor Maximilian on the 12th of October, 1576, settled this
strife, and Stephen attained the undisputed sovereignty of Poland.

[Footnote 9: See Empire of Austria, page 181.]

Almost the first measure of the new sovereign, in accordance with
hereditary usage, was war against Russia. His object was to regain
those territories which the tzar had heretofore wrested from the
Poles. Apparently trivial incidents reveal the rude and fierce
character of the times. Stephen chivalrously sent first an embassador,
Basil Lapotinsky, to the court of Ivan, to demand the restitution of
the provinces. Lapotinsky was accompanied by a numerous train of
nobles, magnificently mounted and armed to the teeth. As the
glittering cavalcade, protected by its flag of truce, swept along
through the cities of Russia towards Moscow, and it became known that
they were the bearers of an imperious message, demanding the surrender
of portions of the Russian empire, the populace were with difficulty
restrained from falling upon them.

Through a thousand dangers they reached Moscow. When there, Lapotinsky
declared that he came not as a suppliant, but to present a claim which
his master was prepared to enforce, if necessary, with the sword, and
that, in accordance with the character of his mission, he was
directed, in his audience with Ivan, to present the letter with one
hand while he held his unsheathed saber in the other. The officers of
the imperial household