Nor was it alone in its fears. Sweden and all the West took fright. In imagination, they already beheld the East—in the shape of Russia and its barbarous dependencies—descending upon them with the weapons furnished to them by England. At the instigation of the King of Sweden and of the Livonians, who, in 1556, expressed their fears on this subject before the Hanseatic Diet, the League, desirous to dispel this European peril, warned the Emperor of Germany, the Kings of Denmark, England, and Poland, and the Duke of Prussia, not to facilitate Russia's projects of invasion by putting at her disposal either the munitions of war or the means that would help to civilize her, and thus render her yet more redoubtable.
To these requests England turned a deaf ear, for her commercial policy then, as now, was a trifle selfish and insular. Judging that the distance which separated her from Russia gave her entire security, she did not dream of disturbing a traffic which she found lucrative. Queen Mary, admonished by the King of Sweden to interdict to her subjects the new navigation to Archangel, contented herself by forbidding the shippers who traded with the White Sea the exportation of arms.
It was not long before the alarms expressed proved themselves to be anything but chimerical. Danger first showed itself in the shape of dissension. Livonia, seeing itself suddenly grown of enhanced importance to the League, took up certain pretentious airs towards its foster-mother. It broke through ancient contracts and statutes, among which was a stern interdict against trading on its own account with Russia. The next step was to put the Hanseatic League commercially upon the same footing as a stranger; and the Livonians were, consequently, able to turn against them some of their own laws—for example, that which declared that guest should not trade with guest.
Meanwhile Russia, which had now completely thrown off the Tartar yoke and was beginning to feel its strength, cast more and more greedy eyes towards Livonia, with its rich cities and wide seaboard.
Under pretext of bringing about a fusion of the Greek and Latin branches of the Catholic Church, the Czar Ivan had sent successive embassies to Germany, who there recruited for him workmen, artists, learned men, and officers, all of whom were to aid in putting the newly-welded Russian Empire upon a civilized basis. While there, these men had learnt the fact that Livonia, which stood under the government of the Teutonic knights, had been divided by internal dissensions since the death of the Grand Master, Water von Plattenberg, who, early in the sixteenth century, had saved the province from falling a prey to the Russian desire for conquest.
Ivan, hearing this, felt the moment was favourable. He saw that the German Empire looked on indifferently at what was passing in the extreme corner of its possessions—the German Empire always had the knack of being indifferent at the wrong and critical moment—he perceived that the Hansa League was ill-disposed at that instant to her stubborn and disobedient daughter; while Sweden and Denmark glanced with all too loving eyes at the German colony on the Baltic Sea. He felt now or never was the time for action. Moreover, Livonia had but one friend, and that a nominal one, Poland, which masked designs anything but friendly under the cover of an amicable alliance; it had but one man on whom it could count—the present Grand Master of the Teutonic knights, Gotthard Kettler. But this man, though of dauntless courage and a true patriot, was condemned to rule over the once bold company of Knights at a moment when too long-continued peace and prosperity had sunk them into sloth, indifference, and vicious practices.
Under the pretext that a certain toll had not been paid him, Ivan quite unexpectedly sent into Livonia a herd of barbarous soldiers, under the leadership of the erstwhile Khan of Kasan. The money not being forthcoming, this army took possession of Narwa, a port just about to enter into the League. Thence they overspread all the province, burning, razing, sacking, robbing, and violating.
They met with little resistance. The enervated nobles—"usually so ready for a scuffle," says an old chronicler—fell like flies before them, and the strongest burghs were quietly delivered over into their hands. Dorpat, one of the strongest, opened its gates to the invader without the smallest opposition, the citizens having been seized with panic at their approach. Here there fell into their hands rich treasure, stored in the fort, affording them the sinews of war. Reval, also besieged, turned to the King of Denmark for aid against its foes. He sent back the Livonian ambassadors laden with a thousand sides of bacon and other victuals to stay their hunger, but more effective aid he could not or would not afford.
In short Livonia was being rapidly broken up and divided among the various greedy nationalities that surrounded her—the two Slavonic, Russia and Poland, on the one hand; the two Scandinavian, Sweden and Denmark, on the other.
In these sore straits the Grand Master of the Teutonic knights, Gotthard Kettler, made "the sad plaint of the Christian Brothers on the Baltic," heard at the Imperial Diet. The Emperor Ferdinand, to whom the Grand Master made personal appeal for speedy help, promised his assistance, and did send a letter to the Czar, begging him to desist from his persecution of the Livonians; but the letter was so lukewarm in its wording, and it was so evident from its tenour that the Emperor had no intention of following it up by action, that the Czar did not hesitate to send a very haughty and defiant reply. In this letter he proved that it was not difficult to find excuses for his conduct. The Germans, for instance, had oppressed his subjects; had taken from them their churches, and converted them into storehouses for their goods; had forbidden to his people free-trade in their markets. Some of these complaints were doubtless not quite groundless, for we know with what a high hand the Hansa was wont to treat the inhabitants of a land they had taken under their protection.