Russia and Poland had long been engaged in a bloody frontier war, each endeavoring to wrest provinces from the other; but Russia was steadily on the advance. The embassage of Maximilian was not productive of peace. On the contrary, Vassili immediately sent an embassador to Vienna to endeavor to secure the aid of Austria in his war with Poland. Maximilian received the envoy with very extraordinary marks of favor. He was invited to sit, in the presence of the emperor, with his hat upon his head, and whenever the embassador, during the conference, mentioned the name of the Russian emperor, Maximilian uncovered his head in token of respect. The great object of Maximilian's ambition was to arm all Europe against the Turks; and he was exceedingly anxious to secure the coöperation of a power so energetic as that of Russia had now proved herself to be. Even then with consummate foresight he wrote:
"The integrity of Poland is indispensable to the general interests of Europe. The grandeur of Russia is becoming dangerous."
Maximilian soon sent another embassador to Moscow, who very forcibly described the conquests made by the Turks in Europe, Asia and Africa, from the Thracian Bosporus to the sands of Egypt, and from the mountains of Caucasia to Venice. He spoke of the melancholy captivity of the Greek church, which was the mother of Russian Christianity; of the profanation of the holy sepulcher; of Nazareth, Bethlehem and Sinai, which had fallen under the domination of the Turk. He suggested, that the Turks, in possession of the Tauride—as the country upon the north shore of the Black Sea, bounded by the Dnieper and the Sea of Azof was then called—threatened the independence of Russia herself; that Vassili
had every thing to fear from the ferocity, the perfidy and the success of Selim, who, stained with the blood of his father and his three brothers, dared to assume the title of master of the world. He entreated Vassili, as one of the most powerful of the Christian princes, to follow the banner of Jesus Christ, and to cease to make war upon Poland, thus exhausting the Christian powers.
Maximilian died before his embassador returned, and thus these negotiations were interrupted. But Russia was then all engrossed with the desire of obtaining provinces from Poland. Turkey was too formidable a foe to think of assailing, and the idea at that time of wresting any territory from Turkey was preposterous. All Europe combined could only hope to check any further advance of the Moslem cimeters. Influenced by these considerations, Vassili sent another embassador to Constantinople to propose a treaty with Selim, which might aid Russia in the strife with her hereditary rival. The sultan, glad of any opportunity to weaken the Christian powers, ordered his pachas to harass Poland in every possible way on the south, thus enabling Russia more easily to assail the distracted kingdom on the north. The King of Poland, Sigismond, was in consternation.
Poland was united with Rome in religion. The pope, Leo X., anxious to secure the coöperation of both Poland and Russia against the Turks, who were the great foe Christianity had most to dread, proposed that the King of Poland, a renowned warrior, should be entrusted with the supreme command of the Christian armies, and adroitly suggested to Vassili, that Constantinople was the legitimate heritage of a Russian monarch, who was the descendant of a Grecian princess; that it was sound policy for him to turn his attention to Turkey; for Poland, being a weaker power, and combined of two discordant elements, the original Poland and Lithuania, would of necessity be gradually absorbed by the growth of Russia.
Vassili hated the pope, because he had ordered Te Deums in Rome, in celebration of a victory which the Poles had obtained over the Russians, and had called the Russians heretics. But still the bait the pope presented was too alluring not to be caught at. In the labyrinthine mazes of politics, however, there were obstacles to the development of this policy which years only could remove.
Upon the death of Maximilian, Charles V. of Spain ascended the throne of the German empire, and established a power, the most formidable that had been known in Europe for seven hundred years, that is, since the age of Charlemagne. Vassili was in the midst of these plans of aggrandizement when death came with its unexpected summons. He was in the fifty-fourth year of his age, with mental and physical vigor unimpaired. A small pimple appeared on his left thigh, not larger than the head of a pin, but from its commencement attended with excruciating pain. It soon resolved itself into a malignant ulcer, which rapidly exhausted all the vital energies. The dying king was exceedingly anxious to prepare himself to stand before the judgment seat of God. He spent days and nights in prayer, gave most affectionate exhortations to all around him to live for heaven, assumed monastic robes, resolving that, should he recover, he would devote himself exclusively to the service of God. It was midnight the 3d of December, 1533. The king had just partaken of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Suddenly his tongue was paralyzed, his eyes fixed, his hands dropped by his side, and the metropolitan bishop, who had been administering the last rites of religion, exclaimed, "It is all over. The king is dead."
———
[6] See Empire of Austria, p. 71.