Audiatur et Altera Pars: The Polish Record of the Działyński Embassy of 1597

Abstract

The mission of Ambassador Paweł Działyński to Queen Elizabeth in the summer of 1597, conducted on behalf of Sigismund III, King of Poland, and the City of Gdańsk, is usually presented by scholars relying exclusively on English records as an embarrassment to Poland-Lithuania. However, the Polish point of view, expounded at length in the Ambassador’s account of the embassy, gives an entirely different picture and interpretation of the events, far more consistent with the practical outcome for relations between the two states in the following years. The full original manuscript of Mercurius Sarmaticus survives in a major Polish library, and copies are extant elsewhere in Europe. Of particular interest are Działyński’s observations on Elizabeth and the religious situation in her realm. Mercurius Sarmaticus also throws light on the Isle of Dogs incident in the history of the Elizabethan theatre and may be regarded as a Shakespeare source. This article will provide an introduction to the manuscript source, a synopsis of its content, and English translations of selected passages.

The mission of Ambassador Paweł Działyński to Queen Elizabeth in the summer of 1597, conducted on behalf of Sigismund III, King of Poland, and the City of Gdańsk, is usually presented by scholars relying exclusively on English records as an embarrassment to Poland–Lithuania. The origin of such opinions is the account in Camden, who states that the Ambassador ‘went backward after an unwonted manner in England, to the lower end of the Roome, with his face still toward the Queene. There hee complaiend with a loud voyce, in a Latin Oration … [t]he Queene ex tempore checked the mans boldnesse with modest eloquence…’ (my italics). ¹

Figure 1 Title page of Mercurius Sarmaticus ex Belgio Anglicus (1597). Ms 1541. The Kórnik Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Image by courtesy of Biblioteka Kórnicka PAN.

The audience in the great hall of Greenwich Palace was witnessed by scores, if not hundreds of the Queen’s subjects, from lords to lowly servants. Although not all would have understood the diplomatic ‘niceties’ in Latin, it was clearly a shock to Gloriana to be confronted with such direct speech in front of her people, hence her improvised decision to ‘check the mans boldnesse.’ Expectavi Legationem. In vero querelam mihi adduxisti. Per litteras accepi te esse Legatum, inveni vero Heraldum. Or, in the English version of Camden, ‘Wee looked for an Embassadour, and behold, an Herald!’ she retorted. Her loyal ministers saw to it that the flare of indignation should be remembered as the learned Queen’s virtuoso performance of Latin oratory. At her ‘personal request’ Robert Cecil wrote of it to the Earl of Essex, who had not attended, with praise for Elizabeth’s eloquence. His letter was published by Sir Henry Ellis, who observed that the ambassador’s ‘arrogant deportment is noticed by most of our historians …’ and ‘the Queen, lion-like rising, daunted the malapert Orator no less with her stately port and majestical departure, than with the tartness of her princely checks ….’ ² Modern Anglophone commentators generally portray the incident in a similar way, calling Elizabeth’s response ‘a stunning rhetorical feat.’ ³

Stunning or not, it soon turned out that Her Majesty’s fiery rhetoric was more of a problem than a matter of pride for her ministers, whom it left in a delicate situation. They were more than ruffled at what they heard from the Polish ambassador, yet the official reply drawn up by the four commissioners appointed to handle the matter, which they eventually delivered to Działyński, was conciliatory in tone. The following year an intensified diplomatic effort was made for reconciliation with Poland, ‘the granary of Europe’ and main supplier of cereals to an England often facing food shortages.

This is borne out by Mercurius Sarmaticus, the Polish record of the embassy ⁴ drawn up by Działyński (or his secretary). ⁵ The original manuscript is kept in the Kórnik Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Writing on private archival collections in sixteenth-century Poland, the Polish historian Waldemar Chorążyczewski describes the item as follows:

An awareness of the care the Działyński family took to keep a record of its members’ public activities, which may be observed continuously from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, will facilitate the ascription of the next item, or at least part of it, to the Działyński political archive. The item in question is the collection of documents relating to Paweł Działyński’s diplomatic mission of 1597 to the Low Countries and England, now kept in the Kórnik Library, which was founded by the Działyński family. The problem is that the item (shelf mark BK 1541) consists of a set of separate documents, which may be divided up into six units. Some of these units show signs of having been stitched or glued together along the spine; furthermore, we should note that some documents recur in several units, moreover in different versions. Most probably, however, Paweł Działyński must have handled at least some of the components of the set, such as, for instance, the original document containing the answer given on behalf of Queen Elizabeth in response to the Polish ambassador’s oration. We may go as far as to claim that this document never went out of Działyński’s holdings, which would not have been an exceptional occurrence. It would have been strange if the official response was all that Działyński had kept. We may assume that he held the essential part of the documents pertaining to the mission, in other words the credential letters issued by the king, the diplomatic instructions, the replies, and the report drawn up for the entire mission. ⁶

Numerous copies were made of Mercurius Sarmaticus, including one taken to Rome by a nuncio and deposited in the Vallicelliana Library. ⁷ In the eighteenth century the Polish historian Adam Naruszewicz used this specimen to make a copy now preserved in the Princes Czartoryski Library in Kraków. ⁸ I accessed the Kórnik and Kraków manuscripts and, for a particular passage, also a document from the State Papers Foreign Collection in the Public Record Office in London (see footnotes 15 and 140) to make the following English translation of the report on the English part of the mission and Działyński’s oration delivered in Greenwich Palace.

The title on the front page of this section of the Kórnik set of documents shelf-marked BK 1541 is:

Mercurius Sarmaticus ex Belgio Anglicus.

Sive Succincta & circumstantialis narratio ambarum in Belgiam & Angliam legationum,

quas sub auspiciis Ser[enissi]mi & Potentissi[mi] Sigismundi Poloniæ & Sueciæ Regis &c. eiusque Procerum & Senatorum comitiali consensu

gnaviter, strenue & laudabil[ite]r induit et exuit.

ILLUSTRIS ET MAGNIFICUS D[OMI]NUS D[omi]nus Paulus Dzialinski.

Anno Domini M.DXC.VII.

This title may be translated into English as:

Mercurius Sarmaticus ex Belgio Anglicus.

Or,

A succinct and full account of both legations, to the Low Countries ⁹ and to England,

which the Illustrious and Magnificent Lord Paweł Działyński conducted skilfully, briskly, and gloriously at the behest of His Most Serene and Powerful Majesty Sigismund, King of Poland and Sweden &c., and with the consent of his Parliament of Nobles and Senators. 1597. ¹⁰

Below the finely penned heading there is a handwritten note in Polish dated Kraków, 20 December 1844, by the historian and antiquary Michał Wiszniewski, who wondered whether this ‘excellent relation of Paweł Działyński’s embassy’ had ever been published. In his opinion it certainly deserved to be translated into Polish and published, to show that there was a time when Poland, too, had distinguished statesmen and politicians. The note was made in the last years of the Free City of Cracow, a political entity which was created at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and which—until 1847—enjoyed a modicum of freedom (though short of full independence) while the rest of the partitioned former territories of Poland–Lithuania were under the repressive rule of the Partitioning Powers, Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

A full modern Polish translation by Irena Horbowy, with an editorial preface and notes by Ryszard Marciniak, a Kórnik librarian (1939–2009), was published in 1978. I referred to this translation, albeit cautiously. ¹¹

BK 1541 also contains the original of the official reply to Działyński’s oration, signed by the commission of four of Elizabeth’s ministers appointed to handle the matter and consisting of William Cecil, Lord Burghley; Robert Cecil; Sir John Fortescue, Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Charles Howard, Lord High Admiral. In addition there are several copies by different hands of Elizabeth’s impromptu answer, as well as other documents (several copies of Działyński’s speech and of the official English reply; a rough copy of the Dutch reply; a copy of Cardinal Caietani’s speech delivered before members of the Polish Sejm (Parliament); a copy of the speech delivered in Sejm by Jan Zamoyski, Lord Grand Hetman of Poland; ¹² a copy of the letter sent to Sejm by Pope Clement VIII; and finally a copy of Działyński’s credential letter to the United Provinces, issued on behalf of Sigismund III, King of Poland on 19 February 1597 (New Style), ¹³ and the reply issued by the Estates-General of the United Provinces). These components of BK 1541 are not included in the English translation presented below, which covers only the introductory description of England and Działyński’s speech delivered before Elizabeth and her court in Greenwich Palace, as related in Mercurius Sarmaticus. However, I shall be referring to some of the documents omitted in the translation because of their relevance for a better understanding of the context.

To the best of my knowledge, the Latin original of Mercurius Sarmaticus has not been published in hard copy form, but it is available online. ¹⁴

The Polish record of Działyński’s embassy

Mercurius Sarmaticus is an important yet hitherto little known source which throws light on the Działyński embassy by presenting the other party’s point of view. It relates Działyński’s mission to two countries, first the United Provinces (ostensibly to plead for Dutch support in an anti-Ottoman coalition, but in reality in a not particularly convincing attempt at mediation between the Dutch and Philip II of Spain, or even a covert threat should the United Provinces continue in the rebellion against their Spanish masters), and subsequently England. Not only does it record the texts of the diplomatic exchange, but it also provides the ambassador’s character study of Elizabeth and his commentary on the situation in England, particularly for Catholics. He was well briefed: he knew what to expect of her psychology and potential reaction. His oration faithfully reproduced the instructions given him in writing (as evidenced by the copy he handed over to the Queen’s ministers when accused of misrepresenting his monarch’s intentions), ¹⁵ but he appears to have seized the opportunity offered by the public audience Elizabeth had chosen to give him to elicit the response he got.

Polish historians have assessed his oration and conduct in England in various ways. Some, like the historian of international diplomacy Stanisław E. Nahlik, criticise him for delivering a ‘vehement oration against…England…his speech was full of hectoring and rebukes’; though Nahlik concedes that many of Działyński’s claims may have been right from the point of view of international law on maritime war, and that he was later cited by Grotius in his argument in favour of free passage for the shipping of neutral countries. ¹⁶ Wacław Borowy, a historian of literature and Anglo-Polish cultural relations, writes of Działyński ‘presenting the long-standing gravamina and tersely demanding compensation,’ and follows this up with a remark that he got an instant response from Elizabeth, which was ‘extremely violent, caustic, and disagreeable.’ ¹⁷ Renaud Przezdziecki writes of ‘the regrettable incidents of Działyński’s embassy;’ ¹⁸ while Stanisław Grzybowski exonerates Działyński for defending the interests of the City of Gdańsk with ‘such vigour that he precipitated the famous diplomatic scandal, but it brought good results.’ ¹⁹ In contrast, Henryk Zins writes that Działyński had ‘little political experience and diplomatic refinement,’ that his embassy to the Netherlands was a failure, and that he came to London with a mission which ‘surpassed the young diplomat’s potential and eventually made him and his masters look ridiculous in English eyes;’ nonetheless Zins concedes that Działyński’s ‘resolute stand eventually made the English authorities adopt a more conciliatory policy.’ ²⁰ Ryszard Marciniak is kinder in his assessment of Ambassador Działyński’s demeanour and comportment. He refrains from censure and instead provides a series of relevant biographical facts, clearing up certain errors disseminated by some of the other publications, including the entry on Paweł Działyński in the Polish national dictionary of biography, Polski Słownik Biograficzny, which confuses the ambassador (born c. 1562) with another Paweł Działyński, his junior by several decades. ²¹ Marciniak also discredits the claim made by some English observers that on his return home Działyński was disgraced. ²² On the contrary, according to Marciniak, Działyński kept his position at Court and in the summer of 1598 was due to attend the King on his Swedish expedition but was prevented from sailing by the shipwreck of his vessel. Later he was sent on other diplomatic missions and promoted to the office of starost of Radzyń. ²³ Działyński was posthumously honoured in Paweł Piasecki’s Chronica, ²⁴ and continued to enjoy an illustrious reputation in his native country until the demise of the First Republic (1795), whose last monarch, Stanisław August Poniatowski, had a bust of ‘Paweł Działyński, Starost of Radzyń’ set up in the Royal Castle of Warsaw. ²⁵ Działyński’s embassy also received the attention of French historians, notably J. A. de Thou, whose remarks indicate that apart from knowing the English account, he may have seen a copy of Mercurius Sarmaticus (he cites Działyński’s arguments, which it is more likely he obtained from Mercurius Sarmaticus rather than from the copy of the speech the ambassador handed over to his hosts); ²⁶ while the observations made by the Dutchman Abraham de Wicquefort in his treatise on ambassadors seems to show that he did not know of Mercurius Sarmaticus (he accused Działyński of not examining his instructions beforehand). ²⁷

The Polish and international context of Działyński’s mission

As we are informed on the title page of Mercurius Sarmaticus, Paweł Działyński was appointed to serve as ambassador at the Sejm (Parliament) of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania which convened on the fields of Wola outside Warsaw from 10 February to 24 March 1597. ²⁸ His attendance is recorded in several references to criminal proceedings he had brought to the court sitting during Sejm against one Plemięcki. ²⁹ However, there is no record in the Dyariusze (viz. official diary of the parliamentary proceedings) of his ambassadorial appointment. Neither is the embassy registered in the extant archival records of the Metryka Koronna, the collection of state papers issued by the royal chancelleries of Poland–Lithuania. ³⁰ However, Roman Żelewski, one of the authors of the multi-volume history of the Polish diplomatic service, informs us that (except for Venice) the custom of depositing and keeping all the official documentation issued by a royal chancellery in a state archive was still not a regular practice in many sixteenth-century states throughout Europe. Many of the chancellors, vice-chancellors and envoys of the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, treated the documents they produced as their private property and took their collections with them when they retired from the service of their country. ³¹ The passage I have quoted from W. Chorążyczywski’s description of the private archives of the Działyński family, as well as my fruitless search in the online resources of the Metryka Koronna corroborate this statement.

Two important personages representing foreign states attended the Sejm of 1597 and the matters they brought dominated the proceedings. The first was Admiral Francisco de Mendoza, who came as the ambassador of Philip II of Spain, and on 12 February delivered his ambassadorial oration before King Sigismund and the Senate. ³² The Spanish ambassador’s business was to induce Sigismund to assist his Habsburg kinsman in his ongoing conflict with the Provinces of the Low Countries and the impending war against England. Philip asked Sigismund for permission to use one of the Polish Baltic ports as a base for his navy, not only for an expedition against England and the United Provinces, but also to secure free passage for ships carrying Polish goods—cereals (the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was Europe’s breadbasket at the time), as well as commodities such as timber which could be used for military purposes. Throughout the 1590s ships from Gdańsk (Danzick)—the main city and port of Royal Prussia, a component part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—bound for destinations in Spain and Portugal, had been at the mercy of English pirates, who were continually intercepting merchant vessels and confiscating their goods, with the knowledge and tacit approval of Queen Elizabeth. Only in the summer months of 1591 no fewer than 29 complaints and compensation claims for losses due to English piracy were sent to Elizabeth’s government by Gdańsk merchants. More damages correspondence followed in subsequent years. In 1591 and 1595 Sigismund intervened on behalf of his subjects, in official letters to ‘his dearly beloved cousin’ Elizabeth. ³³ He intervened again in 1597, this time sending an ambassador, no doubt prompted by Philip’s request, although he refused permission for the use of his ports by the Spanish fleet. ³⁴

The other foreign celebrity was the papal nuncio, Cardinal Enrico Caietani. On 22 February he was escorted to the Royal Castle in Warsaw, where he delivered his oration on behalf of Pope Clement VIII before the king and senators. His mission was to rally support for an anti-Turkish league and get Sigismund to join and pledge military involvement. ³⁵ The previous year Eger, a city in northern Hungary, had fallen to the Turks.

Both the Spanish ambassador and the papal nuncio failed to achieve most of their aims—the Polish Sejm gave them a sympathetic hearing and numerous senators voiced approval, but that was as far as their sympathy went. Neither a military alliance with Spain nor an anti-Turkish league materialised; what Sigismund had on his mind was the recuperation of the Swedish crown, to which he had a hereditary right. Notwithstanding his marriage to a Habsburg princess of the Austrian line, his relations with his Spanish kinsman were not absolutely smooth. Philip II was Sigismund III’s debtor. Negotiations were still being continued by the descendants of Bona Sforza, Dowager Queen of Poland and Sigismund’s maternal grandmother, who had left Poland after her husband’s death and returned to her patrimonial Duchy of Bari and Rossano, taking a vast fortune with her. She was subsequently ‘induced’ by Philip II to grant him a colossal loan. When she died in 1559 (poisoned by her physician, apparently on Philip’s instigation) and Philip produced a forged will in which Bona purportedly left him her entire estate, her descendants embarked on a diplomatic campaign to extract the outstanding ‘Neapolitan monies’ (sumy neapolitańskie) from the reluctant debtor and recover Bari and Rossano. Their efforts continued well into the mid-seventeenth century, but with meagre results and effectively the debt was never cleared. ³⁶

But there is no doubt that the mission of Paweł Działyński was conducted under the overriding inspiration of both the nuncio and the Spanish ambassador—as Elizabeth and her ministers suspected. Presumably Cardinal Caietani, whose speech is preserved in Działyński’s papers, was the recipient (or perhaps commissioning holder?) of the transcript of Mercurius Sarmaticus now in the Vallicelliana. Symptomatically, there are significant differences between its copy in the Czartoryski Library and the master copy in the Kórnik set, and where they diverge it is usually a question of the Czartoryski copy having extensive additions on religious issues, under a strong Counter-Reformation influence, on the basis of a good knowledge of the affairs of English recusants (but clearly none of the English language on the part of the copyist(s), who made the transcription of the English names and titles virtually undecipherable) and with a distinct garnishing of Jesuit polemic. This raises the question when and where these interpolations were added, and by whom. Were they done with the knowledge and consent of Działyński and Mercurius’ original author? It must remain unanswered until more copies of Mercurius are found.

The Society of Jesus enjoyed a patent and influential presence in Poland–Lithuania under Sigismund III, who was a fervent Catholic and hoped to re-Catholicise his hereditary kingdom of Sweden. His chaplain, Father Piotr Powęski, known as Piotr Skarga, probably the best Polish preacher prior to John Paul II, was a Jesuit. The Society of Jesus started its operations in Poland–Lithuania in 1564 and expanded rapidly, founding a network of schools and colleges, and soon (1579) an academy at Vilnius, which provided a tertiary-level counterpart of the university education of those days. By 1600 well over ten thousand students had received an education from the Jesuit schools and colleges in Poland and Lithuania. The Jesuits were the country’s most vibrant and briskly growing religious order at the time. ³⁷ What is of special relevance in the context of Działyński’s mission is that the Polish and Lithuanian Jesuits pursued a broad range of publishing activities and enjoyed a wide circle of international contacts. They were in touch with their confreres from the British Isles, offering hospitality and a safe haven to English, Scottish, and Irish Jesuits (as well as other recusants), who were able to recover their strength in a respite at one of the Jesuit houses in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, or set down roots and start a new life there. At least 14 English, Scottish and Irish Jesuits lived and worked in the Order’s Polish Province in the sixteenth century. ³⁸ Moreover, English, Scottish, and Irish students attended the Polish and Lithuanian Jesuit schools and colleges. ³⁹ Jesuit publishing in Poland–Lithuania encompassed works by English Jesuits, primarily Campion’s Rationes Decem, which came out in two different translations into Polish, while its Stonor Park Latin edition was fitted out with a new title page and disseminated throughout the country. ⁴⁰ Piotr Skarga wrote on the English Martyrs in Żywoty świętych, his extremely influential compendium on the lives of the saints, drawing his information from the works of Laurentius Surius, Nicholas Sanders and Nicholas Harpsfield (pseudonym Alan Cope). In 1582 a book entitled Okrucieństwo kacyrskie przeciw katolikom w Anglijej was published on the persecution of English Catholics. ⁴¹ Mirosława Hanusiewicz–Lavallée has shown that in fact it was a translation of Robert Persons’ De persecutione Anglicana. ⁴² Indeed, some of Działyński’s remarks on the situation in England are reminiscent of information available from this book—in particular the description of Elizabeth, ‘outstanding for her numerous accomplishments but nefarious, well-nigh diabolical in her lust for power and persecution of Catholics.’ Okrucieństwo kacyrskie inserts a macaronic epithet, Virago, into the Polish text, presumably for a pun (virago/virgo) in the Latin original. It also has a twofold rendering for the terms used for the rack—first translated as krosna, ‘the frame of a weaver’s loom,’ and subsequently as konik, ‘little horse,’ a calque for equuleus. ⁴³ Yet, as Janusz Tazbir points out, other Catholic books and pamphlets which circulated in Poland in polemic with Polish Protestant publications gave Elizabeth a similar complex and ambivalent portrait, ⁴⁴ and Paweł Działyński must certainly have had access to such literature, just as he may have known many Jesuits personally. Most importantly, however, he was instructed to make representations during his mission to England for the release of imprisoned Jesuits. This was a regular custom practised by the kings of Poland in their diplomatic relations with Elizabeth and her ministers, and sometimes it was successful (apparently James Bosgrave owed his reprieve to Stephen Báthory’s plea for his release). ⁴⁵

Some details of Działyński’s introductory account of England, such as the roll-call of peers of the realm, show that he had been given extensive information; while the passage on the plight of English Catholics reflects the opinion prevalent in countries loyal to Rome, particularly in the context of Pope Sixtus V’s bull of excommunication against Elizabeth (1588) ⁴⁶ and the unofficial sayings attributed to him. ⁴⁷ Yet Działyński’s diagnosis of the situation of English Catholics has a special relevance in the Polish context and the fact that he had to handle his business through the mediation of an individual he found obnoxious—Dr Christopher Parkins, an ex-Jesuit whom the English authorities had earlier employed on a diplomatic mission to Poland, during which he had earned a bad reputation by meddling in Polish domestic affairs and attending a Protestant synod. In the 1590s Parkins was sent on several missions to Poland, the purpose of which was to protect the interests of the Eastland Company of English merchants, which had been granted trading privileges and headquarters at Elbing (Elbląg, a Baltic port 60 km east of Gdańsk), still in the reign of Báthory (before 1586); and to handle the complaints of the merchants of Gdańsk claiming compensation for intercepted ships and confiscated goods. In 1593, when Sigismund’s efforts on behalf of his subjects failed to stop the piracy by diplomatic means, he permitted them to seek redress for their losses on English goods at Elbląg. Parkins appeared at the next sejm to try to have this repealed, justifying the piracy by the right to reciprocal treatment, since during the 1563–1570 Polish–Muscovite war in the reign of Sigismund Augustus the Poles had prevented English ships from sailing to Russian ports. ⁴⁸

Another interesting point in the light of the Polish tradition of the parliamentary mixed state is Działyński’s picture of Elizabeth as a tyrant, and her ministers and parliament as a sycophantic sham. He writes of Elizabeth’s illegitimacy and makes an indirect allegation—the rumour that she had been born of her father’s incestuous union with his own illegitimate daughter. The story was ambient in Poland, especially in Jesuit publications. ⁴⁹ Moreover, Działyński’s mental association of tyranny with gynaecocracy would have struck a familiar note with many Polish readers of his account, who looked back with abhorrence and dread to the times of Queen Bona Sforza, remembering her as an Italian schemer intent on depriving them of their republican rights and freedoms. ⁵⁰

Subsequent developments

Mercurius Sarmaticus gives an extensive account of what happened in the wake of the audience, presenting the social background and describing the individuals involved in behind-the-scenes exchanges with the ambassador. A particularly noteworthy point is the rioting that broke out and the fact that the ambassador’s life was endangered because the English authorities had problems with controlling the disturbances. These incidents have been associated with the performance of the ‘lewd’ play The Isle of Dogs, apparently satirising the Polish ambassador within days of his audience, and the character of Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Also the Queen’s jibe about Działyński having read many books yet being ignorant of the proper behaviour with respect to kings has been interpreted as an allusion to De Optimo Senatore, a mirror-book by the Pole Laurentius Grimalius Goslicius, translated into English and published the following year as The Counsellor. ⁵¹

In contrast to the English account of the incident, its assessment in the Polish records is more moderate. Although Polish authors acknowledge that Działyński’s conduct fell short of what was expected of a diplomat and offended the Queen, yet they point out that it brought the required effects from the Polish point of view, since it encouraged Elizabeth’s ministers to adopt a more pacific policy and send George Carew on a conciliatory mission. Elizabeth reinstated the trading privileges of Gdańsk, a Hanseatic city under the Polish Crown, while withholding similar rights previously enjoyed by other Hanseatic cities. ⁵²

Translation of the description of Elizabeth’s England in Mercurius Sarmaticus

The account of Działyński’s embassy to England starts on folio 10r and ends on folio 25r of the Kórnik manuscript of Mercurius Sarmaticus. The English translation presented below is of this part of the documents preserved in the Kórnik Library under shelf mark BK 1541. I have considered the corresponding passage in ms. 97, document 40 of the Teki Naruszewicza collection in the Czartoryski Library in Kraków (paginated in pencil on odd-numbered pages from p.309 to p.317), and where substantial differences occur between the two versions I have added a translation of the text in the Czartoryski copy, using chevron brackets (< >). Curly brackets ({ }) indicate additions necessary to make the English translation comprehensible. The numeration of folios and pages in the Kórnik and Czartoryski copies respectively is given in square brackets ([ ]). For Działyński’s oration, I have also consulted the version in the Public Record Office, as published by Talbot.

[f.10r] England

Up to this point I have given a relation of my mission to the Low Countries and the hospitality we received there. And now I come on to England, where we have now arrived by ship and pen. To give the reader a picture of that country, allow me to quote a passage from a poem by Julius Scaliger, which he wrote on London, the English capital:

A city potent in spirit and in the numbers and vitality of its people,

Perhaps the only one to look down openly on all the gods,

At strangers it looks askance, though it’s not unwelcoming;

Sending its native wares to neighbours and asking in return for theirs,

Disdaining those it blesses with gifts, as if greater by the mere giving,

Scorning those from whom it seeks, so as not to seem smaller in substance,

Your worth in war – let Aquitaine speak of that; let the Norman and the Saxon

With ancient Rome conjoined berate your failings. ⁵³

Now for another picture of the Commonwealth of England, which I have put at the beginning of my account because it will do much to present my story more fully. The names of the lords of England on August 15, 1597, in order of seniority:

Twenty peers: the Marquis of Winchester, of the Paulet family; ⁵⁴ the Earl of Oxford, of the de Vere family; ⁵⁵ the Earl of Northumberland, of the Percy family; ⁵⁶ the Earl of Shrewsbury of the Talbot family; ⁵⁷ the Duke of Kent, of the Grey family; ⁵⁸ the Earl of Derby, of the Stanley family; ⁵⁹ the Earl of Worcester, of the Somerset family; ⁶⁰ the Earl of Rutland, of the Manners family; ⁶¹ the Marquis of Cumberland, of the Clifford family; ⁶² the Earl of Sussex, of the Fitzwalter family; ⁶³ the Earl of Huntingdon of the Hastings family; ⁶⁴ the Earl of Bath, of the Bourchier family; ⁶⁵ the Earl of Southampton, of the Wriothesley family; ⁶⁶ the Earl of Bedford, of the Russell family; ⁶⁷ the Earl of Pembroke of the Herbert family; ⁶⁸ the Earl of Hertford, of the Seymour family; ⁶⁹ the Earl of Essex, of the Devereux family, Master of the Horse and Chief Privy Counsellor; ⁷⁰ the Earl of Lincoln, of the Clinton family; ⁷¹ Viscount Montague of the Browne family; ⁷² and Viscount Howard of Bindon of the Howard family. ⁷³

I pass over the names and titles of the forty barons, of which only a few have survived {in my memory} after the lapse of so many years; also of the Queen’s privy counsellors, of whom there were eleven. ⁷⁴ <40 Barons. Baron de Ros, of the Cecil family; ⁷⁵ Baron Audley; ⁷⁶ Baron Zouche, his family name being the same as the title of his barony; ⁷⁷ Baron Willoughby, of the Parham family; ⁷⁸ Baron Berkeley, his family name being the same as the title of his barony; ⁷⁹ Baron Morley; ⁸⁰ Baron Dacre; ⁸¹ Baron Cobham, of the Brooke family; ⁸² Baron Stafford; ⁸³ Baron Grey; ⁸⁴ Baron Scrope; ⁸⁵ Baron Dudley; ⁸⁶ Baron Stourton; ⁸⁷ Lord Stanley; ⁸⁸ Baron Mountjoy, of the Blount family; ⁸⁹ Baron Ogle ⁹⁰ Baron Darcy; ⁹¹ Baron Monteagle; ⁹² Baron Sandys; ⁹³ Lord Vane; ⁹⁴ Baron Wharton (?); ⁹⁵ Baron Wentworth; ⁹⁶ Baron Burgh; ⁹⁷ Baron Mordaunt; ⁹⁸ Baron Cromwell; ⁹⁹ Baron Eure; ¹⁰⁰ Lord Wotton (?); ¹⁰¹ Baron Rich; ¹⁰² Baron Willoughby of Parham; ¹⁰³ Baron Sheffield; ¹⁰⁴ Baron Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England and Privy Counsellor; ¹⁰⁵ Baron North, Treasurer of the Royal Household, Privy Counsellor; ¹⁰⁶ Baron Chandos of the Brydges family; ¹⁰⁷ Baron Hunsdon of the Carey family, Lord Chamberlain to the Queen and Privy Counsellor; ¹⁰⁸ Baron Clifton (?); ¹⁰⁹ the Baron of Buckhurst of the Sackville family, Privy Counsellor; ¹¹⁰ Baron De La Warr, of the West family; ¹¹¹ Baron Burghley, Lord High Treasurer of England, Master of the Court of Wards and Privy Counsellor; ¹¹² Baron Compton ¹¹³ {and} Baron Norris. ¹¹⁴ The Queen’s Privy Counsellors: The Earl of Essex, Master of the Horse; Baron Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England and Privy Counsellor; Baron North, Treasurer of the Royal Household, Privy Counsellor; Baron Hunsdon of the Carey family, the Lord Chamberlain; the Baron of Buckhurst of the Sackville family, Privy Counsellor; Lord Burghley, of the Cecil family, Lord High Treasurer of England, Master of the Court of Wards and Privy Counsellor. Commoners: ¹¹⁵ the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of England, Knight and {member} of the {Privy} Council; Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper and as if Lord Chancellor of England; Sir John Fortescue, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Sir William Knollys, Comptroller of the Royal Household; Sir Robert Cecil, Secretary of State.>

[f.10r and p.310] In despotic England the title of duke has been abolished; and all the bishops died a martyr’s death – they were replaced by a godless bunch of dissidents, Satan’s envoys, pipers playing for any who pay and call the tune, blasphemers, and disreputable fellows. Some of the bishops were clapped into prison by Elizabeth’s father, some by her brother Edward. They suffered for trying to wipe out heresy, which was considered the most heinous crime.

[f.10r] I have omitted the names of the bishops and archbishops (there were 28 of them), so as not to rub salt into the wounds of the faithful, who have lost hope of their return. ¹¹⁶

[p.310] <Here are the names of the archbishops of England: Canterbury, York. Bishops: London, Durham, Winchester, Exeter, Lincoln, Ely, Coventry and Lichfield, Norwich, Salisbury, Worcester, Chichester, Gloucester, Bath and Welles, Ross, Carlisle, Worcester, Bristol, Peterborough, Oxford, Hereford. 4 bishops of Wales: St. David, Bangor, St. Asaph, Llandaff.>

On arriving in England we took a meticulous, scrutinising look at the condition of the kingdom and the Queen herself. At first glance it seems most admirable. In my opinion it is right to point this out before I go on to describe the developments of the legation itself, since it is much easier to recognise evil if one knows its roots. Moreover, it seems necessary to do this to understand the wrongs suffered and examine the business on which His Majesty the King of Poland had despatched this embassy.

Extraordinary things happened there, strange to behold, or perhaps wonders that could shock anyone who had not been thoroughly educated and was completely unable to draw conclusions from what he saw. For England is under the despotic, absolute rule of a woman. A free nation is under tyrannical, most extraordinary oppression exercised by a woman. Christians are being martyred, or more precisely butchered there. An unusually learned woman is performing the office of a pope. One queen has looted many kingdoms.

On our arrival in England, what we observed was above all that this despotic female rule {had been established and} was most curiously enduring. The English people used to be renowned for their freedom, their rights and privileges, which could only be compared with those enjoyed by the people of Poland, and on some counts they even surpassed us. They were such a wealthy nation, strong, valorous, distinguished for their numerous noble virtues, honours and excellent merits, riches, qualities of body and soul; with so many noble princes, earls, barons, and other titled persons that you could say that nothing was more alien to the English than slavery. But behold, a wench hatched of an illegitimate and impious bed managed to achieve what even the strongest man could never have accomplished. She applied such a yoke to necks unaccustomed to burden; [f.11r] she put such reins on freedom of speech, such fetters on unrestrained feet, such manacles on free hands that none of them would ever dare to claim any office even if he had a right to it, no-one would ever dare even to mutter a contrary word, not so much as in secret let alone in public; nobody would dare leave England to travel to another country without the Queen’s knowledge, or alienate his property to anyone else (the Queen may take anything from anyone at will and give it to anyone else she pleases)—unless he were ready to risk being punished for treason for any of these things.

In this way Queen Elizabeth’s unprecedented power grew into absolute power: to grant honours, property, life and death as she pleased; unlimited power to repeal old laws and institute new ones; unlimited freedom to make war at will on anyone she pleased and in the same way to sue for peace. Unlimited freedom to grant honours and degrade or raise up anyone she pleased to the noble estate. Licence to enjoy the property of wards, on the pretext of exercising the highest concern for them. Whatever is limited for other monarchs is concentrated absolutely in the hands of this woman.

And just as in other matters, the powers of the great parliament of this kingdom have been appropriated by three effeminate counsellors and one necromancer from the Privy Council, upon whose opinions and instigation the Queen often relies. Everyone else, as well as those I have already mentioned, do not really dispense advice, but rather carry out her orders, or are used arbitrarily and contrary to the usual custom to facilitate and expedite the Queen’s rule over the people. That is the way the English female dictator rules – not at all reminiscent of Roman rule, I should say, since there is nothing Roman about it.

There is one more thing that leaves foreigners astounded: her singular tyranny and vicious cruelty, reminiscent of the times of Dionysius, Nero, Tiberius ¹¹⁷ and other tyrants, wolves of their like, exercised over her bloodied flocks of innocent sheep.

Your moaning has left us dumbfounded, O, England, once thriving on piety and freedom, but now bewailing the loss of both. We are staggered by your just complaints, your sighs watered by the bitter tears which in anguish you shed before us – your guests, instead of giving us a first-rate welcome. We were aghast{as we watched} those who had been dragged out of a terrible cavern or dungeon full of human bodies and suffering from dreadful wounds had breathed their last, or, deprived of all hope, had met a sudden death. We were stunned by the bitterness of your miserable lamentation. O, the singular patroness, the breakneck nurserywoman—[f.11v] from the vineyard of the world’s fairest isle granted by God to people of all estates, who are to be looked after tenderly – she has ripped out the best branches along with all their seedlings. And when she found she could not win over all the lords and counsellors by love, she decided to subdue them by perpetual fear, and even now she is still destroying and slashing up all around her. [p.311 ] <No longer ¹¹⁸ is there a prince to lead that kingdom; no longer does it have a permanent council {made up of members}of ancient families; nor is there a single man of genuine authority in its parliament. A woman’s fury has been devouring it; female rage has been destroying it all, and is still slashing it up even now. She sees that the noble mind hates being subjugated by tyrants; she realises how exacerbated the oppressed are; she knows that evil conduct is but a sham; and so, as she has not succeeded in making all the citizens, all her people, love and obey her, she has decided to enforce obedience by perpetual fear.> Surely this sorrowful verse by the Polish poet Kochanowski may be applied to all the citizens and people {of England}:

So in this world there’s nothing for ourselves we own,

Today ‘tis mine, tomorrow it’ll grace another home,

And yet another, and another house at last,

While we are tumbled, like wind-swept leaves from tree are cast. ¹¹⁹

[p.311] <Be they even more innocent than little lambs, still they do not know when her rage will flare up or her tyrannical habit inflame her to assail anyone of the citizens at random, and deprive them of their lives or honours; they are just like leaves.> And so, whenever the Queen rages in her tyranny, the poor people of England perish and die miserably: some impaled, others racked, some shackled in iron collars, still others killed with other instruments of torture. Next a whirlwind swept through London, and on rooftops where there would usually be a weathercock, now there was a head stuck on a stake, or part of a quartered body tossed about by the wind. For this is how the spectacle of tyranny is played out. Yet neither the paintbrush of Apelles, ¹²⁰ nor the eloquence of Demosthenes ¹²¹ could describe even in part what we saw. The Queen is sixty-four, and for forty years [p.311] <this human bloodsucker has not been able to satisfy her thirst for the blood of innocents; is this not most strange?> she has been ruling with such unprecedented despotism that, according to the testimony of the most venerable people, she has surpassed all the tyrants that came before her, who slaughtered their victims with instruments of torture, put them to the sword, killed by exercising violence, or by administering poison. Christians were martyred and there was unspeakable suffering for those in England who dared to keep to the faith of the Apostles and continue to practise their religion. This unprecedented sight shocked us as nothing had done ever before. For who could have supposed that there could be two hells? Seeing that God had created the old Hell for pagans, infidels, and scoundrels, Queen Elizabeth has now turned her realm into a new hell for Christians and the faithful. [p.311] <For those in Hell are punished in countless ways, while in England all the pious are being put to practically innumerable forms of torture for no crime at all; so many of them that> I shall not speak of the immense torments and cruelty perpetrated at her behest in words of my own, but instead avail myself of the words of Virgil:

Not though I were supplied with iron lungs,

A hundred mouths, filled with as many tongues

could I put the enormity of all the offences and punishments in my own words. ¹²²

[p.311] <In addition, while Queen Elizabeth would have her kingdom made Hell’s equal, in some respects it has surpassed Hell in quality. For in Hell, just as there are different afflictions, so there are diverse punishments—there is Megaera and there is Alecto, the Furies—but the Queen of England is Minos and Rhadamantus ¹²³ rolled into one. Those who offend against the Divine Majesty and hold it in contempt are punished in Hell; while the opposite is true of England—the true worshippers of God are the ones who are punished. Those who transgress against God’s law, those who are intemperate, those who are incestuous, are punished in Hell; while in England the ones who suffer are those who observe the precepts laid down by God, those who have devoted themselves completely to temperance, chastity, and all the other virtues. Finally, the enemies of the Roman Church and its Sacraments are tortured in Hell, while in England precisely such like are the counsellors and administrators. Once upon a time Caligula ¹²⁴ had wished that all the people had just one neck, so that it could be cut off with one blow; the Queen of England wants the very same thing most ardently—that all the monks, all the virgins consecrated to God, all who have entered Holy Orders should share in one and the same life, which she could take possession of all the sooner. Her soul is full of such unprecedented hatred of the Sacraments, Temperance, Chastity, and all the other virtues, that even if all those who have dedicated their virginity to Christ came to England from all the monasteries in the world to die as martyrs, her hatred of them would not be quenched until the blood of all of them—one after another, scores and hundreds of them—had been spilled out in a torrent; for as long as there were just a single, last one of them left alive. We were astonished that the Queen who is persecuting and slaughtering Christians so viciously should arrogate the title of Defendress of the Faith of Christians, whose most bitter foe she certainly is.> And notwithstanding the need to record these matters fully—when the vastness of the torments she has inflicted of late has exceeded its own previous enormity and the soul is terrified of that beast insatiate of Christian blood and such damned atrocities, descriptions of which fill the pages of many famous chronicles—I shall briefly say whose whispers and intrigues are behind all these things.

Satan is the ancient enemy of the Roman Church, the father and patron of all heresy and blasphemy, [f.12r] experienced in the doing of evil. However, no satanic powers, none of Hell’s forces nor its battering-rams shall ever overcome the Church founded by Christ and His Apostle Peter—not even if a thousand sorcerers were in its employ and insidious treachery tried to accomplish this by extraordinary means; not even when devious Satan diligently pursuing his aims installs a skilful woman as the anti-pope of a new religion.

But could any of our forefathers have imagined that one day there would be a hermaphrodite pope; ¹²⁵ could any of them have thought that she would change her sex just as a chameleon changes its colour? Who has ever envisaged the most sacred pope transformed into a whore, the supreme father into one who is widely known as the mother of strange progeny, the supreme pastor of all Christians into a savage she-wolf? Have any of the Sybils, ¹²⁶ any of the prophets or diviners ever predicted that by means of a weird metamorphosis a vicious female predator of all churches would become defender of the Catholic Church, that Hell’s doorkeeper would become the guardian of Heaven? Did anyone even dream that one day the sacrosanct practice of election to the papacy would be replaced by the ignoble generation of ‘popes,’ vocation by the Holy Spirit exchanged for hereditary succession, a monstrous antipope, a vessel of evil, the nourisher of apostasy and blasphemy?

Oh, the atrocity of it! Oh, the iniquity! Satan’s mocking laughter, godless, maligning insanity! That Beast is performing her impersonation act before the world, she is pulling up false popes from Hell.

Yet the people of England—perhaps blinded by the darkness of evil, or maybe forced outright by her overwhelming, endless cruelty—are not at all worried to take these blasphemies and flatteries into her very bedchamber and have them carved on pediments over doorways, when on bended knee they worship their ridiculous archpriest, or when their crowned archpriest lifts up her hand to greet them and they bow their heads as if for a true blessing, when they celebrate her birthday and the anniversary of her coronation, when they declare she is something of a deity the likes of which mortals have never seen since the world began, when they accord her more veneration than is due to the Blessed Virgin Mary, when they compare her to Christ and (Oh, ‘tis terrible to say) call her their saviour, since Christ has redeemed mankind, and she has redeemed His Church by the reformation.

Oh, bitter irony, both for the Queen and her subjects! Oh, spasmic grin, perdition and miserably ending tragedy!

Such misfortunes for the people, such mockery of the Church, such persecution of the virtues, such slights to the English people, such evil undertakings could not be put up with impunity, without eventually taking their toll on all of them. And it is so incomparably evident, obvious in finer detail than what a hundred-eyed Argus ¹²⁷ could see.

Let anyone enumerate the greatest philosophers, physicians, lawyers, orators, poets, mathematicians, and men endowed with all manner of knowledge; let him name their most praiseworthy qualities—he will observe all of this in this brilliant Queen. The qualities each of them has individually all come together in her. All who have met her confirm this. I shall pass over her extraordinary fluency in eight languages, [f.12v] and the fact that she can play musical instruments so beautifully as to surpass not only contemporary musicians but also those of past and future times. I shall not elaborate on the observation that she is as prudent as Semiramis, ¹²⁸ as sagacious as the Brutuses, ¹²⁹ as astute as Odysseus; ¹³⁰ no-one could enumerate all of the Queen’s skills. ¹³¹

[p.312]<Should he commend others for their knowledge of languages, he will admire the Queen’s outstanding fluency in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, French and German; were he to assess the talent of musicians, Orpheus’ most sweet progeny, and were then to hear the Queen play the spinet, the lute, the cithara, or some other instrument, he would say she was the mother of musicians and of the best lute-players. Were he to consider the astuteness of Semiramis, or the qualities of leadership in Tomyris, ¹³² the Brutuses and the Catos, ¹³³ the foresight and adroitness in action and the dexterity of Ulysses, he would observe all these things in this Queen.> So comprehensive are the talents this woman has, so swift her intelligence, that should anyone want to take action against her, she would soon discover it, kill and destroy him.[p.312]<should ¹³⁴ anyone want to take action against her, she would soon sniff it out; she would extinguish it before it even gave a spark; she would eradicate it before it even sprouted; she would exterminate it before it even came to light. Her prompt intuition foresees such things when they are tiny and just starting.>

Who else commands such skills? She is certainly outstanding by nature and posture, and she has been fashioned thus perhaps by some strange quirk of nature, or maybe by the Devil, to whom, as well as to the practice of sorcery, she has devoted herself completely.

We come now to the spoils and piracy, which was the reason why His Majesty the King of Poland dispatched this legation. For Queen Elizabeth of England, the enemy of all Christians and a relentless predator, not wanting to miss a single opportunity to do harm to Christians and display her greed plainly and openly to all the world, has commanded her subjects to loot the merchant ships of all kingdoms sailing past near England, and later makes a deal with the pirates to share the booty. To cover up this tyrannical crime with a noble pretext, she says that since she is forced to be at war with the King of Spain, it will be right for her to rob merchants trading at a great profit with Spain, for thereby she will be seizing enemy resources. She also says that future generations may call her insolent if they like, which she is indeed. ¹³⁵ [p.312] <To cover up this tyrannical crime with a noble pretext, she says that since she is forced to be at war with the King of Spain, it will be right for her to rob merchants trading at a great profit with Spain, for thereby she will be seizing enemy resources, in accordance with her cowardly, dissolute sex (for she has engaged many armies in the continuing offensive war against the King of Spain, and she says this will make future generations consider her endowed with immortal glory).> For this reason her pirates loot all ships whatsoever, regardless of the flag under which they sail; ¹³⁶ [p.312] <For this reason she intercepts all ships from Poland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Spain, and other parts of the world, even if they are not sailing for Spain, but might do so at some time> to spare the lives of the victims her pirates take a ransom, or they sell them as galley-slaves to barbarians, or they simply sink them in the depths of the sea.

For many centuries seventy ¹³⁷ maritime cities have been associated in a commercial union known as the Hanseatic League which has enjoyed freedom to trade both overland and on the seas, confirmed by a series of charters and privileges granted by eleven kings of England and never in the least infringed by any of them. When Queen Elizabeth found that the rights of the Hanse were a serious obstacle preventing her from freely engaging in piracy, she violated those rights with no regard whatsoever for the sacrosanct pledges made by her ancestors.

The impunity of her foul play made her ferocious heart insolent enough to challenge and breach these rights, and arrogant enough to defy every monarch, so much so that none of them could have achieved full reparation for all his losses even by the greatest victory. Evidence of this is provided by her answer to the ambassador of the King of Denmark. When, on orders from his monarch, he insisted outright on the restoration of the Danish ships she had seized, [f.13r] and even used threats, she replied, ‘I do not care for the whelps when I am destroying the lion,’ by ‘lion’ meaning the King of Spain, and calling other kings ‘whelps.’ Another indication of this is the case of a certain merchant who tried to recover the goods stolen from him. He gave the Queen a gift – a fine carriage with gold and silver rather than the usual iron trimmings, and studded with gemstones. As the Queen mounted the carriage, she was obliged to lower her head because the roof of the carriage was quite low. Turning to her suite, she arrogantly announced, ‘I am showing more respect to this coach than I would to any king. On its account I am obliged to bow my head, which I would not do for any king.’ Such is her arrogance, her pride and haughtiness, which is growing day by day due to her looting of all kingdoms.

Not even the subjects of the King of Poland, who were very profitably selling cereals to Spain in compliance with their Hanseatic rights and under international law, are free from Elizabeth’s aggression. She has been viciously attacking them. To prevent such abuse, His Majesty the King of Poland graciously required Paweł Działyński to proceed to England from the Netherlands. When the Queen learned from the news spread abroad in Holland that the King’s ambassador had left for London, she expected that the embassy sent out to her would be like the Dutch one and thought that she would be welcoming an envoy suing for peace on behalf of the King of Spain and the King of Poland. For usually it is so that whatever the general atmosphere concerning a particular matter, its outcome turns out to be the same.

In this case, not wanting to waste an opportunity to flaunt her pride and haughtiness, on the basis of the Dutch case, the Queen imagined it would be a similar legation. So when the ambassador’s messenger came to William Cecil, Lord Treasurer Burghley, Elizabeth’s most trusted counsellor, to request an audience for his master, Burghley told him he knew what the ambassador had done in the Netherlands and what he would do in England.

An appointment was made for the audience for 4 August at Greenwich. To pamper her pride and haughtiness, the Queen gave orders for the audience to be public and commanded all and sundry, local people and foreigners, to attend, which she had never done before. You could say that she wanted to say, ‘Behold, all ye nations, what special grace God is granting me! See how every monarch is honouring me, see the King of Spain extending his hand to me.’ [f.13v] But her hopes were bitterly disappointed, for the ambassador had come with a different message.

At the appointed time the ambassador, dressed in his national costume and attended by two English gentlemen, was brought by boat along the Thames ¹³⁸ to Greenwich. Then he was ushered through chambers full of gentlemen and magnificently clad ladies opposite them, and stood before the Queen. As he entered the palace he was welcomed with a performance of dancing and music played on zithers and other instruments. When the Queen saw the ambassador she waved her hand to bid silence. The ambassador greeted her according to the Polish custom and presented his credentials, which she read and said, ‘Parlate,’ telling him to speak. The ambassador stood facing the Queen, who had risen from her throne, and began as follows:

‘Your Majesty, His Majesty, My Most Gracious Lord etc.’ (as in the ambassador’s letter of instruction). ¹³⁹

The ambassador’s letter of instruction

INSTRUCTION given to the nobly born Paweł Działyński, His Majesty’s courtier and envoy to the Most Illustrious Queen of England, issued at the Sejm held in Warsaw, on 21 March Anno Domini 1597.

The envoy shall make his way as fast as possible to the Most Illustrious Queen of England and shall endeavour to obtain an opportunity promptly to carry out his mission. Having obtained such an appointment, he shall present the matter of his embassy as follows:

The oration of Mr. Działyński, Polish Ambassador to the Queen of England, delivered in London in 1597¹⁴⁰

Your Majesty and Most Gracious Lady, when my Master and Most Gracious Lord His Majesty the King of Poland appointed me as his envoy to you, he commanded me first on his behalf to congratulate Your Majesty and most diligently to wish you good health and good fortune in all matters, next most emphatically to express his fraternal affection and love for Your Majesty, and then to present his business to Your Majesty, for which purpose he has given me this letter of credence, which in compliance with his instruction I hereby present to Your Majesty.

[f. 14r] Your Majesty, His Majesty My Most Gracious Lord has been concerned, well-nigh since the very beginning of his reign, by all manner of tokens of benevolence, to maintain and preserve his amity for Your Majesty. For all this time, right unto the present, the King has been giving proof that his friendship is true, and trusts that Your Majesty has observed this; he has taken every opportunity, not only in letters, to manifest his benevolence. Also he has always shown great beneficence to Your Majesty’s subjects, both those who made their way across his kingdom and dominions as envoys, and to those engaged in trade; moreover, he has ordered his subjects to offer them protection and assist them in every possible way. To those who have traded in his lands he has promised to observe the same freedom and immunity as his own subjects enjoy. Thereby the subjects of Your Highness have traded in his kingdoms on equal, or even on better terms than the subjects of My Most Illustrious King. ¹⁴¹ Steadfast in his amity unto Your Majesty, His Majesty My Most Gracious Lord has always expected to be treated in the same way in return.

But quite a number of incidents have occurred, and still continue to happen, on the part of Your Majesty and your subjects, over which His Majesty cannot remain silent and considers it necessary to demand your goodwill to him and his subjects.

First, whereas His Majesty has granted Your Majesty’s subjects well-nigh the same freedom to trade in his kingdoms as his own subjects enjoy, contrary to the usual custom, it appears that not only has Your Majesty failed to give new privileges to the subjects of the King of Poland, but you have even prevented them from enjoying those rights granted and confirmed by Your Majesty’s ancestors, by taking their property or by prohibiting them from trading in well-nigh the whole of your kingdom. They have often complained to His Majesty the King, who could not but be distressed{to hear of} the disadvantageous treatment of his subjects. Yet right up to the present time he has never ventured to limit his benevolence to Your Majesty and your subjects on this account. Now His Majesty the King, my Gracious Master, has learned that this is not, and will not be the end to the harm done. Whereas earlier His Majesty’s subjects were deprived almost completely of the right to trade in England by Your Majesty’s subjects, subsequently they met with obstacles to navigation, particularly to free passage to Spain. Yet maritime passage should be accessible to all on the grounds of public law and the law of nature.

For some years now complaints have been reaching His Majesty from his subjects that injunctions have been issued in England on sea passage to Spain. When they tried to exercise their rights in public law and their special privileges, [f.14v] their ships were intercepted and abducted by Your Majesty’s subjects, and their goods confiscated and sold for the {English} treasury. Moreover, they met with many other injuries and injustices.

His Highness my Gracious Master has already on several occasions informed Your Majesty in letters that these matters have affected not only the merchants for whom he is bound to be concerned because they are his subjects, but also the entire nobility of his kingdoms and lands. For virtually the entire livelihood and assets of his nobles consist in the commodities which their land produces. The export of these commodities must not be prohibited, because that would deprive the nobility of their income.

Therefore, though it is so difficult a matter that His Majesty and the estates of the Kingdom of Poland would be hard put to name a more difficult one, nonetheless may it please Your Majesty to take the King’s ancient amity and fraternal affection for herself into consideration. Yet Your Highness cannot but realise that His Majesty my Gracious Master shall not fail to remonstrate against the grievances that his subjects have suffered and is not without the means to pay you back in your own coin.

Nonetheless he decided it was proper in this matter to do no otherwise but first to notify Your Highness several times in letters of his subjects’ grievances, bearing it all patiently up to now. And lest he should accuse himself of neglecting any whatsoever of his duties to a dear and friendly prince, now he has sent me on a mission to Your Majesty on this matter, for hitherto he has achieved little by writing letters.

His Majesty in friendship and fraternity insists Your Highness please to reciprocate with the same favours you and your subjects have enjoyed from the King of Poland ever since the beginning of his reign. And as justice requires, to order the return to his subjects of the goods plundered from them, recompense for the grievances done them, and finally to stop hindering navigation and not to suffer your subjects to impede freedom of passage, which under universal law should be accessible to all. Otherwise, lest his subjects’ claims and complaints be overlooked any longer, His Majesty shall be compelled to seek other measures whereby he shall be redressed.

His Majesty is fully aware of the reason why Your Majesty is putting obstacles in the way of his shipping, namely that Your Highness is at war with the Most Illustrious King of Spain. But His Majesty has been precisely counselled on the ancient pacts between his subjects and the chief cities of his country with Your Majesty’s predecessors, in which treaties it is clearly stated [f.15r] that at times of war sea passage to any destination must be free and in no circumstances may be interfered with by the Most Illustrious Kings of England. Should these pacts not be convincing enough, it must, of course, be remembered that just as all the seas, so too all shipping is subject to public law and the law of nature. Therefore, the offence is caused not by him who exercises his right but by him who prevents another from exercising his right.

There are many well-grounded relations linking His Majesty my Most Gracious Master and the Most Illustrious King of Spain. For the Most Illustrious House of Austria was kindred unto the House of Jagiellon already before. And now, by his taking a wife from the House of Austria, not only has My Lord renewed the old bonds, but he has also strengthened them. Therefore he believes that he should always maintain his links with the Most Illustrious King of Spain, just as he is upholding and will continue to uphold his goodwill and keep his faith to Your Majesty.

But is it right for Your Highness to manifest hostility to the Most Illustrious King of Spain by intending not only to do harm to him, but also to assail the rights and profits of an amicably disposed prince and his subjects? His Majesty believes it is most right and proper that you should treat him with the same goodwill that he has always shown unto you. In particular, His Majesty My Gracious Lord expects that Your Royal Highness will not only listen to these most justified and friendly demands, but that you will meet them as soon as possible and command that they be met. May I venture to ask Your Highness clearly to convey whatever decisions you make in this matter to His Majesty through my services. ¹⁴²

That is what he {the ambassador} shall say and require an answer. ¹⁴³ If negotiations of any kind ensue he shall be resolute, and should they complain that their enemy is being armed against them, and should he not manage to achieve anything, he shall promise that our people will not send arms to Spain, neither equipment nor anything to do with warfare, and that they shall be prevented from doing this. And in return the English should not obstruct our export to Spain, at least of cereals, wax and such manner of commodities which are of no use in warfare, and that those who have had such goods confiscated should have them returned or be reimbursed for their losses. If the English do not want to promise any of these things, he shall ask for a brief response and bring it to us. To help him carry out his duty better, [f.15v] when he is in Gdańsk he shall call on the City’s Senate or Council for full details of the whole matter. At the same time, he shall learn the names of those whose ships or other goods have been seized, and the type of wares seized, and how their losses have been recompensed. He shall be accompanied by a secretary, to verify all this and see for himself. Should there be any from Gdańsk in France who could provide him with information on the situation, he shall not fail to see them.

He shall also present to Her Majesty the Queen and her ministers our postulates both for the trading as well as for the compensation for the losses and goods seized, and he shall spare no effort to accomplish these matters successfully.

Sigismund, King {of Poland}

The Polish version of the Queen’s immediate reaction

The subsequent passage in Mercurius Sarmaticus relates Elizabeth’s conduct during the delivery of Działyński’s speech and immediately afterwards. Significantly, only the first sentence of her reply is given in the chronological order, and the full text does not appear until after the ambassador’s description of what happened in the wake of the audience:

Halfway through the ambassador’s delivery of his legation, when the Queen heard that instead of the laudatory words she had expected, the truth had been said to her in the presence of such a large number of people, she was incensed with fury which she manifested on her face, with her hands, and her eyes flashing with anger. She slumped down onto her throne wrathfully and nearly broke off the audience. She could hardly bear to hear out the ambassador to the end of his oration, and when it was over she rose and ordered him to come forward. Moving up somewhat closer herself, she gave him an impromptu response which on the next day was being spread throughout the whole city.

‘Oh, how I have been deceived! I was expecting an embassy, but behold a herald etc.’ ¹⁴⁴ Having given such a response from the loftiness of her majesty, she ran out to another chamber. There she started pondering over nothing else but how to refute the unexpected arguments of the ambassador’s message. Perhaps she would have even dared to do something more if it had not been that within the space of a few days the expedition of her fleet against Spain ended in failure, ¹⁴⁵ and if in Ireland Tyrone had not inflicted a defeat on her army and its commander, ¹⁴⁶ and if diverse other vexing thoughts had not been troubling her soul.

There were no bounds to the outrages her subjects committed against the ambassador. Running wild with fury, the people alleged he had offended the Queen’s majesty and wanted him punished. Soon the merchants of the Hanseatic staple-yard were advising him to beware of poison; while for some unknown reason the host of the place he was staying at became so worried that he asked him to pay for his stay on a weekly basis. Henceforth until the day of his departure no Englishman dared to invite him to his house.

[f.16r] On the next day {after the audience} two messengers came to the ambassador’s lodgings from the Queen’s commissioners. One was the clerk of the Privy Council, ¹⁴⁷ and the other was Parkins, of whom I shall say a few words before I write of the matter with which they came.

A Frenchman ¹⁴⁸ by origin, Parkins has a nature as changeable as a chameleon’s colours, the soul of a Cretan, ¹⁴⁹ a Calvinist by religion, by arrangement an apostate, and it would be most true to say of him that he is a comedian. Evil is his mind, evil is his soul. Since his early youth he was a member of the Society of Jesus; he professed its rule, first in other countries, later in Poland, hence he understands that nation’s language. A turncoat to the Society of Jesus, he had learned much from it, but then he started kicking against the goads of obedience and eventually fled to the Queen of England. The Queen received him into the company of her servants of state. Thereby the worst constituted commonwealth acquired a great scoundrel and an important figure all in the same person. Last year Parkins conducted a legation concerning the merchants of Elbing and spoke before the Sejm in Kraków. One of his main concerns was to apply his hellish ranting to spread the Calvinist pestilence in Poland, and to raise the spirits of souls disheartened and wavering in that religion. So he deviously called all the clandestine heretics to Toruń, ¹⁵⁰ which was against Polish law, as private caucuses have been strictly prohibited. There he tried as much as he could to get his dog’s fangs to maul the Christian Church and the Pope. ¹⁵¹

[p.315 ]<There he did his best to ridicule and vilify Christians, and especially to draw away those who had no Christian piety, he searched out those he could entice to their doom {damnation} by the Queen’s tyranny; everything he said was full of malice against the Pope and the Roman Church.> This Parkins, a spy and an indefatigable, trusty sneak constantly reporting any and every slur to the Queen, was her principal messenger sent to the ambassador. It is plain for all to see that in his speech there were as many taunts as there were recommendations, as many declarations as gibes, as many praises as ironies, and finally as many libels as rebukes. This pair, Parkins and the clerk of the Privy Council, presented the following message from the commissioners:

If it were not out of consideration for Her Majesty, whom her subjects worship as if she were a divinity, yesterday, after he had delivered his oration liberally laced with calumnies, he would have certainly been regarded as having no honour at all. [f.16v] Next the commissioners ¹⁵² would have him know that his ambassadorial speech is believed to have come neither from the King, nor from the Sejm, but dictated by {England’s} enemies, the Spaniards and the Jesuits. Therefore, to clear this suspicion they demanded he show them his original instruction for the embassy, and appointed the Lord Treasurer’s house as the venue for this clarification.

Having prudently and astutely denied their arrogant and unfounded allegations, at the set time in the afternoon the illustrious Działyński took a carriage and went without delay to the appointed place, as instructed by Parkins. There the old Lord Treasurer, a lethargic and grumpy dotard, who presided over the commission, first not very respectfully fell into a rage, and next ordered the ambassador to endorse his oration of the previous day by showing his letter of instruction. At this the noble Działyński gently reproved them for their lack of manners and arrogance, and subsequently presented his credentials, winning their confidence.

Then he added that his instruction had been given him for his private use, not for public display. Notwithstanding, the commissioners continued shamefully to insist he show them his instruction, afraid they might be put in a dangerous situation because of the matter. Having received it, they scrutinised it carefully and finding the seal and signature authentic, they read it twice over and were persuaded that the ambassador had not departed from his instructions at all. Realising that Działyński was innocent, they praised him lavishly for his thoroughness and impartiality. They did not even refrain from attributing the blame for the bluntness of his speech—which due to the disparity in the respective parties’ position on maritime affairs, could not have been expressed more gently in any of its points—not to the orator, but even more impertinently, to the person who had drafted the instruction. When the commissioners had revoked their calumnies Działyński said, now that they had exonerated him of these unwarranted charges, that he would like them to treat him with more civility. Thereupon he returned to his lodgings. Meanwhile [f.17r] Achinus ¹⁵³ and Parkins, either one of whom kept running up to him, promised him full hospitality and the Queen’s favour, adding that they knew he had some directives from the King concerning Spain, and the Queen would like to hear them. After all, in the previous month he had conducted a mission on behalf of the King of Spain to the Estates of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, while here he had spoken of less relevant matters.

On 17 August the commissioners again met with the ambassador, at the Lord Admiral’s house, and solemnly requested him on behalf of the Queen to tell them frankly and explicitly whether the reason why his monarch had sent him to the Queen of England was in any way connected with Her Majesty’s hostile relations with Spain. The ambassador cleared all such unwarranted suspicions by his integrity and trustworthiness, which they observed, approved, and commended; and he said that he had only communicated matters concerning the grievances suffered by the subjects of the King of Poland, their compensation, and putting an end to such incidents. He had not said anything that his King had not entrusted to him, as they had learned for themselves from his instruction. Furthermore, the ambassador urged the commissioners to reply to his oration as soon as possible, since he wanted to return to Poland still during the summer, when the sea was calm.

Even after such an explicit declaration, the Queen’s misgivings were not removed. She still harboured suspicions that Mr. Działyński was being furtive in the interest of Spain. She thought everything would come to light on the arrival of the ambassador of the King of Denmark, who was expected, and decided to delay with a reply. He had already set sail for England but reportedly could not reach the Island owing to an adverse wind. Seeing that it would not be easy to obtain his dispatch, the honourable Działyński sent some from his retinue back to Poland while the wind was favourable, to notify his King of what was going on. But for a long time there was no sign of the Danish ambassador the Queen was expecting, and no definite facts concerning him could be gleaned from the ambient rumours. When the excellent Działyński started to insist more and more, the Queen instructed the commissioners to draw up a reply. On St. Bartholomew’s day {24 August} Parkins delivered the reply signed by the commissioners, together with a letter from the Queen to His Majesty the King of Poland, to the inn where the ambassador was lodged.

The next items in the Kórnik manuscript of Mercurius Sarmaticus are transcripts (in the hand of Działyński’s scribe) of the Queen’s direct response and the commissioners’ reply delivered by Parkins. The master copy of the reply bearing the signatures of the commissioners (Lord Burghley, Robert Cecil, Sir John Fortescue, and Charles Howard of Effingham) is preserved in the Kórnik Library as an attachment to the manuscript of Mercurius Sarmaticus. It has been reproduced in a facsimile at the back of Marciniak and Horbowy’s Polish edition of Mercurius Sarmaticus. A copy is kept in the Public Record Office in London, and has been published as document no.132 in Talbot’s edition of papers pertaining to Anglo–Polish relations. The Kraków manuscript includes a transcript of both the Queen’s direct response and the final reply signed by the commissioners. I have not translated these two texts for the present study, which focuses on the Polish side of the Działyński embassy.

The concluding part of ‘Mercurius Sarmaticus’

[f.24r] The apostate Parkins’ final speech, delivered on the Queen’s behalf before the noble ambassador: ¹⁵⁴

I bring the Queen’s letter and answer to your King, and though you will see that there is no seal on the reply, yet in accordance with the custom observed by the Kingdom of England with respect to all princes, it has been signed by the hands of the Kingdom’s Most Illustrious Counsellors. Above all the Queen exhorts your King in future to refrain from sending such embassies, and his chancellery from using the services of such secretaries. That Tarnowski ¹⁵⁵ must surely be in the habit of gravely offending the Queen’s Majesty, since he has shortened her titles by failing to call her Defender of the Faith, in compliance with the ancient and generally practised custom according to the will of the Pope, albeit the most prudent Queen sets no store by such trivialities. As regards your other requests regarding a farewell audience and passport (as we call the document), ¹⁵⁶ the Queen does not want you to bid her farewell at all, for it became clear when you were still in the United Provinces that your mission was an offence to the Queen’s Majesty and dignity. Thus it would have been to the Queen’s detriment if she had not acted as sharply as she did. A passport will be issued to you once you have submitted a full list of your belongings to the commissioners, [f.24v] otherwise merchants might export any unendorsed goods you might leave behind duty-free on your behalf later, as usually happens in such cases. Also your King will be notified that you tried to stay in our kingdom until the arrival of the King of Denmark’s ambassador, to engage with him in private schemes against the Queen. But I warn you as a friend not to stay in England any longer on account of the rioting. You see how (as happens in an absolute monarchy) all the people are incensed when their Queen feels offended. Take heed not to give any cause for any offence or injury to be done you. The Queen would have been most considerate and showered you with the most magnificent gifts if for many reasons she had not been so shocked and distressed. When I was conducting a mission to Poland I was treated badly. Evidently your King sets great store by his Spanish kinship, and as could be seen, he {the King of Spain} wants to use your King to draw away the people of Holland and the other states of the United Provinces from partnership with her, albeit our Queen is so mighty that she need not strive for any alliance, indeed, she is assisting and shielding the United Provinces with her own forces. Most probably she could be far more dangerous to your King and his entire realm than the Turk, Muscovy, and his uncle Charles, who, as we know, has already caused great turmoil in the affairs of Sweden. ¹⁵⁷ As regards the English merchants in your country, they shall procure for themselves men among the Senators whose goodwill towards them is already ensured. ¹⁵⁸ We would have offered you most cordial hospitality in England, as we do to all ambassadors from other princes, but the Queen’s conduct restrained us, which was the right and proper thing to do. Be assured of my goodwill, as I commend myself to yours.’

[f.25r] Having delivered such an answer from the commissioners, Parkins informed the ambassador that the Queen would not admit him to a farewell audience, for if she did it would only turn the United Provinces against her. ¹⁵⁹ He also enumerated the following reasons (as above) for the Queen’s indignation. First, the ambassador delivered a different mission from what the Queen had imagined and expected; secondly, he had denied her the title of Defendress of the Faith; thirdly, he delivered an acrimonious oration in the presence of her people, and it would have been more prudent to postpone it to the negotiations after the audience; fourthly, he had been deferential to her enemy the King of Spain; and fifthly, when Parkins had been on an embassy to Poland he had not been received courteously.

When Parkins had finished and left the inn where the ambassador was accommodated, Działyński sent Bartolan to find out whether all that Parkins had said accorded with the decisions made by the Queen and her Counsellors. The latter confirmed all that Parkins had uttered.

When the ambassador had completed all the matters he was due to conduct with that monster and quirk of Nature, Parkins, and having received an answer from the Queen’s commissioners that was more unpleasant than would have been proper, he sailed from England when the wind was favourable. Out at sea he met the Danish ambassador, whose ship was braving an inauspicious wind. Under full sail, the noble Działyński greeted him and paid him a magnificent tribute in a gesture of cordiality and friendship with a trumpet fanfare, a drum roll, and a cannon salute.