| dc.description |
The correspondence which forms the subject of this communication begins on April 25, 1561, with a letter from the Queen to Czar Ivan the Terrible, and ends in April 1603 with a letter from Czar Boris to Elizabeth. The frequent intercourse between England and Russia during this period has produced in forty-two years probably more than a hundred letters. Of these ninety-eight have been identified; others are mentioned which cannot be found, probably destroyed by accident in the course of the last three centuries. In any case the considerable amount of letters which we possess is deserving of notice. Some of them are simply short safe-conducts given by the Queen to Englishmen going to Russia, but these are few, the great mass of the correspondence consisting of long letters exchanged by the monarchs on important commercial and diplomatic subjects. |
