A Letter from Sigismund II Augustus to King Charles IX of France: Trade Struggle in the Baltic under Ivan the Terrible

Abstract

The message of the Polish king and Lithuanian grand duke Sigismund II Augustus to the French king Charles IX of France from July 28, 1568, highlights the problem of Polish-French trade controversies, which arose due to the policy of Jagiellon against Russian-French commerce in Narva in the 1560s. Believing that French traders were enriching themselves by supplying weapons and ammunition to Russia, the Polish monarch, in the crisis in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, took measures to cut off trade in Narva and blockade it completely. As a result, French merchant ships sailing to or from Narva were seized by the Polish privateers. It aroused the indignation of Charles IX who, with the help of Charles de Danzay, his ambassador in Denmark, defended the freedom of trade and navigation on the Baltic Sea. The text of the letter appeals to the feelings of the French monarch within the framework of Christian morality, while at the same time trying to show the power and the importance of the Polish king and his state to the Respublica Christiana, and the legitimacy of the tough stance he took on the “Narva navigation”. All this makes the letter from Sigismund II Augustus to Charles IX a valuable historical source whose importance is revealed in through diplomatic correspondence in the Baltic wars of the 1560s. Published for the first time, it comes from the collection of P. P. Dubrovsky (62, № 61), Russian National Library (St Petersburg). The article publishes the text of the letter in Latin as well as a translation into Russian.