After the retreat of the Tartars, Ivan IV. convened a council of war, punished with death those officers who had fled before the enemy as he himself had done; and, rendered pliant by accumulated misfortune, he presented such overtures to the King of Poland as to obtain the promise of a truce for three years.  Soon after this, Sigismond, King of Poland, died.  The crown was elective, and the nobles, who met to choose a new monarch, by a considerable majority invited Maximilian II., Emperor of Germany, to assume the scepter.  They assigned as a reason for this choice, which surprised Europe, the religious liberality of the emperor, who, as they justly remarked, had conciliated the contending factions of the Christian world, and had acquired more glory by his pacific policy than other princes had acquired in the exploits of war.

A minority of the nobles were displeased with this choice, and refusing to accede to the vote of the majority, proceeded to another election, and chose Stephen Bathori, a warrior chief of Transylvania, as their sovereign.[9] The two parties now rallied around their rival candidates and prepared for war.  Ivan IV. could not allow so favorable an opportunity to interfere in the politics of Poland to escape him.  He immediately sent embassadors to Maximilian, offering to assist him with all the power of the Russian armies against Stephen Bathori.  Maximilian gratefully acknowledged the generosity of the tzar, and promised to return the favor whenever an opportunity should be presented.  At the same time, Stephen Bathori, who had already been crowned King of Poland, sent an embassador to Moscow to inform Ivan of his election and coronation, and to propose friendly relations with Russia.  Ivan answered frankly that a treaty already existed between him and the Emperor Maximilian, but that, since he wished to live on friendly terms with Poland, whoever her monarch might be, he would send embassadors to examine into the claims of the rival candidates for the crown.  Thus adroitly he endeavored to obtain for himself the position of umpire between Maximilian and Stephen Bathori.  The death of the Emperor Maximilian on the 12th of October, 1576, settled this strife, and Stephen attained the undisputed sovereignty of Poland.

[Footnote 9:  See Empire of Austria, page 181.]

Almost the first measure of the new sovereign, in accordance with hereditary usage, was war against Russia.  His object was to regain those territories which the tzar had heretofore wrested from the Poles.  Apparently trivial incidents reveal the rude and fierce character of the times.  Stephen chivalrously sent first an embassador, Basil Lapotinsky, to the court of Ivan, to demand the restitution of the provinces.  Lapotinsky was accompanied by a numerous train of nobles, magnificently mounted and armed to the teeth.  As the glittering cavalcade, protected by its flag of truce, swept along through the cities of Russia towards Moscow, and it became known that they were the bearers of an imperious message, demanding the surrender of portions of the Russian empire, the populace were with difficulty restrained from falling upon them.