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# Danish embassy at the court of Ivan the Terrible after the seizure of Livonian fortresses
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/ivan-groznyi-prinimaet-datskikh-poslov-vmeste-so-starshim-synom/
- Published: 2019-12-11T12:12:37.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:56:53.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Monarchies, Mores

Ivan the Terrible receives the Danish ambassadors together with his eldest son. Before the audience, the court officials (pristavs) strictly forbade the ambassadors to recite the titles of their king before those of the Prince of Moscow, reminding them that envoys who had once broken this rule had been expelled from Moscow at once, without being granted an audience. Strangely enough, no sooner had the foreign guests finished reciting their titles than Ivan the Terrible brought the audience to a close and withdrew to change for dinner, leaving the conduct of the negotiations proper to the boyars.

In 1575 Ivan the Terrible seized three Livonian fortresses, Hapsal, Lihula and Lode, in breach of a treaty concluded thirteen years earlier, which had assigned those towns to the King of Denmark. To avert war, King Frederick II sent an embassy to the Prince of Moscow. One of the Danish nobles, Jacob Ulfeldt, left a detailed account of the whole journey of the delegation, a hundred strong, to Russia. By the standards of the time, it must be said, that was not so very many, for embassies from Moscow could number more than a thousand men.