DIPLOMACY IN POLAND-LITHUANIA 285
many offensive things about the French, and complained of their perfidy ... Then I asked
and exhorted him to help in the dispute with the Grand Master... He answered with a
laugh that I came at a good time ... and concluded, 'The King of Poland is more impor-
tant to me and my sovereign than those brethren, who are not worth a penny to us'.^1
Later he met Henry VIII, with Thomas More acting as interpreter, and visited
the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Still in pilgrim's mood, he set off
for Santiago di Compostella, sailing to Corunna from Plymouth in a Portuguese
ship, which was storm-driven into Penzance. At which point, the mother of
Sigismund's Queen, Bona Sforza, died in Bari, leaving her Polish in-laws with
complicated legal claims to her inheritance. Dantyszek left Cracow in search of
Charles V on 15 March 1524. It was his third imperial assignment. His instruc-
tions made no provisions beyond the immediate issue of the Neapolitan succes-
sion. Having met the Doge in Venice, the d'Este duke in Ferrara, the chancellor
of the Duchy in Bari, and Francis I at Lyon, he knelt before the Emperor in
Madrid on 3 December. Thereafter, the Emperor kept him constantly at his side,
for five years in Spain, for one year in 1529 in Italy, and for three more years in
Germany. In 1526, Dantyszek's mistress, Izabela del Gada, gave birth to the
beautiful Juanita, who was destined to marry the Emperor's secretary, Gratian
von Albert. He finally regained Cracow in July 1532, laden with honours, and
later retired to his episcopal seat at Heilsberg. He was a personal friend of many
notable men of his time, from Cortes to Erasmus and Luther, not to mention
Copernicus, who was his immediate client and employee. In his retirement, he
was a great correspondent and collector, a true son of the Age of Discovery. As
poet, he addressed himself in Latin to a wide world which had still not disinte-
grated into petty, national cultures. As diplomat, he was prone to celebrate a
mission not with a memorandum or a minute but with an epigram:
Hanc nigram niveamque mihi lovis alitis alam
Pro mentis caesar nobile stemma dedit.
Quod datur ex atavis clarum est, sed clarius omne
Quod per se virtus propria ferre solet.*
Or a lascivious elegy :
Quam durae miseri sunt condicionis amantes
Qui nullas sedes nec loca certa tenent!
Nil datur aeternum, sed quo rapit impetus, illuc
Ambigui in dubiis pectora rebus agunt.
Errant et raro placida statione fruuntur
Atque alia ex aliis sub iuga amoris eunt.. .**
- This black-and-white wingspread of Jupiter's Bird/Was given to me by the Emperor as a
noble emblem for my services./That which is inherited from one's ancestors is illustrious;
but still more illustrious/Is that which a man achieves by his own merit.
** How hard is the lot of unhappy lovers/Who have no resting place nor fixed abode./
Nothing permanent can be enjoyed; but there, where impulse strikes/They consume their
hearts in guilty affairs./They wander on, rarely enjoying a tranquil sojourn,/but passing
from one amorous yoke to another...^2