306 SERENISSIMAI have occasion before my departure from hence to make you this sad relation of the
trumpetter I had sent with the Letters to those Princes I mentioned in my last to you, who
was mett ye very day he left this place, about 3 leagues offe, by 40 or 50 Tartars, and
miserably cutt in pieces, he, his interpreter and his guide, and onely the guides boy who
was also left for dead upon the place too gott away in the night and brought me the sad
news, which hath infinitely afflicted me, as it ought to do, having all the reflections which
were obvious having exposed a fellow servant and fellow subject to so untimely an end
without more authority than I had for it... The man's name was Christmasse, a mightly
honest fellow that went as willingly on this errand as he made the rest of the journey; I
know he hath left a wife and children, which to me is another sensible addition of greife,
for whom I take myself in conscience bound, to doe what God shall enable me, but in the
meantime if you can prevaile with the D. of Monmouth... that... till my returne...
pay may be continued, I hope it is not an unreasonable proposition...^23
So much for the view that the truce of Zurawno between Poland and Turkey
was arranged by the ambassadors of France and England. Shortly afterwards,
Hyde toured the King's camp and battlefields, marvelling at the 'great wonders'
which had preserved the Polish army against overwhelming odds. On Sunday 2
November, he was received by the royal couple at Zolkiew, the modest house
near Lwow where Sobieski was born. He had nothing much to say, since the one
remaining royal daughter had been christened long since. He made the usual
English representations on behalf of the Protestant subjects of a Catholic
monarch, and was pleased by Sobieski's promise to press the Tartar Khan for
satisfaction about Christmas's murderers. On Sobieski's request, he penned a
letter of introduction to the English ambassador at Constantinople for Gninski,
who was preparing to leave for Istambul. Then he left. He travelled home via
Cracow and Vienna, and was in time to attend the Congress of Nymuegen. His
subsequent career as Earl of Rochester, and one of the mandarins of the High
Tory Party, spanned four reigns. When he died in 1711, the Polish—Lithuanian
Republic was already in dire trouble, Sobieski's glories had long since faded,
and the idea that England might entertain a rapprochement in that direction was
completely forgotten. England, in fact, was too distant from the Republic, both
in terms of geography and of emotional commitment. Anglo-Polish diplomacy
never rose above the level of sporadic courtesies.^24
A later British ambassador, Sir Edward Finch, MP for Cambridge University,
sent in 1725-6 to intervene on behalf of the Protestants of Thorn, met troubles
of a different kind. His presence in Warsaw was not very welcome, and he was
aware that his contacts with the dissidents and with his Prussian colleague were
viewed with great suspicion. Knowing furthermore that the interception of his
correspondence could have fatal consequences for his proteges, he disguised the
more delicate passages of his letters in code. On 21 August 1725 (Old Style), he
told London how an agent of the city of Thorn had been threatened by one of
the Polish Ministers:... The same Minister added that he
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