The ambassador thus barely escaping a watery grave was compensated with a magnificent reception. He was provided with fine raiment of silk and velvet, and other furnishings in place of those lost in the wreck (which, by the way, was looted by “rude and ravenous” people of the neighbourhood), and a band of titled Englishmen escorted him from Scotland to London. His formal entry into the city was made on a Saturday, the last day of February. It was a great spectacle, the court and the Muscovy Company combining for to outshine Ivan’s receptions of Chancellor. Hakluyt describes it under the caption, “A discourse of the honourable receiving into England of the first ambassador from the Empire of Russia in the year of Christ 1556” (1556/7).
Met at the outskirts by the “merchants adventuring for Russia to the number of one hundred and fortie persons, and so many or more servants in one [uniform] liverie,” he was conducted toward the city, being shown on the way a fox hunt, and “such like” English sport. Near the north line he was met and embraced by “the right honourable Viscount Montague, sent by her grace [the queen] for his entertainment.” Thence, accompanied by “divers lustie knights, esquiers, gentlemen, and yeomen to the number of three hundred horses,” he was led to the north parts of the city where four “notable merchants richly apparelled” presented him a “right faire and large gelding richly trapped, together with a foot-cloth of Orient crimson velvet enriched with gold laces all finished in most glorious fashion.” Mounting the beautiful horse he continued in formal procession on to “Smithfield barres the first limites of the liberties of the citie of London.” Here the Lord Mayor and all of the aldermen, in blazing scarlet, were lined up to receive and join him. Thence the gay pageant passed through the city: the ambassador riding between the Lord Mayor and Viscount Montague, “a great number of notable personages riding before, and a large troupe of servants and apprentices following,” throngs of curious people “running plentifully on all sides.” The procession brought up at the lodgings which had been provided for the guest, the chambers being “richly hanged and decked over and above the gallant furniture.”