News Telegraph: In 1570, Ivan the Terrible, Tsar of Russia, wrote a letter to Elizabeth I, Queen of England that was, perhaps, the rudest letter ever received by the Queen. A letter to Queen Elizabeth I from Tsar Ivan of Russia has been discovered at the National Archives at Kew in London. Historians believe that the Tsar was miffed by Elizabeth's failure to take his marriage proposals seriously and railed against her "boorish" advisors in the letter. Dated Oct 28, 1570, the letter was doubly untimely since the ruler felt he might need to seek asylum in England if his subjects turned against him.

"Wee had thought that you had beene ruler over your lande, and had sought honor to your self and proffitt to your Countrie, and therefore we did pretend those weightie affairs between you and us," wrote the Tsar. "But now we perceive that there be other men that doe rule, and not men but bowers [boors] and marchaunts [merchants], the wich seeke not the wealth and honnor of our majesties, but they seeke there owne proffitt of marchandize. And you flowe [flourish] in your maydenlike estate like a maide."

The letter is included in Elizabeth I - Her Life in Letters by Felix Pryor.

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