Jerome Horsey's celebrated memoirs on Russia in domestic historiography on the end of ХХ century. (for example research by V.A. Kolobkov)

Following the research by S.M. Seredonin, A.A. Sevastyanova, R.G. Skrynnikov, V.A. Kolobkov conducted a study into the origins of Jerome Horsey's celebrated memoirs on Russia. He made an attempt to ascertain the plausibility of this unique source on Russian history. In his view, "The coronation of Theodore Iuanowich, emperour of Russia" and "Observations in seventeene yeares travels and experience in Russia" as accounts of the English embassies to Russia, which Horsey, a diplomat and a merchant, headed, possess integrity and were composed simultaneously, with "Observations" being composed soon after 1603, while the much lengthier "Travels" had been worked on until the early 1620s. On collating Horsey's works, V.A. Kolobkov discovered later insertions of the largely unreliable evidence which isn't specific to the earlier layers of the "Travels" dating to 1587. The "Travels" were dedicated to England's Secretary of State, Francis Walsingham. This fact, alongside the details of Horsey's life in Muscovy and England, enabled V.A. Kolobkov to date this work to 1587. This earlier layer became the basis for "The coronation", published in 1589. Identifying the correlation between Horsey's three works on Muscovy, V.A. Kolobkov tried to establish the author's goals and the genre characteristics of his memoirs. Considering the chronology of these pieces of writing, the historian suggested proceeding from complex data, but not from a single piece of evidence as did A.A. Sevastyanova. V.A. Kolobkov emphasized the uniqueness of some of Horsey's evidence on the struggle for power in Russia under Ivan the Terrible and Boris Godunov. He undertook a many-sided analysis of a major piece of evidence, namely, the one conveying the circumstances of the first Muscovite tsar's sudden death. This piece of evidence, in stark contrast to the previous narration, is explicitly hostile toward Ivan IV. Disagreeing with A.A. Sevastyanova, whose translation of the respective episode in the "Travels" spurred V.I. Koretsky and a number of other scholars to assume that the tsar was murdered through conspiracy to prevent him marrying a noble Englishwoman, V.A. Kolobkov convincingly concluded that Ivan IV's death, depicted by Horsey as a likely witness, was natural, albeit sudden. The English author seems to have eye-witnessed a set of other phenomena in Muscovite political life to reflect them in his memoirs along with the diplomatic etiquette in Russia in the late 16 century.

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