EMPIRE OF RUSSIA (continued 6)

Queen Elizabeth, anxious to maintain friendly relations with an empire so vast, and opening before her subjects such a field of profitable commerce, having been informed of the conspiracy against Ivan IV., of his abdication, and of his resumption of the crown, sent to him an embassador with expressions of her kindest wishes, and assured him that should he ever be reduced to the disagreeable necessity of leaving his empire, he would find a safe retreat in England, where he would be received and provided for in a manner suitable to his dignity, where he could enjoy the free exercise of his religion and be permitted to depart whenever he should wish.

The tolerant spirit manifested by Ivan IV. towards the Lutherans, continued to disturb the ecclesiastics; and the clergy and nobles of the province of Novgorod, headed by the archbishop, formed a plot of dissevering Novgorod from the empire, and attaching it to the kingdom of Poland. This conspiracy assumed a very formidable attitude, and one of the brothers of the tzar was involved in it. Ivan immediately sent an army of fifteen thousand men to quell the revolt. We have no account of this transaction but from the pens of those who were envenomed by their animosity to the religious toleration of Ivan. We must consequently receive their narratives with some allowance.

The army, according to their account, ravaged the whole province; took the city by storm; and cut down in indiscriminate slaughter twenty-five thousand men, women and children. The brother of Ivan IV. was seized and thrown into prison, where he miserably perished. The archbishop was stripped of his canonical robes, clad in the dress of a harlequin, paraded through the streets on a gray mare, an object of derision to the people, and then was imprisoned for life. Such cruelty does not seem at all in accordance with the character of Ivan, while the grossest exaggeration is in accordance with the character of all civil and religious partisans.

War with Poland seems to have been the chronic state of Russia. Whenever either party could get a chance to strike the other a blow, the blow was sure to be given; and they were alike unscrupulous whether it were a saber blow in the face or a dagger thrust in the back. In the year 1571, a Russian army pursued a discomfited band of Livonian insurgents across the frontier into Poland. The Poles eagerly joined the insurgents, and sent envoys to invite the Crimean Tartars to invade Russia from Tauride, while Poland and Livonia should assail the empire from the west. The Tartars were always ready for war at a moment's notice. Seventy thousand men were immediately on the march. They rapidly traversed the southern provinces, trampling down all opposition until they reached the Oka. Here they encountered a few Russian troops who attempted to dispute the passage of the stream. They were, however, speedily overpowered by the Tartars and were compelled to retreat. Pressing on, they arrived within sixty miles of the city, when they found the Russians again concentered, but now in large numbers, to oppose their progress. A fierce battle was fought. Again the Russians were overpowered, and the Tartars, trampling them beneath their horses' hoofs, with yells of triumph, pressed on towards the metropolis. The whole city was in consternation, for it had no means of effectual resistance. Ivan IV. in his terror packed up his most valuable effects, and, with the royal family, fled to a strong fortress far away in the North.

From the battlements of the city, the banners of these terrible barbarians were soon seen on the approach. With bugle blasts and savage shouts they rushed in at the gates, swept the streets with their sabers, pillaged houses and churches, and set the city on fire in all directions. The city was at that time, according to the testimony of the cotemporary annalists, forty miles in circumference. The weltering flames rose and fell as in the crater of a volcano, and in six hours the city was in ashes. Thousands perished in the flames. The fire, communicating with a powder magazine, produced an explosion which uphove the buildings like an earthquake, and prostrated more than a third of a mile of the city walls. According to the most reliable testimony, there perished in Moscow, by fire and sword, from this one raid of the Tartars, more than one hundred and fifty thousand of its inhabitants.

The Tartars, tottering beneath the burden of their spoil, and dragging after them many thousand prisoners of distinction, slowly, proudly, defiantly retired. With barbaric genius they sent to the tzar a naked cimiter, accompanied by the following message:

"This is a token left to your majesty by an enemy, whose revenge is still unsatiated, and who will soon return again to complete the work which he has but just begun."

Such is war. It is but a succession of miseries. A hundred and fifty thousand Tartars perished but a few months before in the waves of the Euxine. Now, a hundred and fifty thousand Russians perish, in their turn, amidst the flames of Moscow. When we contemplate the wars which have incessantly ravaged this globe, the history of man seems to be but the record of the strifes of demons, with occasional gleams of angel magnanimity.

After the retreat of the Tartars, Ivan IV. convened a council of war, punished with death those officers who had fled before the enemy as he himself had done; and, rendered pliant by accumulated misfortune, he presented such overtures to the King of Poland as to obtain the promise of a truce for three years. Soon after this, Sigismond, King of Poland, died. The crown was elective, and the nobles, who met to choose a new monarch, by a considerable majority invited Maximilian II., Emperor of Germany, to assume the scepter. They assigned as a reason for this choice, which surprised Europe, the religious liberality of the emperor, who, as they justly remarked, had conciliated the contending factions of the Christian world, and had acquired more glory by his pacific policy than other princes had acquired in the exploits of war.

A minority of the nobles were displeased with this choice, and refusing to accede to the vote of the majority, proceeded to another election, and chose Stephen Bathori, a warrior chief of Transylvania, as their sovereign.[9] The two parties now rallied around their rival candidates and prepared for war. Ivan IV. could not allow so favorable an opportunity to interfere in the politics of Poland to escape him. He immediately sent embassadors to Maximilian, offering to assist him with all the power of the Russian armies against Stephen Bathori. Maximilian gratefully acknowledged the generosity of the tzar, and promised to return the favor whenever an opportunity should be presented. At the same time, Stephen Bathori, who had already been crowned King of Poland, sent an embassador to Moscow to inform Ivan of his election and coronation, and to propose friendly relations with Russia. Ivan answered frankly that a treaty already existed between him and the Emperor Maximilian, but that, since he wished to live on friendly terms with Poland, whoever her monarch might be, he would send embassadors to examine into the claims of the rival candidates for the crown. Thus adroitly he endeavored to obtain for himself the position of umpire between Maximilian and Stephen Bathori. The death of the Emperor Maximilian on the 12th of October, 1576, settled this strife, and Stephen attained the undisputed sovereignty of Poland.

Almost the first measure of the new sovereign, in accordance with hereditary usage, was war against Russia. His object was to regain those territories which the tzar had heretofore wrested from the Poles. Apparently trivial incidents reveal the rude and fierce character of the times. Stephen chivalrously sent first an embassador, Basil Lapotinsky, to the court of Ivan, to demand the restitution of the provinces. Lapotinsky was accompanied by a numerous train of nobles, magnificently mounted and armed to the teeth. As the glittering cavalcade, protected by its flag of truce, swept along through the cities of Russia towards Moscow, and it became known that they were the bearers of an imperious message, demanding the surrender of portions of the Russian empire, the populace were with difficulty restrained from falling upon them.

Through a thousand dangers they reached Moscow. When there, Lapotinsky declared that he came not as a suppliant, but to present a claim which his master was prepared to enforce, if necessary, with the sword, and that, in accordance with the character of his mission, he was directed, in his audience with Ivan, to present the letter with one hand while he held his unsheathed saber in the other. The officers of the imperial household assured him that such bravado would inevitably cost him his life.

"The tzar," Lapotinsky replied, "can easily take my life, and he may do so if he please, but nothing shall prevent me from performing the duty with which I am intrusted, with the utmost exactitude."

The audience day arrived. Lapotinsky was conducted to the Kremlin. The tzar, in his imperial robes glittering with diamonds and pearls, received him in a magnificent hall. The haughty embassador, with great dignity and in respectful terms, yet bold and decisive, demanded reparation for the injuries which Russia had inflicted upon Poland. His gleaming saber was carelessly held in one hand and the letter to the tzar, from the King of Poland, in the other. Having finished his brief speech, he received a cimeter from one of his suite, and, advancing firmly, yet very respectfully, to the monarch, presented them both, saying,

"Here is peace and here is war. It is for your majesty to choose between them."

Ivan IV. was capable of appreciating the nobility of such a character. The intrepidity of the embassador, which was defiled with no comminglings of insolence, excited his admiration. The emperor, with a smile, took the letter, which was written on parchment in the Russian language and sealed with a seal of gold. Slowly and carefully he read it, and then addressing the embassador, said,

"Such menaces will not induce Russia to surrender her dominions to Poland. We, who have vanquished the Poles on so many fields of battle, who have conquered the Tartars of Kezan and Astrachan, and who have triumphed over the forces of the Ottoman empire, will soon cause the King of Poland to repent his rashness."

He then dismissed the embassador, ordering him to be treated with the respect due his high station. War being thus formally declared, both parties prepared to prosecute it with the utmost vigor. The tzar immediately commenced raising a large army, reinforced his garrisons, and sent a secret envoy to Tauride, to excite the Crimean Tartars to invade Poland on the south-east while Russia should make an assault from the north.

The Poles opened the campaign by crossing the frontiers with a large army, seizing several minor cities and laying siege to the important fortress of Polotzk. After a long siege, which constituted one of those terrific tragedies of blood and woe with which the pages of history are filled, but which no pen can describe and no imagination can conceive, the city, a pile of gory and smouldering ruins, fell into the hands of the Poles. Battle after battle, siege after siege ensued, in nearly all of which the Poles were successful. They were guided by their monarch in person, a veteran warrior, who possessed extraordinary military skill. The blasts of winter drove both parties from the field. But, in the earliest spring, the campaign was opened again with redoubled energy. Again the Poles, who had obtained strong reinforcements of troops from Germany and Hungary, were signally successful. Though the fighting was constant and arduous, the whole campaign was but a series of conquests on the part of Stephen, and when the snows of another winter whitened the fields, the Polish banners were waving over large portions of the Russian territory. The details of these scenes are revolting. Fire, blood and the brutal passions of demoniac men were combined in deeds of horror, the recital of which makes the ears to tingle.

Before the buds of another spring had opened into leaf, the contending armies were again upon the march. Poland had now succeeded in enlisting Sweden in her cause, and Russia began to be quite seriously imperiled. Riga, on the Dwina, soon fell into the hands of the Poles, and their banners were resistlessly on the advance. Ivan IV., much dejected, proposed terms of peace. Stephen refused to treat unless Russia would surrender the whole of Livonia, a province nearly three times as large as the State of Massachusetts, to Poland. The tzar was compelled essentially to yield to these hard terms.

The treaty of peace was signed on the 15th of January, 1582. Ivan IV. surrendered to Poland all of Livonia which bordered on Poland, which contained thirty-four towns and castles, together with several other important fortresses on the frontiers. A truce was concluded for ten years, should both parties live so long. But should either die, the survivor was at liberty immediately to attack the territory of the deceased. No mention whatever was made of Sweden in this treaty. This neglect gave such offense to the Swedish court, that, in petty revenge, they sent an Italian cook to the Polish court as an embassador with the most arrogant demands. Stephen very wisely treated the insult, which he probably deserved, with contempt.

The result of this war, so humiliating to Russia, rendered Ivan very unpopular. Murmurs loud and deep were heard all over the empire. Many of the nobles threw themselves at the feet of the tzar and entreated him not to assent to so disgraceful a treaty, assuring him that the whole nation were ready at his call to rise and drive the invaders from the empire. Ivan was greatly incensed, and petulantly replied that if they were not satisfied with his administration they had better choose another sovereign. Suspecting that his son was inciting this movement, and that he perhaps was aiming at the crown, Ivan assailed him in the bitterest terms of reproach. The young prince replied in a manner which so exasperated his father, that he struck him with a staff which he had in his hand. The staff was tipped with an iron ferule which unfortunately hit the young man on the temple, and he fell senseless at his father's feet.

The anguish of Ivan was unspeakable. His paroxysm of anger instantly gave place to a more intense paroxysm of grief and remorse. He threw himself upon the body of his son, pressed him fervently to his heart, and addressed him in the most endearing terms of affection and affliction. The prince so far revived as to be able to exchange a few words with his father, but in four days he died. The blow which deprived the son of life, for ever after deprived the father of peace. He was seldom again seen to smile. Any mention of his son would ever throw him into a paroxysm of tears. For a long time he could with difficulty be persuaded to take any nourishment or to change his dress. With the utmost possible demonstrations of grief and respect the remains of the prince were conveyed to the grave. The death of this young man was a calamity to Russia. He was the worthy son of Anastasia, and from his mother he had inherited both genius and moral worth. By a subsequent marriage Ivan had two other sons, Feodor and Dmitri. But they were of different blood; feeble in intellect and possessed no requisites for the exalted station opening before them.

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CHAPTER XVI.

THE STORMS OF HEREDITARY SUCCESSION.

From 1582 to 1608.

Anguish and Death of Ivan IV.—His Character.—Feodor and Dmitri.—Usurpation of Boris Gudenow.—The Polish Election.—Conquest of Siberia.—Assassination of Dmitri.—Death of Feodor.—Boris Crowned King.—Conspiracies.—Reappearance of Dmitri.—Boris Poisoned.—The Pretender Crowned.—Embarrassments of Dmitri.—A New Pretender.—Assassination of Dmitri.—Crowning of Zuski.—Indignation of Poland.—Historical Romance.

The hasty blow which deprived the son of Ivan of life was also fatal to the father. He never recovered from the effects. After a few months of anguish and remorse, Ivan IV. sank sorrowing to the grave. Penitent, prayerful and assured that his sins were forgiven, he met death with perfect composure. The last days of his life were devoted exclusively to such preparations for his departure that the welfare of his people might be undisturbed. He ordered a general act of amnesty to be proclaimed to all the prisoners throughout all the empire, abolished several onerous taxes, restored several confiscated estates to their original owners, and urged his son, Feodor, who was to be his successor, to make every possible endeavor to live at peace with his neighbors, that Russia might thus be saved from the woes of war. Exhausted by a long interview with his son, he took a bath; on coming out he reclined upon a couch, and suddenly, without a struggle or a groan, was dead.

Ivan IV. has ever been regarded as one of the most illustrious of the Russian monarchs. He was eminently a learned prince for the times in which he lived, entertaining uncommonly just views both of religion and politics. In religion he was tolerant far above his age, allowing no Christians to be persecuted for their belief. We regret that this high praise must be limited by his treatment of the Jews, whom he could not endure. With conscientiousness, unenlightened and bigoted, he declared that those who had betrayed and crucified the Saviour of the world ought not to be tolerated by any Christian prince. He accordingly ordered every Jew either to be baptized into the Christian faith or to depart from the empire.

Ivan was naturally of a very hasty temper, which was nurtured by the cruel and shameful neglect of his early years. Though he struggled against this infirmity, it would occasionally break out in paroxysms which caused bitter repentance. The death of his son, caused by one of these outbreaks, was the great woe of his life. Still he was distinguished for his love of justice. At stated times the aggrieved of every rank were admitted to his presence, where they in person presented their petitions. If any minister or governor was found guilty of oppression, he was sure to meet with condign punishment. This impartiality, from which no noble was exempted, at times exasperated greatly the haughty aristocracy. He was also inflexible in his determination to confer office only upon those who were worthy of the trust. No solicitations or views of self-interest could induce him to swerve from this resolve. Intemperance he especially abominated, and frowned upon the degrading vice alike in prince or peasant. He conferred an inestimable favor upon Russia by causing a compilation, for the use of his subjects, of a body of laws, which was called "The Book of Justice." This code was presented to the judges, and was regarded as authority in all law proceedings.

The historians of those days record that his memory was so remarkable that he could call all the officers of his army by name, and could even remember the name of every prisoner he had taken, numbering many thousands. In those days of dim enlightenment, when the masses were little elevated above the animal, the popular mind was more easily impressed by material than intellectual grandeur. It was then deemed necessary, among the unenlightened nations of Europe, to overawe the multitude by the splendor of the throne—by scepters, robes and diadems glittering with priceless jewels and with gold. The crown regalia of Russia were inestimably rich. The robe of the monarch was of purple, embroidered with precious stones, and even his shoes sparkled with diamonds of dazzling luster.

When he sat upon his throne to receive foreign embassadors, or the members of his own court, he held in his right hand a globe, the emblem of universal monarchy, enriched with all the jeweled splendor which art could entwine around it. In his left hand he held a scepter, which also dazzled the eye by its superb embellishments. His fingers were laden with the most precious gems the Indies could afford. Whenever he appeared in public, the arms of the empire, finely embroidered upon a spread eagle, and magnificently adorned, were borne as a banner before him; and the masses of the people bowed before their monarch, thus arrayed, as though he were a god.

Ivan IV. left two sons, Feodor and Dmitri. Feodor, who succeeded his father, was twenty years of age, weak, characterless, though quite amiable. In his early youth his chief pleasure seemed to consist in ringing the bells of Moscow, which led his father, at one time, to say that he was fitter to be the son of a sexton than of a prince. Dmitri was an infant. He was placed, by his father's will, under the tutelage of an energetic, ambitious noble, by the name of Bogdan Bielski. This aspiring nobleman, conscious of the incapacity of Feodor to govern, laid his plans to obtain the throne for himself.

Feodor was crowned immediately after the death of his father, and proceeded at once to carry out the provisions of his will by liberating the prisoners, abolishing the taxes and restoring confiscated estates. He also abolished the body guard of the tzar, which had become peculiarly obnoxious to the nation. These measures rendered him, for a time, very popular. This popularity thwarted Bielski in the plan of organizing the people and the nobles in a conspiracy against the young monarch, and the nobles even became so much alarmed by the proceedings of the haughty minister, who was so evidently aiming at the usurpation of the throne, that they besieged him in his castle. The fortress was strong, and the powerful feudal lord, rallying his vassals around him, made a valiant and a protracted defense. At length, finding that he would be compelled to surrender, he attempted to escape in disguise. Being taken a captive, he was offered his choice, death, or the renunciation of all political influence and departure into exile. He chose the latter, and retired beyond the Volga to one of the most remote provinces of Kezan.

Feodor had married the daughter of one of the most illustrious of his nobles. His father-in-law, a man of peculiar address and capacity, with ability both to conceive and execute the greatest undertakings, soon attained supremacy over the mind of the feeble monarch. The name of this noble, who became renowned in Russian annals, was Boris Gudenow. He had the rare faculty of winning the favor of all whom he approached. With rapid strides he attained the posts of prime minister, commander-in-chief and co-regent of the empire. A Polish embassador at this time visited Moscow, and, witnessing the extreme feebleness of Feodor, sent word to his ambitious master, Stephen Bathori, that nothing would be easier than to invade Russia successfully; that Smolensk could easily be taken, and that thence the Polish army might find an almost unobstructed march to Moscow. But death soon removed the Polish monarch from the labyrinths of war and diplomacy.

Boris was now virtually the monarch of Russia, reigning, however, in the name of Feodor. We have before mentioned that Poland was an elective monarchy. Immediately upon the death of a sovereign, the nobles, with their bands of retainers, often eighty thousand in number, met upon a large plain, where they spent many days in intrigues and finally in the election of a new chieftain. Boris Gudenow now roused all his energies in the endeavor to unite Poland and Russia under one monarchy by the election of Feodor as sovereign of the latter kingdom. The Polish nobles, proud and self-confident, and apprised of the incapacity of Feodor, were many of them in favor of the plan, as Boris had adroitly intimated to them that they might regard the measure rather as the annexing Russia to Poland than Poland to Russia. All that Boris cared for was the fact accomplished. He was willing that the agents of his schemes should be influenced by any motives which might be most efficacious.

The Polish diet met in a stormy session, and finally, a majority of its members, instead of voting for Feodor, elected Prince Sigismond, a son of John, King of Sweden. This election greatly alarmed Russia, as it allied Poland and Sweden by the most intimate ties, and might eventually place the crown of both of those powerful kingdoms upon the same brow. These apprehensions were increased by the fact that the Crimean Tartars soon again began to make hostile demonstrations, and it was feared that they were moving only in accordance with suggestions which had been sent to them from Poland and Sweden, and that thus a triple alliance was about to desolate the empire. The Tartars commenced their march. But Boris met them with such energy that they were driven back in utter discomfiture.

The northern portion of Asia consisted of a vast, desolate, thinly-peopled country called Siberia. It was bounded by the Caucasian and Altai mountains on the south, the Ural mountains on the west, the Pacific Ocean on the east, and the Frozen Ocean on the north. Most of the region was within the limits of the frozen zone, and the most southern sections were cold and inhospitable, enjoying but a gleam of summer sunshine. This country, embracing over four millions of square miles, being thus larger than the whole of Europe, contained but about two millions of inhabitants. It was watered by some of the most majestic rivers on the globe, the Oby, Enisei and the Lena. The population consisted mostly of wandering Mohammedan Tartars, in a very low state of civilization. At that time there were but two important towns in this region, Tura and Tobolsk. Some of the barbarians of this region descended to the shores of the Volga, in a desolating, predatory excursion. A Russian army drove them back, pursued them to their homes, took both of these towns, erected fortresses, and gradually brought the whole of Siberia under Russian sway. This great conquest was achieved almost without bloodshed.

Boris Gudenow now exercised all the functions of sovereign authority. His energy had enriched Russia with the accession of Siberia. He now resolved to lay aside the feeble prince Feodor, who nominally occupied the throne, and to place the crown upon his own brow. It seemed to him an easy thing to appropriate the emblems of power, since he already enjoyed all the prerogatives of royalty. Under the pretense of rewarding, with important posts of trust, the most efficient of the nobles, he removed all those whose influence he had most to dread, to distant provinces and foreign embassies. He then endeavored, by many favors, to win the affections of the populace of Moscow.

The young prince Dmitri had now attained his ninth year, and was residing, under the care of his tutors, at the city of Uglitz, about two hundred miles from Moscow. Uglitz, with its dependencies, had been assigned to him for his appanage. Gudenow deemed it essential, to his secure occupancy of the throne, that this young prince should be put out of the way. He accordingly employed a Russian officer, by the promise of immense rewards, to assassinate the child. And then, the deed having been performed, to prevent the possibility of his agency in it being divulged, he caused another low-born murderer to track the path of the officer and plunge a dagger into his bosom. Both murders were successfully accomplished.

The news of the assassination of the young prince soon reached Moscow, and caused intense excitement. Gudenow was by many suspected, though he endeavored to stifle the report by clamorous expressions of horror and indignation, and by apparently making the most strenuous efforts to discover the murderers. As an expression of his rage, he sent troops to demolish the fortress of Uglitz, and to drive the inhabitants from the city, because they had, as he asserted, harbored the assassins. Soon after this Feodor was suddenly taken ill. He lingered upon his bed for a few days in great pain, and then died. When the king was lying upon this dying bed, Boris Gudenow, who, it will be recollected, was the father of the wife of Feodor, succeeded in obtaining from him a sort of bequest of the throne, and immediately upon the death of the king, he assumed the state of royalty as a duty enjoined upon him by this bequest. The death of Feodor terminated the reign of the house of Ruric, which had now governed Russia for more than seven hundred years.

Not a little artifice was still requisite to quell the indignant passions which were rising in the bosoms of the nobles. But Gudenow was a consummate master of his art, and through the intrigues of years had the programme of operations all arranged. According to custom, six weeks were devoted to mourning for Feodor. Boris then assembled the nobility and principal citizens of Moscow, in the Kremlin, and, to the unutterable surprise of many of them, declared that he could not consent to assume the weighty cares and infinite responsibilities of royalty; that the empire was unfortunately left without a sovereign, and that they must proceed to designate the one to whom the crown should be transferred; that he, worn down with the toils of State, had decided to retire to a monastery, and devote the remainder of his days to poverty, retirement and to God. He immediately took leave of the astonished and perplexed assembly, and withdrew to a convent about three miles from Moscow.

The partisans of Boris were prepared to act their part. They stated that intelligence had arrived that the Tartars, with an immense army, had commenced the invasion of Russia; that Boris alone was familiar with the condition and resources of the empire, and with the details of administration—that he was a veteran soldier, and that his military genius and vigorous arm were requisite to beat back the foe. These considerations were influential, and a deputation was chosen to urge Boris, as he loved his country, to continue in power and accept the scepter, which, as prime minister, he had so long successfully wielded. Boris affected the most extreme reluctance. The populace of Moscow, whose favor he had purchased, surrounded the convent in crowds, and with vehemence, characteristic of their impulsive, childish natures, threw themselves upon the ground, tore their hair, beat their breasts, and declared that they would never return to their homes unless Boris would consent to be their sovereign.

Pretending, at last, to be overcome by these entreaties, Boris consented to raise and lead an army to repel the Tartars, and he promised that should Providence prosper him in this enterprise, he would regard it as an indication that it was the will of Heaven that he should ascend the throne. He immediately called all his tremendous energies into exercise, and in a few months collected an army, of the nobles and of the militia, amounting to five hundred thousand men. With great pomp he rode through the ranks of this mighty host, receiving their enthusiastic applause. In that day, as neither telegraphs, newspapers or stage-coaches existed, intelligence was transmitted with difficulty, and very slowly. The story of the Tartar invasion proved a sham. Boris had originated it to accomplish his purposes. He amused and conciliated the soldiers with magnificent parades, intimating that the Tartars, alarmed by his vast preparations, had not dared to advance against him. A year's pay was ordered for each one of the soldiers. The nobles received gratuities and were entertained by the tzar in festivals, at which parties of ten thousand, day after day, were feasted, during an interval of six weeks. Boris then returned to Moscow. The people met him several miles from the city, and conducted him in triumph to the Kremlin. He was crowned, with great pomp, Emperor of Russia, on the 1st of September, 1577.

Boris watched, with an eagle eye, all those who could by any possibility disturb his reign or endanger the permanence of the new dynasty which he wished to establish. Some of the princes of the old royal family were forbidden to marry; others were banished to Siberia. The diadem, thus usurped, proved indeed a crown of thorns. That which is founded in crime, can generally by crime alone be perpetuated. The manners of the usurper were soon entirely altered. He had been affable, easy of access, and very popular. But now he became haughty, reserved and suspicious. Wishing to strengthen his dynasty by royal alliances, he proposed the marriage of his daughter to Gustavus, son of Eric XIV., King of Sweden. He accordingly invited Gustavus to Moscow, making him pompous promises. The young prince was received with magnificent display and loaded with presents. But there was soon a falling out between Boris and his intended son-in-law, and the young prince was dismissed in disgrace. He however succeeded in establishing a treaty of peace with the Poles, which was to continue twenty years. He also was successful in contracting an alliance for his daughter Axinia, with Duke John of Denmark. The marriage was celebrated in Moscow in 1602 with great splendor. But even before the marriage festivities were closed, the duke was taken sick and died, to the inexpressible disappointment of Boris.

The Turks from Constantinople sent an embassy to Moscow with rich presents, proposing a treaty of friendship and alliance. But Boris declined the presents and dismissed the embassadors, saying that he could never be friendly to the Turks, as they were the enemies of Christianity. Like many other men, he could trample upon the precepts of the gospel, and yet be zealous of Christianity as a doctrinal code or an institution.

A report was now circulated that the young Dmitri was still alive, that his mother, conscious of the danger of his assassination, had placed the prince in a position of safety, and that another child had been assassinated in his stead. This rumor overwhelmed the guilty soul of Boris with melancholy. His fears were so strongly excited, that several nobles, who were supposed to be in the interests of the young prince, were put to the rack to extort a confession. But no positive information respecting Dmitri could be gained. The mother of Dmitri was banished to an obscure fortress six hundred miles from Moscow.

The emissaries of Boris were everywhere busy to detect, if possible, the hiding place of Dmitri. Intelligence was at length brought to the Kremlin that two monks had escaped from a convent and had fled to Poland, and that it was apprehended that one of them was the young prince in disguise; it was also said that Weisnowiski, prince of Kief, was protector of Dmitri, and, in concert with others, was preparing a movement to place him upon the throne of his ancestors. Boris was thrown into paroxysms of terror. Not knowing what else to do, he franticly sent a party of Cossacks to murder Weisnowiski; but the prince was on his guard, and the enterprise failed.

The question, "Have we a Bourbon among us?" has agitated the whole of the United States. The question, "Have we a Dmitri among us?" then agitated Russia far more intensely. It was a question of the utmost practical importance, involving civil war and the removal of the new dynasty for the restoration of the old. Whether the person said to be Dmitri were really such, is a question which can now never be settled. The monk Griska Utropeja, who declared himself to be the young prince, sustained his claim with such an array of evidence as to secure the support of a large portion of the Russians, and also the coöperation of the court of Poland. The claims of Griska were brought up before the Polish diet and carefully examined. He was then acknowledged by them as the legitimate heir to the crown of Russia. An army was raised to restore him to his ancestral throne. Sigismond, the King of Poland, with ardor espoused his cause.

Boris immediately dispatched an embassy to Warsaw to remind Sigismond of the treaty of alliance into which he had entered, and to insist upon his delivering up the pretended Dmitri, dead or alive. A threat was added to the entreaty: "If you countenance this impostor," said Boris, "you will draw down upon you a war which you may have cause to repent."

Sigismond replied, that though he had no doubt that Griska was truly the Prince Dmitri, and, as such, entitled to the throne of Russia, still he had no disposition personally to embark in the advocacy of his rights; but, that if any of his nobles felt disposed to espouse his claims with arms or money, he certainly should do nothing to thwart them. The Polish nobles, thus encouraged, raised an army of forty thousand men, which they surrendered to Griska. He, assuming the name of Dmitri, placed himself at their head, and boldly commenced a march upon Moscow. As soon as he entered the Russian territories many nobles hastened to his banners, and several important cities declared for him.

Boris was excessively alarmed. With characteristic energy he speedily raised an army of two hundred thousand men, and then was in the utmost terror lest this very army should pass over to the ranks of his foes. He applied to Sweden and to Denmark to help him, but both kingdoms refused. Dmitri advanced triumphantly, and laid siege to Novgorod on the 21st of December, 1605. For five months the war continued with varying success. Boris made every attempt to secure the assassination of Griska, but the wary chieftain was on his guard, and all such endeavors were frustrated. Griska at length decided to resort to the same weapons. An officer was sent to the Kremlin with a feigned account of a victory obtained over the troops of Dmitri. This officer succeeded in mingling poison with the food of Boris. The drug was so deadly that the usurper dropped and expired almost without a struggle and without a groan.

As soon as Boris was dead, his widow, a woman of great ambition and energy, lost not an hour in proclaiming the succession of her son, Feodor. The officers of the army were promptly summoned to take the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign. Feodor was but fifteen years of age, a thoroughly spoilt boy, proud, domineering, selfish and cruel. There was now a revolt in the army of the late tzar. Several of the officers embraced the cause of Griska, declaring their full conviction that he was the Prince Dmitri, and, they carried over to his ranks a large body of the soldiers.

The defection of the army caused great consternation at court. The courtiers, eager to secure the favor of the prince whose star was so evidently in the ascendant, at once abandoned the hapless Feodor and his enraged mother; and the halls of the Kremlin and the streets of Moscow were soon resounding with the name of Dmitri. A proclamation was published declaring general amnesty, and rich rewards to all who should recognize and support the rights of their legitimate prince, but that his opponents must expect no mercy. The populace immediately rose in revolt against Feodor. They assailed the Kremlin. In a resistless inundation they forced its gates, seized the young tzar, with his mother, sister and other relatives, and hurried them all to prison.

Dmitri was at Thula when he received intelligence of this revolution. He immediately sent an officer, Basilius Galitzan, to Moscow to receive the oath of fidelity of the city, and, at the same time, he diabolically sent an assassin, one Ivan Bogdanoff, with orders to strangle Feodor and his mother in the prison, but with directions not to hurt his sister. Bogdanoff reluctantly executed his mission. On the 15th of July, 1605, Dmitri made his triumphal entry into Moscow. He was received with all the noisy demonstrations of public rejoicing, and, on the 29th of July, was crowned, with extraordinary grandeur, Emperor of all the Russias.

The ceremonies of the triumphal entrance are perhaps worthy of record. A detachment of Polish horse in brilliant uniform led the procession, headed by a numerous band of trumpeters. Then came the gorgeous coach of Dmitri, empty, drawn by six horses, richly caparisoned, and preceded, followed and flanked by dense columns of musqueteers. Next came a procession of the clergy in their ecclesiastical robes, and with the banners of the church. This procession was led by the bishops, who bore effigies of the Virgin Mary and of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of Russia. Following the clergy appeared Dmitri, mounted on a white charger, and surrounded by a splendid retinue. He proceeded first to the church of Notre Dame, where a Te Deum was chanted, and where the new monarch received the sacrament. He then visited the tomb of Ivan IV., and kneeling upon it, as the tomb of his father, implored God's blessing. Perceiving that the body of Boris Gudenow had received interment in the royal cemetery, he ordered his remains, with those of his wife and son, all three of whom Dmitri had caused to be assassinated, to be removed to a common churchyard without the city.

Either to silence those who might doubt his legitimacy or being truly the son of Ivan IV., he sent two of the nobles, with a brilliant retinue, to the convent, more than six hundred miles from Moscow, to which Boris had banished the widow of Ivan. They were to conduct the queen dowager to the capital. As she approached the city, Dmitri went out to receive her, accompanied by a great number of his nobles. As soon as he perceived her coach, he alighted, went on foot to meet his alleged mother, and threw himself into her arms with every demonstration of joy and affection, which embraces she returned with equal tenderness. Then, with his head uncovered, and walking by the side of her carriage, he conducted her to the city and to the Kremlin. He ever after treated her with the deference due to a mother, and received from her corresponding proofs of confidence and affection.

But Dmitri was thoroughly a bad man, and every day became more unpopular. He debauched the young sister of Feodor, and then shut her up in a convent. He banished seventy noble families who were accused of being the friends of Boris, and gave their estates and dignities to his Polish partisans. A party was soon organized against him, who busily circulated reports that he was an impostor, and a conspiracy was formed to take his life. Perplexities and perils now gathered rapidly around his throne. He surrounded himself with Polish guards, and thus increased the exasperation of his subjects.

To add to his perplexities, another claimant of the crown appeared, who declared himself to be the son of the late tzar, Feodor, son of Ivan IV. This young man, named Peter, was seventeen years of age. He had raised his standard on the other side of the Volga, and had rallied four thousand partisans around him. In the meantime, Dmitri had made arrangements for his marriage with Mariana Meneiski, a Polish princess, of the Roman church. This princess was married to the tzar by proxy, in Cracow, and in January, 1606, with a numerous retinue set out on her journey to Moscow. She did not reach the capital of Moscow until the 1st of May. Her father's whole family, and several thousand armed Polanders, by way of guard, accompanied her. Many of the Polish nobles also took this opportunity of visiting Russia, and a multitude of merchants put themselves in her train for purposes of traffic.

The tzarina was met, at some distance from Moscow, by the royal guard, and escorted to the city, where she was received with ringing of bells, shoutings, discharge of cannons and all the ordinary and extraordinary demonstrations of popular joy. On the 8th of May, the ceremony of blessing the marriage was performed by the patriarch, and immediately after she was crowned tzarina with greater pomp than Russia had ever witnessed before. But the appearance of this immense train of armed Poles incensed the Russians; and the clergy, who were jealous of the encroachments of the church of Rome, were alarmed in behalf of their religion. An intrepid noble, Zuski, now resolved, by the energies of a popular insurrection, to rid the throne of Dmitri. With great sagacity and energy the conspiracy was formed. The tzarina was to give a grand entertainment on the evening of the 17th of May, and the conspirators fixed upon that occasion for the consummation of their plan. Twenty thousand troops were under the orders of Zuski, and he had led them all into the city, under the pretense of having them assist in the festival.

At six o'clock in the morning of the appointed day these troops, accompanied by some thousands of the populace, surrounded the palace and seized its gates. A division was then sent in, who commenced the indiscriminate massacre of all who were, or who looked like Polanders. It was taken for granted that all in the palace were either Poles or their partisans. The alarm bells were now rung, and Zuski traversed the streets with a drawn saber in one hand and a cross in the other, rousing the ignorant populace by the cry that the Poles had taken up arms to murder the Russians. Dmitri, in his chamber, hearing the cries of the dying and the shrieks of those who fled before the assassins, leaped from his window into the court yard, and, by his fall, dislocated his thigh. He was immediately seized, conveyed into the grand hall of audience, and a strong guard was set over him.

The murderers ransacked the palace, penetrating every room, killing every Polish man and treating the Polish ladies with the utmost brutality. They inquired eagerly for the tzarina, but she was nowhere to be found. She had concealed herself beneath the hoop of an elderly lady whose gray hairs and withered cheek had preserved her from violence. Zuski now went to the dowager tzarina, the widow of Ivan IV., and demanded that she should take her oath upon the Gospels whether Dmitri were her son. He reported that, thus pressed, she confessed that he was an impostor, and that her true son had perished many years before. The conspirators now fell upon Dmitri and his body was pierced with a thousand dagger thrusts. His mangled remains were then dragged through the streets and burned. Mariana was soon after arrested and sent to prison. It is said that nearly two thousand Poles perished in this massacre.

Even to the present day opinion is divided in Russia in regard to Dmitri, whether he was an impostor or the son of Ivan IV. Respecting his character there is no dispute. All that can be said in his favor is that he would not commit an atrocious crime unless impelled to it by very strong temptation. There was now no one who seemed to have any legitimate title to the throne of Russia.

The nobles and the senators who were at Moscow then met to proceed to the election of a new sovereign. It was an event almost without a parallel in Russian history. The lords, though very friendly in their deliberations, found it difficult to decide into whose hands to intrust the scepter. It was at last unanimously concluded to make an appeal to the people. Their voice was for Zuski. He was accordingly declared tzar and was soon after crowned with a degree of unanimity which, though well authenticated, seems inexplicable.

The Poles were exasperated beyond measure at the massacre of so many of their nobles and at the insult offered to Mariana, the tzarina. But Poland was at that time distracted by civil strife, and the king found it expedient to postpone the hour of vengeance. Zuski commenced his reign by adopting measures which gave him great popularity with the adjoining kingdoms, while they did not diminish the favorable regards of the people. But suddenly affairs assumed a new aspect, so strange that a writer of fiction would hardly have ventured to imagine it. An artful man, a schoolmaster in Poland, who could speak the Russian language, declared that he was Dmitri; that he had escaped from the massacre in his palace, and that it was another man, mistaken for him, whom the assassins had killed. Poland, inspired by revenge, eagerly embraced this man's cause. Mariana, who had been liberated from prison, was let into the secret, and willing to ascend again to the grandeur from which she had fallen, entered with cordial coöperation into this new intrigue. The widowed tzarina and the Polish adventurer contrived their first meeting in the presence of a large concourse of nobles and citizens. They rushed together in a warm embrace, while tears of affected transport bedewed their cheeks. The farce was so admirably performed that many were deceived, and this new Dmitri and the tzarina occupied for several days the same tent in the Polish encampment, apparently as husband and wife.

CHAPTER XVII.

A CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

From 1608 to 1680.

Conquests by Poland.—Sweden in Alliance with Russia.—Grandeur of Poland.—Ladislaus Elected King of Russia.—Commotions and Insurrections.—Rejection of Ladislaus and Election of Michael Feodor Romanow.—Sorrow of His Mother.—Pacific Character of Romanow.—Choice of a Bride.—Eudochia Streschnew.—The Archbishop Feodor.—Death of Michael and Accession of Alexis.—Love in the Palace.—Successful Intrigue.—Mobs in Moscow.—Change in the Character of the Tzar.—Turkish Invasions.—Alliance Between Russia and Poland.

This public testimonial of conjugal love led men, who had before doubted the pretender, to repose confidence in his claims. The King of Poland took advantage of the confusion now reigning in Russia to extend his dominions by wresting still more border territory from his great rival. In this exigence, Zuski purchased the loan of an army of five thousand men from Sweden by surrendering Livonia to the Swedes. With these succors united to his own troops, he marched to meet the pretended Dmitri. There was now universal confusion in Russia. The two hostile armies, avoiding a decisive engagement, were maneuvering and engaging in incessant petty skirmishes, which resulted only in bloodshed and misery. Thus five years of national woe lingered away. The people became weary of both the claimants for the crown, and the nobles boldly met, regardless of the rival combatants, and resolved to choose a new sovereign.

Poland had then attained the summit of its greatness. As an energetic military power, it was superior to Russia. To conciliate Poland, whose aggressions were greatly feared, the Russian nobles chose, for their sovereign, Ladislaus, son of Sigismond, the King of Poland. They hoped thus to withdraw the Polish armies from the banners of the pretended Dmitri, and also to secure peace for their war-blasted kingdom.

Ladislaus accepted the crown. Zuski was seized, deposed, shaved, dressed in a friar's robe and shut up in a convent to count his beads. He soon died of that malignant poison, grief. Dmitri made a show of opposition, but he was soon assassinated by his own men, who were convinced of the hopelessness of his cause. His party, however, lasted for many years, bringing forward a young man who was called his son. At one time there was quite an enthusiasm in his favor, crowds flocked to his camp, and he even sent embassadors to Gustavus IX., King of Sweden, proposing an alliance. At last he was betrayed by some of his own party, and was sent to Moscow, where he was hanged.

Sigismond was much perplexed in deciding whether to consent to his son's accepting the crown of Russia. That kingdom was now in such a state of confusion and weakness that he was quite sanguine that he would be able to conquer it by force of arms and bring the whole empire under the dominion of his own scepter. His armies were already besieging Smolensk, and the city was hourly expected to fall into their hands. This would open to them almost an unobstructed march to Moscow. The Poles, generally warlike and ambitious of conquest, represented to Sigismond that it would be far more glorious for him to be the conqueror of Russia than to be merely the father of its tzar.

Sigismond, with trivial excuses, detained his son in Poland, while, under various pretexts, he continued to pour his troops into Russia. Ten thousand armed Poles were sent to Moscow to be in readiness to receive the newly-elected monarch upon his arrival. Their general, Stanislaus, artfully contrived even to place a thousand of these Polish troops in garrison in the citadel of Moscow. These foreign soldiers at last became so insolent that there was a general rising of the populace, and they were threatened with utter extermination. The storm of passion thus raised, no earthly power could quell. The awful slaughter was commenced, and the Poles, conscious of their danger, resorted to the horrible but only measure which could save them from destruction. They immediately set fire to the city in many different places. The city then consisted of one hundred and eighty thousand houses, most of them being of wood. As the flames rose, sweeping from house to house and from street to street, the inhabitants, distracted by the endeavor to save their wives, their children and their property, threw down their arms and dispersed. When thus helpless, the Poles fell upon them, and one of the most awful massacres ensued of which history gives any record. A hundred thousand of the wretched people of Moscow perished beneath the Polish cimeters. For fifteen days the depopulated and smouldering capital was surrendered to pillage. The royal treasury, the churches, the convents were all plundered. The Poles, then, laden with booty, but leaving a garrison in the citadel, evacuated the ruined city and commenced their march to Poland.

These horrors roused the Russians. An army under a heroic general, Zachary Lippenow, besieged the Polish garrison, starved them into a surrender, and put them all to death. The nobles then met, declared the election of Ladislaus void, on account of his not coming to Moscow to accept it, and again proceeded to the choice of a sovereign. After long deliberation, one man ventured to propose a candidate very different from any who had before been thought of. It was Michael Feodor Romanow. He was a studious, philosophic young man, seventeen years of age. His father was archbishop of Rostow, a man of exalted reputation, both for genius and piety. Michael, with his mother, was in a convent at Castroma. It was modestly urged that in this young man there were centered all the qualifications essential for the promotion of the tranquillity of the State. There were but three males of his family living, and thus the State would avoid the evil of having numerous relatives of the prince to be cared for. He was entirely free from embroilments in the late troubles. As his father was a clergyman of known piety and virtue, he would counsel his son to peace, and would conscientiously seek the best good of the empire.

The proposition, sustained by such views, was accepted with general acclaim. There were several nobles from Castroma who testified that though they were not personally acquainted with young Romanow, they believed him to be a youth of unusual intelligence, discretion and moral worth. As the nobles were anxious not to act hastily in a matter of such great importance, they dispatched two of their number to Castroma with a letter to the mother of Michael, urging her to repair immediately with her son to Moscow.

The affectionate, judicious mother, upon the reception of this letter, burst into tears of anguish, lamenting the calamity which was impending.

"My son," she said, "my only son is to be taken from me to be placed upon the throne, only to be miserably slaughtered like so many of the tzars who have preceded him."

She wrote to the electors entreating them that her son might be excused, saying that he was altogether too young to reign, that his father was a prisoner in Poland, and that her son had no relations capable of assisting him with their advice. This letter, on the whole, did but confirm the assembly of nobles in their conviction that they could not make a better choice than that of the young Romanow. They accordingly, with great unanimity, elected Michael Feodor Romanow, sovereign of all the Russias; then, repairing in a body to the cathedral, they proclaimed him to the people as their sovereign. The announcement was received with rapturous applause. It was thus that the house of Romanow was placed upon the throne of Russia. It retains the throne to the present day.

Michael, incited by singular sagacity and by true Christian philanthropy, commenced his reign by the most efficient measures to secure the peace of the empire. As soon as he had notified his election to the King of Poland, his father, archbishop of Rostow, was set at liberty and sent home. He was immediately created by his son patriarch of all Russia, an office in the Greek church almost equivalent to that of the pope in the Romish hierarchy. While these scenes were transpiring, Charles IX. died, and Gustavus Adolphus succeeded to the throne of Sweden. Gustavus and Michael both desired peace, the preliminaries were soon settled, and peace was established upon a basis far more advantageous to the Swedes than to the Russians. By this treaty, Russia ceded to Sweden territory, which deprived Russia of all access to the Baltic Sea. Thus the only point now upon which Russia touched the ocean, was on the North Sea. No enemies remained to Russia but the Poles. Here there was trouble enough. Ladislaus still demanded the throne, and invaded the empire with an immense army. He advanced, ravaging the country, even to the gates of Moscow. But, finding that he had no partisans in the kingdom, and that powerful armies were combining against him, he consented to a truce for fourteen years.

Russia was now at peace with all the world. The young tzar, aided by the counsels of his excellent father, devoted himself with untiring energy to the promotion of the prosperity of his subjects. It was deemed a matter of much political importance that the tzar should be immediately married. According to the custom of the empire, all the most beautiful girls were collected for the monarch to make his choice. They were received in the palace, and were lodged separately though they all dined together. The tzar saw them, either incognito or without disguise, as suited his pleasure. The day for the nuptials was appointed, and the bridal robes prepared when no one knew upon whom the monarch's choice had been fixed. On the morning of the nuptial day the robes were presented to the empress elect, who then, for the first time, learned that she had proved the successful candidate. The rejected maidens were returned to their homes laden with rich presents.

The young lady selected, was Eudocia Streschnew, who chanced to be the daughter of a very worthy gentleman, in quite straitened circumstances, residing nearly two hundred miles from Moscow. The messenger who was sent to inform him that his daughter was Empress of Russia, found him in the field at work with his domestics. The good old man was conducted to Moscow; but he soon grew weary of the splendors of the court, and entreated permission to return again to his humble rural home. Eudocia, reared in virtuous retirement, proved as lovely in character as she was beautiful in person, and she soon won the love of the nation. The first year of her marriage, she gave birth to a daughter. The three next children proved also daughters, to the great disappointment of their parents. But in the year 1630, a son was born, and not only the court, but all Russia, was filled with rejoicing. In the year 1634, the tzar met with one of the greatest of afflictions in the loss of his father by death. His reverence for the venerable patriarch Feodor, had been such that he was ever his principal counselor, and all his public acts were proclaimed in the name of the tzar and his majesty's father, the most holy patriarch.

"As he had joined," writes an ancient historian, "the miter to the sword, having been a general in the army before he was an ecclesiastic, the affable and modest behaviour, so becoming the ministers of the altar, had tempered and corrected the fire of the warrior, and rendered his manners amiable to all that came near him."

The reign of Michael proved almost a constant success. His wisdom and probity caused him to be respected by the neighboring States, while the empire, in the enjoyment of peace, was rapidly developing all its resources, and increasing in wealth, population and power. His court was constantly filled with embassadors from all the monarchies of Europe and even of Asia. The tzar, rightly considering peace as almost the choicest of all earthly blessings, resisted all temptations to draw the sword. There were a few trivial interruptions of peace during his reign; but the dark clouds of war, by his energies, were soon dispelled. This pacific prince, one of the most worthy who ever sat upon any throne, died revered by his subjects on the 12th of July, 1645, in the forty-ninth year of his age and the thirty-third of his reign. He left but two children—a son, Alexis, who succeeded him, and a daughter, Irene, who a few years after died unmarried.

Alexis was but sixteen years of age when he succeeded to the throne. To prevent the possibility of any cabals being formed, in consequence of his youth, he was crowned the day after his father's death. In one week from that time Eudocia also died, her death being hastened by grief for the loss of her husband. An ambitious noble, Moroson, supremely selfish, but cool, calculating and persevering, attained the post of prime minister or counselor of the young tzar. The great object of his aim was to make himself the first subject in the empire. In the accomplishment of this object there were two leading measures to which he resorted. The first was to keep the young tzar as much as possible from taking any part in the transactions of state, by involving him in an incessant round of pleasures. The next step was to secure for the tzar a wife who would be under his own influence. The love of pleasure incident to youth rendered the first measure not difficult of accomplishment. Peculiar circumstances seemed remarkably to favor the second measure. There was a nobleman of high rank but of small fortune, strongly attached to Moroson, who had two daughters of marvelous beauty. Moroson doubted not that he could lead his ardent young monarch to marry one of these lovely sisters, and he resolved himself to marry the other. He would thus become the brother-in-law of the emperor. Through his wife he would be able to influence her sister, the empress. The family would also all feel that they were indebted to him for their elevation. The plan was triumphantly successful.

The two young ladies were invited to court, and were decorated to make the most impressive display of their loveliness. With the young tzar, a boy of sixteen, it was love at first sight, and that very day he told Moroson that he wished to marry Maria, the eldest of the beauties. Rich presents were immediately lavished upon the whole family, so that they could make their appearance at court with suitable splendor. The tzar and Maria were immediately betrothed, and in just eight days the ardent lover led his bride from the altar. At the end of another week Moroson married the other sister. Moroson and Miloslouski, the father of the two brides, now ruled Russia, while the tzar surrendered himself to amusements.

The people soon became exasperated by the haughtiness and insolence of the duumvirate, and murmurs growing deeper and louder, ere long led to an insurrection. On the 6th of July, 1648, the tzar, engaged in some civic celebration, was escorted in a procession to one of the monasteries of Moscow. The populace assembled in immense numbers to see him pass. On his return the crowd broke through the attendant guards, seized the bridle of his horse, and entreated him to listen to their complaints concerning the outrages perpetrated by his ministers. The tzar, much alarmed by their violence, listened impatiently to their complaints and promised to render them satisfaction. The people were appeased, and were quietly retiring when the partisans of the ministers rode among them, assailing them with abusive language, crowding them with their horses, and even striking at them with their whips. The populace, incensed, began to pelt them with stones, and though the guard of the tzar came to their rescue, they escaped with difficulty to the palace. The mob was now thoroughly aroused. They rushed to the palace of Moroson, burst down the doors, and sacked every apartment. They even tore from the person of his wife her jewels, throwing them into the street, but in other respects treating her with civility. They then passed to the palace of Miloslauski, treating it in the same manner. The mob had now possession of Moscow. Palace after palace of the partisans of the ministers was sacked, and several of the most distinguished members of the court were massacred.

The tzar, entirely deficient in energy, remained trembling in the Kremlin during the whole of the night of the 6th of July, only entreating his friends to strengthen the guards and to secure the palace from the outrages of the populace. Afraid to trust the Russian troops, who might be found in sympathy with the people, Alexis sent for a regiment of German troops who were in his employ, and stationed them around the palace. He then sent out an officer to disperse the crowd, assuring them that the disorders of which they complained should be redressed. They demanded that the offending ministers should be delivered to them, to be punished for the injuries they had inflicted upon the empire. Alexis assured them, through his messenger, upon his oath, that Moroson and Miloslauski had escaped, but promised that the third minister whom they demanded, a noble by the name of Plesseon, who was judge of the supreme court of judicature of Moscow, should be brought out directly, and that those who had escaped should be delivered up as soon as they could be arrested. The guilty, wretched man, thus doomed to be the victim to appease the rage of the mob, in a quarter of an hour was led out bareheaded by the servants of the tzar to the market-place. The mob fell upon him with clubs, beat him to the earth, dragged him over the pavements, and finally cut off his head. Thus satiated, about eleven o'clock in the morning they dispersed and returned to their homes.

In the afternoon, however, the reign of violence was resumed. The city was set on fire in several places, and the mob collected for plunder, making no effort to extinguish the flames. The fire spread with such alarming rapidity that the whole city was endangered. At length, however, after terrible destruction of property and the loss of many lives, the fury of the conflagration was arrested. The affrighted tzar now filled the important posts of the ministry with men who had a reputation for justice, and the clergy immediately espousing the cause of order, exhorted the populace to that respect and obedience to the higher powers which their religion enjoined. Alexis personally appeared before the people and addressed them in a speech, in which he made no apology for the outrages which had been committed by the government, but, assuming that the people were right in their demands, promised to repeal the onerous duties, to abolish the obnoxious monopolies, and even to increase the privileges which they had formerly enjoyed. The people received this announcement with great applause. The tzar, taking advantage of this return to friendliness, remarked,

"I have promised to deliver up to you Moroson and his confederates in the government. Their acts I admit to have been very unjust, but their personal relations to me renders it peculiarly trying for me to condemn them. I hope the people will not deny the first request I have ever made to them, which is, that these men, whom I have displaced, may be pardoned. I will answer for them for the future, and assure you that their conduct shall be such as to give you cause to rejoice at your lenity."

The people were so moved by this address, which the tzar pronounced with tears, that, as with one accord, they shouted, "God grant his majesty a long and happy life. The will of God and of the tzar be done." Peace was thus restored between the government and the people, and great good accrued to Russia from this successful insurrection.

During the early reign of Alexis, there were no foreign wars of any note. The Poles were all the time busy in endeavors to beat back the Turks, who, in wave after wave of invasion, were crossing the Danube. Upon the death of Ladislaus, King of Poland, Alexis, who had then a fine army at his command, offered to march to repel the Turks, if the Poles would choose him King of Poland. But at the same time France made a still more alluring offer, in case they would choose John Casimir, a prince in the interests of France, as their sovereign. The choice fell upon John Casimir. The provinces of Smolensk, Kiof and Tchernigov were then in possession of the Poles, having been, in former wars, wrested from Russia. The Poles had conquered them by taking advantage of internal troubles in Russia, which enabled them with success to invade the empire.

Alexis now thought it right, in his turn, to take advantage of the weakness of Poland, harassed by the Turks, to recover these lost provinces. He accordingly marched to the city of Smolensk, and encamped before it with an army of three hundred thousand men. Smolensk was one of the strongest places which military art had then been able to rear. The Poles had received sufficient warning of the attack to enable them to garrison the fortifications to their utmost capacity and to supply the town abundantly with all the materials of war. The siege was continued for a full year, with all the usual accompaniments of carnage and misery which attend a beleaguered fortress. At last the city, battered into ruins, surrendered, and the victorious Russians immediately swept over Lithuanian Poland, meeting no force to obstruct its march. Another army, equally resistless, swept the banks of the Dnieper, and recovered Tchernigov and Kiof.

Misfortunes seemed now to be falling like an avalanche upon Poland. While the Turks were assailing them on the south, and the Russians were wresting from them opulent and populous provinces on the north, Charles Gustavus of Sweden, was crossing her eastern frontiers with invading hosts. The impetuous Swedish king, in three months, overran nearly the whole of Poland, threatening the utter extinction of the kingdom. This alarmed the surrounding kingdoms, lest Sweden should become too powerful for their safety. Alexis immediately entered into a truce with Poland, which guaranteed to him the peaceable possession of the provinces he had regained, and then united his armies with those of his humiliated rival, to arrest the strides of the Swedish conqueror.

Sieges, cannonades and battles innumerable ensued, over hundreds of leagues of territory, bordering the shores of the Baltic. For several years the maddened strife continued, producing its usual fruits of gory fields, smouldering cities, desolated homes, with orphanage, widowhood, starvation, pestilence, and every conceivable form of human misery. At length, all parties being exhausted, peace was concluded on the 2d of June, 1661.

The great insurrection in Moscow had taught the tzar Alexis a good lesson, and he profited by it wisely. He was led to devote himself earnestly to the welfare of his people. His recovery of the lost provinces of Russia was considered just, and added immeasurably to his renown. Conscious of the imperfection of his education, he engaged earnestly in study, causing many important scientific treatises to be translated into the Russian language, and perusing them with diligence and delight. He had the laws of the several provinces collected and published together. Many new manufactures were introduced, particularly those of silk and linen. Though rigidly economical in his expenses, he maintained a magnificent court and a numerous army. He took great interest in the promotion of agriculture, bringing many desert wastes into cultivation, and peopling them with the prisoners taken in the Polish and Swedish wars. It was the custom in those barbaric times to drive, as captives of war, the men, women and children of whole provinces, to be slaves in the territory of the conqueror. Often they occupied the position of a vassal peasantry, tilling the soil for the benefit of their lords. With singular foresight, Alexis planned for the construction of a fleet both on the Caspian and the Black Sea. With this object in view, he sent for ship carpenters from Holland and other places.

All Europe was now trembling in view of the encroachments of the Turks. Several very angry messages had passed between the sultan and the tzar, and the Turks had proved themselves ever eager to combine with the Tartars in bloody raids into the southern regions of the empire. Alexis resolved to combine Christian Europe, if possible, in a war of extermination against the Turks. To this end he sent embassadors to every court in Christendom. As his embassador was presented to Pope Clement X., the pope extended his foot for the customary kiss. The proud Russian drew back, exclaiming,

"So ignoble an act of homage is beneath the dignity of the prince whom I have the honor to serve."

He then informed the pope that the Emperor of Russia had resolved to make war against the Turks, that he wished to see all Christian princes unite against those enemies of humanity and religion, that for that purpose he had sent embassadors to all the potentates of Europe, and that he exhorted his holiness to place himself at the head of a league so powerful, so necessary for the protection of the church, and from which every Christian State might derive the greatest advantages. Foolish punctilios of etiquette interfered with any efficient arrangements with the court of Rome, and though the embassadors of other powers were received with the most marked respect, these powers were all too much engrossed with their own internal affairs to enlist in this enterprise for the public good. The Turks were, however, alarmed by these formidable movements, and, fearing such an alliance, were somewhat checked in their career of conquest.

On the 10th of November, 1674, the King of Poland died, and again there was an attempt on the part of Russia to unite Poland and the empire under the same crown. All the monarchies in Europe were involved in intrigues for the Polish crown. The electors, however, chose John Sobieski, a renowned Polish general, for their sovereign. The tzar was very apprehensive that the Poles would make peace with the Turks, and thus leave the sultan at liberty to concentrate all his tremendous resources upon Russia. Alexis raised three large armies, amounting in all to one hundred and fifty thousand men, which he sent into the Ukraine, as the frontier country, watered by the lower Dnieper, was then called.

The Turkish army, which was spread over the country between the Danube and the Dniester, now crossed this latter stream, and, in solid battalions, four hundred thousand strong, penetrated the Ukraine. They immediately commenced the fiend-like work of reducing the whole province to a desert. The process of destruction is swift. Flames, in a few hours, will consume a city which centuries alone have reared. A squadron of cavalry will, in a few moments, trample fields of grain which have been slowly growing and ripening for months. In less than a fortnight nearly the whole of the Ukraine was a depopulated waste, the troops of the tzar being shut up in narrow fortresses. The King of Poland, apprehensive that this vast Turkish army would soon turn with all their energies of destruction upon his own territories, resolved to march, with all the forces of his kingdom, to the aid of the Russians. One hundred thousand Polish troops immediately besieged the great city of Humau, which the Turks had taken, midway between the Dnieper and the Dniester.

John Sobieski, the newly-elected King of Poland, was a veteran soldier of great military renown. He placed himself at the head of other divisions of the army, and endeavored to distract the enemy and to divide their forces. At the same time, Alexis himself hastened to the theater of war that he might animate his troops by his presence. The Turks, finding themselves unable to advance any further, sullenly returned to their own country by the way of the Danube. Upon the retirement of the Turks, the Russians and the Poles began to quarrel respecting the possession of the Ukraine. Affairs were in this condition when the tzar Alexis, in all the vigor of manhood, was taken sick and died. He was then in the forty-sixth year of his age. His first wife, Maria Miloslouski, had died several years before him, leaving two sons and four daughters. His second wife, Natalia Nariskin, to whom he was married in the year 1671, still lived with her two children, a son, Peter, who was subsequently entitled the Great, as being the most illustrious monarch Russia has known, and a daughter Natalia.

Alexis, notwithstanding the unpropitious promise of his youth, proved one of the wisest and best princes Russia had known for years. He was a lover of peace, and yet prosecuted war with energy when it was forced upon him. His oldest surviving son, Feodor, who was but eighteen years of age at the time of his father's death, succeeded to the crown. Feodor, following the counsel which his father gave him on his dying bed, soon took military possession of nearly all of the Ukraine. The Turks entered the country again, but were repulsed with severe loss. Apprehensive that they would speedily return, the tzar made great efforts to secure a friendly alliance with Poland, in which he succeeded by paying a large sum of money in requital for the provinces of Smolensk and Kiof which his arms had recovered.

In the spring of 1678, the Turks again entered the Ukraine with a still more formidable army than the year before. The campaign was opened by laying siege to the city Czeherin, which was encompassed by nearly four hundred thousand men, and, after a destructive cannonade, was carried by storm. The garrison, consisting of thirty thousand men, were put to the sword. The Russian troops were so panic-stricken by this defeat, that they speedily retreated. The Turks pursued them a long distance, constantly harassing their rear. But the Turks, in their turn, were compelled to retire, being driven back by famine, a foe against whom their weapons could make no impression.

The Ottoman Porte soon found that little was gained by waging war with an empire so vast and sparsely settled as Russia, and that their conquest of the desolated and depopulated lands of the Ukraine, was by no means worth the expenses of the war. The Porte was therefore inclined to make peace with Russia, that the Turkish armies might fall upon Poland again, which presented a much more inviting field of conquest. The Poles were informed of this through their embassador at Constantinople, and earnestly appealed to the tzar of Russia, and to all the princes in Christendom to come to their aid. The selfishness which every court manifested is humiliating to human nature. Each court seemed only to think of its own aggrandizement. Feodor consented to aid them only on condition that the Poles should renounce all pretension to any places then in possession of Russia. To this the Polish king assented, and the armies of Russia and Poland were again combined to repel the Turks.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REGENCY OF SOPHIA.

From 1680 to 1697.

Administration of Feodor.—Death of Feodor.—Incapacity of Ivan.—Succession of Peter.—Usurpation of Sophia.—Insurrection of the Strelitzes.—Massacre in Moscow.—Success of the Insurrection.—Ivan and Peter Declared Sovereigns under the Regency of Sophia.—General Discontent.—Conspiracy against Sophia.—Her Flight to the Convent.—The Conspiracy Quelled.—New Conspiracy.—Energy of Peter.—He Assumes the Crown.—Sophia Banished to a Convent.—Commencement of the Reign of Peter.

Feodor, influenced by the wise counsels of his father, devoted much attention to the beautifying of his capital, and to developing the internal resources of the empire. He paved the streets of Moscow, erected several large buildings of stone in place of the old wooden structures. Commerce and arts were patronized, he even loaning, from the public treasury, sums of money to enterprising men to encourage them in their industrial enterprises. Foreigners of distinction, both scholars and artisans, were invited to take up their residence in the empire. The tzar was particularly fond of fine horses, and was very successful in improving, by importations, the breed in Russia.

Feodor had always been of an exceedingly frail constitution, and it was evident that he could not anticipate long life. In the year 1681 he married a daughter of one of the nobles. His bride, Opimia Routoski, was also frail in health, though very beautiful. Six months had hardly passed away ere the youthful empress exchanged her bridal robes and couch for the shroud and the tomb. The emperor himself, grief-stricken, was rapidly sinking in a decline. His ministers almost forced him to another immediate marriage, hoping that, by the birth of a son, the succession of his half brother Peter might be prevented. The dying emperor received into his emaciate, feeble arms the new bride who had been selected for him, Marva Matweowna, and after a few weeks of languor and depression died. He was deeply lamented by his subjects, for during his short reign of less than three years he had developed a noble character, and had accomplished more for the real prosperity of Russia than many a monarch in the longest occupation of the throne.

Feodor left two brothers—Ivan, a brother by the same mother, Eudocia, and Peter, the son of the second wife of Alexis. Ivan was very feeble in body and in mind, with dim vision, and subject to epileptic fits. Feodor consequently declared his younger brother Peter, who was but ten years of age, his successor. The custom of the empire allowed him to do this, and rendered this appointment valid. It was generally the doom of the daughters of the Russian emperors, who could seldom find a match equal to their rank, to pass their lives immured in a convent.

Feodor had a sister, Sophia, a very spirited, energetic woman, ambitious and resolute, whose whole soul revolted against such a moping existence. Seeing that Feodor had but a short time to live, she left her convent and returned to the Kremlin, persisting in her resolve to perform all sisterly duties for her dying brother. Ivan, her own brother, was incapable of reigning, from his infirmities. Peter, her half-brother, was but a child. Sophia, with wonderful energy, while tending at the couch of Feodor, made herself familiar with the details of the administration, and, acting on behalf of the dying sovereign, gathered the reins of power into her own hands.

As soon as Feodor expired, and it was announced that Peter was appointed successor to the throne, to the exclusion of his elder brother Ivan, Sophia, through her emissaries, excited the militia of the capital to one of the most bloody revolts Moscow had ever witnessed. It was her intention to gain the throne for the imbecile Ivan, as she doubted not that she could, in that event, govern the empire at her pleasure. Peter, child as he was, had already developed a character of self-reliance which taught Sophia that he would speedily wrest the scepter from her hands.

The second day after the burial of Feodor, the militia, or strelitzes as they were called, a body of citizen soldiers in Moscow, corresponding very much with the national guard of Paris, surrounded the Kremlin, in a great tumult, and commenced complaining of nine of their colonels, who owed them some arrears of pay. They demanded that these officers should be surrendered to them, and their demand was so threatening that the court, intimidated, was compelled to yield. The wretched officers were seized by the mob, tied to the ground naked, upon their faces, and whipped with most terrible severity. The soldiers thus overawed opposition, and became a power which no one dared resist. Sophia was their inspiring genius, inciting and directing them through her emissaries. Though some have denied her complicity in these deeds of violence, still the prevailing voice of history is altogether against her.

Sophia, having the terrors of the mob to wield, as her executive power, convened an assembly of the princes of the blood, the generals, the lords, the patriarch and the bishops of the church, and even of the principal merchants. She urged upon them that Ivan, by right of birth, was entitled to the empire. The mother of Peter, Natalia Nariskin, now empress dowager, was still young and beautiful. She had two brothers occupying posts of influence at court. The family of the Nariskins had consequently much authority in the empire. Sophia dreaded the power of her mother-in-law, and her first efforts of intrigue were directed against the Nariskins. Her agents were everywhere busy, in the court and in the army, whispering insinuations against them. It was even intimated that they had caused the death of Feodor, by bribing his physician to poison him, and that they had attempted the life of Ivan. At length Sophia gave to her agents a list of forty lords whom they were to denounce to the insurgent soldiery as enemies to them and to the State.

This was the signal for their massacre. Two were first seized in the palace of the Kremlin, and thrown out of the window. The soldiers received them upon their pikes, and dragged their mutilated corpses through the streets to the great square of the city. They then rushed back to the palace, where they found Athanasius Nariskin, one of the brothers of the queen dowager. He was immediately murdered. They soon after found three of the proscribed in a church, to which they had fled as a sanctuary. Notwithstanding the sacredness of the church, the unhappy lords were instantly hewn to pieces by the swords of the assassins. Thus frenzied with blood, they met a young lord whom they mistook for Ivan Nariskin, the remaining brother of the mother of Peter. He was instantly slain, and then the assassins discovered their error. With some slight sense of justice, perhaps of humanity, they carried the bleeding corpse of the young nobleman to his father. The panic-stricken, heartbroken parent dared not rebuke them for the murder, but thanked them for bringing to him the corpse of his child. The mother, more impulsive and less cautious, broke out into bitter and almost delirious reproaches. The father, to appease her, said to her, in an under tone, "Let us wait till the hour shall come when we shall be able to take revenge."

Some one overheard the imprudent words, and reported them to the mob. They immediately returned, dragged the old man down the stairs of his palace by the hair, and cut his throat upon his own door sill. They were now searching the city, in all directions, for Von Gaden the German physician of the late tzar, who was accused of administering to him poison. They met in the streets, the son of the physician, and demanded of him where his father was. The trembling lad replied that he did not know. They cut him down. Soon they met another German physician.

"You are a doctor," they said. "If you have not poisoned our sovereign you have poisoned others, and deserve death."

He was immediately murdered. At length they discovered Von Gaden. He had attempted to disguise himself in a beggar's garb. The worthy old man, who, like most eminent physicians, was as distinguished for humanity as for eminent medical skill, was dragged to the Kremlin. The princesses themselves came out and mingled with the crowd, begging for the life of the good man, assuring them that he had been a faithful physician and that he had served their sovereign with zeal. The soldiers declared that he deserved to die, as they had positive proof that he was a sorcerer, for, in searching his apartments, they had found the skin of a snake and several reptiles preserved in bottles. Against such proof no earthly testimony could avail.

They also demanded that Ivan Nariskin, whom they had been seeking for two days, should be delivered up to them. They were sure that he was concealed somewhere in the Kremlin, and they threatened to set fire to the palace and burn it to the ground unless he were immediately delivered to them. It was evident that these threats would be promptly put into execution. Firing the palace would certainly insure his death. There was the bare possibility of escape by surrendering him to the mob. The empress herself went to her brother in his concealment and informed him of the direful choice before him. The young prince sent for the patriarch, confessed his sins, partook of the Lord's Supper, received the sacrament of extreme unction in preparation for death, and was then led out, by the patriarch himself, dressed in his pontifical robes and bearing an image of the Virgin Mary, and was delivered by him to the soldiers. The queen and the princesses accompanied the victim, surrounding him, and, falling upon their knees before the soldiers, they united with the patriarch in pleading for his life. But the mob, intoxicated and maddened, dragged the young prince and the physician before a tribunal which they had constituted on the spot, and condemned them to what was expressively called the punishment of "ten thousand slices." Their bodies were speedily cut into the smallest fragments, while their heads were stuck upon the iron spikes of the balustrade.

These outrages were terminated by a proclamation from the soldiery that Ivan and Peter should be joint sovereigns under the regency of Sophia. The regent rewarded her partisans liberally for their efficient and successful measures. Upon the leaders she conferred the confiscated estates of the proscribed. A monument of shame was reared, upon which the names of the assassinated were engraved as traitors to their country. The soldiers were rewarded with double pay.

Sophia unscrupulously usurped all the prerogatives and honors of royalty. All dispatches were sealed with her hand. Her effigy was stamped upon the current coin. She took her seat as presiding officer at the council. To confer a little more dignity upon the character of her imbecile brother, Ivan, she selected for him a wife, a young lady of extraordinary beauty whose father had command of a fortress in Siberia. It was on the 25th of June, 1682, that Sophia assumed the regency. In 1684 Ivan was married. The scenes of violence which had occurred agitated the whole political atmosphere throughout the empire. There was intense exasperation, and many conspiracies were formed for the overthrow of the government. The most formidable of these conspiracies was organized by Couvanski, commander-in-chief of the strelitzes. He was dissatisfied with the rewards he had received, and, conscious that he had placed Sophia upon the throne through the energies of the soldiers he commanded, he believed that he might just as easily have placed himself there. Having become accustomed to blood, the slaughter of a few more persons, that he might place the crown upon his own brow, appeared to him a matter of but little moment. He accordingly planned to murder the two tzars, the regent Sophia and all the remaining princes of the royal family. Then, by lavishing abundant rewards upon the soldiers, he doubted not that he could secure their efficient coöperation in maintaining him on the throne.

The conspiracy was discovered upon the eve of its accomplishment. Sophia immediately fled with the two tzars and the princes, to the monastery of the Trinity. This was a palace, a convent and a fortress. The vast pile, reared of stone, was situated thirty-six miles from Moscow, and was encompassed with deep ditches, and massive ramparts bristling with cannon. The monks were in possession of the whole country for a space of twelve miles around this almost impregnable citadel. From this safe retreat Sophia opened communications with the rebel chief. She succeeded in alluring him to come half way to meet her in conference. A powerful band of soldiers, placed in ambush, seized him. He was immediately beheaded, with one of his sons, and thirty-seven strelitzes who had accompanied him.

As soon as the strelitzes in Moscow, numbering many thousands, heard of the assassination of their general and of their comrades, they flew to arms, and in solid battalions, with infantry, artillery and cavalry, marched to the assault of the convent. The regent rallied her supporters, consisting of the lords who were her partisans, and their vassals, and prepared for a vigorous defense. Russia seemed now upon the eve of a bloody civil war. The nobles generally espoused the cause of the tzars under the regency of Sophia. Their claims seemed those of legitimacy, while the success of the insurrectionary soldiers promised only anarchy. The rise of the people in defense of the government was so sudden and simultaneous, that the strelitzes were panic-stricken, and soon, in the most abject submission, implored pardon, which was wisely granted them. Sophia, with the tzars, surrounded by an army, returned in triumph to Moscow. Tranquillity was thus restored.

Sophia still held the reins of power with a firm grasp. The imbecility of Ivan and the youth of Peter rendered this usurpation easy. Very adroitly she sent the most mutinous regiments of the strelitzes on apparently honorable missions to the distant provinces of the Ukraine, Kesan, and Siberia. Poland, menaced by the Turks, made peace with Russia, and purchased her alliance by the surrender of the vast province of Smolensk and all the conquered territory in the Ukraine. In the year 1687, Sophia sent the first Russian embassy to France, which was then in the meridian of her splendor, under the reign of Louis XIV. Voltaire states that France, at that time, was so unacquainted with Russia, that the Academy of Inscriptions celebrated this embassy by a medal, as if it had come from India.[10] The Crimean Tartars, in confederacy with the Turks, kept Russia, Poland, Hungary, Transylvania, and the various provinces of the German empire in perpetual alarm. Poland and Russia were so humiliated, that for several years they had purchased exemption from these barbaric forays by paying the Tartars an annual tribute amounting to fifty thousand dollars each. Sophia, anxious to wipe out this disgrace, renewed the effort, which had so often failed, to unite all Europe against the Turks. Immense armies were raised by Russia and Poland and sent to the Tauride. For two years a bloody war raged with about equal slaughter upon both sides, while neither party gained any marked advantage.