Note 15 — Chapter VI · THE PRINCESS ASKS ME TO ASSIST HER.

Dimitri Tzarevitch was the son of Ivan the Terrible, the last of the house of Ruric, and was said to have been killed at the age of nine at Ouglitch. He of whom the Princess speaks was a pretender, a runaway novice, so it is said. But historians differ as to this. Some say that when Boris Godounoff (the Russian Oliver Cromwell) planned to kill Dimitri, some faithful friends hid the Tzarevitch, and sent him to the Polish Court, where he was brought up, and that afterwards he came into Russia with many adherents and an army of several thousands, the majority of whom were Poles. He reigned less than a year, being killed during an insurrection, 1595-96.