Ivan listened to them, but answered never a word. The next day he sent three of his boyars to make known his demands:—
"I will reign at Novgorod the Great as I do at home in Moscow. No longer shall the bell call you to council; the office of the posadnik shall cease; the whole principality shall be mine."
Six days the men of Novgorod took counsel together. It was in vain that the patriotic party shouted, "Let us die for liberty and Saint Sofia!" The treaty was signed, giving the old commonwealth fully into Ivan's power. He sent Lady Martha and her grandson and many of the chief citizens to Moscow, and seized their goods. When he himself returned to his capital the great tocsin of the Council went too, and was placed in the public square of the Kreml, together with the other bells, the emblems of liberty.
Afterwards, when Moscow was threatened with an invasion of the Golden Horde, the men of Novgorod took occasion once more to seek Kasimir's help, but the envoy had hardly left the city when Ivan suddenly appeared before them. His cannon thundered at the walls, and he sent word:—
"I am the guardian of the guiltless and your lord. Open the gates. When I enter the city I will spare the innocent."
At last the gates were opened and the people fell on their faces and begged for forgiveness, which the Grand Prince granted, saying, loud enough for all to hear,—
"I, your proprietor, grant peace to all the guiltless. Have no fear."
Nevertheless, after he had heard mass in Saint Sofia, and dined with the posadnik, he caused fifty of the chief enemies of Moscow to be clapped into prison. They, being put to the torture, named the chief bishop and many more as traitors. The chief bishop was stripped of his possessions and sent to a distant monastery under guard, a hundred of the patriots were put to death, and a hundred men-at-arms and merchants were banished to Eastern cities. Not even then did he cease his cruelty; he listened to any charges which the men of Novgorod made against each other, at one time putting four nobles to death, at another torturing thirty citizens, sacking their houses, and sending their wives and children into exile. At another time he caused several thousand men, women, and children to be transplanted to the towns of Suzdal and their places to be filled with merchants from other places.
BOSNIAN MERCHANT
Ivan struck one last and terrible blow at the prosperity of the old city when he pillaged the German market. The Grand-Master of the town of Reval had unjustly treated some Russian merchants. Ivan angrily demanded satisfaction from the Livonian Order. His demands were rejected with insults. He then forbade all dealings with the Germans, and arrested in Novgorod fifty of the Hanse merchants and put them in prison, where several of them died. He carried off to Moscow three hundred wagon-loads of gold, silver, jewels, furs, silks, and other precious merchandise. The tale of this violence was noised throughout Northern Europe, and it was many long years before the merchants of Reval and Riga, Dorpat and Narva, again made their appearance in Russian lands.
Thus the Grand Prince killed the goose which laid the golden eggs.
The Fate of Viatka, Tver, and the Princes.
Viatka, trusting to its distance from Moscow, and to the marshes and trackless forests between them, was fain to keep its independence, and on one occasion dared to be openly disobedient to the Grand Prince and to despise the commands of the Metropolitan. Ivan immediately sent his general Prince Daniel with an army of sixty-four thousand men against the city. When it drew nigh, the chief citizens came out and besought him not to make war upon them.
"We beat the forehead to the Grand Prince," said they, "we submit to his will, we will pay tribute and offer him our services."
Prince Daniel in reply demanded that all Viatka, small and great, should kiss the cross, and that the three ring-leaders should be given up to him.
"Give us till to-morrow to decide," cried the inhabitants. They sat in debate two days, and then sent word that they would not give up the three men; but when they saw the preparations made for storming the city, and the bark and pitch piled for kindling against their wooden walls, they repented and surrendered. Ivan knouted the three ringleaders and hanged them: the chief boyars were exiled to other domains along the southern boundaries of the province, and the merchants were colonized in a distant city.
Tver was free, but only in name; when Prince Michael, Ivan's brother-in-law, troubled at the growth of Moscow, had the imprudence to marry the grand-daughter of Kasimir IV., King of Poland and Prince of Lithuania, and make an offensive and defensive alliance, Ivan declared war. Tver was not strong enough to resist, no help came from the King, and Michael was forced to send his archbishop and sue for peace. He agreed to look upon Ivan and his son as elder brothers, to give up the friendship of Kasimir, and never again to have any dealings with him without Ivan's consent. Peace was granted on these conditions, but soon there arose disputes between the nobles of Moscow and Tver. Michael again turned to Lithuania. His message was intercepted, and the letter was taken to Ivan, who hailed the pretext with delight, and went out in person against his former ally.
When the army came under the walls of Tver the citizens met him and submitted themselves, saying that Prince Michael had fled by night to Lithuania. Thus a principality which could furnish forty thousand soldiers was added to Moscow without a blow. In like manner Ivan grafted on to his growing empire domain after domain. Pskof, as a reward for its docility and faithful service, was for a time allowed to keep its Council, its ancient institutions, and its bell. The Grand Prince of Riazan, a boy of only five, was in the care of his grandmother Anna, Ivan's sister. She, as well as the boyars and the soldiers, the nobles and the rustics, was entirely devoted to the Grand Prince of Moscow.
Ivan's brother George died, and he seized all his towns. Andrew, who had refused to march against the Eastern Tartars, ventured into Moscow and was thrown into prison. When the Metropolitan begged him to set his brother free, he replied,—
"I am sorry for my brother, and I have no wish to punish him and meet thy reproaches; but I cannot set him free because it is not once alone that he has done me harm, but even now he is plotting to be Grand Prince instead of my son. He has constantly tried to make discord among my children, and if he should succeed the Tartars would come again and take tribute and cause Christian blood to flow as before, and you would be slaves to the Tartars."
As he allowed George to die in prison, the clergy found it hard to forgive him. The Metropolitan and the bishops assembled in his palace; and he came before Ahem with mock humility, with downcast eyes bathed in tears, and accused himself of having been too cruel. Nevertheless he took George's domain and imprisoned his children. About the same time his brother Boris died leaving two sons; but Ivan added their domain to his own.
Thus he won the title, "The Collector of the Russian Lands."
How Ivan the Great
MARRIED A GRECIAN PRINCESS
When Ivan was a lad of twelve and beginning to share his father's throne, he was married to Maria, the daughter of Boris, Grand Prince of Tver. She did not live long: it is said that one of her women procured from a witch a magic belt which poisoned her. She left one son also named Ivan.
Two years later a Greek named George, ambassador from the Pope of Rome, made his appearance at Ivan's court, with a letter from Cardinal Bessarion.