While the nobles were thus struggling for their own ends the two young princes were left to themselves. George was feeble-minded, but Ivan was "gifted with great talents." He was a lad of quick temper and open to all impressions, good or bad. The hard circumstances in which he was placed seemed to bring out and strengthen his character. For three years he had been Grand Prince in form, and he clearly saw that the very boyars, who in private were most insolent and lawless, at the receptions of foreign envoys appeared before his throne in the attitude of cringing slaves. It was his signature which made a law of force among the people. Even if he had not been bright enough to see for himself the power which his name and title bore, there failed not to be men around him who, out of envy or worldly wisdom, filled his mind with distrust of his self-appointed tutors. He also read much and eagerly studied sacred and profane history, the rise and fall of empires, the Russian annals, and the works of the holy fathers. He had no fear of using too cruel measures. As a boy, says one of his early biographers, he delighted to kill animals and see the blood flow, and in all such brutal pleasures he was praised by his guardians. He had an example, too, in the way that his friends and favorites were treated. It was dangerous for boyars to show him any attention or do him any favor: banishment or poison was their reward. He saw that he must be wary, but at last the time drew nigh for him to show his hand.
The Christmas festival had just been celebrated. Ivan, who was about fourteen years old, unexpectedly called the boyars before him and sternly upbraided them for their conduct: "Many of you are guilty," he said, but I will make example of only one." At his nod the guard seized Andrew Shuiski, the regent, and gave him to the dogs, who tore him to pieces on the spot. Others who fell under his displeasure were banished.
The surprise which this sudden action of the young prince caused was a complete success: "From that time forth," says the annalist, "the boyars began to fear their master and obey him."
How Ivan IV. Took the Title of Tsar
AND BEGAN TO RULE WISELY
After the destruction of the Shuiskis the family of Ivan's mother, the Glinskis, came to the aid of the young prince, who continued to indulge all the passions which his tutors had kindled. He tore out the tongues of his nobles and mutilated those on whom his displeasure fell. He gathered around him a band of reckless young nobles, with whom he played on the streets and squares, fighting, jostling against old women, trampling upon little children, and robbing every one who came in his way. His flatterers shouted, "Oh, brave will be this Prince and manly!"
One day, when he was sixteen, Ivan called before him the Metropolitan and all the boyars, even those who wore their hair long, because they were in disgrace, and proceeded to address them:—
By the mercy of God, and his all-pure Mother, by the prayers and grace of the great wonder-workers, Peter, Alexis, John, Sergi, and all the Russian wonder-workers in whom I put my trust, and with thy blessing, Holy Father, I propose to marry. At first I thought to marry a foreign princess, the daughter of some king or tsar, but afterwards I gave up the thought. I have no wish to marry a foreign princess, for if I marry a wife from a strange land we may not agree, and life would be hard for us. Therefore I wish to marry in my own realm and God will bless it."
The annalist says that the Metropolitan and the boyars wept for very joy at the speech of their young prince; and he continued,—
With thy blessing, my father, and the council of our nobles, I wish before my marriage to perform the ancestral ceremonial as did my forefathers, the tsars and grand princes, and our ancestor, Vladimir Monomak, and mount the throne."
ALLEGORICAL PICTURE OF THE TSAR
Again the boyars rejoiced that their young prince was minded to perform the ancient ceremonial, but they were marvellously surprised that he should take the title of Tsar, which neither his father nor his grandfather had taken. He had read too much, however, not to know that the great kings of the past, Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, David and Solomon, Augustus and Constantine, all bore in the Russian books and Scriptures the title of Tsar; Russian princes and Tartar kans served as his "domestics;" the title of Grand Prince no longer expressed the empire which he wielded: he was the head of a mighty state; hence, at his coronation he took the title about which clustered so many brilliant associations.
Meantime a circular-letter was sent to all the nobles and men-at-arms throughout the land:—
"When these, our letters, reach you, it shall be your duty instantly to repair with your unmarried daughters, if such you have, to our lieutenant in the city for inspection. Conceal not your marriageable daughters under any pretext. Whoever shall conceal a marriageable daughter and not bring her to our lieutenant, on him shall be our great disfavor."
The choice fell upon Anastasia, the young daughter of an ancient family of Moscow, whose father was held in great honor by the Grand Prince Basil. Soon after his marriage a series of misfortunes came upon the young Tsar. Fires broke out; the great bell of the Assumption Cathedral fell to the ground; then there came another fire, such as had never been seen in Moscow; the flames spread like lightning, swept along the river, leaped across to the roof of the Assumption, burned the palaces of the Metropolitan and the Tsar, the arsenal with all its arms, the treasury, the Church of the Annunciation, with the sacred screen and the treasures which the people had left. The Metropolitan, in trying to save the cathedral, was almost suffocated by the smoke; he barely escaped with the picture of the Virgin. The Assumption was spared. The Tsar took his wife, his brother, and his nobles, and fled to a near village, but the most of the city was in ashes; seventeen hundred people perished by the disaster.
The day after the fire it began to be whispered about that the town was burned by magic, that certain people of high station had taken human hearts, soaked them in water, and with the water sprinkled the streets and houses. The whisperings grew into voices. Five days after the fire, on a Sunday, several nobles came into the square before the Assumption, and collected the black people, that is to say, the lower classes, and began to ask, "Who set Moscow on fire?" And the people, who hated the Glinskis, gave a cry, "The Princess Anna Glinskaia and her children and her servants have been working magic." This was what the boyars wanted, because the Glinskis were near the throne and in favor. Neither Prince Michael Glinski, Ivan's grandfather, nor the aged Princess Anna was at this time in Moscow, but George was with the boyars in the square. When he heard the shouts he feared for his life and took refuge in the cathedral. The people, urged by the boyars, rushed after him, killed him, and dragged his body from the Kreml to the market-place. Then they broke into his palace, killed his servants, and left everything desolate. Three days later the mob hastened to the Tsar at his village, and, with loud cries, demanded the Princess Anna and her son. Ivan himself was in danger; with difficulty he succeeded in dispersing the mob. He knew well enough that it was the returned exiles, the Shuiskis, who raised this revolt; he had no intention of yielding to them. But the spectacle of his burning city greatly affected his mind; he saw that his course of life was wrong. A priest, Sylvester, from Novgorod the Great, appeared before him and began to upbraid him from the holy books. In after years Ivan wrote:—