“none of its citizens should ever be tried or punished out of the limits of its own territory.” b
From that moment he became supreme arbiter.
“Never,” say the annalists, “never since Rurik had such an event happened; never had the grand princes of Kiev and Vladimir seen the Novgorodians come and submit to them as their judges. Ivan alone could reduce Novgorod to that degree of humiliation.”
Seven
years were employed by Ivan to corrupt the republic by the exercise of his judicial authority.[113]’ Then, when he found its strength worn out, he thought the moment ripe for declaring himself. To doff his own mask of moderation, he wanted, on the part of Novgorod, a breach of the peace. As he had simulated calm endurance, so he simulated now a sudden burst of passion. Having bribed an envoy of the republic to address him during a public audience with the name of sovereign, he claimed, at once, all the rights of a despot-the self-annihilation of the republic.’ As he had foreseen, Novgorod answered his usurpation with an insurrection, with a massacre of the nobles, and the surrender to Lithuania. Then this Muscovite contemporary of Machiavelli complained with the accent and the gesture of moral indignation.