ALL THROUGH THE YEARS of the Regency of Elena and of her successors Russia remained in little danger from her foes. A two-year war with the Grand Principality of Lithuania at the beginning of the Regency could be regarded as little more than a succession of border skirmishes. Lithuanian embassies were received, a peace treaty was signed, more skirmishes took place, and sometimes one of the Russian nobles, dissatisfied or fearing for his life, crossed the frontier, swore allegiance to the Grand Prince of Lithuania, and was rewarded with large estates in the hope that he would not betray his adopted country. Lithuania and Russia were sworn enemies doomed to fight until one was beaten to her knees or both were reduced to a state of exhaustion.
But if Lithuania no longer threatened her existence, Russia possessed another and more dangerous enemy in the southeast—the remnant of the Golden Horde. The Tatars, of mixed Turkic and Mongolian ancestry, yellow-skinned and slant-eyed, still occupied vast regions of the southern steppes, their khans ruling over Kazan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea, all of them with powerful armies at their disposal. The Grand Princes of Muscovy made treaties with them, invited Tatar ambassadors and traders to Moscow, arranged marriages between the princely families of Russia and the families of the khans who entered the Tsar’s service, and always addressed the khans with the respect due to royalty. Tatar blood flowed in the veins of many Russian princely families, and many claimed that both Rurik and Jenghiz Khan were among their ancestors. Russian culture was deeply colored by the culture of the Tatars, and the Russian language borrowed1 lavishly from the rich, earthy language of these tribesmen who rode bareback on shaggy ponies and thought nothing of riding across the whole length of Asia. Their songs and heroic poetry deeply influenced Russian poetry, and their way of life subtly influenced the Russian character.
All this was inevitable, for the Tatar armies had swept across Russia, burning, pillaging, and raping as they pleased, demanding and receiving tribute from the Russian princes who were compelled to appear in person before the Khan of the Golden Horde in his tent-city of Sarai on the Lower Volga. The first wave of invaders came in 1223 at the orders of Jenghiz Khan. It was led by Sabutai and Jebei the Arrow, who was one of the world’s greatest conquerors, for he led the invasion against China, and then against Persia, and then against Georgia, and then against Russia. The invaders fought the Russian army led by Prince Mstislav of Galich on the Kalka River between the Don and the Caspian, and when the battle was over, nearly all the Russians lay dead and all southern Russia lay open to the invaders. Sabutai and Jebei the Arrow then turned to attack the Bolgars on the Upper Volga. For the moment Russia was forgotten, while they attacked and destroyed the army of the Bolgars.
Fourteen years later Batu, the grandson of Jenghiz Khan, ordered Sabutai to conquer Russia. Sabutai was prepared to accept the submission of the Russian princes without fighting. Ambassadors were sent ahead with the Mongol prince’s demands: Surrender a tenth of all property and a tenth of the population, or else you lose everything. The Russians killed the ambassadors, and Batu ordered the second invasion. Ryazan fell after a six-day siege, and then it was the turn of Vladimir. The Russian army fell back on the river Sit, two hundred miles northwest of Vladimir, and was completely destroyed. Sabutai’s army rode north until it was within sixty miles of Novgorod, and was within a few days of establishing an empire reaching from the Pacific to the Baltic when the order was given to turn back. The spring thaws would soon be coming, and soon the North Russian plains would become an impenetrable morass of mud and melting snows. The city that called itself Lord Novgorod the Great remained unharmed, but all the Russian principalities had ceased to exist or existed only by favor of the invaders.
Thus most of Russia became a colony of the Golden Horde with the princes acting as agents and tax gatherers of the conquerors, a role which they performed sometimes with fervor and sometimes with distaste but nearly always with alacrity. Tribute was sent regularly to the reigning Khan, and the princes appeared at Sarai to receive their titles and to pronounce oaths of loyalty. Occasionally a prince rebelled against the Tatar yoke, murdered the envoys from Sarai, called out his army, and proclaimed a holy war against the infidels. Then from Sarai there would come the abrupt order commanding one of the other princes to suppress the rebellion or lose his principality. In this way Russians fought against Russians to maintain the pax tatarica.
Gradually the principality of Moscow, which received many favors from the Khan for putting down many rebellions, grew to become the preponderant power in Russia. Moscow in the time of Jebei the Arrow was no more than a small frontier post on the edge of the marshes. It grew to become a large city, pushing out its boundaries and forming alliances on a scale that threatened the power of the Golden Horde. Mamay, the commander of the Tatar army in the reign of Khan Murid, decided that the time had come to put an end to Russian insolence. He advanced on Russia and met the army of Grand Prince Dmitry of Moscow at Kulikovo Field on September 8, 1380. Mamay fled after losing half his cavalry, Dmitry lost half his infantry. Here, on the banks of the Upper Don, the Russians showed that they were determined to wrest power from the Tatars. Never again were they to live in abject fear of the Golden Horde.
The invasions continued, large areas of southern Russia were continually being raided, but the invaders were no longer capable of enforcing their demands for tribute. By the time of Ivan IV the once-powerful Golden Horde had disintegrated into the separate khanates of Astrakhan, Kazan, and the Crimea, and some marauding tribes under their chieftains. Astrakhan and Kazan were fortified cities; Bakhchisaray in the southern Crimea was a city of palaces; and all were ruled by khans who claimed descent from Jenghiz Khan. Still another khanate was deliberately created by the Grand Prince of Muscovy within his own territory. It lay on the Oka River south of Moscow and was called Kasimov after Khan Kasim, its first ruler. Kasimov served as the headquarters of the Tatars who took service under the Grand Prince. This khanate, completely under the jurisdiction of the Grand Prince, also served to remind the Khans of Astrakhan, Kazan, and the Crimea that Muscovy could call upon thousands of Tatars to defend its territory. Within this small territory people who were once subjects of the Great Khan had become the subjects of the Grand Prince.
The Khanate of Kasimov provided the Grand Princes of Muscovy with a powerful psychological weapon against the Tatar khans on the Volga and in the Crimea. The very fact that it had been possible to create such a state showed that the Tatars were divided; and the resourceful Russians took care to sharpen this thorn in their side. Kasimov’s khans were given precedence above all Russians except the Grand Prince and his family. They were received in the Kremlin with the honors due to kings, even though they ruled over a comparatively small territory consisting of the town of Gorodets, which means “little town,” and the surrounding area. For the Russians Kasimov was a gateway to the East, a trade mart, an intelligence center, a recruiting office. Here disaffected Tatar princelings found aid and comfort offered on a lavish scale and prepared themselves for endless intrigues against the khans.
These khans were also engaged in far-reaching intrigues. When Ivan Belsky came to power, he had the mortification of knowing that his younger brother Simeon, who had fled to Lithuania in 1534, was now acting as chief adviser to the Khan of the Crimea and planning an invasion of Russia. This was treachery on a grand scale. Simeon Belsky never hesitated in his efforts to destroy Russia. All his life he had been a destructive influence, an ambitious intriguer, corrupt and volatile, hating and despising his older brothers perhaps because they occupied high positions at court which were denied to him.
This time there was a very real possibility that the invasion would be successful. Khan Saip Guirey was in close alliance with the Sultan of Turkey, Sulayman the Magnificent, and could count on heavy Turkish guns and trained Turkish gunners. He was also in alliance with the Grand Prince of Lithuania. The plan of attack involved a massive concentration of forces from three directions, from Lithuania in the west, from Kazan in the east, and from the Crimea in the south. Three large armies reaching Moscow simultaneously would hammer it into submission, and all of Russia would be divided between the Tatars and the Lithuanians.
Khan Saip Guirey was a proud and forceful man with a clear understanding of what he wanted to do. In a letter addressed to the Grand Prince Ivan, not yet eleven years old, he announced that he was coming to destroy the state of Muscovy and enslave its peoples. He wrote in the authentic tones of the early Khans of the Golden Horde: “I shall come upon you, I shall stand before Moscow in your estate on the Sparrow Hills, I shall let loose my army in all directions, I shall enslave your land.” It was not an empty boast. He had a vast army, massive armaments, trusted allies. In addition he had Simeon Belsky, who could speak authoritatively about the strength and disposition of the Russian forces.
In July 1541 a scout in one of the forward frontier posts reported that the khan was advancing with his troops along the upper course of the Donets River. He said he had followed them for a whole day and estimated there were a hundred thousand troops. Later another scout reached Moscow with the news that the enemy had crossed the Don River, and there were so many of them that they were beyond counting. Later still it was learned that the new stone fortress at Zaraisk, the strongest fortress on Russia’s southern frontier, had been attacked, but the garrison fought off the invaders and even captured some Tatar soldiers. They were carried off to Moscow where they boasted that their khan would soon cross the Oka River and ravage all the territories surrounding the capital. They also confirmed that Simeon Belsky was traveling with the khan.
Moscow was placed in a state of alert. Dmitry Belsky assumed overall command of the army, while Ivan Belsky directed the defense of the capital. Ivan Shuisky with his own army joined forces with the army of Shigaley, the Khan of Kasimov, at Vladimir, where they hoped to head off an invading army led by Safa Guirey, the Khan of Kazan. Dmitry Belsky made his headquarters at Kolomna directly in the path of the Crimean Tatars.
Although Ivan was a mere boy, quite incapable of making military decisions, he played an important role in the defense of Moscow. He was the totem, the figurehead, all the more appealing because he was young, vigorous, deeply religious, and perhaps in direct communion with God and the saints. His kingdom was threatened; never before in his reign had there been a full-scale invasion by the Tatars. Accompanied by his brother Yury, arrayed in the royal robes, he prayed earnestly with tears in his eyes for divine intercession. The brothers fell on their knees before the icon of the Virgin of Vladimir in the Uspensky Cathedral. “Oh, most holy Sovereign Mother of God, be merciful unto us Christians,” he prayed. “Be merciful to us, your children, and save us and all Christendom from the infidel Khan Saip Guirey, who is advancing against me and against all the Russian land with great confidence. Protect me and all the Russian land, and be merciful lest the infidels say: Where is their God in whom they put their trust?”
Then, rising from their knees, the brothers made their way to the tomb of St. Peter the Metropolitan, who was believed to have taken the city of Moscow under his special care. Ivan urged the saint, who resembled “a bright candle guarding over our family and over all Orthodox Christians,” to pray earnestly to God on behalf of Muscovy threatened with extinction. There were more icons to be visited, and then at last Ivan returned to the Kremlin Palace, where the Boyar Council was waiting for him.
The question to be decided was whether Ivan should remain in Moscow or whether he should be removed to a safer place. The decision, Ivan said, remained in their hands and he appealed to them to offer their arguments and come to a conclusion. Historical precedents were discussed. It was remembered that in 1408 Khan Edigey came up to the walls of Moscow, and the Grand Prince Vasily I, leaving his brothers to defend the city, rode off to Kostroma and during the journey was very nearly captured by the Tatars. Such were the dangers of leaving Moscow, and these dangers would be compounded when the Grand Prince set out from Moscow. “Our Grand Prince is young and his brother is even younger,” one of the boyars said. “Their endurance is short and they are not experienced horsemen. How fast can one ride with little children?”
The Metropolitan Ioasaf wanted Ivan and Yury to remain in the Kremlin, urging that there was really nowhere else for them to go. In the past, when the Tatars invaded Muscovy, the Grand Princes had sometimes taken refuge in the fortified towns in the east, but today these towns stood in the path of the army coming from Kazan. Retreat to Novgorod or Pskov in the north would bring them too close to the Lithuanian frontier. The Metropolitan spoke about the holy churches and holy relics within the Kremlin, and how they would serve to protect the Grand Prince and all of Muscovy. Woe to those who abandoned them!
The Metropolitan carried the boyars with him: it was decided that Ivan should remain within the Kremlin. Orders for the defense of Moscow were issued in Ivan’s name. Gunners and musketeers were stationed along the walls and at the towers. Kitay Gorod, the densely populated section of Moscow east of the Kremlin, was heavily fortified, and the people were ordered to bring all their movable property behind the defense works. The chroniclers report that morale was high, and the people went about promising one another they would be steadfast unto death for the holy churches, for the Grand Prince, and for their own homes.
When news reached Moscow that the Tatars were building pontoon bridges over the Oka River, a proclamation was drawn up in the name of the Grand Prince and immediately dispatched to Dmitry Belsky. The proclamation called upon the army to resist the aggressors to the uttermost and on no account must they be permitted to cross the river. “But if it should happen that the Khan succeeds in crossing the river, then you must hold fast for the sake of the holy churches and the Orthodox Christians and fight the Tatars with God’s help. I shall reward you and your children, and those of you whom God shall take will have their names entered in The Book of Life, and I shall give rewards to their wives and children.”
The proclamation had the desired effect of demonstrating that Ivan was deeply concerned with the welfare of his army. Dmitry Belsky read the proclamation first to his generals and then to the assembled troops, who replied that they were all ready to lay down their lives for Orthodox Christianity. “We are well armed,” they declared, “and we are prepared now to drink the cup of death with the Tatars.” The proclamation reached the army just in time. Dmitry Belsky, observing the enthusiasm of the soldiers, gave the order for the advance on the Oka River.
The Army of the Crimea reached the Oka River at three o’clock in the afternoon of July 30, 1541. The Tatar engineers had already laid down pontoons near the small town of Rostislavl, and a massive crossing was about to take place when the Russian army appeared on the opposite bank. Khan Saip Guirey set up his headquarters on a hill overlooking the river. Only the first detachment of Dmitry Belsky’s army had reached the river bank, but they were so numerous that for a while the Khan thought he was confronted with the entire Russian army. It was a hot summer day, and the arms and armor of the Russians glittered in the sun. The Khan pressed his advantage: his troops raced across the pontoons, the Turkish guns opened up, the Tatar archers drew their bows and the arrows fell on the Russians thick as rain. This relentless, massive attack sent a shudder through the Russian lines, which faltered and were close to breaking. But more and more Russian troops came up and the lines held.
Soon the heavy Russian guns were answering the fire of the Turkish guns, and the Tatars were being forced off the north bank of the river. From his headquarters Khan Saip Guirey saw the Russians coming up, column after column, all in good order. He turned angrily to Simeon Belsky and said, “I was told the Grand Prince’s army was off to Kazan and there would be no one here to challenge me. Never have I seen so many well-equipped men on excellent horses in one place, and my old Tatars—men who have taken part in many campaigns—say the same.” Simeon Belsky had encouraged the Khan with the promise of an easy conquest, but there was to be no easy conquest.
The Khan held a council of war with his princes and learned that what he feared above all was taking place—endless columns of Russians were converging on the river. When night fell, the fighting slackened off. During the night the Russians mounted more guns on the river bank, more troops came up, and the Khan became more and more convinced that his forces would never succeed in establishing themselves on the north bank. Before morning he had decided to break off the engagement. The Russian chroniclersrelate with some satisfaction that he lost his nerve to such an extent that he was unable to mount his horse and had to be carried away in a cart. The whole Tatar army fled south.
Dmitry Belsky was confronted with a serious problem: whether to pursue the retreating Tatars. He feared an ambush; he feared, too, the consequences of breaking a traditional practice, for the Russian armies rarely pursued a retreating enemy. He solved the problem by resorting to half-measures. A small force made up of men chosen from all the regiments was ordered to follow the Tatars in the hope of picking off the stragglers, capturing prisoners, and hurrying the Tatar retreat across the southern steppes. From the prisoners it was learned that the Khan was in a state of abject despair and had told his princes that in spite of all his efforts he had achieved only dishonor. At the very least he had hoped to wound Russia grievously, and now, even though in full retreat, he was determined to exact vengeance by taking the town of Pronsk, a well-fortified outpost in Ryazan province. If he could capture its treasure, enslave its people, and put it to the flames, he would be partially rewarded for an ignominious defeat.
The Khan’s army arrived before Pronsk on August 3, and immediately attacked the town with a barrage of gunfire from Turkish guns and missiles hurled by catapults. The town was defended by a small garrison without heavy weapons. Tatars who attempted to scale the walls were thrown back by men armed only with pikes and stones. The walls held; the people of Pronsk were confident they would be rescued; the commander of the garrison troops knew that a Russian column was on its way. A delegation of Tatar dignitaries rode up to the city walls to parlay with the commander, offering him rich rewards if he surrendered the town, “because the Khan will not depart until he has taken it.” The commander replied, “This town was built by the will of God and therefore it cannot be taken without God’s will. The Khan should be patient! Soon the Grand Prince’s officers will be following in the footsteps of the Tatars.”
The threat was well-founded, but the Khan was determined to take the town. Wooden towers and scaling ladders were brought up; orders were issued for a general assault on all sides; the garrison commander urged the townspeople to mount guard on the walls with whatever weapons lay at hand: knives, rocks, boiling water. About this time seven men, forerunners of the relief column, slipped into the town with the news that the column was only a few miles away. When one of the townspeople was captured by the Tatars and brought into the presence of the Khan, the prisoner declared boldly that the Tatars would soon have to meet the full force of the Russian army. The Khan panicked, ordered the siege lifted, and sped south in the direction of the Don River. When the relief column arrived at Pronsk, all the Tatars had already fled.
In Moscow the church bells rang in celebration of the victory. Ivan’s triumph was complete. “Sovereign, we conquered by your angelic prayers and your good fortune,” they told him, and he believed them.
Figurehead, talisman, object of adoration, symbol of Russian dynastic traditions, offerer of angelic prayers, he was all of these and much more, but he was also a child who could be manipulated by desperate men. No one in Moscow was more popular, more beloved, more angelic, but he was at the mercy of the boyar factions. He was very close to Ivan Belsky, a man of steady intelligence, and it seemed that at long last the Regency was being managed skillfully, without brutality. The Regent had deliberately allowed Ivan Shuisky to go free after he was toppled from power: no savage reprisals, no secret arrests. On the contrary, Ivan Shuisky was given command of the army at Vladimir, a position of trust, for the Muscovites expected an attack by the army of the Khan of Kazan. But there was no attack. Ivan Shuisky, restless and ambitious, determined once more to become Regent and saw his opportunity. He possessed an army, a power base, in Vladimir, and spies working for him inside the Kremlin. He had long family connections with the people of Novgorod, and the nobles and gentry from Novgorod joined his faction. With the help of Prince Ivan Kubensky, Prince Dmitry Paletsky, and the state treasurer Ivan Tretiakov, he engineered a plot so breathtakingly simple that it was almost bound to succeed. The plot called for the simultaneous arrests of the Grand Prince Ivan, the Metropolitan Ioasaf, and Ivan Belsky in the depths of the night. On the following day Ivan Shuisky, accompanied by three hundred armed men from Vladimir, would enter the Kremlin in triumph.
Everything happened exactly as the conspirators wanted it to happen. Ivan Belsky knew nothing whatsoever about the plot and had taken no precautions for his own safety. On the night of January 2, 1542, armed men burst into his palace, arrested him, and carried him off to the well-guarded Treasury building near the Kremlin Palace.
About the same time, at five o’clock in the morning, when it was still very dark, Ivan was roughly awakened by a group of boyars who burst into the Kremlin Palace. They ordered the terrified boy to get up and to say his prayers in front of the icons in his bedroom. While he was at his prayers the Metropolitan Ioasaf arrived at the Kremlin Palace. He had been awakened by stones thrown at his window, and suspecting a plot he had fled along the covered arcade leading from his own palace to the Kremlin Palace, hoping to warn Ivan and lead him to safety. In fact he fell into the trap. The boyars who arrested Ivan were about to arrest the Metropolitan, but he slipped away and reached the lodging house belonging to the abbot and priests of the Troitsa-Sergeyevsky Monastery near the Troitsky Gate of the Kremlin, while a group of nobles from Novgorod followed hot on his heels. There was a good deal of wild shouting. Prince Dmitry Paletsky, one of the leaders of the conspiracy, arrived just in time to prevent the killing of the Metropolitan. The conspirators had achieved their aims: Ivan Belsky and the Metropolitan were under arrest, Ivan was at their mercy, and the Kremlin gates could now be opened to Ivan Shuisky and his three hundred armed men from Vladimir.
The first task of the new Regent, who reached the Kremlin later in the day, was to decide the fate of Ivan Belsky and of the Metropolitan. This was a pleasant and satisfying task: he consigned both of them to Beloozero (White Lake) in the far north where Ivan Belsky spent the few remaining months of his life in prison, while the Metropolitan Ioasaf was consigned to a cell in the Kirillov Monastery. Some of Ivan Belsky’s close companions and advisers were exiled to their country estates. Makary, Archbishop of Novgorod and Pskov, became the new Metropolitan.
The coup d’etat had become the normal means of acquiring power, and the Muscovites were growing accustomed to a quick succession of rulers. Foreign affairs suffered little change. When ambassadors arrived in the Kremlin, they were received by Ivan with the traditional ceremonies. So it happened that when Lithuanian ambassadors arrived in March, Ivan welcomed them, attended by the new Regent and by Dmitry Belsky, who as permanent president of the Boyar Council had the place of honor on Ivan’s right side. A seven-year truce with Lithuania was signed in the great hall of the Kremlin Palace on March 25, 1542. The treaty was placed on a salver, a cross was placed over the treaty, and Ivan solemnly kissed the cross. The chroniclers remembered that the eleven-year-old boy presented the ambassadors with goblets filled with a cherry cordial and spoke to them with grave dignity. In public he behaved with decorum; in private he seethed with rage.
He had reason to rage, for he was suffering from intolerable frustrations. No sooner had he settled down with a new Regent than the Regent himself vanished from the scene. Life had become a series of brutal submissions all the more galling because the Grand Prince was surrounded with the panoply of power and was continually addressed as though he, and he alone, was in full possession of power. Ivan Belsky had treated him with deference, but Ivan Shuisky treated him with contempt. He was made painfully aware that he was not the master of his own household. Many years later he could still remember the slights he had received at the hands of the Regent and the other Shuiskys who filled his court. He wrote:
The Shuiskys treated us—myself and my brother—as though we were foreigners or the most wretched menials. What sufferings I endured through lack of clothing and from hunger! For in all things my will was not my own (I had no will); everything was done contrary to my will, in a manner unbefitting my tender years. I recall one incident. I and my brother were playing together when we were quite young, and there was Prince Ivan Vasilievich Shuisky sitting on a bench, his elbows on my father’s bed, his leg up in a chair, and he did not even incline his head toward us either in a parental manner or as a master, nor did he show any humility toward us. Who can endure such arrogance?
Such wounds festered and in time they would poison his whole organism. The study of revenge became his main preoccupation, his main solace. He was waiting impatiently for the moment when he would be able to break through his bonds and overthrow the tyranny of the princes who ordered his life and regarded him as a puppet. In theory he would come of age at fifteen. Then he would rule in his own right and no one would give him orders again.
Ivan Shuisky did not long enjoy his power. He died in May 1542 of natural causes and was succeeded by his cousin Andrey. In the same month Ivan Belsky died in prison in Beloozero. According to one report he was starved to death, according to another he was murdered. What is certain is that Andrey Shuisky wanted him out of the way and deliberately destroyed him. At his death Belsky was about forty years old, a quiet, scholarly, and deeply religious man who appears to have accepted his fate with equanimity.
Andrey Shuisky was a man trained in conspiracy and a notorious mischief-maker. Many years earlier he had been responsible for the arrest of Prince Yury of Dmitrov, who was Ivan’s uncle, charging him with treason. In 1539 he became governor of Pskov, where he displayed such a talent for exacting bribes that it became necessary to remove him. An able extortionist, he was now at the height of his powers and determined to use Ivan for his own ends. As the senior member of the Shuisky clan, the most cunning and the most experienced, he set about consolidating his power. At all costs Ivan must be prevented from forming close friendships with people outside the Shuisky faction.
Among Ivan’s close friends was Fyodor Vorontsov, a middle-aged man belonging to a well-known boyar family. He had served Ivan’s father and was known to possess an intense loyalty to the throne and a deep affection for the person of the Grand Prince. His presence in the Kremlin Palace infuriated the Shuiskys, who decided to rid themselves of him.
On September 9, 1542, there was a meeting of the Boyar Council in the dining hall of the Kremlin Palace. The Shuiskys were present in force. Ivan sat on his throne, and the Metropolitan Makary sat on another throne at a lower level. Suddenly there was a commotion, for the Shuiskys had caught sight of Fyodor Vorontsov. There was some wild shouting, and then the Shuiskys and their followers jumped up and hurled themselves on Vorontsov, who defended himself as best he could, but was no match for his enemies. They manhandled him, tore at his clothes, beat him across the face, and carried him off into an anteroom. Ivan was appalled. He asked Metropolitan Makary and the two boyars Ivan and Vasily Morozov to run after them. It was clear that the Shuiskys intended to murder Vorontsov either within the palace or just outside.
The Metropolitan had been appointed by the Shuiskys and they may have expected he would be obedient to him. But he was a man of peace who had been outraged by the uproar in the dining hall, and he acted vigorously. He demanded and received on the cross the promise that Vorontsov would not be killed. He then asked that Vorontsov should be freed, but this was refused. Vorontsov was carried off to a private prison on the farther side of the Neglinnaya River.
Although the Shuiskys had promised not to kill Vorontsov but to exile him to some far distant place, Ivan feared the worst. The Metropolitan and the Morozovs were again sent to parley with the Shuiskys. Hot words were exchanged, a crowd gathered around the Metropolitan, and a certain Foma Golovin deliberately stepped on the hem of the Metropolitan’s robe so that it was ripped to shreds. The Morozovs were attacked from behind. Nevertheless they were able to report to Ivan that they were certain Vorontsov would suffer no bodily harm if he agreed to go into exile in Kostroma. Ivan bided his time. He had developed a towering hatred for Andrey Shuisky and in due course he would exact a terrible vengeance.
Within the Kremlin Palace and during the long pilgrimages to the outlying monasteries, the ceremonial life continued. The Shuiskys ruled in Ivan’s name, and from time to time Ivan received ambassadors, recited statements written by people he detested, and mechanically fulfilled the rituals demanded of a Grand Prince. When he looked back on his short life, he realized that he had been continually slighted and used by others for their own advantage. The rigid mask he presented to the world on ceremonial occasions concealed a ferocious despair and a consummate understanding of the uses of violence. He brooded, read the Scriptures, especially the passages dealing with the conspiracies in the courts of the Kings of Israel, and sometimes acted like a normal boy, playing games with his deaf-mute brother Yury. But violence was in the air, and the time was soon coming when he would use it for his advantage.
In September 1543, shortly after his thirteenth birthday, Ivan set out for the annual pilgrimage to the Troitsa-Sergeyevsky Monastery. That year the pilgrimages were unusually protracted and he did not return to Moscow until the end of November. The weather was exasperating; there were heavy rains, the Moskva River overflowed its banks, and because it was so cold ice floes formed, causing considerable damage. In winter, under gray skies, the Kremlin is a forbidding place. Ivan, returning reluctantly to the Kremlin Palace, was in the worst of tempers.
What he dreaded most of all was the audiences he was compelled to grant to the Shuiskys, especially the Regent, Andrey Shuisky, who had been a thorn in his side during all the years he could remember. He decided to act. Andrey Shuisky attended an audience on December 29, 1543. He came alone, unarmed, without his private guards. Suddenly Ivan ordered his arrest. In the normal course of events a man arrested in the Kremlin Palace would be given over to the palace guards, chained, and carried off to one of the small cells near the Kremlin wall. Instead, Ivan arranged that his prisoner should be given over to the tender mercies of the keeper of the hounds. The dog boys clubbed the Regent to death and then flung his body outside the Kuriatny Gate.
According to the Moscow chronicle written a decade later, Ivan merely ordered the arrest of Andrey Shuisky. “The Grand Prince was unable to bear the lack of decorum and the willful acts of the boyars who exceeded their authority,” wrote the chronicler. “With their fellows they committed many unauthorized killings and subjected the land to many wrongs during the minority of the Sovereign. So the Grand Prince gave orders to arrest their leader Prince Andrey Shuisky.” Many years later Ivan himself edited the chronicle, adding the words: “The boyars committed many shameful acts in the presence of the Grand Prince and offended his dignity.” The Moscow chronicler wrote: “From this time the boyars began to fear the Grand Prince.” To this statement Ivan added words which must have given him a grave satisfaction. He wrote: “and became obedient to him.”
At the age of thirteen Ivan committed his first murder. He would learn that murder was an effective weapon, wonderfully satisfying in its speed and finality. He learned, too, that there are degrees of murder and that the effects of murder are sometimes incalculable. Machiavelli had observed that when a man seizes power, it is incumbent on him to be cruel, for otherwise the people will not grant him their untrammelled respect. Ivan had learned his lesson. Henceforth he would be murderous whenever he pleased.
1 Many familiar Russian words, especially those dealing with trade, food, clothing, horses, and precious stones, were borrowed from Tatar. Among them were tma (ten thousand), dengi (money), kazna (treasury), tamozhnia (custom house), balagan (booth), bashmak (shoe), tabun (drove of horses).