The Empire of Russia Part 17

And now domestic griefs came to darken the palace of Ivan. For thirteen years he had enjoyed all the happiness which conjugal love can confer. Anastasia was still in the brilliance of youth and beauty, when she was attacked by dangerous sickness. As she was lying upon her couch, helpless and burning with fever, the cry of fire was heard. The day was excessively hot; the windows of the palace all open, and a drouth of several weeks made every thing dry as tinder. The conflagration commenced in an adjoining street, and, in a moment, volumes of flame and smoke were swept by the wind, enveloping the Kremlin, and showering upon it and into it, innumerable flakes of fire. The queen was thrown into a paroxysm of terror; the attendants hastily placed her upon a litter and bore her, almost suffocated, through the blazing streets out of the city, to the village of Kolomensk. The emperor then returned to a.s.sist in arresting the conflagration. He exposed himself like a common laborer, inspiring others with intrepidity by mounting ladders, carrying water and opposing the flames in the most dangerous positions. The conflagration proved awful in its ravages, many of the inhabitants peris.h.i.+ng in the flames.

This calamitous event was more than the feeble frame of Anastasia could endure. She rapidly failed, and on the 7th of August, 1560, she expired. The grief of Ivan was heartrending, and never was national affliction manifested in a more sincere and touching manner. Not only the whole court, but almost the entire city of Moscow, followed the remains of Anastasia to their interment. Many, in the bitterness of their grief, sobbed aloud. The most inconsolable were the poor and friendless, calling Anastasia by the name of mother. The anguish of Ivan for a time quite unmanned him, and he wept like a child. The loss of Anastasia did indeed prove to Ivan the greatest of earthly calamities. She had been his guardian angel, his guide to virtue.

Having lost his guide, he fell into many errors from which Anastasia would have preserved him.

In the course of a few months, either the tears of Ivan were dried up, or political considerations seemed to render it necessary for him to seek another wife. Notwithstanding the long hereditary hostility which had existed between Russia and Poland, perhaps _in consequence of it_, Ivan made proposals for a Polish princess, Catharine, sister of Sigismond Augustus, the king. The Poles demanded, as an essential item in the marriage contract, that the children of Catharine should take the precedence of those of Anastasia as heirs to the throne. This iniquitous demand the tzar rejected with the scorn it merited. The revenge in which the Poles indulged was characteristic of the rudeness of the times. The court of Augustus sent a white mare, beautifully caparisoned, to Ivan, with the message, that such a wife he would find to be in accordance with his character and wants. The outrageous insult incensed Ivan to the highest degree, and he vowed that the Poles should feel the weight of his displeasure. Catharine, in the meantime, was married to the Duke of Finland, who was brother to the King of Sweden, and whose sister was married to the King of Denmark.

Thus the three kingdoms of Poland, Sweden and Denmark, and the Duchy of Finland were strongly allied by matrimonial ties, and were ready to combine against the Russian emperor.

Ivan IV. nursed his vengeance, waiting for an opportunity to strike a blow which should be felt. Elizabeth was now Queen of England, and her emba.s.sador at the court of Russia was in high favor with the emperor.

Probably through his influence Ivan showed great favor to the Lutheran clergy, who were gradually gaining followers in the empire. He frequently admitted them to court, and even listened to their arguments in favor of the reformed religion. The higher clergy and the lords were much incensed by this liberality, which, in their view, endangered the ancient usages, both civil and religious, of the realm, and a very formidable conspiracy was organized against the tzar.

Ivan IV. was apprised of the conspiracy, and, with singular boldness and magnanimity, immediately a.s.sembled his leading n.o.bles and higher clergy in the great audience-chamber of the Kremlin. He presented himself before them in the glittering robes and with all the insignia of royalty. Divesting himself of them all, he said to his astonished auditors,

"You have deemed me unworthy any longer to occupy the throne. I here and now give in my abdication, and request you to nominate some person whom you may consider worthy to be your sovereign."

Without permitting any reply he dismissed them, and the next day convened all the clergy of Moscow in the church of St. Mary. A high ma.s.s was celebrated by the metropolitan, in which the monarch a.s.sisted, and he then took an affecting leave of them all, in a solemn renunciation of all claims to the crown. Accompanied by his two sons, he retired to the strong yet secluded castle of Caloujintz, situated about five miles from Moscow. Here he remained several days, waiting, it is generally supposed, for a delegation to call, imploring him again to resume the crown. In this expectation he was not disappointed. The lords were unprepared for such decisive action. In their councils there was nothing but confusion. Anarchy was rapidly commencing its reign, which would be followed inevitably by civil war.

The partisans of the emperor in the provinces were very numerous, and could be rallied by a word from him; and no one imagined that the emperor had any idea of retiring so peacefully. It was not doubted that he would soon appear at the head of an army, and punish relentlessly the disaffected, who would all then be revealed. The citizens, the n.o.bles and the clergy met together and appointed a numerous deputation to call upon the emperor and implore him again to resume the reins of power.

"Your faithful subjects, sire," exclaimed the pet.i.tioners, "are deeply afflicted. The State is exposed to fearful peril from dissension within and enemies without. We do therefore most earnestly entreat your majesty, as a faithful shepherd, still to watch over his flock; we do entreat you to return to your throne, to continue your favor to the deserving, and not to forsake your faithful subjects in consequence of the errors of a few."

Ivan listened with much apparent indifference to this pathetic address, and either really felt, or affected, great reluctance again to resume the cares of royalty. He requested a day's time to consider their proposal. The next morning the n.o.bles were again convened, and Ivan acquainted them with his decision. Rebuking them with severity for their ingrat.i.tude, reproaching them with the danger to which his life had been exposed through their conspiracy, he declared that he could not again a.s.sume the cares and the perils of the crown. Still his refusal was not so decisive as to exclude all room for further entreaties. They renewed their supplications with tears, for Russia was, indeed, exposed to all the horrors of civil war, should Ivan persist in his resolve, and it was certain that the empire, thus distracted, would at once be invaded by both Poles and Turks.

Thus importuned, Ivan at last consented to return to the Kremlin. He resolved, however, to make an example of those who had conspired against him, which should warn loudly against the renewal of similar attempts. The princ.i.p.al movers in the plot were executed. Ivan then surrounded himself with a body guard of two hundred men carefully selected from the distant provinces, and who were in no way under the influence of any of the lords. This body guard, composed of low-born, uneducated men, incapable of being roused to any high enthusiasm, subsequently proved quite a nuisance.

Ivan IV. had but just resumed his seat upon the throne when couriers from the southern provinces brought the alarming intelligence that an immense army of combined Tartars and Turks had invaded the empire and were on the rapid march, burning and destroying all before them.

Selim, the son and successor of Solyman the Magnificent, entered into an alliance with several oriental princes, who were to send him succors by the way of the Caspian Sea, and raised an army of three hundred thousand men. These troops were embarked at Constantinople, and, crossing the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof, entered Tauride. Here they were joined by a reinforcement of Crimean Tartars, consisting of forty thousand well-armed and veteran fighters. With this force the sultan marched directly across the country to the Russian city and province of Astrachan, at the mouth of the Volga.

But a heroic man, Zerebrinow, was in command of the fortresses in this remote province of the Russian empire. He immediately a.s.sembled all his available troops, and, advancing to meet the foe, selected his own ground for the battle in a narrow defile where the vast ma.s.ses of the enemy would only enc.u.mber each other. Falling upon the invaders unexpectedly from ambuscades, he routed the Turks with great carnage.

They were compelled to retreat, having lost nearly all their baggage and heavy artillery. The triumphant Russians pursued them all the way back to the city of Azof, cannonading them with the artillery and the ammunition they had wrested from their foes. Here the Turks attempted to make a final stand, but a chance shot from one of the guns penetrated the immense powder magazine, and an explosion so terrific ensued that two thirds of the city were entirely demolished.

The Turks, in consternation, now made a rush for their s.h.i.+ps. But Zerebrinow, with coolness and sagacity which no horrors could disturb, had already planted his batteries to sweep them with a storm of bullets and b.a.l.l.s. The cannonade was instantly commenced. The missiles of death fell like hail stones into the crowded boats and upon the crowded decks. Many of the s.h.i.+ps were sunk, others disabled, and but a few, torn and riddled, succeeded in escaping to sea, where the most of them also perished beneath the waves of the stormy Euxine. Such was the utter desolation of this one brief war tempest which lasted but a few weeks.

Queen Elizabeth, anxious to maintain friendly relations with an empire so vast, and opening before her subjects such a field of profitable commerce, having been informed of the conspiracy against Ivan IV., of his abdication, and of his resumption of the crown, sent to him an emba.s.sador with expressions of her kindest wishes, and a.s.sured him that should he ever be reduced to the disagreeable necessity of leaving his empire, he would find a safe retreat in England, where he would be received and provided for in a manner suitable to his dignity, where he could enjoy the free exercise of his religion and be permitted to depart whenever he should wish.

The tolerant spirit manifested by Ivan IV. towards the Lutherans, continued to disturb the ecclesiastics; and the clergy and n.o.bles of the province of Novgorod, headed by the archbishop, formed a plot of dissevering Novgorod from the empire, and attaching it to the kingdom of Poland. This conspiracy a.s.sumed a very formidable att.i.tude, and one of the brothers of the tzar was involved in it. Ivan immediately sent an army of fifteen thousand men to quell the revolt. We have no account of this transaction but from the pens of those who were envenomed by their animosity to the religious toleration of Ivan. We must consequently receive their narratives with some allowance.

The army, according to their account, ravaged the whole province; took the city by storm; and cut down in indiscriminate slaughter twenty-five thousand men, women and children. The brother of Ivan IV.

was seized and thrown into prison, where he miserably perished. The archbishop was stripped of his canonical robes, clad in the dress of a harlequin, paraded through the streets on a gray mare, an object of derision to the people, and then was imprisoned for life. Such cruelty does not seem at all in accordance with the character of Ivan, while the grossest exaggeration is in accordance with the character of all civil and religious partisans.

War with Poland seems to have been the chronic state of Russia.

Whenever either party could get a chance to strike the other a blow, the blow was sure to be given; and they were alike unscrupulous whether it were a saber blow in the face or a dagger thrust in the back. In the year 1571, a Russian army pursued a discomfited band of Livonian insurgents across the frontier into Poland. The Poles eagerly joined the insurgents, and sent envoys to invite the Crimean Tartars to invade Russia from Tauride, while Poland and Livonia should a.s.sail the empire from the west. The Tartars were always ready for war at a moment's notice. Seventy thousand men were immediately on the march.

They rapidly traversed the southern provinces, trampling down all opposition until they reached the Oka. Here they encountered a few Russian troops who attempted to dispute the pa.s.sage of the stream.

They were, however, speedily overpowered by the Tartars and were compelled to retreat. Pressing on, they arrived within sixty miles of the city, when they found the Russians again concentered, but now in large numbers, to oppose their progress. A fierce battle was fought.

Again the Russians were overpowered, and the Tartars, trampling them beneath their horses' hoofs, with yells of triumph, pressed on towards the metropolis. The whole city was in consternation, for it had no means of effectual resistance. Ivan IV. in his terror packed up his most valuable effects, and, with the royal family, fled to a strong fortress far away in the North.

From the battlements of the city, the banners of these terrible barbarians were soon seen on the approach. With bugle blasts and savage shouts they rushed in at the gates, swept the streets with their sabers, pillaged houses and churches, and set the city on fire in all directions. The city was at that time, according to the testimony of the cotemporary annalists, forty miles in circ.u.mference.

The weltering flames rose and fell as in the crater of a volcano, and in six hours the city was in ashes. Thousands perished in the flames.

The fire, communicating with a powder magazine, produced an explosion which uphove the buildings like an earthquake, and prostrated more than a third of a mile of the city walls. According to the most reliable testimony, there perished in Moscow, by fire and sword, from this one raid of the Tartars, more than one hundred and fifty thousand of its inhabitants.

The Tartars, tottering beneath the burden of their spoil, and dragging after them many thousand prisoners of distinction, slowly, proudly, defiantly retired. With barbaric genius they sent to the tzar a naked cimiter, accompanied by the following message:

"This is a token left to your majesty by an enemy, whose revenge is still unsatiated, and who will soon return again to complete the work which he has but just begun."

Such is war. It is but a succession of miseries. A hundred and fifty thousand Tartars perished but a few months before in the waves of the Euxine. Now, a hundred and fifty thousand Russians perish, in their turn, amidst the flames of Moscow. When we contemplate the wars which have incessantly ravaged this globe, the history of man seems to be but the record of the strifes of demons, with occasional gleams of angel magnanimity.

After the retreat of the Tartars, Ivan IV. convened a council of war, punished with death those officers who had fled before the enemy as he himself had done; and, rendered pliant by acc.u.mulated misfortune, he presented such overtures to the King of Poland as to obtain the promise of a truce for three years. Soon after this, Sigismond, King of Poland, died. The crown was elective, and the n.o.bles, who met to choose a new monarch, by a considerable majority invited Maximilian II., Emperor of Germany, to a.s.sume the scepter. They a.s.signed as a reason for this choice, which surprised Europe, the religious liberality of the emperor, who, as they justly remarked, had conciliated the contending factions of the Christian world, and had acquired more glory by his pacific policy than other princes had acquired in the exploits of war.

A minority of the n.o.bles were displeased with this choice, and refusing to accede to the vote of the majority, proceeded to another election, and chose Stephen Bathori, a warrior chief of Transylvania, as their sovereign.[9] The two parties now rallied around their rival candidates and prepared for war. Ivan IV. could not allow so favorable an opportunity to interfere in the politics of Poland to escape him.

He immediately sent emba.s.sadors to Maximilian, offering to a.s.sist him with all the power of the Russian armies against Stephen Bathori.

Maximilian gratefully acknowledged the generosity of the tzar, and promised to return the favor whenever an opportunity should be presented. At the same time, Stephen Bathori, who had already been crowned King of Poland, sent an emba.s.sador to Moscow to inform Ivan of his election and coronation, and to propose friendly relations with Russia. Ivan answered frankly that a treaty already existed between him and the Emperor Maximilian, but that, since he wished to live on friendly terms with Poland, whoever her monarch might be, he would send emba.s.sadors to examine into the claims of the rival candidates for the crown. Thus adroitly he endeavored to obtain for himself the position of umpire between Maximilian and Stephen Bathori. The death of the Emperor Maximilian on the 12th of October, 1576, settled this strife, and Stephen attained the undisputed sovereignty of Poland.

[Footnote 9: See Empire of Austria, page 181.]

Almost the first measure of the new sovereign, in accordance with hereditary usage, was war against Russia. His object was to regain those territories which the tzar had heretofore wrested from the Poles. Apparently trivial incidents reveal the rude and fierce character of the times. Stephen chivalrously sent first an emba.s.sador, Basil Lapotinsky, to the court of Ivan, to demand the rest.i.tution of the provinces. Lapotinsky was accompanied by a numerous train of n.o.bles, magnificently mounted and armed to the teeth. As the glittering cavalcade, protected by its flag of truce, swept along through the cities of Russia towards Moscow, and it became known that they were the bearers of an imperious message, demanding the surrender of portions of the Russian empire, the populace were with difficulty restrained from falling upon them.

Through a thousand dangers they reached Moscow. When there, Lapotinsky declared that he came not as a suppliant, but to present a claim which his master was prepared to enforce, if necessary, with the sword, and that, in accordance with the character of his mission, he was directed, in his audience with Ivan, to present the letter with one hand while he held his unsheathed saber in the other. The officers of the imperial household a.s.sured him that such bravado would inevitably cost him his life.

"The tzar," Lapotinsky replied, "can easily take my life, and he may do so if he please, but nothing shall prevent me from performing the duty with which I am intrusted, with the utmost exact.i.tude."

The audience day arrived. Lapotinsky was conducted to the Kremlin. The tzar, in his imperial robes glittering with diamonds and pearls, received him in a magnificent hall. The haughty emba.s.sador, with great dignity and in respectful terms, yet bold and decisive, demanded reparation for the injuries which Russia had inflicted upon Poland.

His gleaming saber was carelessly held in one hand and the letter to the tzar, from the King of Poland, in the other. Having finished his brief speech, he received a cimeter from one of his suite, and, advancing firmly, yet very respectfully, to the monarch, presented them both, saying,

"Here is peace and here is war. It is for your majesty to choose between them."

Ivan IV. was capable of appreciating the n.o.bility of such a character.

The intrepidity of the emba.s.sador, which was defiled with no comminglings of insolence, excited his admiration. The emperor, with a smile, took the letter, which was written on parchment in the Russian language and sealed with a seal of gold. Slowly and carefully he read it, and then addressing the emba.s.sador, said,

"Such menaces will not induce Russia to surrender her dominions to Poland. We, who have vanquished the Poles on so many fields of battle, who have conquered the Tartars of Kezan and Astrachan, and who have triumphed over the forces of the Ottoman empire, will soon cause the King of Poland to repent his rashness."

He then dismissed the emba.s.sador, ordering him to be treated with the respect due his high station. War being thus formally declared, both parties prepared to prosecute it with the utmost vigor. The tzar immediately commenced raising a large army, reinforced his garrisons, and sent a secret envoy to Tauride, to excite the Crimean Tartars to invade Poland on the south-east while Russia should make an a.s.sault from the north.

The Poles opened the campaign by crossing the frontiers with a large army, seizing several minor cities and laying siege to the important fortress of Polotzk. After a long siege, which const.i.tuted one of those terrific tragedies of blood and woe with which the pages of history are filled, but which no pen can describe and no imagination can conceive, the city, a pile of gory and smouldering ruins, fell into the hands of the Poles. Battle after battle, siege after siege ensued, in nearly all of which the Poles were successful. They were guided by their monarch in person, a veteran warrior, who possessed extraordinary military skill. The blasts of winter drove both parties from the field. But, in the earliest spring, the campaign was opened again with redoubled energy. Again the Poles, who had obtained strong reinforcements of troops from Germany and Hungary, were signally successful. Though the fighting was constant and arduous, the whole campaign was but a series of conquests on the part of Stephen, and when the snows of another winter whitened the fields, the Polish banners were waving over large portions of the Russian territory. The details of these scenes are revolting. Fire, blood and the brutal pa.s.sions of demoniac men were combined in deeds of horror, the recital of which makes the ears to tingle.

Before the buds of another spring had opened into leaf, the contending armies were again upon the march. Poland had now succeeded in enlisting Sweden in her cause, and Russia began to be quite seriously imperiled. Riga, on the Dwina, soon fell into the hands of the Poles, and their banners were resistlessly on the advance. Ivan IV., much dejected, proposed terms of peace. Stephen refused to treat unless Russia would surrender the whole of Livonia, a province nearly three times as large as the State of Ma.s.sachusetts, to Poland. The tzar was compelled essentially to yield to these hard terms.

The treaty of peace was signed on the 15th of January, 1582. Ivan IV.

surrendered to Poland all of Livonia which bordered on Poland, which contained thirty-four towns and castles, together with several other important fortresses on the frontiers. A truce was concluded for ten years, should both parties live so long. But should either die, the survivor was at liberty immediately to attack the territory of the deceased. No mention whatever was made of Sweden in this treaty. This neglect gave such offense to the Swedish court, that, in petty revenge, they sent an _Italian cook_ to the Polish court as an emba.s.sador with the most arrogant demands. Stephen very wisely treated the insult, which he probably deserved, with contempt.

The result of this war, so humiliating to Russia, rendered Ivan very unpopular. Murmurs loud and deep were heard all over the empire. Many of the n.o.bles threw themselves at the feet of the tzar and entreated him not to a.s.sent to so disgraceful a treaty, a.s.suring him that the whole nation were ready at his call to rise and drive the invaders from the empire. Ivan was greatly incensed, and petulantly replied that if they were not satisfied with his administration they had better choose another sovereign. Suspecting that his son was inciting this movement, and that he perhaps was aiming at the crown, Ivan a.s.sailed him in the bitterest terms of reproach. The young prince replied in a manner which so exasperated his father, that he struck him with a staff which he had in his hand. The staff was tipped with an iron ferule which unfortunately hit the young man on the temple, and he fell senseless at his father's feet.

The anguish of Ivan was unspeakable. His paroxysm of anger instantly gave place to a more intense paroxysm of grief and remorse. He threw himself upon the body of his son, pressed him fervently to his heart, and addressed him in the most endearing terms of affection and affliction. The prince so far revived as to be able to exchange a few words with his father, but in four days he died. The blow which deprived the son of life, for ever after deprived the father of peace.

He was seldom again seen to smile. Any mention of his son would ever throw him into a paroxysm of tears. For a long time he could with difficulty be persuaded to take any nourishment or to change his dress. With the utmost possible demonstrations of grief and respect the remains of the prince were conveyed to the grave. The death of this young man was a calamity to Russia. He was the worthy son of Anastasia, and from his mother he had inherited both genius and moral worth. By a subsequent marriage Ivan had two other sons, Feodor and Dmitri. But they were of different blood; feeble in intellect and possessed no requisites for the exalted station opening before them.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE STORMS OF HEREDITARY SUCCESSION.