[Contents]CHAPTER XXDOWNFALL OF THE HORDEIn 1471 Feofil, the archbishop, was anointed in Moscow, and obtained from the Grand Prince release for boyars in detention. The next year Ivan married Sophia Palaeologus, a niece of Constantine, the last Emperor of Constantinople. Ivan’s first wife, Maria, a Tver princess, had died six years earlier. When the Turks captured Tsargrad, in 1453, the younger brothers of the Emperor, Dmitri and Thomas, were despots or rulers in Negropont, but instead of helping each other, they exhausted their forces in fighting, and in 1460 their possessions fell to the Osmanli. Dmitri yielded toMohammedII, gave him a daughter for his harem, and lived upon Mussulman bounty. But Thomas, a prouder and more determined man than his brother, left his wife in Corfu, and journeyed to Rome, thinking to find there not merely a refuge, but aid to win back his dominion.The papal throne was then held by the well-known Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who was Pope Pius II. He received very cordially this Palaeologus, who had remained faithful to the Florentine union, and assigned him a generous pension. Thomas brought to the Pope a most precious relic: the head of Saint Andrew, which was met with great honor by the clergy and placed in St. Peter’s. To this relic the former despot added another: the hand of John the Baptist. Pius II now announced a crusade to expel the Osmanli, and wished to take personal part in it, but death struck him soon, and Palaeologus himself died the following year, 1465, while waiting for his family, which had already reached Ancona.His eldest child, Helena, a widow of Lazar II, the Serbian king, retired to a convent; two sons, and Zoe (Sophia), a daughter, still remained. They settled in Rome under papal protection. By[464]the will of their father their guardian was Vissarion, that cardinal who, after Isidor’s death, was made titular Patriarch of Tsargrad. He had the young men and their sister reared carefully, and strove to inspire them with attachment, not to church union alone, but to the Latin Church specially. Princess Sophia had not passed out of childhood when both the Pope and Vissarion were seeking a husband for her among princely houses in Italy, and elsewhere. But those efforts ended unsuccessfully, partly because the girl had no dowry, and partly because of intriguing.Vissarion’s attention rested at last on Ivan of Moscow. It was no great task to incline the Pope toward this marriage. It is known that the Curia strove to bring Russia to its spiritual guidance whenever a chance came. What Isidor had not accomplished, that is, the union of the Churches, the Pope now planned to effect through Sophia. Moreover he saw in Ivan fresh aid against the Osmanli.Ivan was pleased with this marriage into a house with which he was related already,—his aunt, Anna, the sister of his father, had been wife of John, the eldest brother of Thomas Palaeologus. Sixtus IV, Pope at that time, received very graciously the envoys who came for the bride and brought rich presents. The chief of these envoys was Giovanni Battista Volpe of the city of Vicenza, who, employed at the mint, lived in Moscow, and was known there as Ivan Friazine. The Pope and the Sacred College spoke to the envoys as if the Russian Church had joined the Florentine union already. Sixtus, like those who preceded him, thought to drive out the Osmanli, and had formed a league to that end, both with Naples and Venice. In May he blessed banners for that enterprise, and three days later the marriage of Sophia was solemnized in the Basilica of St. Peter. Then Sophia and her suite and Ivan Friazine, who represented the Grand Prince, were sent on their way accompanied by the papal legate, Antonio, to whom, as it seems, was committed the task of establishing the Florentine union in Russia.They journeyed through Italy and Germany to Lubeck, where they took ship, and after sailing eleven days on the Baltic, reached Revel; thence they passed through Pskoff and Novgorod to Moscow. The legate, Antonio, in a red robe and hat, and wearing red gloves which he never removed, had a crucifix borne before him as he passed through the cities. He made no sign of the cross[465]in Orthodox churches, and kissed no images, as did Sophia and those who were with her. This roused much scandal among Orthodox people, who remembered the Latin apostasy of Isidor. Reports of these facts reached Moscow and the council at once considered how to act with the legate. Ivan sought advice from the metropolitan, Philip, who answered that if Antonio entered Moscow with the crucifix at one gate, he would leave the city directly by another gate. That he who honors a strange faith belittles the faith of his own land. Ivan sent a boyar to have the legate hide the cross in his equipage, and after some opposition Antonio yielded to this request. The marriage took place the day of Sophia’s arrival.For form’s sake, it was needful to make some decision regarding Antonio, whose special mission it was to unite the two Churches. They arranged a discussion between him and Philip, who called in Nikita, a man of deep reading, who, if we credit the chronicle, talked with such wisdom that the legate was forced to declare that he had not the books which he needed. In every case he soon saw that there was no chance of union. Still he remained eleven weeks in Moscow, after which Ivan dismissed him with honor. The envoys who had come with Sophia from her brothers returned to Rome also. The Grand Prince sent gifts of great value to the Pope, and also to Sophia’s brothers. Ivan, related by this marriage to the Greek and Roman Cæsars, now adopted the double eagle for the arms of Russia, still to be seen in its archaic form in the “Palais à Facettes” of the Kremlin. His seal bore on one side an eagle, on the other a horseman trampling a dragon. On this seal was the inscription “Grand Prince by the Grace of God, Sovereign of Russia.”The confidence of Rome in Sophia was baseless. She carried from Rome, as seems evident, ideas not touching on gratitude, and had bitter memories of what she had passed through in many ways. On her long journey to Moscow she had time to think over her position, and was no doubt advised by the keen Greeks who accompanied her. Ivan Friazine himself, who knew the Grand Prince very well, might have opened her eyes in church matters. Sophia not only rejected the union in which she had been reared, but adhered to the Orthodox Church very firmly. She was a woman of strong character, and bore the Mongol yoke with impatience.[466]Having great influence over Ivan, she incited him continually to struggle against its oppression.We must now turn to Novgorod. The late war and peace with Ivan had greatly intensified the conflict of parties. Popular government, which had existed for centuries in that Commonwealth, had lost the best points of its character. No matter how unequal were the powers in this struggle with Moscow, only a cracked and shattered system could be so weak as was Novgorod. The boyars, freed from Moscow detention, strengthened the Boretski adherents, who began promptly to pour out their hatred of Moscow on Moscow adherents. The struggle was limited no longer to mob meetings; violence began, and whole streets were plundered. Once a number of boyars, with the city posadnik, Anani, as their leader, assembled a party of followers, and attacked two streets, wounding and robbing their enemies who lived there. Another time Panfil, an elder, with boyars, and a party of similar character, broke into the houses of other boyars, beat their servants, and bore off much property. When such were the acts of men in authority, whose duty it was to keep order, it is clear that there was anarchy in Novgorod. The opponents of the widow and her sons could find noprotectionat home; hence they turned to the Grand Prince.Ivan delayed not in making his answer. Setting out in the autumn of 1475 with a large armed attendance, he sent a courier in advance with the tidings that he was on the way to his inheritance, Great Novgorod. Barely had he entered the lands of the city when people came forth with complaints of oppression. Later on boyars and men of importance received him with presents, as did the archbishop, Prince Shuiski, the posadnik, and others.November 21, the Grand Prince arrived at the Gorodische, and went to mass there. On the twenty-third he entered Novgorod officially, and prayed in Sophia Cathedral. He dined with the archbishop and returned to the Gorodische. His military forces found lodgings in monasteries.The unexpected arrival of the Grand Prince confused the partisans of Kazimir. They were silent and tried to rival their opponents in hospitality to Ivan. The Grand Prince dined once with Prince Shuiski, and thrice with the archbishop. He feasted once at the house of the former posadnik; he dined also with the commander and with notable boyars. At each house many casks[467]of wine from “beyond the sea,” mead in barrels, rich cloth, foreign gold, tusks of walrus, trained falcons, sables, horses, gold goblets filled with pearls, horns mounted in silver, and silver dishes, were presented to him. It is evident that Novgorod men did their best to surpass one another.But the stern widow did not bend to the Grand Prince. Martha Boretski offered neither hospitality nor presents. The former posadniks, merchants, and rich men, who did not succeed in feasting Ivan, came to him with gifts and with homage. The posadnik and the commander brought one thousand rubles from the city. Ivan gave a banquet himself, to which Prince Shuiski, the posadnik, many merchants, and wealthy persons were invited. The Grand Prince sat long at table with his guests, gave them fine garments, rich goblets, sabres, and horses.But feasting did not draw Ivan from the object of his coming. He received Novgorod complainants who sought for redress of injustice. Touching the street attack by boyars, Ivan commanded to arrest the chief offenders, the posadnik Vassili Anani, and the boyars Bogdan Osipoff, Feodor Boretski, and Ivan Lashinski. In accordance with Novgorod rule, Ivan required the Assembly to attach its own officers with his to the defendants. The comrades of those offenders were freed on the archbishop’s recognizance in the sum of fifteen hundred rubles.After the case had been examined, Ivan rendered judgment against the defendants. On the archbishop’s security they were freed from imprisonment, but had to pay fifteen hundred rubles indemnity to the injured, and a fine to the Grand Prince. The four main criminals, despite all petitions, were sent under guard and in fetters to Moscow.After a stay of nine weeks, Ivan went back to Moscow. Besides the four boyars, he gave command to arrest Ivan Afonasoff and his son, Olferi, because they had plotted to surrender Novgorod to King Kazimir. From Moscow the condemned boyars were sent to Kolomna and to Murom.Thus Ivan seized the chief leaders of Kazimir’s party, and gave Novgorod an example of his justice, which punished men without reference to wealth or position.Novgorod men, finding no protection at home, went to Moscow with complaints against powerful offenders. The Grand Prince[468]then summoned those offenders to his capital, a thing never done up to his day. Among the complainants and offenders to be met in Moscow were Novgorod men of distinction,—for example, a former posadnik, Zahari Ovin, and the boyar, Vassili Nikifor. The latter, though a leader of the Kazimir party, gave an oath of some kind to the Grand Prince. Many members of the party, considering their cause lost, passed to the other side. The adherents of Moscow had now grown so confident that, with the archbishop as their leader, they acted with decision.In the winter of 1477 there came to the Grand Prince a document from the archbishop and all Novgorod. In this document the Grand Prince was called Gosudar (sovereign), and not Gospodin (lord), as had been the case up to that day. Ivan somewhat later sent as envoys to Novgorod two boyars to ask what kind of “Gosudarstvo” (sovereignty) Novgorod men wanted. The Moscow envoys appeared before the Assembly and asked if Novgorod men, having called Ivan sovereign, would yield now the Yaroslav court to him, have his representatives on all streets, and leave his judges in freedom. The people were stunned by these questions. The majority shouted at the envoys, said their statement was a falsehood, and declared that the Assembly had never called Ivan a sovereign, that no document had ever been sent to him with that word in it.Kazimir’s party hastened now to rouse public rage against Moscow. A furious storm rose immediately. The people remembered those boyars who had gone to the Grand Prince for justice. They seized Nikifor and Ovin; they brought them to the Assembly and questioned them. Ovin, to protect himself, accused Nikifor. “Falsifier!” shouted the people to Nikifor, “thou hast kissed the cross to the Grand Prince!” “I kissed the cross to serve with truth, and wish well to him, but I kissed no cross against Great Novgorod, my sovereign, or against you, my dear gentlemen.” Thereupon Nikifor was chopped into small bits with axes. Ovin did not save himself either. They killed him with Kuzma, his brother, at the archbishop’s palace.Some other boyars, in dread of a similar fate, hurried off to the Grand Prince. Their houses were ransacked, and gutted, and their property taken. The unrestrained mob gave itself up to various excesses. Again were heard shouts: “We are for the[469]king!” But no man harmed the envoys of Moscow, and they were sent back to Ivan with this answer: “We salute you lord, but sovereign we have not called you. Your court is to be as before in the Gorodische. But your representatives are not to be with us, and Yaroslav’s court we will not surrender to you. We will carry out our agreement made at Korostyno. As to him who without our consent called you sovereign, punish him as may please you; we will execute every man whom we find guilty in this case.”Thus the question of sovereign remained unexplained. The chronicler leaves it indefinite, and does not state whether a document was sent from the Assembly in that sense, or was used only by the archbishop and certain boyars.Ivan complained now to the metropolitan, to boyars, and to his own mother, that the Novgorod men refused to adhere to their statement, that they represented him as untruthful and insulted him; that they plundered and killed persons faithful to Moscow. After he had judged the affair with the aid of a council, composed of the higher clergy and the boyars, the Grand Prince resolved on a new expedition against Novgorod, and immediately sent couriers to summon forces. He asked Tver, and Pskoff also, for aid. Prayers were held in all churches, and liberal gifts made to them, and to monasteries.In the latter part of September, 1478, Ivan sent to Novgorod a declaration of war, and on October 9 he set out with his army. Marching through Tver territory, he arrived ten days later at Torjok, where a Moscow lieutenant, Vassili Kitai, was stationed. There he was met by two envoys who had come from Novgorod to obtain a safe-conduct for an embassy to negotiate; this the Grand Prince refused. In Torjok the auxiliary Tver troops were waiting with others. Ivan had planned well his campaign, and advanced with rapidity. As he approached Novgorod, boyars, merchants, and wealthy men came begging for admission to his service. They recognized the futility of struggling with Moscow, and passed to the victor in season.On reaching Lake Ilmen, Ivan divided his army into four parts. The first was commanded by his brother, Andrei Menshoi, and others; on the right wing was his brother, Andrei Bolshoi, the Tver voevoda, and Prince Michael; on the left wing was his[470]brother, Boris, and in the center, where he himself was, was Prince Patrikaieff. He sent a part of the army to take possession of the Gorodische, and also of the monasteries, before any one could burn them. This was done successfully. The rest of the army laid siege to the city. In Ivan’s first campaign a dry summer had assisted, but the time was now winter, hence the troops could go anywhere freely; lakes, rivers and morasses were solid. The Grand Prince and his men marched on the ice of Lake Ilmen and halted three versts from Novgorod, at the village of the boyar Lashinski. Not relying on frost alone, Ivan built a bridge over the Volkoff, thus ensuring connection with all the parts of his army.What could the city do against this dreadful power which beset it on all sides? In the first war with Moscow the city had considerable forces, but now we find them not even attempting to fight in the open. Every energy was turned to defending the walls and the fortress. They tried at first to strengthen these defenses, and even made a strong wooden wall near the new bridge. If Ivan had attacked without waiting, he might have found much resistance, and would have lost, it may be, many warriors; but he was not in a hurry. He calculated on how long Novgorod could resist in this difficult position. It was not without reason that during the first war, and after it, Ivan had seized the most active and capable leaders opposed to him. There was not one weighty person now among the leaders; and it would have been very difficult for any man of power to appear in the anarchy which was raging in the city at that time. Assistance from outside was impossible. No aid came from Kazimir. One method alone was left open to Novgorod people: negotiations with the conqueror. They could only bargain for conditions as best as they were able, and then beg for mercy. In fact the chronicler in describing this campaign touches mainly on this point.Novgorod had sent to Torjok to obtain from Ivan a safe-conduct for envoys. He commanded to detain the first messenger. They sent then a second, and a third man. Only on November 8, when thirty versts from the city, did Ivan give safe-conduct. An embassy of ten, with the archbishop as leader, then came to him. The archbishop rendered homage to Ivan, calling him sovereign, and Grand Prince of all Russia, in the name of the abbots, the[471]priests, and all the seven churches of Novgorod. He asked him to be gracious to his inheritance, to put away sword and fire, and to restore to the city those boyars who had been taken to Moscow. After the archbishop, other members of the embassy spoke in the same sense. The request to free a few boyars taken to Moscow was ill-timed, when the very existence of the city was in peril. Feodor, an envoy, added a request that the Grand Prince would command his boyars to discuss conditions of peace with them.Ivan made no answer, but invited the envoys to dine with him. Next day he appointed Prince Patrikaieff and two boyars, the brothers Borisovitch, to talk with those envoys. As was the wont of that time, the Novgorod envoys divided the articles for discussion: One man asked that the Grand Prince be gracious to Great Novgorod, his heritage, set aside wrath, and sheathe the sword; another asked that the boyars detained in Moscow should be liberated; a third proposed that the sovereign should come to Novgorod not oftener than once in four years, take one thousand rubles each visit, and whatever his lieutenant and posadnik could not judge he should judge on his coming, and not summon Novgorod men to Moscow for trial. A fourth requested that the lieutenant of the Grand Prince should not interfere in the courts of the archbishop and posadnik. It was asked also that servants of the Grand Prince be judged not in the Gorodische, but in the city. In conclusion it was requested that the Grand Prince declare why it was that Novgorod should give homage.All these questions were laid before Ivan. On the following day, at his order an answer was given, also in sections. Prince Patrikaieff made a general introduction, then the other two boyars continued. Touching Novgorod’s denial as to using the word “sovereign,” by this denial, they said, Novgorod had given the lie to Ivan and insulted him. The Grand Prince was astounded that the archbishop and the envoys asked freedom for men then detained for robbery and violence. In conclusion, Prince Patrikaieff added that if Great Novgorod wished to do homage to the Grand Prince, it knew for what it was to do homage. The envoys were dismissed with this answer.December 4 the archbishop and envoys returned. They expressed Novgorod’s regret for having denied the word “Gosudar.” Then followed Ivan’s answer: “If ye acknowledge your fault[472]and ask what rule there is to be in our heritage, Great Novgorod, our answer is: We wish the same government in Novgorod as in Moscow.” The envoys departed. December 7 the archbishop came with the same envoys and five other men. They begged that the Grand Prince’s lieutenant should judge with the posadnik. They proposed an annual tax of half a silver grieven for each plow. “Let the Grand Prince rule the dependent cities of Novgorod through lieutenants; but not remove men from Novgorod territory, or take the lands of boyars, and not summon men from Novgorod to Moscow, or make them serve in the Lower Country.”The Grand Prince answered through the boyars: “I have said that I wish the same rule in Novgorod as in Moscow, and now ye point out to me how to act. How would that be my rule?” After that they begged him to explain his will, since they knew not how he ruled the “Lower Country.” The Novgorod boyars knew well what Moscow rule was, but they feared the final word, and feigned not to understand the discussion. At last the sentence was pronounced by Ivan through his boyars: “Our rule is this: There is to be neither Assembly nor posadnik in Novgorod. We are to have the whole government, and the districts and villages are to be managed as in the Lower Country.”This answer was like a thunderbolt, but was softened somewhat by the promise not to remove people from Novgorod, or touch the inheritance of the boyars, and to leave courts in their present condition.They discussed the words of the Grand Prince a whole week in the city at stormy meetings. Finally the party of moderate men and the adherents of Moscow triumphed. They sent the same envoys to say that the Assembly and the posadnik were abolished. But they repeated their petition touching land, and the removal of people from Novgorod, that is, a summons to Moscow, and service in the Lower Country.It is clear that the Novgorod boyars had sacrificed their government, and were working then for class interests only. The Grand Prince granted their requests, but when the envoys asked an oath from him he refused sharply. They asked then that his boyars take an oath. This was refused also. They begged that his future lieutenant take the oath. This was not granted. Moreover, Ivan detained the envoys in his camp a whole fortnight.[473]He wished to weary the Novgorod men, and bring them to perfect agreement. He knew that there was a large party that still opposed him, and cried out at all meetings that they must fight Moscow to the uttermost.Meanwhile supplies in the city were exhausted; hunger began, and, as many people from the country had taken refuge in the place, the plague appeared. There was great abundance in the Moscow camp, and Ivan commanded Pskoff merchants to sell flour, fish and bread to the people. Disturbance and quarrels between the desperate opponents of Moscow and its adherents were unceasing. The Moscow side triumphed, however, and made further resistance impossible. The chief voevoda in Novgorod, Prince Shuiski, renounced his oath to the city. Going out unopposed, two days later, to the camp of the Grand Prince, he entered his service.On the twenty-ninth Ivan summoned the Novgorod envoys to confirm all conditions, and then dismissed them. Barely had they gone from his presence, however, when the boyars stopped them, declaring that the sovereign demanded towns and villages, otherwise he could not manage Novgorod. They had to pass many times between the Moscow camp and the city before this question was settled.Novgorod offered two districts adjoining Lithuania, then ten districts belonging to the archbishop, and the monasteries; but Ivan would not take these. Then they asked that he say himself what he wanted. He demanded one half of the districts of the archbishop and the monasteries, and all Torjok districts, no matter to whom they belonged. The Assembly at last agreed to this, but asked that half the land be taken from the six chief monasteries, and that the land of the others, which were needy, should not be taken.Ivan consented, and when, at his command, a detailed list of all the districts was given, he showed favor to the archbishop, and took not one half of his land, but only a tenth of the best districts. When the question was settled the envoys begged Ivan to lighten the siege, during which many people were perishing. He did not hasten to answer, and commanded his boyars to talk about the annual tax on all Novgorod. After long discussion, Ivan made it half a silver grieven for every plow of each land-tiller. At the[474]same time, at request of the bishop, he agreed not to send his own scribes, or listers, lest they might burden the people. He would depend, he said, on the faith of the Novgorod men, who might collect the whole tax and deliver it to whomever command should be given to receive it. When these conditions had all been accepted, Ivan ordered to clear the Yaroslav court for himself, and drew up an oath paper for all Novgorod. This paper was signed by the archbishop, who put his seal on it, together with the seals of the five ends of Novgorod, and January 15, 1478, the five Moscow boyars, who had finished negotiations, were sent to the city to take the oath from all people.Thenceforth the Assembly existed no longer. The higher classes, that is the boyars, rich people and merchants, took oath in the bishop’s palace. And to the five ends of the city were sent from the Grand Prince officials who brought all common men to the oath of allegiance. Then the Novgorod boyars, boyars’ sons, and wealthy people asked the Grand Prince to take them into service. This he consented to do with the obligation on their part to inform of the good and evil planned by any of the Novgorod men, with relation to the Grand Prince of Moscow.Only on January 18 did Ivan permit the country people, who had gathered in the city for safety, to go home, and on January 29 he entered Novgorod to hear mass, but returned to camp, as there was plague in the city. He remained about three weeks longer, arranging affairs of all kinds. At the Yaroslav court, instead of an Assembly, were Ivan’s two lieutenants, Prince Striga Obolenski and his brother. On the Sophia side of the city Ivan appointed two boyars, Vassili Kitai and Ivan Zinovieff. These four men were to govern the city and give judgment instead of the former posadniks and commanders. Then, not limiting himself by the pardon given Novgorod men, the Grand Prince commanded to seize a number of the leaders of the party opposed to him among boyars and wealthy persons; these men he sent to Moscow and confiscated their property. Among the persons taken was the renowned widow, Martha Boretski, with her grandson, Vassili,—the son of Feodor,—who died later on in confinement at Murom, after he had taken the monk’s habit.Ivan left Novgorod, and on March 5 arrived in Moscow. He had sent forward a boyar to his mother, to his son, and to the metropolitan[475]with tidings that he had brought his inheritance to his will, and had made himself sovereign in Novgorod, as in Moscow. Ivan was followed by men bringing the Assembly bell of Novgorod, which was hung in the Kremlin tower and sounded with other bells.In spite of their exhaustion, the Novgorod people were not reconciled yet to the loss of independence. In 1479 Ivan’s well-wishers declared to him that Novgorod was secretly negotiating with Kazimir, who was preparing to war against Moscow, and was rousing the Khan of the Golden Horde to attack the Grand Prince. About the same time there was a disagreement between Ivan and his brother, so the opportunity seemed favorable for an uprising in Novgorod. Ivan estimated the importance of the moment, and showed no slackness. He hurried to Novgorod October 26, with only one thousand warriors, enjoining his son to collect forces with the greatest speed possible, and follow him. Though guards had been placed on all roads to prevent news from reaching Novgorod, the city learned that Ivan was hastening to strike it, and immediately rose in rebellion. People rushed to strengthen the walls; they chose a posadnik and a commander; they renewed their Assembly. On hearing of this, Ivan halted two weeks at Bronitsi, and waited till new forces reached him. Then he laid siege to Novgorod. The siege was brief. Again there was wrangling of parties, and continual treason. Many went over to the Grand Prince. Moscow guns crushed the walls, and there was no help from any one.The Novgorod men tried to negotiate, and asked for a safe-conduct. Ivan refused, saying: “I am safety for all who deserve it. Open the gates! When I enter I will injure no innocent man.” They opened the gates. The archbishop and the clergy bearing crosses, the elected authorities, the boyars, and a multitude of people went out to meet the Grand Prince and implore forgiveness. Ivan received the archbishop’s blessing, and said that he brought peace to all who were innocent. He went to pray in the Cathedral. After that he stopped in the house of the new posadnik. And then he began to punish.The Novgorod men had risen up foolishly, without considering that in case of defeat they would lose the few privileges for which they had yielded so much some months earlier. This time, when[476]the uprising was ended, Ivan treated those people as rebels and traitors. First he commanded to seize the chief leaders, and put them to torture. They declared that the archbishop had joined the uprising. Ivan seized the archbishop, and sent him to Moscow. His wealth, which consisted of precious stones, gold and silver, was given to the treasury, and Sergei, a monk, was made archbishop instead of the guilty man. More than one hundred active rebels suffered death, and their property was confiscated. Ivan did not hold himself bound by promises made previously not to transfer men from Novgorod to the Lower Country, and he made a broad use of this privilege, in order to prevent any uprising in future, and to break the old stubborn pride of “Lord Novgorod.”To the Lower Country that year he removed one thousand families of the merchant class, and descendants of boyars. Seven thousand families of common people were moved to Moscow, and other towns and cities. In place of those he sent Moscow people to Novgorod. In the following years these transfers were continued. The houses and lands taken from Novgorod people were given to settlers from Moscow. By transfers of this kind the whole population was modified. The Novgorod people, when taken to the Lower Country and scattered, could not retain their old spirit and habits, and soon became merged with their neighbors. The numerous colonies in Novgorod introduced Moscow ideas and customs, and were points of support for the new order. Of course these changes brought loss with them, and the merging of Novgorod and Moscow was costly.Thus ended the semi-separate existence of Great Novgorod, which had lasted in some form for more than five hundred years. The fall of the city increased immensely the power and prestige of Moscow. Ivan became an important personage, even among the crowned heads of Europe, and now thought himself strong enough to defy the Mongols, and break the humiliating yoke of servitude. It had been the custom, when an embassy arrived, bearing the Khan’s portrait, as proof that they were deputed by him, for the Grand Prince to march out to meet them, prostrate himself, offer a cup of kumis, and spread a sable skin under the feet of the person who read the Khan’s letter. This letter was listened to while kneeling. It is stated that Ivan now not only refused to prostrate himself when an embassy came from Ahmed, but he seized the[477]portrait, trampled it under foot, and had all the envoys killed except one, whom he bade return to his master and report what he had heard and seen, telling the Khan further that if he continued to trouble Russia, he would be served in the same way.It is more probable, however, that King Kazimir, who feared this great accretion of power, roused Ahmed against Moscow, promising to render personal aid. But this time the allies let slip the right moment. The Novgorod rebellion and the quarrel of Ivan with his brothers gave them a favorable opportunity for an attack on Moscow, but Ivan’s statecraft and rich gifts given at the Horde by skilful envoys delayed the Khan’s action so that the Grand Prince was able to subdue Novgorod and settle home troubles, and then, when the moment came, to send strong forces to meet the advancing Mongols. There was firm friendship between Mengli Girei, Khan of the Crimea, and Ivan, but there was bitter enmity between Girei and Ahmed, the Golden Horde Khan. Of this enmity Ivan now took advantage, and concluded an alliance with Girei against Ahmed.July, 1480, Ivan set out to join his troops in Kolomna, while his son, Ivan, with another army, was stationed atSerpukoff, and his brother, Andrei, in Tarua.Ahmed advanced with a large army toward the Oká, but learning on the way that the chief crossings were defended by Moscow men, he moved westward, and after passing the Lithuanian boundary approached the Ugra River, which formed the boundary of Moscow. Ivan was informed of this movement in season, and his son and brother were able to reach the Ugra before the Mongols, and seize the main fords and crossings. Meanwhile the Grand Prince went from Kolomna to Moscow, which was prepared for a siege, should the Mongols cross the river and attack the city. At the head of the people was the strong-hearted mother of the Grand Prince. She had become a nun somewhat earlier, and taken the name of Martha, but now she desired to remain in the city to strengthen and animate others by her courage. Among distinguished men who remained were Prince Michael, Ivan’s great-uncle; the metropolitan Geronti; Ivan’s confessor, Vassian, and Prince Kaieff, Ivan’s own vicegerent. But Sophia, his wife, the Grand Prince sent with the treasury and many attendants to[478]Bailozersk, and commanded to take her still farther, even to the ocean, should Moscow be captured.When the Grand Prince neared the capital, people of the villages moved to Moscow, and burned all the neighboring places, as was done usually to hamper besiegers. Many were greatly dissatisfied with Ivan’s return. They did not like to have him leave the main army. His confessor spoke boldly, accused him of fear and timidity, and used the word “fugitive.” He even sent a letter to the prince, in which he appealed to Ivan’s pride, his honor and his ambition: “It is our duty to speak the truth to kings, and what I have already declared to you, mightiest of sovereigns, I now write in the hope of strengthening your purpose. When you set out, moved by the entreaties of the metropolitan and the loftiest of your people, to battle with the enemy of the Christians, we implored God to grant you victory. Nevertheless we hear that on the approach of the ferocious Ahmed, who has killed so many Christians, you bowed down before him and begged for a peace, which he contemptuously refused. Oh, prince, to whose counsels do you listen? Surely they are not worthy of the name of Christian. From what heights of grandeur have you not descended? Would you surrender Russia to fire and sword, its churches to pillage, and your people to the Mongol’s sword? What heart would not be broken by such a disaster? Where can you expect to reign after sacrificing the people God has confided to you? Can you mount like an eagle and make your nest among the stars? The Lord will cast you down. But you will not desert us, and prove yourself a coward and a traitor. Be of good courage,—there is no God like our God. Life and death are in his hands. Remember the glories of your ancestors, Vladimir Monomach, the terror of the Polovtsi; and Dmitri, who conquered the Mongols on the Don. He boldly faced Mamai, notwithstanding his oath of allegiance. We will release you from an oath extorted by violence—a breach of faith which will save the Empire is preferable to a fidelity which will ruin it. God will grant you a glorious reign, you and your sons and your sons’ sons, from generation to generation. In the past you have defeated the infidel, but what says the Evangelist: ‘He that shall endure unto the end shall be saved.’ Do not blame my feeble words—for it is written: ‘Show the wise man knowledge, and he will be wiser.’ Thus may it be. Receive our blessing,[479]you and your sons; your boyars and your brave warriors, children of Jesus Christ. Amen!”At this critical juncture, the indignation of the people was great against the Grand Prince for not showing more boldness, and was expressed with such emphasis that he finally withdrew to Krasni-Seltso. In later days it became evident that a deep and far-seeing policy and not fear had caused this seeming hesitancy. At that time, however, no man could understand it, for the Russian army numbered, it is said, one hundred and fifty thousand, was well organized, and had a powerful artillery.In place of moving against the enemy, Ivan ordered his son to Moscow. But the son was eager for battle, and risked his father’s wrath by remaining with the army near the Ugra. He was under the direction of Prince Holmski, the experienced voevoda. The Grand Prince commanded Holmski to seize the young man and send him to Moscow by force. Holmski did no more than to advise the youth to go, and he received this answer: “I would rather die where I am than go to my father.”Ivan at last yielded to public opinion and the words of the clergy. After remaining in Krasni-Seltso for a fortnight, he went to the army; but he halted before reaching the village of Kremenets, and sent gifts to Ahmed with a message requesting him to withdraw: “War not against thy own land,” said the Grand Prince.The Khan, upon receiving the message, commanded Ivan to visit him, according to the custom of his fathers. When he refused to do so, Ahmed demanded that he send his son or brother. Again he was met by a stern refusal. The Khan then agreed to the sending of Basenkoff, a boyar, who had been at the Horde, had brought gifts and enjoyed the Khan’s friendship. But the Grand Prince would not send even Basenkoff. During this time Ivan was constantly urged by the people of Moscow and by his officers to advance on the enemy, but he remained deaf to all advice and avoided decisive engagements, showing no inclination whatever to imitate Dmitri, his great-grandfather. According to his calculation, an expectant attitude would break Ahmed’s forces at last. He was waiting also for news from Mengli Girei, his strong, resolute ally.Ahmed, on his part, showed no eagerness for battle. He stood[480]facing a numerous and well equipped Moscow army, and did not urge action. He boasted that he was waiting till the rivers should freeze, and then, when all the roads were open to Moscow, he would advance, utterly destroy that city, and punish his servant Ivan for withholding tribute and homage. But in reality he was waiting for his ally, King Kazimir, as on a time Mamia had waited for Kazimir’s father, Yagello. This time, too, the waiting was long and useless, though for a different reason—Mengli Girei, to assist the Grand Prince, had made a furious attack on Volynia and Kief, and thus drawn Kazimir’s forces southward.It was autumn. Already frost had come, and by October 24 strong ice was on the Ugra and there was a safe road over the river. Ivan’s army was strengthened now by the coming of his brothers, Boris and Andrei, with their regiments. These brothers had been reconciled to Ivan through the influence of Martha, their mother.But neither the Russian nor the Mongol army showed any inclination to cross the river. At last Ivan commanded his troops to withdraw from the Ugra and join him in Kremenets. Not satisfied with this, he withdrew to Burovsk, promising Moscow and his angry commanders to meet the Mongols there, where the broad plain was well suited for a battle-field. But the Khan, for some unknown reason, had no thought of following. He may have feared ambush, or he may have been disconcerted by the reconciliation of Ivan with his brothers, and by the failure of Kazimir to assist him, and the news of Girei’s movements in the south. Meanwhile the thinly clad Mongols were suffering severely from frost and bad weather. They remained till November 11, when the Khan quietly withdrew from the Ugra, and marched southward. Thus both armies, after facing each other for a long time, disappeared from the field without fighting.Though the people of Moscow had been greatly dissatisfied with Ivan’s conduct, they now greeted him with honor and solemnity, nay, with deep joy, understanding at last with the clearest conviction that the question of the Mongol in Moscow was settled forever.The events which followed justified Ivan’s immense caution; they turned it into prudence and made it seem admirable, for the Golden Horde had put in the field large forces, and victory[481]on the Ugra would, at the best, have been bought with much bloodshed and dearly.Not long after this triumph of diplomacy, the Horde was destroyed by the Mongols themselves, without any bloodshed for Russia.When returning to the steppes, Ahmed, raging with anger at Kazimir for his slackness and unfilled promises, fell to plundering Lithuanian regions unmercifully. Laden with immense booty, he halted at the Donets to winter there. But the wealth which he had gathered roused the greed of Ivak, Khan of the Shiban Horde, who, aided by Nogai murzas, made a sudden attack upon Ahmed and killed him. Ivak sent a swift courier with these tidings to Ivan in Moscow, and received gifts in return.The last blow was given to the Golden Horde by Girei, Khan of the Crimea, Ivan’s faithful ally, against whom a mortal hatred was cherished by Ahmed’s descendants. Girei attacked the Golden Horde at Sarai, its capital, and destroyed it completely. Ahmed’s son, then Khan of the Horde, sought refuge among the Nogais. Later on he went to the Sultan at Tsargrad, and at last to his famous ally, the King of Poland. There he was put in prison, however, and the king sent word to Mengli Girei that as long as he remained in peace his erstwhile disorderly neighbor would be retained in durance.Thus in 1505 ended the Golden Horde, or the Horde of Sarai, which had so bitterly oppressed Russia for more than two hundred and forty years. The continuation of the Horde was the small Astrakhan Kingdom, once a vassal state in Batu’s mighty empire.THE END.[483]
[Contents]CHAPTER XXDOWNFALL OF THE HORDEIn 1471 Feofil, the archbishop, was anointed in Moscow, and obtained from the Grand Prince release for boyars in detention. The next year Ivan married Sophia Palaeologus, a niece of Constantine, the last Emperor of Constantinople. Ivan’s first wife, Maria, a Tver princess, had died six years earlier. When the Turks captured Tsargrad, in 1453, the younger brothers of the Emperor, Dmitri and Thomas, were despots or rulers in Negropont, but instead of helping each other, they exhausted their forces in fighting, and in 1460 their possessions fell to the Osmanli. Dmitri yielded toMohammedII, gave him a daughter for his harem, and lived upon Mussulman bounty. But Thomas, a prouder and more determined man than his brother, left his wife in Corfu, and journeyed to Rome, thinking to find there not merely a refuge, but aid to win back his dominion.The papal throne was then held by the well-known Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who was Pope Pius II. He received very cordially this Palaeologus, who had remained faithful to the Florentine union, and assigned him a generous pension. Thomas brought to the Pope a most precious relic: the head of Saint Andrew, which was met with great honor by the clergy and placed in St. Peter’s. To this relic the former despot added another: the hand of John the Baptist. Pius II now announced a crusade to expel the Osmanli, and wished to take personal part in it, but death struck him soon, and Palaeologus himself died the following year, 1465, while waiting for his family, which had already reached Ancona.His eldest child, Helena, a widow of Lazar II, the Serbian king, retired to a convent; two sons, and Zoe (Sophia), a daughter, still remained. They settled in Rome under papal protection. By[464]the will of their father their guardian was Vissarion, that cardinal who, after Isidor’s death, was made titular Patriarch of Tsargrad. He had the young men and their sister reared carefully, and strove to inspire them with attachment, not to church union alone, but to the Latin Church specially. Princess Sophia had not passed out of childhood when both the Pope and Vissarion were seeking a husband for her among princely houses in Italy, and elsewhere. But those efforts ended unsuccessfully, partly because the girl had no dowry, and partly because of intriguing.Vissarion’s attention rested at last on Ivan of Moscow. It was no great task to incline the Pope toward this marriage. It is known that the Curia strove to bring Russia to its spiritual guidance whenever a chance came. What Isidor had not accomplished, that is, the union of the Churches, the Pope now planned to effect through Sophia. Moreover he saw in Ivan fresh aid against the Osmanli.Ivan was pleased with this marriage into a house with which he was related already,—his aunt, Anna, the sister of his father, had been wife of John, the eldest brother of Thomas Palaeologus. Sixtus IV, Pope at that time, received very graciously the envoys who came for the bride and brought rich presents. The chief of these envoys was Giovanni Battista Volpe of the city of Vicenza, who, employed at the mint, lived in Moscow, and was known there as Ivan Friazine. The Pope and the Sacred College spoke to the envoys as if the Russian Church had joined the Florentine union already. Sixtus, like those who preceded him, thought to drive out the Osmanli, and had formed a league to that end, both with Naples and Venice. In May he blessed banners for that enterprise, and three days later the marriage of Sophia was solemnized in the Basilica of St. Peter. Then Sophia and her suite and Ivan Friazine, who represented the Grand Prince, were sent on their way accompanied by the papal legate, Antonio, to whom, as it seems, was committed the task of establishing the Florentine union in Russia.They journeyed through Italy and Germany to Lubeck, where they took ship, and after sailing eleven days on the Baltic, reached Revel; thence they passed through Pskoff and Novgorod to Moscow. The legate, Antonio, in a red robe and hat, and wearing red gloves which he never removed, had a crucifix borne before him as he passed through the cities. He made no sign of the cross[465]in Orthodox churches, and kissed no images, as did Sophia and those who were with her. This roused much scandal among Orthodox people, who remembered the Latin apostasy of Isidor. Reports of these facts reached Moscow and the council at once considered how to act with the legate. Ivan sought advice from the metropolitan, Philip, who answered that if Antonio entered Moscow with the crucifix at one gate, he would leave the city directly by another gate. That he who honors a strange faith belittles the faith of his own land. Ivan sent a boyar to have the legate hide the cross in his equipage, and after some opposition Antonio yielded to this request. The marriage took place the day of Sophia’s arrival.For form’s sake, it was needful to make some decision regarding Antonio, whose special mission it was to unite the two Churches. They arranged a discussion between him and Philip, who called in Nikita, a man of deep reading, who, if we credit the chronicle, talked with such wisdom that the legate was forced to declare that he had not the books which he needed. In every case he soon saw that there was no chance of union. Still he remained eleven weeks in Moscow, after which Ivan dismissed him with honor. The envoys who had come with Sophia from her brothers returned to Rome also. The Grand Prince sent gifts of great value to the Pope, and also to Sophia’s brothers. Ivan, related by this marriage to the Greek and Roman Cæsars, now adopted the double eagle for the arms of Russia, still to be seen in its archaic form in the “Palais à Facettes” of the Kremlin. His seal bore on one side an eagle, on the other a horseman trampling a dragon. On this seal was the inscription “Grand Prince by the Grace of God, Sovereign of Russia.”The confidence of Rome in Sophia was baseless. She carried from Rome, as seems evident, ideas not touching on gratitude, and had bitter memories of what she had passed through in many ways. On her long journey to Moscow she had time to think over her position, and was no doubt advised by the keen Greeks who accompanied her. Ivan Friazine himself, who knew the Grand Prince very well, might have opened her eyes in church matters. Sophia not only rejected the union in which she had been reared, but adhered to the Orthodox Church very firmly. She was a woman of strong character, and bore the Mongol yoke with impatience.[466]Having great influence over Ivan, she incited him continually to struggle against its oppression.We must now turn to Novgorod. The late war and peace with Ivan had greatly intensified the conflict of parties. Popular government, which had existed for centuries in that Commonwealth, had lost the best points of its character. No matter how unequal were the powers in this struggle with Moscow, only a cracked and shattered system could be so weak as was Novgorod. The boyars, freed from Moscow detention, strengthened the Boretski adherents, who began promptly to pour out their hatred of Moscow on Moscow adherents. The struggle was limited no longer to mob meetings; violence began, and whole streets were plundered. Once a number of boyars, with the city posadnik, Anani, as their leader, assembled a party of followers, and attacked two streets, wounding and robbing their enemies who lived there. Another time Panfil, an elder, with boyars, and a party of similar character, broke into the houses of other boyars, beat their servants, and bore off much property. When such were the acts of men in authority, whose duty it was to keep order, it is clear that there was anarchy in Novgorod. The opponents of the widow and her sons could find noprotectionat home; hence they turned to the Grand Prince.Ivan delayed not in making his answer. Setting out in the autumn of 1475 with a large armed attendance, he sent a courier in advance with the tidings that he was on the way to his inheritance, Great Novgorod. Barely had he entered the lands of the city when people came forth with complaints of oppression. Later on boyars and men of importance received him with presents, as did the archbishop, Prince Shuiski, the posadnik, and others.November 21, the Grand Prince arrived at the Gorodische, and went to mass there. On the twenty-third he entered Novgorod officially, and prayed in Sophia Cathedral. He dined with the archbishop and returned to the Gorodische. His military forces found lodgings in monasteries.The unexpected arrival of the Grand Prince confused the partisans of Kazimir. They were silent and tried to rival their opponents in hospitality to Ivan. The Grand Prince dined once with Prince Shuiski, and thrice with the archbishop. He feasted once at the house of the former posadnik; he dined also with the commander and with notable boyars. At each house many casks[467]of wine from “beyond the sea,” mead in barrels, rich cloth, foreign gold, tusks of walrus, trained falcons, sables, horses, gold goblets filled with pearls, horns mounted in silver, and silver dishes, were presented to him. It is evident that Novgorod men did their best to surpass one another.But the stern widow did not bend to the Grand Prince. Martha Boretski offered neither hospitality nor presents. The former posadniks, merchants, and rich men, who did not succeed in feasting Ivan, came to him with gifts and with homage. The posadnik and the commander brought one thousand rubles from the city. Ivan gave a banquet himself, to which Prince Shuiski, the posadnik, many merchants, and wealthy persons were invited. The Grand Prince sat long at table with his guests, gave them fine garments, rich goblets, sabres, and horses.But feasting did not draw Ivan from the object of his coming. He received Novgorod complainants who sought for redress of injustice. Touching the street attack by boyars, Ivan commanded to arrest the chief offenders, the posadnik Vassili Anani, and the boyars Bogdan Osipoff, Feodor Boretski, and Ivan Lashinski. In accordance with Novgorod rule, Ivan required the Assembly to attach its own officers with his to the defendants. The comrades of those offenders were freed on the archbishop’s recognizance in the sum of fifteen hundred rubles.After the case had been examined, Ivan rendered judgment against the defendants. On the archbishop’s security they were freed from imprisonment, but had to pay fifteen hundred rubles indemnity to the injured, and a fine to the Grand Prince. The four main criminals, despite all petitions, were sent under guard and in fetters to Moscow.After a stay of nine weeks, Ivan went back to Moscow. Besides the four boyars, he gave command to arrest Ivan Afonasoff and his son, Olferi, because they had plotted to surrender Novgorod to King Kazimir. From Moscow the condemned boyars were sent to Kolomna and to Murom.Thus Ivan seized the chief leaders of Kazimir’s party, and gave Novgorod an example of his justice, which punished men without reference to wealth or position.Novgorod men, finding no protection at home, went to Moscow with complaints against powerful offenders. The Grand Prince[468]then summoned those offenders to his capital, a thing never done up to his day. Among the complainants and offenders to be met in Moscow were Novgorod men of distinction,—for example, a former posadnik, Zahari Ovin, and the boyar, Vassili Nikifor. The latter, though a leader of the Kazimir party, gave an oath of some kind to the Grand Prince. Many members of the party, considering their cause lost, passed to the other side. The adherents of Moscow had now grown so confident that, with the archbishop as their leader, they acted with decision.In the winter of 1477 there came to the Grand Prince a document from the archbishop and all Novgorod. In this document the Grand Prince was called Gosudar (sovereign), and not Gospodin (lord), as had been the case up to that day. Ivan somewhat later sent as envoys to Novgorod two boyars to ask what kind of “Gosudarstvo” (sovereignty) Novgorod men wanted. The Moscow envoys appeared before the Assembly and asked if Novgorod men, having called Ivan sovereign, would yield now the Yaroslav court to him, have his representatives on all streets, and leave his judges in freedom. The people were stunned by these questions. The majority shouted at the envoys, said their statement was a falsehood, and declared that the Assembly had never called Ivan a sovereign, that no document had ever been sent to him with that word in it.Kazimir’s party hastened now to rouse public rage against Moscow. A furious storm rose immediately. The people remembered those boyars who had gone to the Grand Prince for justice. They seized Nikifor and Ovin; they brought them to the Assembly and questioned them. Ovin, to protect himself, accused Nikifor. “Falsifier!” shouted the people to Nikifor, “thou hast kissed the cross to the Grand Prince!” “I kissed the cross to serve with truth, and wish well to him, but I kissed no cross against Great Novgorod, my sovereign, or against you, my dear gentlemen.” Thereupon Nikifor was chopped into small bits with axes. Ovin did not save himself either. They killed him with Kuzma, his brother, at the archbishop’s palace.Some other boyars, in dread of a similar fate, hurried off to the Grand Prince. Their houses were ransacked, and gutted, and their property taken. The unrestrained mob gave itself up to various excesses. Again were heard shouts: “We are for the[469]king!” But no man harmed the envoys of Moscow, and they were sent back to Ivan with this answer: “We salute you lord, but sovereign we have not called you. Your court is to be as before in the Gorodische. But your representatives are not to be with us, and Yaroslav’s court we will not surrender to you. We will carry out our agreement made at Korostyno. As to him who without our consent called you sovereign, punish him as may please you; we will execute every man whom we find guilty in this case.”Thus the question of sovereign remained unexplained. The chronicler leaves it indefinite, and does not state whether a document was sent from the Assembly in that sense, or was used only by the archbishop and certain boyars.Ivan complained now to the metropolitan, to boyars, and to his own mother, that the Novgorod men refused to adhere to their statement, that they represented him as untruthful and insulted him; that they plundered and killed persons faithful to Moscow. After he had judged the affair with the aid of a council, composed of the higher clergy and the boyars, the Grand Prince resolved on a new expedition against Novgorod, and immediately sent couriers to summon forces. He asked Tver, and Pskoff also, for aid. Prayers were held in all churches, and liberal gifts made to them, and to monasteries.In the latter part of September, 1478, Ivan sent to Novgorod a declaration of war, and on October 9 he set out with his army. Marching through Tver territory, he arrived ten days later at Torjok, where a Moscow lieutenant, Vassili Kitai, was stationed. There he was met by two envoys who had come from Novgorod to obtain a safe-conduct for an embassy to negotiate; this the Grand Prince refused. In Torjok the auxiliary Tver troops were waiting with others. Ivan had planned well his campaign, and advanced with rapidity. As he approached Novgorod, boyars, merchants, and wealthy men came begging for admission to his service. They recognized the futility of struggling with Moscow, and passed to the victor in season.On reaching Lake Ilmen, Ivan divided his army into four parts. The first was commanded by his brother, Andrei Menshoi, and others; on the right wing was his brother, Andrei Bolshoi, the Tver voevoda, and Prince Michael; on the left wing was his[470]brother, Boris, and in the center, where he himself was, was Prince Patrikaieff. He sent a part of the army to take possession of the Gorodische, and also of the monasteries, before any one could burn them. This was done successfully. The rest of the army laid siege to the city. In Ivan’s first campaign a dry summer had assisted, but the time was now winter, hence the troops could go anywhere freely; lakes, rivers and morasses were solid. The Grand Prince and his men marched on the ice of Lake Ilmen and halted three versts from Novgorod, at the village of the boyar Lashinski. Not relying on frost alone, Ivan built a bridge over the Volkoff, thus ensuring connection with all the parts of his army.What could the city do against this dreadful power which beset it on all sides? In the first war with Moscow the city had considerable forces, but now we find them not even attempting to fight in the open. Every energy was turned to defending the walls and the fortress. They tried at first to strengthen these defenses, and even made a strong wooden wall near the new bridge. If Ivan had attacked without waiting, he might have found much resistance, and would have lost, it may be, many warriors; but he was not in a hurry. He calculated on how long Novgorod could resist in this difficult position. It was not without reason that during the first war, and after it, Ivan had seized the most active and capable leaders opposed to him. There was not one weighty person now among the leaders; and it would have been very difficult for any man of power to appear in the anarchy which was raging in the city at that time. Assistance from outside was impossible. No aid came from Kazimir. One method alone was left open to Novgorod people: negotiations with the conqueror. They could only bargain for conditions as best as they were able, and then beg for mercy. In fact the chronicler in describing this campaign touches mainly on this point.Novgorod had sent to Torjok to obtain from Ivan a safe-conduct for envoys. He commanded to detain the first messenger. They sent then a second, and a third man. Only on November 8, when thirty versts from the city, did Ivan give safe-conduct. An embassy of ten, with the archbishop as leader, then came to him. The archbishop rendered homage to Ivan, calling him sovereign, and Grand Prince of all Russia, in the name of the abbots, the[471]priests, and all the seven churches of Novgorod. He asked him to be gracious to his inheritance, to put away sword and fire, and to restore to the city those boyars who had been taken to Moscow. After the archbishop, other members of the embassy spoke in the same sense. The request to free a few boyars taken to Moscow was ill-timed, when the very existence of the city was in peril. Feodor, an envoy, added a request that the Grand Prince would command his boyars to discuss conditions of peace with them.Ivan made no answer, but invited the envoys to dine with him. Next day he appointed Prince Patrikaieff and two boyars, the brothers Borisovitch, to talk with those envoys. As was the wont of that time, the Novgorod envoys divided the articles for discussion: One man asked that the Grand Prince be gracious to Great Novgorod, his heritage, set aside wrath, and sheathe the sword; another asked that the boyars detained in Moscow should be liberated; a third proposed that the sovereign should come to Novgorod not oftener than once in four years, take one thousand rubles each visit, and whatever his lieutenant and posadnik could not judge he should judge on his coming, and not summon Novgorod men to Moscow for trial. A fourth requested that the lieutenant of the Grand Prince should not interfere in the courts of the archbishop and posadnik. It was asked also that servants of the Grand Prince be judged not in the Gorodische, but in the city. In conclusion it was requested that the Grand Prince declare why it was that Novgorod should give homage.All these questions were laid before Ivan. On the following day, at his order an answer was given, also in sections. Prince Patrikaieff made a general introduction, then the other two boyars continued. Touching Novgorod’s denial as to using the word “sovereign,” by this denial, they said, Novgorod had given the lie to Ivan and insulted him. The Grand Prince was astounded that the archbishop and the envoys asked freedom for men then detained for robbery and violence. In conclusion, Prince Patrikaieff added that if Great Novgorod wished to do homage to the Grand Prince, it knew for what it was to do homage. The envoys were dismissed with this answer.December 4 the archbishop and envoys returned. They expressed Novgorod’s regret for having denied the word “Gosudar.” Then followed Ivan’s answer: “If ye acknowledge your fault[472]and ask what rule there is to be in our heritage, Great Novgorod, our answer is: We wish the same government in Novgorod as in Moscow.” The envoys departed. December 7 the archbishop came with the same envoys and five other men. They begged that the Grand Prince’s lieutenant should judge with the posadnik. They proposed an annual tax of half a silver grieven for each plow. “Let the Grand Prince rule the dependent cities of Novgorod through lieutenants; but not remove men from Novgorod territory, or take the lands of boyars, and not summon men from Novgorod to Moscow, or make them serve in the Lower Country.”The Grand Prince answered through the boyars: “I have said that I wish the same rule in Novgorod as in Moscow, and now ye point out to me how to act. How would that be my rule?” After that they begged him to explain his will, since they knew not how he ruled the “Lower Country.” The Novgorod boyars knew well what Moscow rule was, but they feared the final word, and feigned not to understand the discussion. At last the sentence was pronounced by Ivan through his boyars: “Our rule is this: There is to be neither Assembly nor posadnik in Novgorod. We are to have the whole government, and the districts and villages are to be managed as in the Lower Country.”This answer was like a thunderbolt, but was softened somewhat by the promise not to remove people from Novgorod, or touch the inheritance of the boyars, and to leave courts in their present condition.They discussed the words of the Grand Prince a whole week in the city at stormy meetings. Finally the party of moderate men and the adherents of Moscow triumphed. They sent the same envoys to say that the Assembly and the posadnik were abolished. But they repeated their petition touching land, and the removal of people from Novgorod, that is, a summons to Moscow, and service in the Lower Country.It is clear that the Novgorod boyars had sacrificed their government, and were working then for class interests only. The Grand Prince granted their requests, but when the envoys asked an oath from him he refused sharply. They asked then that his boyars take an oath. This was refused also. They begged that his future lieutenant take the oath. This was not granted. Moreover, Ivan detained the envoys in his camp a whole fortnight.[473]He wished to weary the Novgorod men, and bring them to perfect agreement. He knew that there was a large party that still opposed him, and cried out at all meetings that they must fight Moscow to the uttermost.Meanwhile supplies in the city were exhausted; hunger began, and, as many people from the country had taken refuge in the place, the plague appeared. There was great abundance in the Moscow camp, and Ivan commanded Pskoff merchants to sell flour, fish and bread to the people. Disturbance and quarrels between the desperate opponents of Moscow and its adherents were unceasing. The Moscow side triumphed, however, and made further resistance impossible. The chief voevoda in Novgorod, Prince Shuiski, renounced his oath to the city. Going out unopposed, two days later, to the camp of the Grand Prince, he entered his service.On the twenty-ninth Ivan summoned the Novgorod envoys to confirm all conditions, and then dismissed them. Barely had they gone from his presence, however, when the boyars stopped them, declaring that the sovereign demanded towns and villages, otherwise he could not manage Novgorod. They had to pass many times between the Moscow camp and the city before this question was settled.Novgorod offered two districts adjoining Lithuania, then ten districts belonging to the archbishop, and the monasteries; but Ivan would not take these. Then they asked that he say himself what he wanted. He demanded one half of the districts of the archbishop and the monasteries, and all Torjok districts, no matter to whom they belonged. The Assembly at last agreed to this, but asked that half the land be taken from the six chief monasteries, and that the land of the others, which were needy, should not be taken.Ivan consented, and when, at his command, a detailed list of all the districts was given, he showed favor to the archbishop, and took not one half of his land, but only a tenth of the best districts. When the question was settled the envoys begged Ivan to lighten the siege, during which many people were perishing. He did not hasten to answer, and commanded his boyars to talk about the annual tax on all Novgorod. After long discussion, Ivan made it half a silver grieven for every plow of each land-tiller. At the[474]same time, at request of the bishop, he agreed not to send his own scribes, or listers, lest they might burden the people. He would depend, he said, on the faith of the Novgorod men, who might collect the whole tax and deliver it to whomever command should be given to receive it. When these conditions had all been accepted, Ivan ordered to clear the Yaroslav court for himself, and drew up an oath paper for all Novgorod. This paper was signed by the archbishop, who put his seal on it, together with the seals of the five ends of Novgorod, and January 15, 1478, the five Moscow boyars, who had finished negotiations, were sent to the city to take the oath from all people.Thenceforth the Assembly existed no longer. The higher classes, that is the boyars, rich people and merchants, took oath in the bishop’s palace. And to the five ends of the city were sent from the Grand Prince officials who brought all common men to the oath of allegiance. Then the Novgorod boyars, boyars’ sons, and wealthy people asked the Grand Prince to take them into service. This he consented to do with the obligation on their part to inform of the good and evil planned by any of the Novgorod men, with relation to the Grand Prince of Moscow.Only on January 18 did Ivan permit the country people, who had gathered in the city for safety, to go home, and on January 29 he entered Novgorod to hear mass, but returned to camp, as there was plague in the city. He remained about three weeks longer, arranging affairs of all kinds. At the Yaroslav court, instead of an Assembly, were Ivan’s two lieutenants, Prince Striga Obolenski and his brother. On the Sophia side of the city Ivan appointed two boyars, Vassili Kitai and Ivan Zinovieff. These four men were to govern the city and give judgment instead of the former posadniks and commanders. Then, not limiting himself by the pardon given Novgorod men, the Grand Prince commanded to seize a number of the leaders of the party opposed to him among boyars and wealthy persons; these men he sent to Moscow and confiscated their property. Among the persons taken was the renowned widow, Martha Boretski, with her grandson, Vassili,—the son of Feodor,—who died later on in confinement at Murom, after he had taken the monk’s habit.Ivan left Novgorod, and on March 5 arrived in Moscow. He had sent forward a boyar to his mother, to his son, and to the metropolitan[475]with tidings that he had brought his inheritance to his will, and had made himself sovereign in Novgorod, as in Moscow. Ivan was followed by men bringing the Assembly bell of Novgorod, which was hung in the Kremlin tower and sounded with other bells.In spite of their exhaustion, the Novgorod people were not reconciled yet to the loss of independence. In 1479 Ivan’s well-wishers declared to him that Novgorod was secretly negotiating with Kazimir, who was preparing to war against Moscow, and was rousing the Khan of the Golden Horde to attack the Grand Prince. About the same time there was a disagreement between Ivan and his brother, so the opportunity seemed favorable for an uprising in Novgorod. Ivan estimated the importance of the moment, and showed no slackness. He hurried to Novgorod October 26, with only one thousand warriors, enjoining his son to collect forces with the greatest speed possible, and follow him. Though guards had been placed on all roads to prevent news from reaching Novgorod, the city learned that Ivan was hastening to strike it, and immediately rose in rebellion. People rushed to strengthen the walls; they chose a posadnik and a commander; they renewed their Assembly. On hearing of this, Ivan halted two weeks at Bronitsi, and waited till new forces reached him. Then he laid siege to Novgorod. The siege was brief. Again there was wrangling of parties, and continual treason. Many went over to the Grand Prince. Moscow guns crushed the walls, and there was no help from any one.The Novgorod men tried to negotiate, and asked for a safe-conduct. Ivan refused, saying: “I am safety for all who deserve it. Open the gates! When I enter I will injure no innocent man.” They opened the gates. The archbishop and the clergy bearing crosses, the elected authorities, the boyars, and a multitude of people went out to meet the Grand Prince and implore forgiveness. Ivan received the archbishop’s blessing, and said that he brought peace to all who were innocent. He went to pray in the Cathedral. After that he stopped in the house of the new posadnik. And then he began to punish.The Novgorod men had risen up foolishly, without considering that in case of defeat they would lose the few privileges for which they had yielded so much some months earlier. This time, when[476]the uprising was ended, Ivan treated those people as rebels and traitors. First he commanded to seize the chief leaders, and put them to torture. They declared that the archbishop had joined the uprising. Ivan seized the archbishop, and sent him to Moscow. His wealth, which consisted of precious stones, gold and silver, was given to the treasury, and Sergei, a monk, was made archbishop instead of the guilty man. More than one hundred active rebels suffered death, and their property was confiscated. Ivan did not hold himself bound by promises made previously not to transfer men from Novgorod to the Lower Country, and he made a broad use of this privilege, in order to prevent any uprising in future, and to break the old stubborn pride of “Lord Novgorod.”To the Lower Country that year he removed one thousand families of the merchant class, and descendants of boyars. Seven thousand families of common people were moved to Moscow, and other towns and cities. In place of those he sent Moscow people to Novgorod. In the following years these transfers were continued. The houses and lands taken from Novgorod people were given to settlers from Moscow. By transfers of this kind the whole population was modified. The Novgorod people, when taken to the Lower Country and scattered, could not retain their old spirit and habits, and soon became merged with their neighbors. The numerous colonies in Novgorod introduced Moscow ideas and customs, and were points of support for the new order. Of course these changes brought loss with them, and the merging of Novgorod and Moscow was costly.Thus ended the semi-separate existence of Great Novgorod, which had lasted in some form for more than five hundred years. The fall of the city increased immensely the power and prestige of Moscow. Ivan became an important personage, even among the crowned heads of Europe, and now thought himself strong enough to defy the Mongols, and break the humiliating yoke of servitude. It had been the custom, when an embassy arrived, bearing the Khan’s portrait, as proof that they were deputed by him, for the Grand Prince to march out to meet them, prostrate himself, offer a cup of kumis, and spread a sable skin under the feet of the person who read the Khan’s letter. This letter was listened to while kneeling. It is stated that Ivan now not only refused to prostrate himself when an embassy came from Ahmed, but he seized the[477]portrait, trampled it under foot, and had all the envoys killed except one, whom he bade return to his master and report what he had heard and seen, telling the Khan further that if he continued to trouble Russia, he would be served in the same way.It is more probable, however, that King Kazimir, who feared this great accretion of power, roused Ahmed against Moscow, promising to render personal aid. But this time the allies let slip the right moment. The Novgorod rebellion and the quarrel of Ivan with his brothers gave them a favorable opportunity for an attack on Moscow, but Ivan’s statecraft and rich gifts given at the Horde by skilful envoys delayed the Khan’s action so that the Grand Prince was able to subdue Novgorod and settle home troubles, and then, when the moment came, to send strong forces to meet the advancing Mongols. There was firm friendship between Mengli Girei, Khan of the Crimea, and Ivan, but there was bitter enmity between Girei and Ahmed, the Golden Horde Khan. Of this enmity Ivan now took advantage, and concluded an alliance with Girei against Ahmed.July, 1480, Ivan set out to join his troops in Kolomna, while his son, Ivan, with another army, was stationed atSerpukoff, and his brother, Andrei, in Tarua.Ahmed advanced with a large army toward the Oká, but learning on the way that the chief crossings were defended by Moscow men, he moved westward, and after passing the Lithuanian boundary approached the Ugra River, which formed the boundary of Moscow. Ivan was informed of this movement in season, and his son and brother were able to reach the Ugra before the Mongols, and seize the main fords and crossings. Meanwhile the Grand Prince went from Kolomna to Moscow, which was prepared for a siege, should the Mongols cross the river and attack the city. At the head of the people was the strong-hearted mother of the Grand Prince. She had become a nun somewhat earlier, and taken the name of Martha, but now she desired to remain in the city to strengthen and animate others by her courage. Among distinguished men who remained were Prince Michael, Ivan’s great-uncle; the metropolitan Geronti; Ivan’s confessor, Vassian, and Prince Kaieff, Ivan’s own vicegerent. But Sophia, his wife, the Grand Prince sent with the treasury and many attendants to[478]Bailozersk, and commanded to take her still farther, even to the ocean, should Moscow be captured.When the Grand Prince neared the capital, people of the villages moved to Moscow, and burned all the neighboring places, as was done usually to hamper besiegers. Many were greatly dissatisfied with Ivan’s return. They did not like to have him leave the main army. His confessor spoke boldly, accused him of fear and timidity, and used the word “fugitive.” He even sent a letter to the prince, in which he appealed to Ivan’s pride, his honor and his ambition: “It is our duty to speak the truth to kings, and what I have already declared to you, mightiest of sovereigns, I now write in the hope of strengthening your purpose. When you set out, moved by the entreaties of the metropolitan and the loftiest of your people, to battle with the enemy of the Christians, we implored God to grant you victory. Nevertheless we hear that on the approach of the ferocious Ahmed, who has killed so many Christians, you bowed down before him and begged for a peace, which he contemptuously refused. Oh, prince, to whose counsels do you listen? Surely they are not worthy of the name of Christian. From what heights of grandeur have you not descended? Would you surrender Russia to fire and sword, its churches to pillage, and your people to the Mongol’s sword? What heart would not be broken by such a disaster? Where can you expect to reign after sacrificing the people God has confided to you? Can you mount like an eagle and make your nest among the stars? The Lord will cast you down. But you will not desert us, and prove yourself a coward and a traitor. Be of good courage,—there is no God like our God. Life and death are in his hands. Remember the glories of your ancestors, Vladimir Monomach, the terror of the Polovtsi; and Dmitri, who conquered the Mongols on the Don. He boldly faced Mamai, notwithstanding his oath of allegiance. We will release you from an oath extorted by violence—a breach of faith which will save the Empire is preferable to a fidelity which will ruin it. God will grant you a glorious reign, you and your sons and your sons’ sons, from generation to generation. In the past you have defeated the infidel, but what says the Evangelist: ‘He that shall endure unto the end shall be saved.’ Do not blame my feeble words—for it is written: ‘Show the wise man knowledge, and he will be wiser.’ Thus may it be. Receive our blessing,[479]you and your sons; your boyars and your brave warriors, children of Jesus Christ. Amen!”At this critical juncture, the indignation of the people was great against the Grand Prince for not showing more boldness, and was expressed with such emphasis that he finally withdrew to Krasni-Seltso. In later days it became evident that a deep and far-seeing policy and not fear had caused this seeming hesitancy. At that time, however, no man could understand it, for the Russian army numbered, it is said, one hundred and fifty thousand, was well organized, and had a powerful artillery.In place of moving against the enemy, Ivan ordered his son to Moscow. But the son was eager for battle, and risked his father’s wrath by remaining with the army near the Ugra. He was under the direction of Prince Holmski, the experienced voevoda. The Grand Prince commanded Holmski to seize the young man and send him to Moscow by force. Holmski did no more than to advise the youth to go, and he received this answer: “I would rather die where I am than go to my father.”Ivan at last yielded to public opinion and the words of the clergy. After remaining in Krasni-Seltso for a fortnight, he went to the army; but he halted before reaching the village of Kremenets, and sent gifts to Ahmed with a message requesting him to withdraw: “War not against thy own land,” said the Grand Prince.The Khan, upon receiving the message, commanded Ivan to visit him, according to the custom of his fathers. When he refused to do so, Ahmed demanded that he send his son or brother. Again he was met by a stern refusal. The Khan then agreed to the sending of Basenkoff, a boyar, who had been at the Horde, had brought gifts and enjoyed the Khan’s friendship. But the Grand Prince would not send even Basenkoff. During this time Ivan was constantly urged by the people of Moscow and by his officers to advance on the enemy, but he remained deaf to all advice and avoided decisive engagements, showing no inclination whatever to imitate Dmitri, his great-grandfather. According to his calculation, an expectant attitude would break Ahmed’s forces at last. He was waiting also for news from Mengli Girei, his strong, resolute ally.Ahmed, on his part, showed no eagerness for battle. He stood[480]facing a numerous and well equipped Moscow army, and did not urge action. He boasted that he was waiting till the rivers should freeze, and then, when all the roads were open to Moscow, he would advance, utterly destroy that city, and punish his servant Ivan for withholding tribute and homage. But in reality he was waiting for his ally, King Kazimir, as on a time Mamia had waited for Kazimir’s father, Yagello. This time, too, the waiting was long and useless, though for a different reason—Mengli Girei, to assist the Grand Prince, had made a furious attack on Volynia and Kief, and thus drawn Kazimir’s forces southward.It was autumn. Already frost had come, and by October 24 strong ice was on the Ugra and there was a safe road over the river. Ivan’s army was strengthened now by the coming of his brothers, Boris and Andrei, with their regiments. These brothers had been reconciled to Ivan through the influence of Martha, their mother.But neither the Russian nor the Mongol army showed any inclination to cross the river. At last Ivan commanded his troops to withdraw from the Ugra and join him in Kremenets. Not satisfied with this, he withdrew to Burovsk, promising Moscow and his angry commanders to meet the Mongols there, where the broad plain was well suited for a battle-field. But the Khan, for some unknown reason, had no thought of following. He may have feared ambush, or he may have been disconcerted by the reconciliation of Ivan with his brothers, and by the failure of Kazimir to assist him, and the news of Girei’s movements in the south. Meanwhile the thinly clad Mongols were suffering severely from frost and bad weather. They remained till November 11, when the Khan quietly withdrew from the Ugra, and marched southward. Thus both armies, after facing each other for a long time, disappeared from the field without fighting.Though the people of Moscow had been greatly dissatisfied with Ivan’s conduct, they now greeted him with honor and solemnity, nay, with deep joy, understanding at last with the clearest conviction that the question of the Mongol in Moscow was settled forever.The events which followed justified Ivan’s immense caution; they turned it into prudence and made it seem admirable, for the Golden Horde had put in the field large forces, and victory[481]on the Ugra would, at the best, have been bought with much bloodshed and dearly.Not long after this triumph of diplomacy, the Horde was destroyed by the Mongols themselves, without any bloodshed for Russia.When returning to the steppes, Ahmed, raging with anger at Kazimir for his slackness and unfilled promises, fell to plundering Lithuanian regions unmercifully. Laden with immense booty, he halted at the Donets to winter there. But the wealth which he had gathered roused the greed of Ivak, Khan of the Shiban Horde, who, aided by Nogai murzas, made a sudden attack upon Ahmed and killed him. Ivak sent a swift courier with these tidings to Ivan in Moscow, and received gifts in return.The last blow was given to the Golden Horde by Girei, Khan of the Crimea, Ivan’s faithful ally, against whom a mortal hatred was cherished by Ahmed’s descendants. Girei attacked the Golden Horde at Sarai, its capital, and destroyed it completely. Ahmed’s son, then Khan of the Horde, sought refuge among the Nogais. Later on he went to the Sultan at Tsargrad, and at last to his famous ally, the King of Poland. There he was put in prison, however, and the king sent word to Mengli Girei that as long as he remained in peace his erstwhile disorderly neighbor would be retained in durance.Thus in 1505 ended the Golden Horde, or the Horde of Sarai, which had so bitterly oppressed Russia for more than two hundred and forty years. The continuation of the Horde was the small Astrakhan Kingdom, once a vassal state in Batu’s mighty empire.THE END.[483]
CHAPTER XXDOWNFALL OF THE HORDE
In 1471 Feofil, the archbishop, was anointed in Moscow, and obtained from the Grand Prince release for boyars in detention. The next year Ivan married Sophia Palaeologus, a niece of Constantine, the last Emperor of Constantinople. Ivan’s first wife, Maria, a Tver princess, had died six years earlier. When the Turks captured Tsargrad, in 1453, the younger brothers of the Emperor, Dmitri and Thomas, were despots or rulers in Negropont, but instead of helping each other, they exhausted their forces in fighting, and in 1460 their possessions fell to the Osmanli. Dmitri yielded toMohammedII, gave him a daughter for his harem, and lived upon Mussulman bounty. But Thomas, a prouder and more determined man than his brother, left his wife in Corfu, and journeyed to Rome, thinking to find there not merely a refuge, but aid to win back his dominion.The papal throne was then held by the well-known Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who was Pope Pius II. He received very cordially this Palaeologus, who had remained faithful to the Florentine union, and assigned him a generous pension. Thomas brought to the Pope a most precious relic: the head of Saint Andrew, which was met with great honor by the clergy and placed in St. Peter’s. To this relic the former despot added another: the hand of John the Baptist. Pius II now announced a crusade to expel the Osmanli, and wished to take personal part in it, but death struck him soon, and Palaeologus himself died the following year, 1465, while waiting for his family, which had already reached Ancona.His eldest child, Helena, a widow of Lazar II, the Serbian king, retired to a convent; two sons, and Zoe (Sophia), a daughter, still remained. They settled in Rome under papal protection. By[464]the will of their father their guardian was Vissarion, that cardinal who, after Isidor’s death, was made titular Patriarch of Tsargrad. He had the young men and their sister reared carefully, and strove to inspire them with attachment, not to church union alone, but to the Latin Church specially. Princess Sophia had not passed out of childhood when both the Pope and Vissarion were seeking a husband for her among princely houses in Italy, and elsewhere. But those efforts ended unsuccessfully, partly because the girl had no dowry, and partly because of intriguing.Vissarion’s attention rested at last on Ivan of Moscow. It was no great task to incline the Pope toward this marriage. It is known that the Curia strove to bring Russia to its spiritual guidance whenever a chance came. What Isidor had not accomplished, that is, the union of the Churches, the Pope now planned to effect through Sophia. Moreover he saw in Ivan fresh aid against the Osmanli.Ivan was pleased with this marriage into a house with which he was related already,—his aunt, Anna, the sister of his father, had been wife of John, the eldest brother of Thomas Palaeologus. Sixtus IV, Pope at that time, received very graciously the envoys who came for the bride and brought rich presents. The chief of these envoys was Giovanni Battista Volpe of the city of Vicenza, who, employed at the mint, lived in Moscow, and was known there as Ivan Friazine. The Pope and the Sacred College spoke to the envoys as if the Russian Church had joined the Florentine union already. Sixtus, like those who preceded him, thought to drive out the Osmanli, and had formed a league to that end, both with Naples and Venice. In May he blessed banners for that enterprise, and three days later the marriage of Sophia was solemnized in the Basilica of St. Peter. Then Sophia and her suite and Ivan Friazine, who represented the Grand Prince, were sent on their way accompanied by the papal legate, Antonio, to whom, as it seems, was committed the task of establishing the Florentine union in Russia.They journeyed through Italy and Germany to Lubeck, where they took ship, and after sailing eleven days on the Baltic, reached Revel; thence they passed through Pskoff and Novgorod to Moscow. The legate, Antonio, in a red robe and hat, and wearing red gloves which he never removed, had a crucifix borne before him as he passed through the cities. He made no sign of the cross[465]in Orthodox churches, and kissed no images, as did Sophia and those who were with her. This roused much scandal among Orthodox people, who remembered the Latin apostasy of Isidor. Reports of these facts reached Moscow and the council at once considered how to act with the legate. Ivan sought advice from the metropolitan, Philip, who answered that if Antonio entered Moscow with the crucifix at one gate, he would leave the city directly by another gate. That he who honors a strange faith belittles the faith of his own land. Ivan sent a boyar to have the legate hide the cross in his equipage, and after some opposition Antonio yielded to this request. The marriage took place the day of Sophia’s arrival.For form’s sake, it was needful to make some decision regarding Antonio, whose special mission it was to unite the two Churches. They arranged a discussion between him and Philip, who called in Nikita, a man of deep reading, who, if we credit the chronicle, talked with such wisdom that the legate was forced to declare that he had not the books which he needed. In every case he soon saw that there was no chance of union. Still he remained eleven weeks in Moscow, after which Ivan dismissed him with honor. The envoys who had come with Sophia from her brothers returned to Rome also. The Grand Prince sent gifts of great value to the Pope, and also to Sophia’s brothers. Ivan, related by this marriage to the Greek and Roman Cæsars, now adopted the double eagle for the arms of Russia, still to be seen in its archaic form in the “Palais à Facettes” of the Kremlin. His seal bore on one side an eagle, on the other a horseman trampling a dragon. On this seal was the inscription “Grand Prince by the Grace of God, Sovereign of Russia.”The confidence of Rome in Sophia was baseless. She carried from Rome, as seems evident, ideas not touching on gratitude, and had bitter memories of what she had passed through in many ways. On her long journey to Moscow she had time to think over her position, and was no doubt advised by the keen Greeks who accompanied her. Ivan Friazine himself, who knew the Grand Prince very well, might have opened her eyes in church matters. Sophia not only rejected the union in which she had been reared, but adhered to the Orthodox Church very firmly. She was a woman of strong character, and bore the Mongol yoke with impatience.[466]Having great influence over Ivan, she incited him continually to struggle against its oppression.We must now turn to Novgorod. The late war and peace with Ivan had greatly intensified the conflict of parties. Popular government, which had existed for centuries in that Commonwealth, had lost the best points of its character. No matter how unequal were the powers in this struggle with Moscow, only a cracked and shattered system could be so weak as was Novgorod. The boyars, freed from Moscow detention, strengthened the Boretski adherents, who began promptly to pour out their hatred of Moscow on Moscow adherents. The struggle was limited no longer to mob meetings; violence began, and whole streets were plundered. Once a number of boyars, with the city posadnik, Anani, as their leader, assembled a party of followers, and attacked two streets, wounding and robbing their enemies who lived there. Another time Panfil, an elder, with boyars, and a party of similar character, broke into the houses of other boyars, beat their servants, and bore off much property. When such were the acts of men in authority, whose duty it was to keep order, it is clear that there was anarchy in Novgorod. The opponents of the widow and her sons could find noprotectionat home; hence they turned to the Grand Prince.Ivan delayed not in making his answer. Setting out in the autumn of 1475 with a large armed attendance, he sent a courier in advance with the tidings that he was on the way to his inheritance, Great Novgorod. Barely had he entered the lands of the city when people came forth with complaints of oppression. Later on boyars and men of importance received him with presents, as did the archbishop, Prince Shuiski, the posadnik, and others.November 21, the Grand Prince arrived at the Gorodische, and went to mass there. On the twenty-third he entered Novgorod officially, and prayed in Sophia Cathedral. He dined with the archbishop and returned to the Gorodische. His military forces found lodgings in monasteries.The unexpected arrival of the Grand Prince confused the partisans of Kazimir. They were silent and tried to rival their opponents in hospitality to Ivan. The Grand Prince dined once with Prince Shuiski, and thrice with the archbishop. He feasted once at the house of the former posadnik; he dined also with the commander and with notable boyars. At each house many casks[467]of wine from “beyond the sea,” mead in barrels, rich cloth, foreign gold, tusks of walrus, trained falcons, sables, horses, gold goblets filled with pearls, horns mounted in silver, and silver dishes, were presented to him. It is evident that Novgorod men did their best to surpass one another.But the stern widow did not bend to the Grand Prince. Martha Boretski offered neither hospitality nor presents. The former posadniks, merchants, and rich men, who did not succeed in feasting Ivan, came to him with gifts and with homage. The posadnik and the commander brought one thousand rubles from the city. Ivan gave a banquet himself, to which Prince Shuiski, the posadnik, many merchants, and wealthy persons were invited. The Grand Prince sat long at table with his guests, gave them fine garments, rich goblets, sabres, and horses.But feasting did not draw Ivan from the object of his coming. He received Novgorod complainants who sought for redress of injustice. Touching the street attack by boyars, Ivan commanded to arrest the chief offenders, the posadnik Vassili Anani, and the boyars Bogdan Osipoff, Feodor Boretski, and Ivan Lashinski. In accordance with Novgorod rule, Ivan required the Assembly to attach its own officers with his to the defendants. The comrades of those offenders were freed on the archbishop’s recognizance in the sum of fifteen hundred rubles.After the case had been examined, Ivan rendered judgment against the defendants. On the archbishop’s security they were freed from imprisonment, but had to pay fifteen hundred rubles indemnity to the injured, and a fine to the Grand Prince. The four main criminals, despite all petitions, were sent under guard and in fetters to Moscow.After a stay of nine weeks, Ivan went back to Moscow. Besides the four boyars, he gave command to arrest Ivan Afonasoff and his son, Olferi, because they had plotted to surrender Novgorod to King Kazimir. From Moscow the condemned boyars were sent to Kolomna and to Murom.Thus Ivan seized the chief leaders of Kazimir’s party, and gave Novgorod an example of his justice, which punished men without reference to wealth or position.Novgorod men, finding no protection at home, went to Moscow with complaints against powerful offenders. The Grand Prince[468]then summoned those offenders to his capital, a thing never done up to his day. Among the complainants and offenders to be met in Moscow were Novgorod men of distinction,—for example, a former posadnik, Zahari Ovin, and the boyar, Vassili Nikifor. The latter, though a leader of the Kazimir party, gave an oath of some kind to the Grand Prince. Many members of the party, considering their cause lost, passed to the other side. The adherents of Moscow had now grown so confident that, with the archbishop as their leader, they acted with decision.In the winter of 1477 there came to the Grand Prince a document from the archbishop and all Novgorod. In this document the Grand Prince was called Gosudar (sovereign), and not Gospodin (lord), as had been the case up to that day. Ivan somewhat later sent as envoys to Novgorod two boyars to ask what kind of “Gosudarstvo” (sovereignty) Novgorod men wanted. The Moscow envoys appeared before the Assembly and asked if Novgorod men, having called Ivan sovereign, would yield now the Yaroslav court to him, have his representatives on all streets, and leave his judges in freedom. The people were stunned by these questions. The majority shouted at the envoys, said their statement was a falsehood, and declared that the Assembly had never called Ivan a sovereign, that no document had ever been sent to him with that word in it.Kazimir’s party hastened now to rouse public rage against Moscow. A furious storm rose immediately. The people remembered those boyars who had gone to the Grand Prince for justice. They seized Nikifor and Ovin; they brought them to the Assembly and questioned them. Ovin, to protect himself, accused Nikifor. “Falsifier!” shouted the people to Nikifor, “thou hast kissed the cross to the Grand Prince!” “I kissed the cross to serve with truth, and wish well to him, but I kissed no cross against Great Novgorod, my sovereign, or against you, my dear gentlemen.” Thereupon Nikifor was chopped into small bits with axes. Ovin did not save himself either. They killed him with Kuzma, his brother, at the archbishop’s palace.Some other boyars, in dread of a similar fate, hurried off to the Grand Prince. Their houses were ransacked, and gutted, and their property taken. The unrestrained mob gave itself up to various excesses. Again were heard shouts: “We are for the[469]king!” But no man harmed the envoys of Moscow, and they were sent back to Ivan with this answer: “We salute you lord, but sovereign we have not called you. Your court is to be as before in the Gorodische. But your representatives are not to be with us, and Yaroslav’s court we will not surrender to you. We will carry out our agreement made at Korostyno. As to him who without our consent called you sovereign, punish him as may please you; we will execute every man whom we find guilty in this case.”Thus the question of sovereign remained unexplained. The chronicler leaves it indefinite, and does not state whether a document was sent from the Assembly in that sense, or was used only by the archbishop and certain boyars.Ivan complained now to the metropolitan, to boyars, and to his own mother, that the Novgorod men refused to adhere to their statement, that they represented him as untruthful and insulted him; that they plundered and killed persons faithful to Moscow. After he had judged the affair with the aid of a council, composed of the higher clergy and the boyars, the Grand Prince resolved on a new expedition against Novgorod, and immediately sent couriers to summon forces. He asked Tver, and Pskoff also, for aid. Prayers were held in all churches, and liberal gifts made to them, and to monasteries.In the latter part of September, 1478, Ivan sent to Novgorod a declaration of war, and on October 9 he set out with his army. Marching through Tver territory, he arrived ten days later at Torjok, where a Moscow lieutenant, Vassili Kitai, was stationed. There he was met by two envoys who had come from Novgorod to obtain a safe-conduct for an embassy to negotiate; this the Grand Prince refused. In Torjok the auxiliary Tver troops were waiting with others. Ivan had planned well his campaign, and advanced with rapidity. As he approached Novgorod, boyars, merchants, and wealthy men came begging for admission to his service. They recognized the futility of struggling with Moscow, and passed to the victor in season.On reaching Lake Ilmen, Ivan divided his army into four parts. The first was commanded by his brother, Andrei Menshoi, and others; on the right wing was his brother, Andrei Bolshoi, the Tver voevoda, and Prince Michael; on the left wing was his[470]brother, Boris, and in the center, where he himself was, was Prince Patrikaieff. He sent a part of the army to take possession of the Gorodische, and also of the monasteries, before any one could burn them. This was done successfully. The rest of the army laid siege to the city. In Ivan’s first campaign a dry summer had assisted, but the time was now winter, hence the troops could go anywhere freely; lakes, rivers and morasses were solid. The Grand Prince and his men marched on the ice of Lake Ilmen and halted three versts from Novgorod, at the village of the boyar Lashinski. Not relying on frost alone, Ivan built a bridge over the Volkoff, thus ensuring connection with all the parts of his army.What could the city do against this dreadful power which beset it on all sides? In the first war with Moscow the city had considerable forces, but now we find them not even attempting to fight in the open. Every energy was turned to defending the walls and the fortress. They tried at first to strengthen these defenses, and even made a strong wooden wall near the new bridge. If Ivan had attacked without waiting, he might have found much resistance, and would have lost, it may be, many warriors; but he was not in a hurry. He calculated on how long Novgorod could resist in this difficult position. It was not without reason that during the first war, and after it, Ivan had seized the most active and capable leaders opposed to him. There was not one weighty person now among the leaders; and it would have been very difficult for any man of power to appear in the anarchy which was raging in the city at that time. Assistance from outside was impossible. No aid came from Kazimir. One method alone was left open to Novgorod people: negotiations with the conqueror. They could only bargain for conditions as best as they were able, and then beg for mercy. In fact the chronicler in describing this campaign touches mainly on this point.Novgorod had sent to Torjok to obtain from Ivan a safe-conduct for envoys. He commanded to detain the first messenger. They sent then a second, and a third man. Only on November 8, when thirty versts from the city, did Ivan give safe-conduct. An embassy of ten, with the archbishop as leader, then came to him. The archbishop rendered homage to Ivan, calling him sovereign, and Grand Prince of all Russia, in the name of the abbots, the[471]priests, and all the seven churches of Novgorod. He asked him to be gracious to his inheritance, to put away sword and fire, and to restore to the city those boyars who had been taken to Moscow. After the archbishop, other members of the embassy spoke in the same sense. The request to free a few boyars taken to Moscow was ill-timed, when the very existence of the city was in peril. Feodor, an envoy, added a request that the Grand Prince would command his boyars to discuss conditions of peace with them.Ivan made no answer, but invited the envoys to dine with him. Next day he appointed Prince Patrikaieff and two boyars, the brothers Borisovitch, to talk with those envoys. As was the wont of that time, the Novgorod envoys divided the articles for discussion: One man asked that the Grand Prince be gracious to Great Novgorod, his heritage, set aside wrath, and sheathe the sword; another asked that the boyars detained in Moscow should be liberated; a third proposed that the sovereign should come to Novgorod not oftener than once in four years, take one thousand rubles each visit, and whatever his lieutenant and posadnik could not judge he should judge on his coming, and not summon Novgorod men to Moscow for trial. A fourth requested that the lieutenant of the Grand Prince should not interfere in the courts of the archbishop and posadnik. It was asked also that servants of the Grand Prince be judged not in the Gorodische, but in the city. In conclusion it was requested that the Grand Prince declare why it was that Novgorod should give homage.All these questions were laid before Ivan. On the following day, at his order an answer was given, also in sections. Prince Patrikaieff made a general introduction, then the other two boyars continued. Touching Novgorod’s denial as to using the word “sovereign,” by this denial, they said, Novgorod had given the lie to Ivan and insulted him. The Grand Prince was astounded that the archbishop and the envoys asked freedom for men then detained for robbery and violence. In conclusion, Prince Patrikaieff added that if Great Novgorod wished to do homage to the Grand Prince, it knew for what it was to do homage. The envoys were dismissed with this answer.December 4 the archbishop and envoys returned. They expressed Novgorod’s regret for having denied the word “Gosudar.” Then followed Ivan’s answer: “If ye acknowledge your fault[472]and ask what rule there is to be in our heritage, Great Novgorod, our answer is: We wish the same government in Novgorod as in Moscow.” The envoys departed. December 7 the archbishop came with the same envoys and five other men. They begged that the Grand Prince’s lieutenant should judge with the posadnik. They proposed an annual tax of half a silver grieven for each plow. “Let the Grand Prince rule the dependent cities of Novgorod through lieutenants; but not remove men from Novgorod territory, or take the lands of boyars, and not summon men from Novgorod to Moscow, or make them serve in the Lower Country.”The Grand Prince answered through the boyars: “I have said that I wish the same rule in Novgorod as in Moscow, and now ye point out to me how to act. How would that be my rule?” After that they begged him to explain his will, since they knew not how he ruled the “Lower Country.” The Novgorod boyars knew well what Moscow rule was, but they feared the final word, and feigned not to understand the discussion. At last the sentence was pronounced by Ivan through his boyars: “Our rule is this: There is to be neither Assembly nor posadnik in Novgorod. We are to have the whole government, and the districts and villages are to be managed as in the Lower Country.”This answer was like a thunderbolt, but was softened somewhat by the promise not to remove people from Novgorod, or touch the inheritance of the boyars, and to leave courts in their present condition.They discussed the words of the Grand Prince a whole week in the city at stormy meetings. Finally the party of moderate men and the adherents of Moscow triumphed. They sent the same envoys to say that the Assembly and the posadnik were abolished. But they repeated their petition touching land, and the removal of people from Novgorod, that is, a summons to Moscow, and service in the Lower Country.It is clear that the Novgorod boyars had sacrificed their government, and were working then for class interests only. The Grand Prince granted their requests, but when the envoys asked an oath from him he refused sharply. They asked then that his boyars take an oath. This was refused also. They begged that his future lieutenant take the oath. This was not granted. Moreover, Ivan detained the envoys in his camp a whole fortnight.[473]He wished to weary the Novgorod men, and bring them to perfect agreement. He knew that there was a large party that still opposed him, and cried out at all meetings that they must fight Moscow to the uttermost.Meanwhile supplies in the city were exhausted; hunger began, and, as many people from the country had taken refuge in the place, the plague appeared. There was great abundance in the Moscow camp, and Ivan commanded Pskoff merchants to sell flour, fish and bread to the people. Disturbance and quarrels between the desperate opponents of Moscow and its adherents were unceasing. The Moscow side triumphed, however, and made further resistance impossible. The chief voevoda in Novgorod, Prince Shuiski, renounced his oath to the city. Going out unopposed, two days later, to the camp of the Grand Prince, he entered his service.On the twenty-ninth Ivan summoned the Novgorod envoys to confirm all conditions, and then dismissed them. Barely had they gone from his presence, however, when the boyars stopped them, declaring that the sovereign demanded towns and villages, otherwise he could not manage Novgorod. They had to pass many times between the Moscow camp and the city before this question was settled.Novgorod offered two districts adjoining Lithuania, then ten districts belonging to the archbishop, and the monasteries; but Ivan would not take these. Then they asked that he say himself what he wanted. He demanded one half of the districts of the archbishop and the monasteries, and all Torjok districts, no matter to whom they belonged. The Assembly at last agreed to this, but asked that half the land be taken from the six chief monasteries, and that the land of the others, which were needy, should not be taken.Ivan consented, and when, at his command, a detailed list of all the districts was given, he showed favor to the archbishop, and took not one half of his land, but only a tenth of the best districts. When the question was settled the envoys begged Ivan to lighten the siege, during which many people were perishing. He did not hasten to answer, and commanded his boyars to talk about the annual tax on all Novgorod. After long discussion, Ivan made it half a silver grieven for every plow of each land-tiller. At the[474]same time, at request of the bishop, he agreed not to send his own scribes, or listers, lest they might burden the people. He would depend, he said, on the faith of the Novgorod men, who might collect the whole tax and deliver it to whomever command should be given to receive it. When these conditions had all been accepted, Ivan ordered to clear the Yaroslav court for himself, and drew up an oath paper for all Novgorod. This paper was signed by the archbishop, who put his seal on it, together with the seals of the five ends of Novgorod, and January 15, 1478, the five Moscow boyars, who had finished negotiations, were sent to the city to take the oath from all people.Thenceforth the Assembly existed no longer. The higher classes, that is the boyars, rich people and merchants, took oath in the bishop’s palace. And to the five ends of the city were sent from the Grand Prince officials who brought all common men to the oath of allegiance. Then the Novgorod boyars, boyars’ sons, and wealthy people asked the Grand Prince to take them into service. This he consented to do with the obligation on their part to inform of the good and evil planned by any of the Novgorod men, with relation to the Grand Prince of Moscow.Only on January 18 did Ivan permit the country people, who had gathered in the city for safety, to go home, and on January 29 he entered Novgorod to hear mass, but returned to camp, as there was plague in the city. He remained about three weeks longer, arranging affairs of all kinds. At the Yaroslav court, instead of an Assembly, were Ivan’s two lieutenants, Prince Striga Obolenski and his brother. On the Sophia side of the city Ivan appointed two boyars, Vassili Kitai and Ivan Zinovieff. These four men were to govern the city and give judgment instead of the former posadniks and commanders. Then, not limiting himself by the pardon given Novgorod men, the Grand Prince commanded to seize a number of the leaders of the party opposed to him among boyars and wealthy persons; these men he sent to Moscow and confiscated their property. Among the persons taken was the renowned widow, Martha Boretski, with her grandson, Vassili,—the son of Feodor,—who died later on in confinement at Murom, after he had taken the monk’s habit.Ivan left Novgorod, and on March 5 arrived in Moscow. He had sent forward a boyar to his mother, to his son, and to the metropolitan[475]with tidings that he had brought his inheritance to his will, and had made himself sovereign in Novgorod, as in Moscow. Ivan was followed by men bringing the Assembly bell of Novgorod, which was hung in the Kremlin tower and sounded with other bells.In spite of their exhaustion, the Novgorod people were not reconciled yet to the loss of independence. In 1479 Ivan’s well-wishers declared to him that Novgorod was secretly negotiating with Kazimir, who was preparing to war against Moscow, and was rousing the Khan of the Golden Horde to attack the Grand Prince. About the same time there was a disagreement between Ivan and his brother, so the opportunity seemed favorable for an uprising in Novgorod. Ivan estimated the importance of the moment, and showed no slackness. He hurried to Novgorod October 26, with only one thousand warriors, enjoining his son to collect forces with the greatest speed possible, and follow him. Though guards had been placed on all roads to prevent news from reaching Novgorod, the city learned that Ivan was hastening to strike it, and immediately rose in rebellion. People rushed to strengthen the walls; they chose a posadnik and a commander; they renewed their Assembly. On hearing of this, Ivan halted two weeks at Bronitsi, and waited till new forces reached him. Then he laid siege to Novgorod. The siege was brief. Again there was wrangling of parties, and continual treason. Many went over to the Grand Prince. Moscow guns crushed the walls, and there was no help from any one.The Novgorod men tried to negotiate, and asked for a safe-conduct. Ivan refused, saying: “I am safety for all who deserve it. Open the gates! When I enter I will injure no innocent man.” They opened the gates. The archbishop and the clergy bearing crosses, the elected authorities, the boyars, and a multitude of people went out to meet the Grand Prince and implore forgiveness. Ivan received the archbishop’s blessing, and said that he brought peace to all who were innocent. He went to pray in the Cathedral. After that he stopped in the house of the new posadnik. And then he began to punish.The Novgorod men had risen up foolishly, without considering that in case of defeat they would lose the few privileges for which they had yielded so much some months earlier. This time, when[476]the uprising was ended, Ivan treated those people as rebels and traitors. First he commanded to seize the chief leaders, and put them to torture. They declared that the archbishop had joined the uprising. Ivan seized the archbishop, and sent him to Moscow. His wealth, which consisted of precious stones, gold and silver, was given to the treasury, and Sergei, a monk, was made archbishop instead of the guilty man. More than one hundred active rebels suffered death, and their property was confiscated. Ivan did not hold himself bound by promises made previously not to transfer men from Novgorod to the Lower Country, and he made a broad use of this privilege, in order to prevent any uprising in future, and to break the old stubborn pride of “Lord Novgorod.”To the Lower Country that year he removed one thousand families of the merchant class, and descendants of boyars. Seven thousand families of common people were moved to Moscow, and other towns and cities. In place of those he sent Moscow people to Novgorod. In the following years these transfers were continued. The houses and lands taken from Novgorod people were given to settlers from Moscow. By transfers of this kind the whole population was modified. The Novgorod people, when taken to the Lower Country and scattered, could not retain their old spirit and habits, and soon became merged with their neighbors. The numerous colonies in Novgorod introduced Moscow ideas and customs, and were points of support for the new order. Of course these changes brought loss with them, and the merging of Novgorod and Moscow was costly.Thus ended the semi-separate existence of Great Novgorod, which had lasted in some form for more than five hundred years. The fall of the city increased immensely the power and prestige of Moscow. Ivan became an important personage, even among the crowned heads of Europe, and now thought himself strong enough to defy the Mongols, and break the humiliating yoke of servitude. It had been the custom, when an embassy arrived, bearing the Khan’s portrait, as proof that they were deputed by him, for the Grand Prince to march out to meet them, prostrate himself, offer a cup of kumis, and spread a sable skin under the feet of the person who read the Khan’s letter. This letter was listened to while kneeling. It is stated that Ivan now not only refused to prostrate himself when an embassy came from Ahmed, but he seized the[477]portrait, trampled it under foot, and had all the envoys killed except one, whom he bade return to his master and report what he had heard and seen, telling the Khan further that if he continued to trouble Russia, he would be served in the same way.It is more probable, however, that King Kazimir, who feared this great accretion of power, roused Ahmed against Moscow, promising to render personal aid. But this time the allies let slip the right moment. The Novgorod rebellion and the quarrel of Ivan with his brothers gave them a favorable opportunity for an attack on Moscow, but Ivan’s statecraft and rich gifts given at the Horde by skilful envoys delayed the Khan’s action so that the Grand Prince was able to subdue Novgorod and settle home troubles, and then, when the moment came, to send strong forces to meet the advancing Mongols. There was firm friendship between Mengli Girei, Khan of the Crimea, and Ivan, but there was bitter enmity between Girei and Ahmed, the Golden Horde Khan. Of this enmity Ivan now took advantage, and concluded an alliance with Girei against Ahmed.July, 1480, Ivan set out to join his troops in Kolomna, while his son, Ivan, with another army, was stationed atSerpukoff, and his brother, Andrei, in Tarua.Ahmed advanced with a large army toward the Oká, but learning on the way that the chief crossings were defended by Moscow men, he moved westward, and after passing the Lithuanian boundary approached the Ugra River, which formed the boundary of Moscow. Ivan was informed of this movement in season, and his son and brother were able to reach the Ugra before the Mongols, and seize the main fords and crossings. Meanwhile the Grand Prince went from Kolomna to Moscow, which was prepared for a siege, should the Mongols cross the river and attack the city. At the head of the people was the strong-hearted mother of the Grand Prince. She had become a nun somewhat earlier, and taken the name of Martha, but now she desired to remain in the city to strengthen and animate others by her courage. Among distinguished men who remained were Prince Michael, Ivan’s great-uncle; the metropolitan Geronti; Ivan’s confessor, Vassian, and Prince Kaieff, Ivan’s own vicegerent. But Sophia, his wife, the Grand Prince sent with the treasury and many attendants to[478]Bailozersk, and commanded to take her still farther, even to the ocean, should Moscow be captured.When the Grand Prince neared the capital, people of the villages moved to Moscow, and burned all the neighboring places, as was done usually to hamper besiegers. Many were greatly dissatisfied with Ivan’s return. They did not like to have him leave the main army. His confessor spoke boldly, accused him of fear and timidity, and used the word “fugitive.” He even sent a letter to the prince, in which he appealed to Ivan’s pride, his honor and his ambition: “It is our duty to speak the truth to kings, and what I have already declared to you, mightiest of sovereigns, I now write in the hope of strengthening your purpose. When you set out, moved by the entreaties of the metropolitan and the loftiest of your people, to battle with the enemy of the Christians, we implored God to grant you victory. Nevertheless we hear that on the approach of the ferocious Ahmed, who has killed so many Christians, you bowed down before him and begged for a peace, which he contemptuously refused. Oh, prince, to whose counsels do you listen? Surely they are not worthy of the name of Christian. From what heights of grandeur have you not descended? Would you surrender Russia to fire and sword, its churches to pillage, and your people to the Mongol’s sword? What heart would not be broken by such a disaster? Where can you expect to reign after sacrificing the people God has confided to you? Can you mount like an eagle and make your nest among the stars? The Lord will cast you down. But you will not desert us, and prove yourself a coward and a traitor. Be of good courage,—there is no God like our God. Life and death are in his hands. Remember the glories of your ancestors, Vladimir Monomach, the terror of the Polovtsi; and Dmitri, who conquered the Mongols on the Don. He boldly faced Mamai, notwithstanding his oath of allegiance. We will release you from an oath extorted by violence—a breach of faith which will save the Empire is preferable to a fidelity which will ruin it. God will grant you a glorious reign, you and your sons and your sons’ sons, from generation to generation. In the past you have defeated the infidel, but what says the Evangelist: ‘He that shall endure unto the end shall be saved.’ Do not blame my feeble words—for it is written: ‘Show the wise man knowledge, and he will be wiser.’ Thus may it be. Receive our blessing,[479]you and your sons; your boyars and your brave warriors, children of Jesus Christ. Amen!”At this critical juncture, the indignation of the people was great against the Grand Prince for not showing more boldness, and was expressed with such emphasis that he finally withdrew to Krasni-Seltso. In later days it became evident that a deep and far-seeing policy and not fear had caused this seeming hesitancy. At that time, however, no man could understand it, for the Russian army numbered, it is said, one hundred and fifty thousand, was well organized, and had a powerful artillery.In place of moving against the enemy, Ivan ordered his son to Moscow. But the son was eager for battle, and risked his father’s wrath by remaining with the army near the Ugra. He was under the direction of Prince Holmski, the experienced voevoda. The Grand Prince commanded Holmski to seize the young man and send him to Moscow by force. Holmski did no more than to advise the youth to go, and he received this answer: “I would rather die where I am than go to my father.”Ivan at last yielded to public opinion and the words of the clergy. After remaining in Krasni-Seltso for a fortnight, he went to the army; but he halted before reaching the village of Kremenets, and sent gifts to Ahmed with a message requesting him to withdraw: “War not against thy own land,” said the Grand Prince.The Khan, upon receiving the message, commanded Ivan to visit him, according to the custom of his fathers. When he refused to do so, Ahmed demanded that he send his son or brother. Again he was met by a stern refusal. The Khan then agreed to the sending of Basenkoff, a boyar, who had been at the Horde, had brought gifts and enjoyed the Khan’s friendship. But the Grand Prince would not send even Basenkoff. During this time Ivan was constantly urged by the people of Moscow and by his officers to advance on the enemy, but he remained deaf to all advice and avoided decisive engagements, showing no inclination whatever to imitate Dmitri, his great-grandfather. According to his calculation, an expectant attitude would break Ahmed’s forces at last. He was waiting also for news from Mengli Girei, his strong, resolute ally.Ahmed, on his part, showed no eagerness for battle. He stood[480]facing a numerous and well equipped Moscow army, and did not urge action. He boasted that he was waiting till the rivers should freeze, and then, when all the roads were open to Moscow, he would advance, utterly destroy that city, and punish his servant Ivan for withholding tribute and homage. But in reality he was waiting for his ally, King Kazimir, as on a time Mamia had waited for Kazimir’s father, Yagello. This time, too, the waiting was long and useless, though for a different reason—Mengli Girei, to assist the Grand Prince, had made a furious attack on Volynia and Kief, and thus drawn Kazimir’s forces southward.It was autumn. Already frost had come, and by October 24 strong ice was on the Ugra and there was a safe road over the river. Ivan’s army was strengthened now by the coming of his brothers, Boris and Andrei, with their regiments. These brothers had been reconciled to Ivan through the influence of Martha, their mother.But neither the Russian nor the Mongol army showed any inclination to cross the river. At last Ivan commanded his troops to withdraw from the Ugra and join him in Kremenets. Not satisfied with this, he withdrew to Burovsk, promising Moscow and his angry commanders to meet the Mongols there, where the broad plain was well suited for a battle-field. But the Khan, for some unknown reason, had no thought of following. He may have feared ambush, or he may have been disconcerted by the reconciliation of Ivan with his brothers, and by the failure of Kazimir to assist him, and the news of Girei’s movements in the south. Meanwhile the thinly clad Mongols were suffering severely from frost and bad weather. They remained till November 11, when the Khan quietly withdrew from the Ugra, and marched southward. Thus both armies, after facing each other for a long time, disappeared from the field without fighting.Though the people of Moscow had been greatly dissatisfied with Ivan’s conduct, they now greeted him with honor and solemnity, nay, with deep joy, understanding at last with the clearest conviction that the question of the Mongol in Moscow was settled forever.The events which followed justified Ivan’s immense caution; they turned it into prudence and made it seem admirable, for the Golden Horde had put in the field large forces, and victory[481]on the Ugra would, at the best, have been bought with much bloodshed and dearly.Not long after this triumph of diplomacy, the Horde was destroyed by the Mongols themselves, without any bloodshed for Russia.When returning to the steppes, Ahmed, raging with anger at Kazimir for his slackness and unfilled promises, fell to plundering Lithuanian regions unmercifully. Laden with immense booty, he halted at the Donets to winter there. But the wealth which he had gathered roused the greed of Ivak, Khan of the Shiban Horde, who, aided by Nogai murzas, made a sudden attack upon Ahmed and killed him. Ivak sent a swift courier with these tidings to Ivan in Moscow, and received gifts in return.The last blow was given to the Golden Horde by Girei, Khan of the Crimea, Ivan’s faithful ally, against whom a mortal hatred was cherished by Ahmed’s descendants. Girei attacked the Golden Horde at Sarai, its capital, and destroyed it completely. Ahmed’s son, then Khan of the Horde, sought refuge among the Nogais. Later on he went to the Sultan at Tsargrad, and at last to his famous ally, the King of Poland. There he was put in prison, however, and the king sent word to Mengli Girei that as long as he remained in peace his erstwhile disorderly neighbor would be retained in durance.Thus in 1505 ended the Golden Horde, or the Horde of Sarai, which had so bitterly oppressed Russia for more than two hundred and forty years. The continuation of the Horde was the small Astrakhan Kingdom, once a vassal state in Batu’s mighty empire.THE END.[483]
In 1471 Feofil, the archbishop, was anointed in Moscow, and obtained from the Grand Prince release for boyars in detention. The next year Ivan married Sophia Palaeologus, a niece of Constantine, the last Emperor of Constantinople. Ivan’s first wife, Maria, a Tver princess, had died six years earlier. When the Turks captured Tsargrad, in 1453, the younger brothers of the Emperor, Dmitri and Thomas, were despots or rulers in Negropont, but instead of helping each other, they exhausted their forces in fighting, and in 1460 their possessions fell to the Osmanli. Dmitri yielded toMohammedII, gave him a daughter for his harem, and lived upon Mussulman bounty. But Thomas, a prouder and more determined man than his brother, left his wife in Corfu, and journeyed to Rome, thinking to find there not merely a refuge, but aid to win back his dominion.
The papal throne was then held by the well-known Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who was Pope Pius II. He received very cordially this Palaeologus, who had remained faithful to the Florentine union, and assigned him a generous pension. Thomas brought to the Pope a most precious relic: the head of Saint Andrew, which was met with great honor by the clergy and placed in St. Peter’s. To this relic the former despot added another: the hand of John the Baptist. Pius II now announced a crusade to expel the Osmanli, and wished to take personal part in it, but death struck him soon, and Palaeologus himself died the following year, 1465, while waiting for his family, which had already reached Ancona.
His eldest child, Helena, a widow of Lazar II, the Serbian king, retired to a convent; two sons, and Zoe (Sophia), a daughter, still remained. They settled in Rome under papal protection. By[464]the will of their father their guardian was Vissarion, that cardinal who, after Isidor’s death, was made titular Patriarch of Tsargrad. He had the young men and their sister reared carefully, and strove to inspire them with attachment, not to church union alone, but to the Latin Church specially. Princess Sophia had not passed out of childhood when both the Pope and Vissarion were seeking a husband for her among princely houses in Italy, and elsewhere. But those efforts ended unsuccessfully, partly because the girl had no dowry, and partly because of intriguing.
Vissarion’s attention rested at last on Ivan of Moscow. It was no great task to incline the Pope toward this marriage. It is known that the Curia strove to bring Russia to its spiritual guidance whenever a chance came. What Isidor had not accomplished, that is, the union of the Churches, the Pope now planned to effect through Sophia. Moreover he saw in Ivan fresh aid against the Osmanli.
Ivan was pleased with this marriage into a house with which he was related already,—his aunt, Anna, the sister of his father, had been wife of John, the eldest brother of Thomas Palaeologus. Sixtus IV, Pope at that time, received very graciously the envoys who came for the bride and brought rich presents. The chief of these envoys was Giovanni Battista Volpe of the city of Vicenza, who, employed at the mint, lived in Moscow, and was known there as Ivan Friazine. The Pope and the Sacred College spoke to the envoys as if the Russian Church had joined the Florentine union already. Sixtus, like those who preceded him, thought to drive out the Osmanli, and had formed a league to that end, both with Naples and Venice. In May he blessed banners for that enterprise, and three days later the marriage of Sophia was solemnized in the Basilica of St. Peter. Then Sophia and her suite and Ivan Friazine, who represented the Grand Prince, were sent on their way accompanied by the papal legate, Antonio, to whom, as it seems, was committed the task of establishing the Florentine union in Russia.
They journeyed through Italy and Germany to Lubeck, where they took ship, and after sailing eleven days on the Baltic, reached Revel; thence they passed through Pskoff and Novgorod to Moscow. The legate, Antonio, in a red robe and hat, and wearing red gloves which he never removed, had a crucifix borne before him as he passed through the cities. He made no sign of the cross[465]in Orthodox churches, and kissed no images, as did Sophia and those who were with her. This roused much scandal among Orthodox people, who remembered the Latin apostasy of Isidor. Reports of these facts reached Moscow and the council at once considered how to act with the legate. Ivan sought advice from the metropolitan, Philip, who answered that if Antonio entered Moscow with the crucifix at one gate, he would leave the city directly by another gate. That he who honors a strange faith belittles the faith of his own land. Ivan sent a boyar to have the legate hide the cross in his equipage, and after some opposition Antonio yielded to this request. The marriage took place the day of Sophia’s arrival.
For form’s sake, it was needful to make some decision regarding Antonio, whose special mission it was to unite the two Churches. They arranged a discussion between him and Philip, who called in Nikita, a man of deep reading, who, if we credit the chronicle, talked with such wisdom that the legate was forced to declare that he had not the books which he needed. In every case he soon saw that there was no chance of union. Still he remained eleven weeks in Moscow, after which Ivan dismissed him with honor. The envoys who had come with Sophia from her brothers returned to Rome also. The Grand Prince sent gifts of great value to the Pope, and also to Sophia’s brothers. Ivan, related by this marriage to the Greek and Roman Cæsars, now adopted the double eagle for the arms of Russia, still to be seen in its archaic form in the “Palais à Facettes” of the Kremlin. His seal bore on one side an eagle, on the other a horseman trampling a dragon. On this seal was the inscription “Grand Prince by the Grace of God, Sovereign of Russia.”
The confidence of Rome in Sophia was baseless. She carried from Rome, as seems evident, ideas not touching on gratitude, and had bitter memories of what she had passed through in many ways. On her long journey to Moscow she had time to think over her position, and was no doubt advised by the keen Greeks who accompanied her. Ivan Friazine himself, who knew the Grand Prince very well, might have opened her eyes in church matters. Sophia not only rejected the union in which she had been reared, but adhered to the Orthodox Church very firmly. She was a woman of strong character, and bore the Mongol yoke with impatience.[466]Having great influence over Ivan, she incited him continually to struggle against its oppression.
We must now turn to Novgorod. The late war and peace with Ivan had greatly intensified the conflict of parties. Popular government, which had existed for centuries in that Commonwealth, had lost the best points of its character. No matter how unequal were the powers in this struggle with Moscow, only a cracked and shattered system could be so weak as was Novgorod. The boyars, freed from Moscow detention, strengthened the Boretski adherents, who began promptly to pour out their hatred of Moscow on Moscow adherents. The struggle was limited no longer to mob meetings; violence began, and whole streets were plundered. Once a number of boyars, with the city posadnik, Anani, as their leader, assembled a party of followers, and attacked two streets, wounding and robbing their enemies who lived there. Another time Panfil, an elder, with boyars, and a party of similar character, broke into the houses of other boyars, beat their servants, and bore off much property. When such were the acts of men in authority, whose duty it was to keep order, it is clear that there was anarchy in Novgorod. The opponents of the widow and her sons could find noprotectionat home; hence they turned to the Grand Prince.
Ivan delayed not in making his answer. Setting out in the autumn of 1475 with a large armed attendance, he sent a courier in advance with the tidings that he was on the way to his inheritance, Great Novgorod. Barely had he entered the lands of the city when people came forth with complaints of oppression. Later on boyars and men of importance received him with presents, as did the archbishop, Prince Shuiski, the posadnik, and others.
November 21, the Grand Prince arrived at the Gorodische, and went to mass there. On the twenty-third he entered Novgorod officially, and prayed in Sophia Cathedral. He dined with the archbishop and returned to the Gorodische. His military forces found lodgings in monasteries.
The unexpected arrival of the Grand Prince confused the partisans of Kazimir. They were silent and tried to rival their opponents in hospitality to Ivan. The Grand Prince dined once with Prince Shuiski, and thrice with the archbishop. He feasted once at the house of the former posadnik; he dined also with the commander and with notable boyars. At each house many casks[467]of wine from “beyond the sea,” mead in barrels, rich cloth, foreign gold, tusks of walrus, trained falcons, sables, horses, gold goblets filled with pearls, horns mounted in silver, and silver dishes, were presented to him. It is evident that Novgorod men did their best to surpass one another.
But the stern widow did not bend to the Grand Prince. Martha Boretski offered neither hospitality nor presents. The former posadniks, merchants, and rich men, who did not succeed in feasting Ivan, came to him with gifts and with homage. The posadnik and the commander brought one thousand rubles from the city. Ivan gave a banquet himself, to which Prince Shuiski, the posadnik, many merchants, and wealthy persons were invited. The Grand Prince sat long at table with his guests, gave them fine garments, rich goblets, sabres, and horses.
But feasting did not draw Ivan from the object of his coming. He received Novgorod complainants who sought for redress of injustice. Touching the street attack by boyars, Ivan commanded to arrest the chief offenders, the posadnik Vassili Anani, and the boyars Bogdan Osipoff, Feodor Boretski, and Ivan Lashinski. In accordance with Novgorod rule, Ivan required the Assembly to attach its own officers with his to the defendants. The comrades of those offenders were freed on the archbishop’s recognizance in the sum of fifteen hundred rubles.
After the case had been examined, Ivan rendered judgment against the defendants. On the archbishop’s security they were freed from imprisonment, but had to pay fifteen hundred rubles indemnity to the injured, and a fine to the Grand Prince. The four main criminals, despite all petitions, were sent under guard and in fetters to Moscow.
After a stay of nine weeks, Ivan went back to Moscow. Besides the four boyars, he gave command to arrest Ivan Afonasoff and his son, Olferi, because they had plotted to surrender Novgorod to King Kazimir. From Moscow the condemned boyars were sent to Kolomna and to Murom.
Thus Ivan seized the chief leaders of Kazimir’s party, and gave Novgorod an example of his justice, which punished men without reference to wealth or position.
Novgorod men, finding no protection at home, went to Moscow with complaints against powerful offenders. The Grand Prince[468]then summoned those offenders to his capital, a thing never done up to his day. Among the complainants and offenders to be met in Moscow were Novgorod men of distinction,—for example, a former posadnik, Zahari Ovin, and the boyar, Vassili Nikifor. The latter, though a leader of the Kazimir party, gave an oath of some kind to the Grand Prince. Many members of the party, considering their cause lost, passed to the other side. The adherents of Moscow had now grown so confident that, with the archbishop as their leader, they acted with decision.
In the winter of 1477 there came to the Grand Prince a document from the archbishop and all Novgorod. In this document the Grand Prince was called Gosudar (sovereign), and not Gospodin (lord), as had been the case up to that day. Ivan somewhat later sent as envoys to Novgorod two boyars to ask what kind of “Gosudarstvo” (sovereignty) Novgorod men wanted. The Moscow envoys appeared before the Assembly and asked if Novgorod men, having called Ivan sovereign, would yield now the Yaroslav court to him, have his representatives on all streets, and leave his judges in freedom. The people were stunned by these questions. The majority shouted at the envoys, said their statement was a falsehood, and declared that the Assembly had never called Ivan a sovereign, that no document had ever been sent to him with that word in it.
Kazimir’s party hastened now to rouse public rage against Moscow. A furious storm rose immediately. The people remembered those boyars who had gone to the Grand Prince for justice. They seized Nikifor and Ovin; they brought them to the Assembly and questioned them. Ovin, to protect himself, accused Nikifor. “Falsifier!” shouted the people to Nikifor, “thou hast kissed the cross to the Grand Prince!” “I kissed the cross to serve with truth, and wish well to him, but I kissed no cross against Great Novgorod, my sovereign, or against you, my dear gentlemen.” Thereupon Nikifor was chopped into small bits with axes. Ovin did not save himself either. They killed him with Kuzma, his brother, at the archbishop’s palace.
Some other boyars, in dread of a similar fate, hurried off to the Grand Prince. Their houses were ransacked, and gutted, and their property taken. The unrestrained mob gave itself up to various excesses. Again were heard shouts: “We are for the[469]king!” But no man harmed the envoys of Moscow, and they were sent back to Ivan with this answer: “We salute you lord, but sovereign we have not called you. Your court is to be as before in the Gorodische. But your representatives are not to be with us, and Yaroslav’s court we will not surrender to you. We will carry out our agreement made at Korostyno. As to him who without our consent called you sovereign, punish him as may please you; we will execute every man whom we find guilty in this case.”
Thus the question of sovereign remained unexplained. The chronicler leaves it indefinite, and does not state whether a document was sent from the Assembly in that sense, or was used only by the archbishop and certain boyars.
Ivan complained now to the metropolitan, to boyars, and to his own mother, that the Novgorod men refused to adhere to their statement, that they represented him as untruthful and insulted him; that they plundered and killed persons faithful to Moscow. After he had judged the affair with the aid of a council, composed of the higher clergy and the boyars, the Grand Prince resolved on a new expedition against Novgorod, and immediately sent couriers to summon forces. He asked Tver, and Pskoff also, for aid. Prayers were held in all churches, and liberal gifts made to them, and to monasteries.
In the latter part of September, 1478, Ivan sent to Novgorod a declaration of war, and on October 9 he set out with his army. Marching through Tver territory, he arrived ten days later at Torjok, where a Moscow lieutenant, Vassili Kitai, was stationed. There he was met by two envoys who had come from Novgorod to obtain a safe-conduct for an embassy to negotiate; this the Grand Prince refused. In Torjok the auxiliary Tver troops were waiting with others. Ivan had planned well his campaign, and advanced with rapidity. As he approached Novgorod, boyars, merchants, and wealthy men came begging for admission to his service. They recognized the futility of struggling with Moscow, and passed to the victor in season.
On reaching Lake Ilmen, Ivan divided his army into four parts. The first was commanded by his brother, Andrei Menshoi, and others; on the right wing was his brother, Andrei Bolshoi, the Tver voevoda, and Prince Michael; on the left wing was his[470]brother, Boris, and in the center, where he himself was, was Prince Patrikaieff. He sent a part of the army to take possession of the Gorodische, and also of the monasteries, before any one could burn them. This was done successfully. The rest of the army laid siege to the city. In Ivan’s first campaign a dry summer had assisted, but the time was now winter, hence the troops could go anywhere freely; lakes, rivers and morasses were solid. The Grand Prince and his men marched on the ice of Lake Ilmen and halted three versts from Novgorod, at the village of the boyar Lashinski. Not relying on frost alone, Ivan built a bridge over the Volkoff, thus ensuring connection with all the parts of his army.
What could the city do against this dreadful power which beset it on all sides? In the first war with Moscow the city had considerable forces, but now we find them not even attempting to fight in the open. Every energy was turned to defending the walls and the fortress. They tried at first to strengthen these defenses, and even made a strong wooden wall near the new bridge. If Ivan had attacked without waiting, he might have found much resistance, and would have lost, it may be, many warriors; but he was not in a hurry. He calculated on how long Novgorod could resist in this difficult position. It was not without reason that during the first war, and after it, Ivan had seized the most active and capable leaders opposed to him. There was not one weighty person now among the leaders; and it would have been very difficult for any man of power to appear in the anarchy which was raging in the city at that time. Assistance from outside was impossible. No aid came from Kazimir. One method alone was left open to Novgorod people: negotiations with the conqueror. They could only bargain for conditions as best as they were able, and then beg for mercy. In fact the chronicler in describing this campaign touches mainly on this point.
Novgorod had sent to Torjok to obtain from Ivan a safe-conduct for envoys. He commanded to detain the first messenger. They sent then a second, and a third man. Only on November 8, when thirty versts from the city, did Ivan give safe-conduct. An embassy of ten, with the archbishop as leader, then came to him. The archbishop rendered homage to Ivan, calling him sovereign, and Grand Prince of all Russia, in the name of the abbots, the[471]priests, and all the seven churches of Novgorod. He asked him to be gracious to his inheritance, to put away sword and fire, and to restore to the city those boyars who had been taken to Moscow. After the archbishop, other members of the embassy spoke in the same sense. The request to free a few boyars taken to Moscow was ill-timed, when the very existence of the city was in peril. Feodor, an envoy, added a request that the Grand Prince would command his boyars to discuss conditions of peace with them.
Ivan made no answer, but invited the envoys to dine with him. Next day he appointed Prince Patrikaieff and two boyars, the brothers Borisovitch, to talk with those envoys. As was the wont of that time, the Novgorod envoys divided the articles for discussion: One man asked that the Grand Prince be gracious to Great Novgorod, his heritage, set aside wrath, and sheathe the sword; another asked that the boyars detained in Moscow should be liberated; a third proposed that the sovereign should come to Novgorod not oftener than once in four years, take one thousand rubles each visit, and whatever his lieutenant and posadnik could not judge he should judge on his coming, and not summon Novgorod men to Moscow for trial. A fourth requested that the lieutenant of the Grand Prince should not interfere in the courts of the archbishop and posadnik. It was asked also that servants of the Grand Prince be judged not in the Gorodische, but in the city. In conclusion it was requested that the Grand Prince declare why it was that Novgorod should give homage.
All these questions were laid before Ivan. On the following day, at his order an answer was given, also in sections. Prince Patrikaieff made a general introduction, then the other two boyars continued. Touching Novgorod’s denial as to using the word “sovereign,” by this denial, they said, Novgorod had given the lie to Ivan and insulted him. The Grand Prince was astounded that the archbishop and the envoys asked freedom for men then detained for robbery and violence. In conclusion, Prince Patrikaieff added that if Great Novgorod wished to do homage to the Grand Prince, it knew for what it was to do homage. The envoys were dismissed with this answer.
December 4 the archbishop and envoys returned. They expressed Novgorod’s regret for having denied the word “Gosudar.” Then followed Ivan’s answer: “If ye acknowledge your fault[472]and ask what rule there is to be in our heritage, Great Novgorod, our answer is: We wish the same government in Novgorod as in Moscow.” The envoys departed. December 7 the archbishop came with the same envoys and five other men. They begged that the Grand Prince’s lieutenant should judge with the posadnik. They proposed an annual tax of half a silver grieven for each plow. “Let the Grand Prince rule the dependent cities of Novgorod through lieutenants; but not remove men from Novgorod territory, or take the lands of boyars, and not summon men from Novgorod to Moscow, or make them serve in the Lower Country.”
The Grand Prince answered through the boyars: “I have said that I wish the same rule in Novgorod as in Moscow, and now ye point out to me how to act. How would that be my rule?” After that they begged him to explain his will, since they knew not how he ruled the “Lower Country.” The Novgorod boyars knew well what Moscow rule was, but they feared the final word, and feigned not to understand the discussion. At last the sentence was pronounced by Ivan through his boyars: “Our rule is this: There is to be neither Assembly nor posadnik in Novgorod. We are to have the whole government, and the districts and villages are to be managed as in the Lower Country.”
This answer was like a thunderbolt, but was softened somewhat by the promise not to remove people from Novgorod, or touch the inheritance of the boyars, and to leave courts in their present condition.
They discussed the words of the Grand Prince a whole week in the city at stormy meetings. Finally the party of moderate men and the adherents of Moscow triumphed. They sent the same envoys to say that the Assembly and the posadnik were abolished. But they repeated their petition touching land, and the removal of people from Novgorod, that is, a summons to Moscow, and service in the Lower Country.
It is clear that the Novgorod boyars had sacrificed their government, and were working then for class interests only. The Grand Prince granted their requests, but when the envoys asked an oath from him he refused sharply. They asked then that his boyars take an oath. This was refused also. They begged that his future lieutenant take the oath. This was not granted. Moreover, Ivan detained the envoys in his camp a whole fortnight.[473]He wished to weary the Novgorod men, and bring them to perfect agreement. He knew that there was a large party that still opposed him, and cried out at all meetings that they must fight Moscow to the uttermost.
Meanwhile supplies in the city were exhausted; hunger began, and, as many people from the country had taken refuge in the place, the plague appeared. There was great abundance in the Moscow camp, and Ivan commanded Pskoff merchants to sell flour, fish and bread to the people. Disturbance and quarrels between the desperate opponents of Moscow and its adherents were unceasing. The Moscow side triumphed, however, and made further resistance impossible. The chief voevoda in Novgorod, Prince Shuiski, renounced his oath to the city. Going out unopposed, two days later, to the camp of the Grand Prince, he entered his service.
On the twenty-ninth Ivan summoned the Novgorod envoys to confirm all conditions, and then dismissed them. Barely had they gone from his presence, however, when the boyars stopped them, declaring that the sovereign demanded towns and villages, otherwise he could not manage Novgorod. They had to pass many times between the Moscow camp and the city before this question was settled.
Novgorod offered two districts adjoining Lithuania, then ten districts belonging to the archbishop, and the monasteries; but Ivan would not take these. Then they asked that he say himself what he wanted. He demanded one half of the districts of the archbishop and the monasteries, and all Torjok districts, no matter to whom they belonged. The Assembly at last agreed to this, but asked that half the land be taken from the six chief monasteries, and that the land of the others, which were needy, should not be taken.
Ivan consented, and when, at his command, a detailed list of all the districts was given, he showed favor to the archbishop, and took not one half of his land, but only a tenth of the best districts. When the question was settled the envoys begged Ivan to lighten the siege, during which many people were perishing. He did not hasten to answer, and commanded his boyars to talk about the annual tax on all Novgorod. After long discussion, Ivan made it half a silver grieven for every plow of each land-tiller. At the[474]same time, at request of the bishop, he agreed not to send his own scribes, or listers, lest they might burden the people. He would depend, he said, on the faith of the Novgorod men, who might collect the whole tax and deliver it to whomever command should be given to receive it. When these conditions had all been accepted, Ivan ordered to clear the Yaroslav court for himself, and drew up an oath paper for all Novgorod. This paper was signed by the archbishop, who put his seal on it, together with the seals of the five ends of Novgorod, and January 15, 1478, the five Moscow boyars, who had finished negotiations, were sent to the city to take the oath from all people.
Thenceforth the Assembly existed no longer. The higher classes, that is the boyars, rich people and merchants, took oath in the bishop’s palace. And to the five ends of the city were sent from the Grand Prince officials who brought all common men to the oath of allegiance. Then the Novgorod boyars, boyars’ sons, and wealthy people asked the Grand Prince to take them into service. This he consented to do with the obligation on their part to inform of the good and evil planned by any of the Novgorod men, with relation to the Grand Prince of Moscow.
Only on January 18 did Ivan permit the country people, who had gathered in the city for safety, to go home, and on January 29 he entered Novgorod to hear mass, but returned to camp, as there was plague in the city. He remained about three weeks longer, arranging affairs of all kinds. At the Yaroslav court, instead of an Assembly, were Ivan’s two lieutenants, Prince Striga Obolenski and his brother. On the Sophia side of the city Ivan appointed two boyars, Vassili Kitai and Ivan Zinovieff. These four men were to govern the city and give judgment instead of the former posadniks and commanders. Then, not limiting himself by the pardon given Novgorod men, the Grand Prince commanded to seize a number of the leaders of the party opposed to him among boyars and wealthy persons; these men he sent to Moscow and confiscated their property. Among the persons taken was the renowned widow, Martha Boretski, with her grandson, Vassili,—the son of Feodor,—who died later on in confinement at Murom, after he had taken the monk’s habit.
Ivan left Novgorod, and on March 5 arrived in Moscow. He had sent forward a boyar to his mother, to his son, and to the metropolitan[475]with tidings that he had brought his inheritance to his will, and had made himself sovereign in Novgorod, as in Moscow. Ivan was followed by men bringing the Assembly bell of Novgorod, which was hung in the Kremlin tower and sounded with other bells.
In spite of their exhaustion, the Novgorod people were not reconciled yet to the loss of independence. In 1479 Ivan’s well-wishers declared to him that Novgorod was secretly negotiating with Kazimir, who was preparing to war against Moscow, and was rousing the Khan of the Golden Horde to attack the Grand Prince. About the same time there was a disagreement between Ivan and his brother, so the opportunity seemed favorable for an uprising in Novgorod. Ivan estimated the importance of the moment, and showed no slackness. He hurried to Novgorod October 26, with only one thousand warriors, enjoining his son to collect forces with the greatest speed possible, and follow him. Though guards had been placed on all roads to prevent news from reaching Novgorod, the city learned that Ivan was hastening to strike it, and immediately rose in rebellion. People rushed to strengthen the walls; they chose a posadnik and a commander; they renewed their Assembly. On hearing of this, Ivan halted two weeks at Bronitsi, and waited till new forces reached him. Then he laid siege to Novgorod. The siege was brief. Again there was wrangling of parties, and continual treason. Many went over to the Grand Prince. Moscow guns crushed the walls, and there was no help from any one.
The Novgorod men tried to negotiate, and asked for a safe-conduct. Ivan refused, saying: “I am safety for all who deserve it. Open the gates! When I enter I will injure no innocent man.” They opened the gates. The archbishop and the clergy bearing crosses, the elected authorities, the boyars, and a multitude of people went out to meet the Grand Prince and implore forgiveness. Ivan received the archbishop’s blessing, and said that he brought peace to all who were innocent. He went to pray in the Cathedral. After that he stopped in the house of the new posadnik. And then he began to punish.
The Novgorod men had risen up foolishly, without considering that in case of defeat they would lose the few privileges for which they had yielded so much some months earlier. This time, when[476]the uprising was ended, Ivan treated those people as rebels and traitors. First he commanded to seize the chief leaders, and put them to torture. They declared that the archbishop had joined the uprising. Ivan seized the archbishop, and sent him to Moscow. His wealth, which consisted of precious stones, gold and silver, was given to the treasury, and Sergei, a monk, was made archbishop instead of the guilty man. More than one hundred active rebels suffered death, and their property was confiscated. Ivan did not hold himself bound by promises made previously not to transfer men from Novgorod to the Lower Country, and he made a broad use of this privilege, in order to prevent any uprising in future, and to break the old stubborn pride of “Lord Novgorod.”
To the Lower Country that year he removed one thousand families of the merchant class, and descendants of boyars. Seven thousand families of common people were moved to Moscow, and other towns and cities. In place of those he sent Moscow people to Novgorod. In the following years these transfers were continued. The houses and lands taken from Novgorod people were given to settlers from Moscow. By transfers of this kind the whole population was modified. The Novgorod people, when taken to the Lower Country and scattered, could not retain their old spirit and habits, and soon became merged with their neighbors. The numerous colonies in Novgorod introduced Moscow ideas and customs, and were points of support for the new order. Of course these changes brought loss with them, and the merging of Novgorod and Moscow was costly.
Thus ended the semi-separate existence of Great Novgorod, which had lasted in some form for more than five hundred years. The fall of the city increased immensely the power and prestige of Moscow. Ivan became an important personage, even among the crowned heads of Europe, and now thought himself strong enough to defy the Mongols, and break the humiliating yoke of servitude. It had been the custom, when an embassy arrived, bearing the Khan’s portrait, as proof that they were deputed by him, for the Grand Prince to march out to meet them, prostrate himself, offer a cup of kumis, and spread a sable skin under the feet of the person who read the Khan’s letter. This letter was listened to while kneeling. It is stated that Ivan now not only refused to prostrate himself when an embassy came from Ahmed, but he seized the[477]portrait, trampled it under foot, and had all the envoys killed except one, whom he bade return to his master and report what he had heard and seen, telling the Khan further that if he continued to trouble Russia, he would be served in the same way.
It is more probable, however, that King Kazimir, who feared this great accretion of power, roused Ahmed against Moscow, promising to render personal aid. But this time the allies let slip the right moment. The Novgorod rebellion and the quarrel of Ivan with his brothers gave them a favorable opportunity for an attack on Moscow, but Ivan’s statecraft and rich gifts given at the Horde by skilful envoys delayed the Khan’s action so that the Grand Prince was able to subdue Novgorod and settle home troubles, and then, when the moment came, to send strong forces to meet the advancing Mongols. There was firm friendship between Mengli Girei, Khan of the Crimea, and Ivan, but there was bitter enmity between Girei and Ahmed, the Golden Horde Khan. Of this enmity Ivan now took advantage, and concluded an alliance with Girei against Ahmed.
July, 1480, Ivan set out to join his troops in Kolomna, while his son, Ivan, with another army, was stationed atSerpukoff, and his brother, Andrei, in Tarua.
Ahmed advanced with a large army toward the Oká, but learning on the way that the chief crossings were defended by Moscow men, he moved westward, and after passing the Lithuanian boundary approached the Ugra River, which formed the boundary of Moscow. Ivan was informed of this movement in season, and his son and brother were able to reach the Ugra before the Mongols, and seize the main fords and crossings. Meanwhile the Grand Prince went from Kolomna to Moscow, which was prepared for a siege, should the Mongols cross the river and attack the city. At the head of the people was the strong-hearted mother of the Grand Prince. She had become a nun somewhat earlier, and taken the name of Martha, but now she desired to remain in the city to strengthen and animate others by her courage. Among distinguished men who remained were Prince Michael, Ivan’s great-uncle; the metropolitan Geronti; Ivan’s confessor, Vassian, and Prince Kaieff, Ivan’s own vicegerent. But Sophia, his wife, the Grand Prince sent with the treasury and many attendants to[478]Bailozersk, and commanded to take her still farther, even to the ocean, should Moscow be captured.
When the Grand Prince neared the capital, people of the villages moved to Moscow, and burned all the neighboring places, as was done usually to hamper besiegers. Many were greatly dissatisfied with Ivan’s return. They did not like to have him leave the main army. His confessor spoke boldly, accused him of fear and timidity, and used the word “fugitive.” He even sent a letter to the prince, in which he appealed to Ivan’s pride, his honor and his ambition: “It is our duty to speak the truth to kings, and what I have already declared to you, mightiest of sovereigns, I now write in the hope of strengthening your purpose. When you set out, moved by the entreaties of the metropolitan and the loftiest of your people, to battle with the enemy of the Christians, we implored God to grant you victory. Nevertheless we hear that on the approach of the ferocious Ahmed, who has killed so many Christians, you bowed down before him and begged for a peace, which he contemptuously refused. Oh, prince, to whose counsels do you listen? Surely they are not worthy of the name of Christian. From what heights of grandeur have you not descended? Would you surrender Russia to fire and sword, its churches to pillage, and your people to the Mongol’s sword? What heart would not be broken by such a disaster? Where can you expect to reign after sacrificing the people God has confided to you? Can you mount like an eagle and make your nest among the stars? The Lord will cast you down. But you will not desert us, and prove yourself a coward and a traitor. Be of good courage,—there is no God like our God. Life and death are in his hands. Remember the glories of your ancestors, Vladimir Monomach, the terror of the Polovtsi; and Dmitri, who conquered the Mongols on the Don. He boldly faced Mamai, notwithstanding his oath of allegiance. We will release you from an oath extorted by violence—a breach of faith which will save the Empire is preferable to a fidelity which will ruin it. God will grant you a glorious reign, you and your sons and your sons’ sons, from generation to generation. In the past you have defeated the infidel, but what says the Evangelist: ‘He that shall endure unto the end shall be saved.’ Do not blame my feeble words—for it is written: ‘Show the wise man knowledge, and he will be wiser.’ Thus may it be. Receive our blessing,[479]you and your sons; your boyars and your brave warriors, children of Jesus Christ. Amen!”
At this critical juncture, the indignation of the people was great against the Grand Prince for not showing more boldness, and was expressed with such emphasis that he finally withdrew to Krasni-Seltso. In later days it became evident that a deep and far-seeing policy and not fear had caused this seeming hesitancy. At that time, however, no man could understand it, for the Russian army numbered, it is said, one hundred and fifty thousand, was well organized, and had a powerful artillery.
In place of moving against the enemy, Ivan ordered his son to Moscow. But the son was eager for battle, and risked his father’s wrath by remaining with the army near the Ugra. He was under the direction of Prince Holmski, the experienced voevoda. The Grand Prince commanded Holmski to seize the young man and send him to Moscow by force. Holmski did no more than to advise the youth to go, and he received this answer: “I would rather die where I am than go to my father.”
Ivan at last yielded to public opinion and the words of the clergy. After remaining in Krasni-Seltso for a fortnight, he went to the army; but he halted before reaching the village of Kremenets, and sent gifts to Ahmed with a message requesting him to withdraw: “War not against thy own land,” said the Grand Prince.
The Khan, upon receiving the message, commanded Ivan to visit him, according to the custom of his fathers. When he refused to do so, Ahmed demanded that he send his son or brother. Again he was met by a stern refusal. The Khan then agreed to the sending of Basenkoff, a boyar, who had been at the Horde, had brought gifts and enjoyed the Khan’s friendship. But the Grand Prince would not send even Basenkoff. During this time Ivan was constantly urged by the people of Moscow and by his officers to advance on the enemy, but he remained deaf to all advice and avoided decisive engagements, showing no inclination whatever to imitate Dmitri, his great-grandfather. According to his calculation, an expectant attitude would break Ahmed’s forces at last. He was waiting also for news from Mengli Girei, his strong, resolute ally.
Ahmed, on his part, showed no eagerness for battle. He stood[480]facing a numerous and well equipped Moscow army, and did not urge action. He boasted that he was waiting till the rivers should freeze, and then, when all the roads were open to Moscow, he would advance, utterly destroy that city, and punish his servant Ivan for withholding tribute and homage. But in reality he was waiting for his ally, King Kazimir, as on a time Mamia had waited for Kazimir’s father, Yagello. This time, too, the waiting was long and useless, though for a different reason—Mengli Girei, to assist the Grand Prince, had made a furious attack on Volynia and Kief, and thus drawn Kazimir’s forces southward.
It was autumn. Already frost had come, and by October 24 strong ice was on the Ugra and there was a safe road over the river. Ivan’s army was strengthened now by the coming of his brothers, Boris and Andrei, with their regiments. These brothers had been reconciled to Ivan through the influence of Martha, their mother.
But neither the Russian nor the Mongol army showed any inclination to cross the river. At last Ivan commanded his troops to withdraw from the Ugra and join him in Kremenets. Not satisfied with this, he withdrew to Burovsk, promising Moscow and his angry commanders to meet the Mongols there, where the broad plain was well suited for a battle-field. But the Khan, for some unknown reason, had no thought of following. He may have feared ambush, or he may have been disconcerted by the reconciliation of Ivan with his brothers, and by the failure of Kazimir to assist him, and the news of Girei’s movements in the south. Meanwhile the thinly clad Mongols were suffering severely from frost and bad weather. They remained till November 11, when the Khan quietly withdrew from the Ugra, and marched southward. Thus both armies, after facing each other for a long time, disappeared from the field without fighting.
Though the people of Moscow had been greatly dissatisfied with Ivan’s conduct, they now greeted him with honor and solemnity, nay, with deep joy, understanding at last with the clearest conviction that the question of the Mongol in Moscow was settled forever.
The events which followed justified Ivan’s immense caution; they turned it into prudence and made it seem admirable, for the Golden Horde had put in the field large forces, and victory[481]on the Ugra would, at the best, have been bought with much bloodshed and dearly.
Not long after this triumph of diplomacy, the Horde was destroyed by the Mongols themselves, without any bloodshed for Russia.
When returning to the steppes, Ahmed, raging with anger at Kazimir for his slackness and unfilled promises, fell to plundering Lithuanian regions unmercifully. Laden with immense booty, he halted at the Donets to winter there. But the wealth which he had gathered roused the greed of Ivak, Khan of the Shiban Horde, who, aided by Nogai murzas, made a sudden attack upon Ahmed and killed him. Ivak sent a swift courier with these tidings to Ivan in Moscow, and received gifts in return.
The last blow was given to the Golden Horde by Girei, Khan of the Crimea, Ivan’s faithful ally, against whom a mortal hatred was cherished by Ahmed’s descendants. Girei attacked the Golden Horde at Sarai, its capital, and destroyed it completely. Ahmed’s son, then Khan of the Horde, sought refuge among the Nogais. Later on he went to the Sultan at Tsargrad, and at last to his famous ally, the King of Poland. There he was put in prison, however, and the king sent word to Mengli Girei that as long as he remained in peace his erstwhile disorderly neighbor would be retained in durance.
Thus in 1505 ended the Golden Horde, or the Horde of Sarai, which had so bitterly oppressed Russia for more than two hundred and forty years. The continuation of the Horde was the small Astrakhan Kingdom, once a vassal state in Batu’s mighty empire.
THE END.
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