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When he was seventeen years of age he was formally crowned czar. The citizens, ignorant of the truths of political economy and the principles of governmental science underlying the young Czar’s system, became alarmed, and fired the city one night. When Ivan awoke, he was terrified, being of an abnormally nervous temperament, and the apparition of a warning monk, together with the influence of Anastasia, the young czarina, led the czar to abandon the simple and straightforward methods of government in which he had been bred, and for thirteen years, under the dictation of Alexis Adascheff and the monk Sylvester, Ivan devoted himself to the commonplace employments of developing Russia politically and socially. He dismissed his ministers and put others in their places. He reorganized the army; revised the code, in the interest of abstract justice; equalized assessments; subdued the Tartars; established forts for the protection of the frontiers; laid the foundation for the future greatness of his empire; began the work which was completed so grandly under Peter the Great; introduced printing into Russia; added greatly to her possessions; checked the abuses of the clergy; brought artists from western Europe, and in a hundred ways made himself famous by doing those things which historians love to chronicle.

Meanwhile, his genius for governing upon the Gluiskian system lay dormant. It was not dead, but slept, and after its nap of thirteen years it awoke one day, refreshed. Anastasia, the beautiful queen whose influence had been supreme for so long a time, died, and Ivan was free again. He recalled an old bishop who had been banished for his crimes, and consulted him as to his future course.

“If you wish to be truly a sovereign,” said this eminent prelate, “never seek a counsellor wiser than yourself; never receive advice from any man. Command, but never obey; and you will be a terror to the boyards. Remember that he who is permitted to begin by advising is certain to end by ruling his sovereign.”

Here was advice of a sort suited to Ivan’s taste and education, and for reply he kissed the good bishop’s hand, saying:

“My own father could not have spoken more wisely.”

That the czar spoke sincerely, his faithfulness in following the bishop’s precepts abundantly attests.

His ministers and advisers being manifestly wiser than he, and therefore not at all the proper kind of people to have about, he straightway banished them. He then began a diligent search for their partisans, some of whom he put to death, condemning others to imprisonment and torture. He next turned his attention to his own household, which he was resolved upon ruling absolutely, at least, if not well. One of the princes made himself disagreeable by declining to participate freely in the pleasures of the palace, and, for the sake of domestic harmony, Ivan had him poniarded while he was at his prayers. Another so far overstepped the bounds of courtesy and propriety as to remonstrate with one of the new favorites upon his improper conduct, and Ivan, in order that there might be no bickerings and hard feelings in his family, slew the discourteous prince with his own hand.

He was in the habit of carrying an iron rod about with him, and he had a playful way of striking his friends with it now and then, merely for his amusement. His pleasantries of this and like sorts were endless. One day Prince Boris, a boyard, came to pay his respects to the czar, and as he bowed to the ground, according to custom, Ivan, seizing a knife, said, “God bless thee, my dear Boris; thou deservest a proof of my favor,” and with that he kindly cut the nobleman’s ear off.

When Prince Kurbsky, whom he had threatened with death, fled to Poland and wrote him a letter thence, telling him pretty plainly what he thought of him, the czar playfully struck the bearer of the missive with his iron rod, as a preliminary to the reading of the letter, and the blood flowed copiously from the man’s wounds while Ivan pondered the words of his rebellious subject. He then became convinced that the boyards generally sympathized with Kurbsky, and to teach them better he put a good many of them to death by torture, and deprived many others of their estates. His alarm was very real, however, for he was a phenomenon of abject cowardice. He therefore fled to a fortified place in the midst of a dense forest, where he remained a month, writing letters to the Russians, telling them that he had abdicated and left them to their fate as a punishment for their disloyalty and their crimes. Singularly enough, his flight terrified the people. He had taught them that he was their god as God was his, and his flight to Alexandrovsky seemed to them a withdrawal of the protection of Providence itself. Business was suspended. The courts ceased to sit. The country was in an agony of terror. A large deputation of boyards and priests journeyed to Alexandrovsky, and besought the sovereign to return and resume his holy functions as the head of the church, that the souls of so many millions might not perish. Exacting of clergy and nobles an admission of his absolute right to do as he pleased, and a promise that they would in no way interfere with or resist his authority, he returned to Moscow. Here he surrounded himself with a body-guard of desperadoes, one thousand strong at first, and afterwards increased to six thousand, whose duty it was to discover the czar’s enemies and to sweep them from the face of the earth. As emblems of these their functions, each member of the guard carried at his saddle-bow a dog’s head and a broom. As the punishment of the czar’s enemies included the confiscation of their property, a large part of which was given to the guards themselves, these were always singularly successful in discovering the disaffection of wealthy nobles, finding it out oftentimes before the nobles themselves were aware of their own treasonable sentiments.