FullReads

Feeling unsafe still, Ivan built for himself a new palace, outside the walls of the Kremlin, making it an impregnable castle. Then, finding that even this did not lull his shaken nerves to rest, he proceeded to put danger afar off by dispossessing the twelve thousand rich nobles whose estates lay nearest the palace, and giving their property to his personal followers, so that the head which wore the crown might lie easy in the conviction that there were no possible enemies near on the other side of the impregnable walls which shut him in. But even then he could not sleep easily, and so he repaired again to his forest stronghold at Alexandrovsky, where he surrounded himself with guards and ramparts. Here he converted the palace into a monastery, made himself abbot, and his rascally followers monks. He rigorously enforced monastic observances of the severest sort, and no doubt became a saint, in his own estimation. He spent most of his time at prayers, allowing himself no recreation except a daily sight of the torture of the prisoners who were confined in the dungeons of the fortress. His guards were allowed rather a larger share of amusement, and they wandered from street to street during the day, punishing, with their hatchets, such disloyal persons as they encountered. They were very moderate in their indulgences, however, in imitation of their sovereign, doubtless, and it is recorded to their credit, that, at this time, they rarely killed more than twenty people in one day, while sometimes the number was as low as five.

But a quiet life of this kind could not always content the czar. Naturally, he grew tired of individual killings, and began to long for some more exciting sport. When, one day, a quarrel arose between some of his guards and a few of the people of Torjek, Ivan saw at a glance that all the inhabitants of Torjek were mutinous rebels, and of course it became his duty to put them all to death, which he straightway did.

Up to this time the genius of Ivan seems to have been cautiously feeling its way, and so the part of his history already sketched may be regarded as a mere preliminary to his real career. His extraordinary capacity for ruling an empire upon the principles taught him by the Prince Gluisky was now about to show itself in all its greatness. A criminal of Novgorod, feeling himself aggrieved by the authorities of that city, who had incarcerated him for a time, wrote a letter offering to place the city under Polish protection. This letter he signed, not with his own name, but with that of the archbishop, and, instead of sending it to the King of Poland, to whom it was addressed, he secreted it in the church of St. Sophia. Then, going to Alexandrovsky, he told Ivan that treason was contemplated by the Novgorodians, and that the treasonable letter would be found behind the statue of the Virgin in the church. Ivan sent a messenger to find the letter, and upon his return the czar began his march upon the doomed city. Happening to pass through the town of Khur, on his way to Novgorod, he put all its inhabitants to death, with the purpose, doubtless, of training his troops in the art of wholesale massacre, before requiring them to practise it upon the people of Novgorod. Finding this system of drill an agreeable pastime, he repeated it upon his arrival at the city of Twer, and then, in order that the other towns along his route might have no reason to complain of partiality, he bestowed upon all of them a like manifestation of his imperial regard.

It is not my purpose to describe in detail the elaborate and ingenious cruelty practised in the massacre of the Novgorodians. The story is sickening. Ivan first heard mass, and then began the butchery, which lasted for many days, was conducted with the utmost deliberation and most ingenious cruelty, and ended in the slaughter of sixty thousand people. Ivan had selected certain prominent citizens, to the number of several hundred, whom he reserved for public and particularly cruel execution at Moscow. Summoning the small and wretched remnant of the population to his presence, he besought their prayers for the continuance and prosperity of his reign, and with gracious words of farewell took his departure from the city.