“Your Majesty’s lowliest servant,
“Your former wife, Eudoxia.”
The woman treasurer of the convent reported:—
“We dared not ask the Tsaritsa, ‘Why have you cast off the nun’s garb?’ She said several times, ‘The Tsar has taken everything that belonged to us. You know how the Tsar avenged himself on the Streltsy on account of his mother; now my own son is no longer a child!’ When Major Stephen Gleboff was on recruiting duty at Sousdal the Tsaritsa admitted him to her cell. They used to talk together while I was sent off to cut out garments, or they begged me to chant the Te Deum. When Gleboff showed himself insolent, I used to say to him: ‘Who are you, to make so bold? Things are known.’ The Tsaritsa got angry with me for that, ‘Who in the devil’s name asked you to meddle? You also are now a spy.’ And others said to me, ‘Why have you angered the Tsaritsa?’ Stephen visited her by night. A porter and the dwarf Agatha used to tell me, ‘Gleboff passes us, but we dare not budge.’
“The nun Kaptelina confessed that Gleboff frequently visited the Tsaritsa (Sister Helen) and kissed her. I used to leave the room. I carried Gleboff’s love letters.”
Gleboff’s statement was short.
“I fell in love with the ex-Tsaritsa and we lived in sin together.”
For the rest Gleboff steadily denied everything. They tortured him frightfully; he was flogged, burnt, frozen, his ribs were broken, his body torn with pincers. He was forced to sit on a board studded with nails, walk along wooden spikes till his feet festered. He withstood all pains and neither denounced anyone, nor admitted anything more.
The ex-Tsaritsa made the following deposition:
“On February 21, I, the nun Helen, have been brought to the General Court and have been confronted with Stephen Gleboff. I declare that I am guilty of having lived in adultery with him. Written by mine own hand, Helen.”