Among Dmitri’s many troubles the one which weighed him down always was that of succession. By raising their principality to be the central land of all Russia, the sons and grandsons of Kalitá had placed Moscow on a height unexampled, hence they looked on inheritance very differently from others. Dmitri wished to fix primogeniture in his line. The tendency to this came through favoring causes. Simeon the Proud, Kalitá’s son and successor, was obeyed by Ivan and Andrei, his younger brothers, as if he had been their own father. Simeon died without heirs; almost at the same time died Andrei, so when Ivan reigned in Moscow, after Simeon, he had no brothers. At Ivan’s death he was succeeded by his one son, Dmitri, whose brother, Ivan, had died early, hence there was only one descendant of Kalitá contemporary with Dmitri, his cousin Vladimir, Andrei’s orphan. Vladimir, afterward surnamed the Brave, was Dmitri’s lifelong trusty comrade. They were “one man,” as people said who knew them. Dmitri became Grand Prince at twelve, but his cousin was younger. The pillars of the Moscow principality, the guardians of Dmitri and Vladimir, fixed in a treaty the position of each prince to the other. This treaty declared that Andrei’s father bound himself to serve [[401]]his elder brother without disobedience, to serve his principality with faith and fear. Vladimir received only the possessions which had belonged to Andrei, his father, while to Dmitri went all the rest, that is, what had belonged to his father, Ivan, and to Simeon, his uncle. He reserved also the right in certain cases to execute Vladimir’s boyars.
About ten years later, when Dmitri was going to the Horde to reconcile the Khan with Moscow, he made a will in favor of his own son, Vassili, born a few months earlier. A new treaty was made then with Vladimir, who, to expressions of obedience to Dmitri, added: “I am not to seek the Grand Principality against thee, or against thy children.” This is a short line placed unobtrusively in a long list of settlements and properties; but this line, almost unnoticeable among hundreds of names of villages and places which formed the greater part of the document, is remarkable, especially through the addition “or against thy children.” It is clear that the inheritance of the Moscow throne from father to eldest son, not being in accord with ancient usage, was not yet firmly established. Toward the end of Dmitri’s reign, this became the greatest of all the cares which weighed on him. Living, as it were, in one family with his cousin, a friend faithful and devoted, his only near relative, peerless for magnanimity, a man who had “a golden heart,” as Dmitri himself declared with much emphasis, it was all the more difficult to touch upon this very delicate question. It was possible at first to avoid it, and for years say no word on the subject, but at last came the hour when it was necessary to decide the great question: Who shall inherit the throne on the death of Dmitri? If Vassili were heir, the new form of state, begun since Kalitá’s day, would triumph. If Dmitri’s cousin, Vladimir, were heir, the ancient order would win, to the ruin of all that Moscow had accomplished during five decades of dreadful effort.
Again the question might be considered as not very urgent, not demanding immediate decision, for Dmitri was not yet forty years old, and was strong to all seeming; but in fact he was feeble. He had no external wound, but he had never recovered completely from the internal injuries received on the field of Kulikovo. Moreover, as his son was about to marry, the question rose naturally: Was Vladimir, the cousin, to yield seniority to Vassili? [[402]]
Would Prince Vladimir, who had been so magnanimous as to yield to Dmitri, yield now and make Dmitri’s son his senior?
Beyond doubt the trouble was more with Vladimir’s boyars than with Vladimir. Only boyars of reduced princes yielded, and went to serve strong ones. The boyars of Vladimir of Moscow, whose rights were undoubted according to the ancient rule of the country, could not be yielding in this case. They defended their honor and profit together with ancient legality in defending Vladimir; they were far more insistent than he was. Consequently, the year of 1388 was beclouded by a quarrel between the Moscow princes. Dmitri seized certain of Vladimir’s boyars, and sent them to places where they were “kept under guard very firmly.” The honor of the boyars who defended his position so faithfully was of course dear to Vladimir, and he had to take part with them; hence rose a quarrel which grieved all the people.
But at the beginning of 1389 the quarrel ended, and the friendship of the princes was greater than ever. They made a new treaty and kissed the cross to observe it. By this treaty Vladimir recognized the Grand Prince to be his elder brother as before, and to be his father, and for himself and his children renounced every claim to the headship of Moscow; yielding seniority to Dmitri’s heirs, and to all their sons with them; recognizing Vassili, son of Dmitri, as his eldest brother, the second son, Yuri, a brother of his age, and the younger sons as younger brothers, adding, besides, that he would not seek the throne as against any of them. The Grand Prince, on his part, called Vladimir not only his younger brother, as before, but his son. With such a solemn declaration was the question decided, a question which for a short time had disturbed the long harmony of the family.
All glorified the magnanimity of Kalitá’s youngest grandson, who had done so much for Moscow by helping to establish the first principle of inheritance from father to eldest son.
Two months had not passed after making the treaty, when Dmitri was a living man no longer. Dmitri won glory at Kulikovo, and raised Moscow in popular esteem to a height unattainable by other principalities. Dmitri, by careful insistence and management in winning from Vladimir his renunciation of rights, and Vladimir, by yielding, established single rule in Russia, which, without these two men, might never have been established. [[403]]
Vassili’s first act on succeeding his father was to send two noted boyars, Poleff and Belevut, with attendants, for his bride, Vitold’s daughter, Sophia. Her father had taken refuge at that time in Prussia, and was preparing for war with his cousin, Yagello, who had killed Keistut, Vitold’s father. Vitold was seeking aid among the Knights of the Cross against his cousin. It was pleasant for him, at that crisis in his career, to receive envoys from the Grand Prince of Moscow. Sophia journeyed by sea to Livonia, and thence through Pskoff and Novgorod to Moscow.
Two years after his marriage, Vassili visited the Horde, and then, by agreement with Tohtamish, united to Moscow the Nizni principality as well as Gorodets, Tarus, and Murom. There was trouble with Novgorod, which caused bloodshed, but all was arranged before 1395, when the second of the world-shaking Mongols came to punish Tohtamish for his perfidy, and to give the entire Kipchak realm to the “ruinous wind of destruction,” Tamerlane’s own words.