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.