The ceremonies of the triumphal entrance are perhaps worthy of record. A detachment of Polish horse in brilliant uniform led the procession, headed by a numerous band of trumpeters. Then came the gorgeous coach of Dmitri, empty, drawn by six horses, richly caparisoned, and preceded, followed and flanked by dense columns of musqueteers. Next came a procession of the clergy in their ecclesiastical robes, and with the banners of the church. This procession was led by the bishops, who bore effigies of the Virgin Mary and of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of Russia. Following the clergy appeared Dmitri, mounted on a white charger, and surrounded by a splendid retinue. He proceeded first to the church of Notre Dame, where a Te Deum was chanted, and where the new monarch received the sacrament. He then visited the tomb of Ivan IV., and kneeling upon it, as the tomb of his father, implored God's blessing. Perceiving that the body of Boris Gudenow had received interment in the royal cemetery, he ordered his remains, with those of his wife and son, all three of whom Dmitri had caused to be assassinated, to be removed to a common churchyard without the city.
Either to silence those who might doubt his legitimacy
or being truly the son of Ivan IV., he sent two of the nobles, with a brilliant retinue, to the convent, more than six hundred miles from Moscow, to which Boris had banished the widow of Ivan. They were to conduct the queen dowager to the capital. As she approached the city, Dmitri went out to receive her, accompanied by a great number of his nobles. As soon as he perceived her coach, he alighted, went on foot to meet his alleged mother, and threw himself into her arms with every demonstration of joy and affection, which embraces she returned with equal tenderness. Then, with his head uncovered, and walking by the side of her carriage, he conducted her to the city and to the Kremlin. He ever after treated her with the deference due to a mother, and received from her corresponding proofs of confidence and affection.
But Dmitri was thoroughly a bad man, and every day became more unpopular. He debauched the young sister of Feodor, and then shut her up in a convent. He banished seventy noble families who were accused of being the friends of Boris, and gave their estates and dignities to his Polish partisans. A party was soon organized against him, who busily circulated reports that he was an impostor, and a conspiracy was formed to take his life. Perplexities and perils now gathered rapidly around his throne. He surrounded himself with Polish guards, and thus increased the exasperation of his subjects.
To add to his perplexities, another claimant of the crown appeared, who declared himself to be the son of the late tzar, Feodor, son of Ivan IV. This young man, named Peter, was seventeen years of age. He had raised his standard on the other side of the Volga, and had rallied four thousand partisans around him. In the meantime, Dmitri had made arrangements for his marriage with Mariana Meneiski, a Polish princess, of the Roman church. This princess was married to the tzar by proxy, in Cracow, and in January, 1606, with a numerous retinue set out on her journey to Moscow. She
did not reach the capital of Moscow until the 1st of May. Her father's whole family, and several thousand armed Polanders, by way of guard, accompanied her. Many of the Polish nobles also took this opportunity of visiting Russia, and a multitude of merchants put themselves in her train for purposes of traffic.
The tzarina was met, at some distance from Moscow, by the royal guard, and escorted to the city, where she was received with ringing of bells, shoutings, discharge of cannons and all the ordinary and extraordinary demonstrations of popular joy. On the 8th of May, the ceremony of blessing the marriage was performed by the patriarch, and immediately after she was crowned tzarina with greater pomp than Russia had ever witnessed before. But the appearance of this immense train of armed Poles incensed the Russians; and the clergy, who were jealous of the encroachments of the church of Rome, were alarmed in behalf of their religion. An intrepid noble, Zuski, now resolved, by the energies of a popular insurrection, to rid the throne of Dmitri. With great sagacity and energy the conspiracy was formed. The tzarina was to give a grand entertainment on the evening of the 17th of May, and the conspirators fixed upon that occasion for the consummation of their plan. Twenty thousand troops were under the orders of Zuski, and he had led them all into the city, under the pretense of having them assist in the festival.
At six o'clock in the morning of the appointed day these troops, accompanied by some thousands of the populace, surrounded the palace and seized its gates. A division was then sent in, who commenced the indiscriminate massacre of all who were, or who looked like Polanders. It was taken for granted that all in the palace were either Poles or their partisans. The alarm bells were now rung, and Zuski traversed the streets with a drawn saber in one hand and a cross in the other, rousing the ignorant populace by the cry that the Poles had taken up arms to murder the Russians. Dmitri, in his
chamber, hearing the cries of the dying and the shrieks of those who fled before the assassins, leaped from his window into the court yard, and, by his fall, dislocated his thigh. He was immediately seized, conveyed into the grand hall of audience, and a strong guard was set over him.
The murderers ransacked the palace, penetrating every room, killing every Polish man and treating the Polish ladies with the utmost brutality. They inquired eagerly for the tzarina, but she was nowhere to be found. She had concealed herself beneath the hoop of an elderly lady whose gray hairs and withered cheek had preserved her from violence. Zuski now went to the dowager tzarina, the widow of Ivan IV., and demanded that she should take her oath upon the Gospels whether Dmitri were her son. He reported that, thus pressed, she confessed that he was an impostor, and that her true son had perished many years before. The conspirators now fell upon Dmitri and his body was pierced with a thousand dagger thrusts. His mangled remains were then dragged through the streets and burned. Mariana was soon after arrested and sent to prison. It is said that nearly two thousand Poles perished in this massacre.