The Romance of the Romanoffs

by Joseph McCabe

One of these sections of the population of Moscow which a conspirator would naturally explore was the military force known as the streltsui: a privileged corporation of soldiers who handed on the office from father to son and gave themselves airs of importance. We have no direct proof that Sophia got into communication with this body, but the historical facts, and the later action and expressions of Peter the Great, seem to put it beyond question. The streltsui were mutinous at the time of the death of Feodor, because their pay was, as usual, in arrears. They were reduced to silence by the application of the knout, publicly, to the shoulders of their officers, but they remained sullen and inflammable. It is said that the agents of Sophia and her uncle went amongst them distributing money and whispering poisonous libels. The late Emperor, it was suggested to them, had died of poison.

When Matveeff returned from Siberia they greeted him with apparent respect, and the court settled to its usual prosperous life. Four days later, however, the Kreml awoke to find a grave and ominous movement afoot. Twenty regiments of the streltsui had seized their arms and were irregularly massed in front of the Kreml. The sleeves of their red shirts were rolled up, as if for butchery, and a close observer would have found that they reeked with vodka. Behind them was the rabble of the town. The bells were calling shrilly from the steeples. Drums were beaten, and cannon rumbled toward the palace. The servants of the court learned that some one had spread amongst them a report that Princes Ivan and Peter had been strangled, and a brother of Natalia had seized the crown. Natalia hastened to show the princes at the top of the red staircase, to the crowd, and for a moment it seemed to be baulked. Matveeff and the Patriarch prudently addressed the men, and they were about to disperse.

It is said that Prince Dolgoruki, one of the group of courtiers about the Tsarina, then made offensive and arrogant remarks to the soldiers, and the whole mass of inflammable material took flame. The prince was soon flung from the head of the steps and caught on the spears of the soldiers below. Matveeff was cut to pieces, and the murderers searched the palace for Natalia’s brother. After murdering one or two wrong men, they found him in the chapel and dispatched him. Another brother was torn from Natalia’s arms and cut to pieces. Three younger brothers escaped from Moscow. For three days the friends and relatives of the Tsarina were sought and butchered: dragged by the hair through the streets, knouted to death, flung from windows upon the spears, roasted with red-hot spears, cut to pieces, and so on. One does not like to dwell upon the horrors, but there will come presently a page in the life of Peter the Great that requires explanation. Peter, then nine years old, trembled by the side of his mother in the Kreml while her friends and relatives were barbarously slain on every side—by the streltsui. It is said that Sophia at length interceded and arrested the butchery; and that she gave ten roubles each to the streltsui.

A week later the emboldened soldiers came again and demanded that the idiot Ivan should be associated with Peter in the Tsardom. Most of the boyars were opposed to so ridiculous and unprecedented a change, but the Patriarch and other ministers were conveniently at hand, and it was done. In a few more days there was a fresh riot. Ivan, being the elder, must have precedence of Peter; and so it was appointed. Some historians find it not unnatural that after this display of zeal for her brother Sophia should provide a feast for the streltsui, and with her own plump hand pour out their wine. Perhaps it was just as natural that the streltsui should next return with a demand that Sophia be appointed Regent for the young Tsars. The nobles now saw how the wind sat, and they obeyed. A double throne was ordered of the Dutch merchants and, when it came, Sophia had a hole, decently veiled, cut into the back, so that she could listen to the audiences. She occupied the place of the Tsarina and, with the aid of her lover Gallitzin, ruled the Empire. Gallitzin was married, but, at Sophia’s suggestion, it is said, he “persuaded” his wife to enter a convent, which left him free to marry again. Apparently the virago would wed him and share the throne with him.

But the streltsui were old-fashioned believers, and were in no mind to see the traditions of Russian decency thus violated. Their murmurs were strengthened by those of other malcontents. Sophia was more punctilious about ritual and doctrine than conduct, and, like Nikon, she laid a heavy hand upon dissenters. One of their leaders at Moscow was executed. The rumble in the city grew louder, and Sophia, affecting at least to believe that the streltsui now threatened her life, fled with her court to the large and fortified monastery at Troitsa, eighteen miles from Moscow. She prudently took with her Ivan and Peter, and she issued a frantic summons to the country to protect her and them. Tens of thousands of boyars and soldiers streamed to Troitsa, and the streltsui became apprehensive. Their leader, Khovanski, and his son were invited to come and confer with Sophia at Troitsa, and they unsuspectingly went. They were arrested on the way and put to death; and the streltsui, cowed by her strength, came, with ropes round their necks, to Troitsa, to ask and obtain forgiveness.

But the discontent was not eased at Moscow, and the policy upon which Sophia and Gallitzin now concentrated their resources fed the murmurs. All Europe was alarmed at the continuous menace of the Turks, and in 1686 Gallitzin led south a large army for the purpose of chastising them and their Tatar allies, and regaining territory for Russia. The costly army, terribly reduced in the southern wilderness, was forced to return without having even sighted the Turks, and the complaints and satire of Moscow were loud. Sophia and Gallitzin endeavoured to cover the disgrace by sending to Siberia an inoffensive general and loading the soldiers with honours. It was, however, necessary to redeem the failure, and in 1689 a second grand army was entrusted to Gallitzin. His nerve may have been shaken when, as he was starting, he found a coffin, placed by unknown hands, on his doorstep; and he can scarcely have been unaware that it was generally believed that during his absence Sophia consoled herself with the attentions of his colleague Shakloviti. He failed once more, and all Sophia’s pretence of triumph could not hide his disgrace. She walked in triumphal procession, distributed brandy, and heaped honours upon the “victors.”

Men now spoke of her with contempt. It was rumoured that she had a melodramatic plot of marrying Ivan and—since he would have no children—providing his wife with a lover. When this woman bore a son, Peter could be thrust aside as not in the line of succession; and, when Peter was excluded from the situation, the illegitimacy of the child might be discovered, and Sophia and Gallitzin might rule in peace. The plot was so ludicrous that she can scarcely have entertained it, but it served to fan the growing resentment of her rule.

That rule was, however, now threatened by Peter himself. During these years the boy had grown up sturdily, with his mother, in a village a few miles from Moscow. On important occasions he would be driven into Moscow, to sit beside his goggle-eyed half-brother on the golden throne, but he detested the Kreml and loved the free, open-air life of the village. His mother, Natalia, seems to have belied entirely the excellence of her early years and scandalously neglected his education. He learned to read, and he read a great and confusing assortment of books of history and adventure. He learned to write, but the lesson stopped at so rudimentary a stage that he always had great difficulty in spelling. His days were spent amongst grooms, servants, and any boys with whom he pleased to associate. He became a creature of impulse, and in that world in which he grew up the impulses one followed were neither gentle nor decent. The theory that Peter the Great profited by his rude education in contact with nature and real human beings, instead of being reared in the artificial atmosphere of the imperial terem, may point with some pride to his energy, his promptness, his scorn of conventions; but it must embrace also those impulsive outbursts of ferocity and those unchecked debauches which kept his character throughout life little above the level of a savage.

Peter had lately passed his seventeenth birthday when, in 1689, Gallitzin returned from his second failure. The one imperial idea which grew amidst his vices was the thought that he would some day command the military forces of Russia, and his play constantly turned upon soldiering. He formed companies out of his servants and associates. He had a fort built at the village of Preobrajenshote, which he made his chief centre, and a kind of rough, informal court grew up about him. Nobles and boyars joined his military games, his mimic regiments; and they joined also in his nightly revels. He must have heard much disdainful talk about the campaigns of Prince Gallitzin, and no doubt there were ambitious men who urged him to act. The city, he would know, now openly complained. One day a paper was found in one of the squares telling the finder that a valuable paper was hidden behind a picture of the Virgin in a certain church. A crowd sought the miraculous communication, and found a lampoon on the Regent Sophia.