Another party of the strelitzes, who were scouring the city in search of the Dutch physician, Vongad, met with his son, of whom they inquired for his father; the youth trembling, replied, he did not know where he was, upon which they immediately dispatched him. Soon after, a German physician falling in their way, 'You are a doctor,' said they, 'and if you did not poison our master, Theodore, you have poisoned others, and therefore merit death;' and thereupon killed him.
At length they found the Dutchman, of whom they were in quest, disguised in the garb of a beggar; they instantly drag him before the palace. The princesses who loved this worthy man, and placed great confidence in his skill, begged the strelitzes to spare him, assuring them that he was a very good physician, and had taken all possible care of their brother Theodore. The strelitzes made answer, that he not only deserved to die as a physician, but also as a sorcerer; and that they had found in his house, a great dried toad, and the skin of a serpent. They furthermore required to have young Nariskin delivered up to them, whom they had searched for in vain for two days: alleging, that he was certainly in the palace, and that they would set fire to it, unless he was put into their hands. The sister of John Nariskin, and the other princesses, terrified by their menaces, went to acquaint their unhappy brother in the place of his concealment, with what had passed; upon which the patriarch heard his confession, administers the viaticum, and extreme unction to him, and then, taking an image of the blessed Virgin, which was said to perform miracles, he leads the young man forth by the hand, and presents him to the strelitzes, shewing them, at the same time, the image of the Virgin. The princesses, who in tears surrounded Nariskin, falling upon their knees before the soldiers, besought them, in the name of the blessed Virgin, to spare their relation's life; but the inhuman wretches tore him from their arms, and dragged him to the foot of the stairs, together with the physician Vongad, where they held a kind of tribunal among themselves, and condemned them both to be put to the torture. One of the soldiers, who could write, drew up a form of accusation, and sentenced the two unfortunate princes to be cut in pieces; a punishment inflicted in China and Tartary on parricides, and called the punishment of ten thousand slices. After having thus used Nariskin and Vongad, they exposed their heads, feet, and hands, on the iron points of a balustrade.
While this party of the strelitzes were thus glutting their fury in the sight of the princesses, the rest massacred every one who was obnoxious to them, or suspected by the princess Sophia.
This horrid tragedy concluded with proclaiming the two princes, John and Peter, in June, 1682, joint sovereigns, and associating their sister Sophia with them, in the quality of co-regent; who then publicly approved of all their outrages, gave them rewards, confiscated the estates of the proscribed, and bestowed them upon their murderers. She even permitted them to erect a monument, with the names of the persons they had murdered, as being traitors to their country: and to crown all, she published letters-patent, thanking them for their zeal and fidelity.
[CHAP. V.]
Administration of the princess Sophia. Extraordinary quarrel about religion. A conspiracy.
Such were the steps by which the princess Sophia did in effect ascend the throne of Russia, though without being declared czarina; and such the examples that Peter the First had before his eyes. Sophia enjoyed all the honours of a sovereign; her bust was on the public coin; she signed all dispatches, held the first place in council, and enjoyed a power without control. She was possessed of a great share of understanding, and some wit; made verses in the Russian language, and both spoke and wrote extremely well. These talents were set off by the addition of an agreeable person, and sullied only by her ambition.
She procured a wife for her brother John, in the manner already described in several examples. A young lady named Soltikoff, of the family with the nobleman of that name who had been assassinated by the seditious strelitzes, was sent for from the heart of Siberia, where her father commanded a fortress, to be presented to czar John at Moscow. Her beauty triumphed over all the intrigues of her rivals, and John was married to her in 1684. At every marriage of a czar we seem to read the history of Ahasuerus, or that of Theodosius the Younger.