Ivan could wait for his triumph over his associates. He went now to the Volga again, completed the conquest of Kazan, and his troops pressed on as far as Astrakhan, which they took after slight resistance.
In Moscow Ivan kept the grand-dukes, princes, and boyards his nearest relatives; his voievodes, or military leaders, were men of good birth, but with no claim on the succession. Under the administration of Adashef, the outlying parts of the Tsar’s dominions were so effectually governed that when the English ships first appeared on the White Sea, Chancellor was not allowed to trade, or penetrate into the interior of the country, until the permission of the Tsar had been received from Moscow.
In 1560 Anastasia died, and Ivan fretted under the constant surveillance of Sylvester. He was always at hand, entreating the Tsar to shew mercy, and to live straightly. Both Sylvester and Adashef retired within a short time of Anastasia’s death. For bad generalship in Lithuania, Adashef was imprisoned in the fortress of Dorpat, where he died shortly afterwards. Sylvester was ready enough to send the Tsar and his Russian armies to war against the Tartars and infidels; he opposed wars with Livonia, Lithuania and Poland, where Ivan was particularly desirous of extending his dominion.
On the withdrawal of these counsellors again commenced the murders and massacres in which Ivan delighted. Historians divide these into seven cycles; it is a purely arbitrary division—with the exception of the thirteen years 1547-1560, during which he was wedded to Anastasia and engaged in foreign wars, the whole of his long reign was given to terrorising his subjects.
Obolenski was the first noble killed by Ivan himself; Repnin was murdered whilst at his devotions in church; another was slain simply because he remonstrated with the Tsar for such a display of cruelty. Ivan always used the hour of victory to exterminate foes, and he now relentlessly hunted down all his past advisers and their friends.
He was determined on absolute supremacy.
“To shew his soveraintie over the lives of his subjects, Ivan in his walks, if he disliked the face or person of any man he met by the way, or that looked at him, would command his head to be struck off. There and then the thing was done, and the head cast before him.”
Dismayed, some of his nobles fled to the west; among them was Kniaz Kourbski, who, not content simply to take service under Sigismund, acquainted the Tsar by letter with the fact. Kniaz Vasili Chibanov was the bearer. Ivan received him on the Krasnœ Kriltso, and there, with his sharp staff, pinned to the floor the foot of Chibanov, who never stirred a muscle during the whole time the long letter was read aloud. Then Chibanov was put to the torture, to obtain particulars of the flight of Kourbski, and the names of his partisans in Moscow; but Chibanov confessed not a word, and in the midst of the most horrible torment praised his master, and counted it a joy to suffer thus for him.
Generally Ivan studied to keep on good terms with the common people—whom he feared; by them he was worshipped. Macarius, the metropolitan, complained that “He who blasphemes his maker, meets with forgiveness amongst men, he who reviles the Tsar is sure to lose his head.” Ivan chose as his companions the worst people whom he could find. At one time he withdrew from Moscow, taking umbrage at the prelates, still too powerful to be touched. The people clamoured for his return.
“The Tsar has forsaken us: we are lost, who will now defend us against the enemy? What are sheep without the shepherd? Let him punish all who deserve it: has he not the power over life and death? The state cannot endure without its head, and we will not acknowledge any other than he whom God has given us.”