The Story of Moscow

by Wirt Gerrare

The rioters were masters; the guard fled, and the townsmen who had forced their way into the palace actually pulled the young Tsar from the throne. His mother begged them to spare his life, and her cry was heeded. The Godunovs were removed from the palace to their own dwelling and a guard placed over them. The relations and friends of the Godunovs were then imprisoned, their dwellings pillaged and destroyed. Belski, from his known antipathy to the Godunovs, became the counsellor of the mob. Some time later the partisans of Dmitri made a fresh attack on the Kremlin. The object of their fury on this occasion was the Patriarch. He was celebrating mass in the Cathedral of the Assumption when an armed band forced their way into the sanctuary, seized him at the altar, dragged him forth and tore away his vestments. Clad in black he was brought in ignominy from the church, shown to the people, and sent away on a common cart to the monastery of Staritsa, five hundred versts from Moscow.

On the 10th of June 1605, the Princes Galitzin and Mossolski, with a couple of secretaries and three of the guard of Streltsi, went to the palace of the Godunovs; took Theodore and his sister from the arms of the Tsarina and ordered the guard to put them to death in an adjoining room, and then strangled the Tsarina herself. Theodore made a struggle for life, fighting savagely, but he was struck down. Xenia was spared; Dmitri who had heard of her beauty ordered Mossolski to find an asylum for her in his mansion. The corpses of Marie and Theodore after being exposed to the public, were interred in the convent of St Varsonophee on the Srietenka, and the disinterred body of Boris Godunov brought to the same resting-place.

At this time Dmitri was at Tula, but all being now in readiness for his enthronement, he came to Moscow and made a state entry unparalleled for its magnificence and pageantry. A violent gust of wind which somewhat disturbed the procession as it crossed the Moskva was taken as an omen of ill, and later in the day, by an unlucky coincidence, at the moment when the clergy were prostrate before the Holy ikons, the foreign musicians sounded a fanfare. When Dmitri prostrated himself before the tomb of Ivan and cried, “Oh my father, thou left me an orphan and in exile, but by thy prayers I have regained my possessions!” the simple people were convinced of his identity. He was crowned; his supposed mother, Maria Nagoi, recognised him, and his rule commenced.

Little fault can be found with the way in which Dmitri governed. He pardoned those who had suffered from the Godunovs, and was generous to those who had shown themselves inimical to him; he rewarded his partisans handsomely and was lavish in his expenditure. He purchased and ordered rich furnishings for himself and the court, exhibiting a prodigality that frightened the more staid of the Moscow citizens. In three months he is said to have spent more than seven million roubles, and the display of riches was the wonder of foreign visitors to his court. He rode Arabs, dressed his servants like nobles, and built and furnished a palace that surpassed anything seen in Moscow. It was of wood; the stoves of porcelain had doors of silver; the bolts and bars of the palace were all gold, or at least gilded; before the entrance was an enormous statue of Cerberus, of which the three jaws opened wide at the least blow. The chroniclers state that “this was a symbol of the dwelling that was to be Dmitri’s throughout eternity.”

There were malcontents, and chief among them was Vasili Shooiski, who, on the denunciation of Basmanov, was tortured and condemned to death. At the last moment he was pardoned, but was implacable, and worked assiduously for the overthrow of Dmitri and the ruin of Basmanov.

Pope Paul V. sent Rogoni to Moscow on the usual errand, but Dmitri was in nowise inclined to make any submission to Rome. At the same time he was tolerant, and this tolerance gave great offence to the orthodox. He allowed Lutherans to preach; permitted the Jesuits to have a place of worship within the Kremlin; even listened to an address in Latin delivered by a Jesuit in an orthodox church. Equally irritating was the freedom foreigners now had to enter an orthodox church, the doors of which had been hitherto closed against all but the faithful. Dmitri upbraided the clergy for their intolerance. “With us,” said he, “there is only the outward observance, we ignore the spirit of our religion. You fast, you prostrate yourselves before relics, you worship the Holy ikons, but you do not understand the spirit of religion. You consider yourselves the most upright people on the earth, and meanwhile you do not even live as do Christians. You lack charity: you are little inclined to good works. Why do you scorn those who dissent from you? What is the Roman faith? It is a Christian faith, even as yours is.” Such opinions as these alienated everyone, but especially the clergy. To them he was gracious, allowing the Patriarch, four metropolitans, seven archbishops and three bishops to have seats on the general council—a privilege they had previously received upon very special occasions only. An order he made for an inventory of clerical property inflamed the priests of all degrees against him.

Crull writes of him:—

“For his owne person, he maintayneth his greatnesse very well. He was a man of mean stature, browne of hue, prompt to choler, but quickly appeased. He hath broken many a staff, and given sentence of death, upon the marshals and other officers, when they did but little swerve from their duty. After he grew to know the Russians’ false pranks, he provided himself with a guard of Livonians, and afterwards also of Asmaynes and other strangers.... He yet further determined to have also a hundred musketeers, when he was laid apart. He took great delight in hunting, and in casting great pieces of artillery, and not only to see them in hand but also to proove them himself: for which end he caused ravelynes and ramparts to be erected to imitate an assault.”

Dmitri was too fond of the customs of the west to satisfy the Muscovites. Many charges were made against him which seem absurd now. Among them may be instanced “that he favoured foreigners, especially musicians;” ordinarily he sacrificed pomp, and went hither and thither about Moscow like a simple citizen. He took the cannon out of the town to test various pieces “and might then have turned them on the town”; he liked to watch mimic battles, and laughed when the Muscovites were routed by the foreign soldiers. He ate meat during Lent and veal at any time. He showed little or no regard for Russian customs, and broke down those barriers that prevented the common people from having access to their Tsar. Much could have been pardoned, but two things were decisive: he would not sleep after dinner, and he mounted his horse at a bound.

When Dmitri arranged to wed Marina Mniszek, the daughter of a Polish pan, Vasili Shooiski plotted anew for his overthrow. He it was who had been commissioned to hold the inquiry into the crime committed at Uglitch; and the people remembered that he, if anyone, knew the truth respecting the murder of Ivan’s son and the identity of their present ruler. This in some measure accounts for Dmitri’s surprising leniency towards this enemy. In his new plot Shooiski counted upon the support of 18,000 men of Novgorod and Pskov, then in Moscow on their way to do battle against the Krim-Tartars. The Tsar could count on the support of the common people, and though warned of the danger that was threatening, he took no measures to ensure his own safety, or that of his guests and bride. The agents of Shooiski circulated two rumours; one, among the boyard and clergy, to the effect that with the help of the newly arrived Poles “Dmitri” intended to massacre the boyards and introduce the Roman faith; to the common people it was represented that the Poles were ill-treating the Tsar. On the night of the 17th of May the soldiers secured the entrances to the Kremlin; and on the morning of the 18th, Shooiski, with a cross in one hand and a drawn sword in the other, obtained an entrance through the Redeemer Gate, made straight for the Cathedral of the Assumption and, prostrating himself before the ikon of Mary of Vladimir, called upon those around him in the name of God to attack the cursed heretics. The alarm bell rang; Basmanov met some boyards who, with swords drawn, demanded that “Dmitri” should be given them. They killed him; then entered the palace in search of the Tsar, who tried to escape, and to defend himself. Driven along a corridor, he slipped, was stabbed, and thrown into the courtyard. The guard of Streltsi, called to his assistance, would have defended him, but when threatened by Vasili and the boyards, the Tsar prayed them to desist, and the companions of Shooiski thereupon despatched him. Marina was spared, and a guard left to protect her; but the conspirators, having killed Dmitri, Basmanov, and a hundred or more of the foreign musicians in the palace, they spread over the Kitai Gorod and murdered without discrimination all the Poles and foreigners they encountered. These scenes continued all day, and at last the populace took up the cry of “Down with the Poles!” and the massacre of foreigners became general.