[E] “Stolid, forlorn, mum and glum,
Being Russian born—not deaf and dumb.”
It is said a lodge of Freemasons used once to meet in a room of the tower, and there not only were “black arts” practised but Peter convened secret meetings of the State Council, a sort of Star Chamber. The society of “Neptune” really consisted of Lefort the Swiss General, Archbishop Theofan, Admiral Apraxin, Farquharson, Bruce, and Princes Cherkassky, Galitzin, Menshikov, and Sheremetiev. Those in fact who were for westernising Russia.
The story of the Streltsi and the part they played in the history of Moscow is worth telling. They originated with the oprichniks of Ivan the Terrible: transformed into a sort of hereditary militia, they fought for Moscow when called upon, and in return were allowed to reside tax free, to trade, to keep shops, mills and ply various handicrafts. Their commandants tried to make serfs of them. When some complained that the colonel of one regiment was keeping back half the pay, Yazikov, the chief of the commanders, ordered these petitioners to be flogged so as to teach them not to complain of those in authority over them. Three days before Theodore II. died, they accused Griboiedov of extortion, cruelty and withholding pay and forcing them to work for him housebuilding, even during Easter week. This complaint reached Dolgoruki: he ordered the messenger to be flogged, but as the man was led away he called to his fellows, “Brothers, I was but obeying your orders,” thereupon they attacked the guard and released him. Complaints became general: it was practically a revolt of the armed citizens the government had to fear. For the moment it yielded. Griboiedov was ordered to Siberia, but after only a day’s imprisonment reinstated. The Streltsi became alarmed. On the death of Theodore they, among themselves, took the oath of fealty to Peter. Sophia and her advisers intrigued and split the Streltsi. One regiment under Sukharev remained faithful to the secret oath, to Peter, the Naryshkins and Matvievs: the others demanded and received their colonels whom they flogged—Griboiedov with the knout, the others with rods—their property was confiscated, and the claims of the Streltsi paid. The Sukharev regiment took Peter and his mother to the Troitsa Monastery for safety, and it is in commemoration of this action that the Tower was built.
The real cause of the later conflict arose from a deeper trouble, the struggle for the throne between the children of Alexis by his first wife, and Peter the eldest of those by his second. Ivan was weak, but his sister Sophia, with her lover Galitzin and a court following opposed to the innovations to be expected of Naryshkins’ friends, supported him most loyally. The Streltsi insisted that Peter should reign conjointly with Ivan and carried their point, but Sophia, as regent, was entrusted with certain powers. Both princes were crowned in 1682, but, owing to intrigues, the court was divided into two factions—the supporters of Ivan and Sophia, of Peter and the Matvievs. The Khovanskis were accused of compassing the death of Theodore, and beheaded. Doubts as to Peter’s parentage were expressed; the trouble made previous to the marriage of Natalia was remembered; others declared that Peter was a changeling, really the son of Dr Van Gaden. Peter himself, according to the picture of his patron saint painted on a board his exact size on the day of birth, was then some twenty inches long by five and a half broad. Moreover, there was a doggerel song of the period:
“What luck, oh, what joy! To the Tsar has been given
A heir, aye, a boy! sent us from heaven!
’Tis wondrous! ’tis rich! With laughter and mirth,
Great Peter Alexevich, first lord of the earth!”
Peter is said once to have met his reputed father, a rough haunter of taverns in the foreign suburb. Throwing him roughly to the ground Peter determined to learn whether or not he was his father. “Batuch ka! How should I know—I was not the only one,” the fellow is reported to have answered; but it was only a stale and salacious witticism of the sort Peter loved—certainly not evidence. The struggle was further complicated by camps of orthodox and dissenters. It was fought to the bitter end by Sophia on behalf of her mother’s children, against Peter who was only her father’s son; on behalf of herself too, for she had a lover, and no liking for the seclusion of the cloisters to which the daughters of the orthodox Tsars were relegated because they were of too high birth to wed with their father’s subjects, and their faith—which they were not allowed to relinquish—an effectual barrier to matrimony with a foreign prince. At first the revolt of the Streltsi had little political significance beyond the fact that it was the forcible demand of a part of the citizens for common justice.
For seven years Sophia directed the affairs of state with more or less success; Ivan was simply her tool, with Peter she had greater trouble, and in 1689, after a quarrel with her, he withdrew from Moscow and went to Troitsa. A large party followed him. Sophia feared revolt and appealed to the people in an eloquent address of three hours’ duration.
“Wicked people have sown the seeds of discord; have made my brother Peter believe his life is in danger. Do not credit such rumours. Do not allow these to lead astray those faithful to the throne: they will torture such until they can no longer endure, and nine persons will denounce nine hundred. You know how I have directed the affairs of this state for seven years; have made a glorious peace with Poland, and worsted in battle the Turks and infidels; how I have always thought of your needs and striven for your welfare. As I have already done so shall I continue.”
Sophia thought she had won over the crowd; instead this speech lost her the support of influential leaders. When Galitzin left Moscow there was a general rush of the people to Peter; then her friends were seized by his order and she tried to escape to Poland, but was captured and imprisoned in the Novo Devichi Convent where she was forced to take the veil as Susannah, and lived in strict confinement until 1704. Ivan was thrust aside; Peter usurped the throne, his weakly half-brother surviving until 1696. Then Peter married Eudoxia Lapukhin, daughter of a boyard. Trouble next arose when Peter, against the advice of nobles and clergy, went abroad and worked like a slave under foreign rulers; it was considered sacrilege of God’s anointed so to do, and of its impolicy there were soon signs, and Peter hurriedly returned to stamp out discontent. He had found a new love, one Anna Mons, a German in Moscow, and would have married her but she slighted him and took one of her own countrymen; his wife he refused to see, accusing her of “certain thwartings and suspicions.” He wished also for proof of Sophia’s connection with the discontent amongst the Streltsi and people; in this, notwithstanding all his energy and cruelty, he was unsuccessful.
“Peter on his return reopened the inquiry, and fourteen torture chambers were conducted under his surveillance in the Preobrajenski suburb. The fires were never allowed to burn down, nor the gridirons on which his victims were charred to become cool either by night or day. A most compromising letter from Sophia to the Streltsi is generally considered to be a forged document, made up of stray, incoherent scraps of information wrung from maddened creatures in the torture chamber. Whereas fifteen blows with the knout were equal to a capital sentence, one of the Streltsi was put to the torture seven times and received in all ninety-nine blows, yet confessed nothing. Korpatkov, unable to bear his tortures, killed himself. Others of the Streltsi having been put to the strappado, flogged, and burnt without getting any accusations; the wives, sisters and female relatives of the Streltsi were tortured; so were the ladies and sewing women in attendance on Sophia. Still no evidence was forthcoming. Then Sophia herself was put to the torture, Peter doing the hangman’s work. She never wavered in denying all connection with the movement. Her younger sister, Marfa, was then strung up in turn and all that could be learned of her was that she had apprised her sister Sophia of the return of the Streltsi to Moscow and of their desire to see her rule re-established. Peter was unwearying in his attendance in the torture chambers, and it is said [F] took a fiendish delight in the agony his own wrought cruelties produced on his relatives, but when he failed to obtain evidence he determined to punish indiscriminately. The executions of the Streltsi, like those of Ivan the Terrible’s victims, were in wholesale fashion. Five were beheaded just outside the torture chamber by the Tsar Peter himself; the courtiers of his bodyguard he commanded to do the same, thinking doubtless they would enjoy the shedding of blood even as he did. Two foreigners alone refused to comply with this order. Some 200 Streltsi were crucified, impaled or hanged before Sophia’s windows in the Novo Devichi Convent: but most were executed in the Grand Square under the wall of the Kremlin, viz.:—