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Indeed, it was known to nearly everybody in Uglitch, the tocsin having been sounded, and the population having gathered around the murdered boy, where they put to death a good many who were suspected of complicity with the murderers.
Feodor dead, the throne would fall like ripe fruit into his own hands. Yet, whether guilty of the murder or not, he took active steps to clear himself of the dark suspicion of guilt. An inquest was held, and the verdict rendered that the boy had killed himself by accident. At once the regent proceeded to punish those who had taken part in the outbreak at Uglitch.
The czaritza, mother of Dmitri, who had first incited the mob, was forced to take the veil. Her brothers, who had declared the act one of murder, were sent to remote prisons. Uglitch was treated with frightful severity. More than two hundred of its inhabitants were put to death. Others were maimed and thrown into dungeons.
The physician had fled with him from Uglitch and put him in the hands of a loyal gentleman, who for safety had consigned him to a monastery. The physician and gentleman were both dead, but the young man showed the prince a Russian seal which bore Dmitri's arms and name, and a gold cross adorned with jewels of great value, given him, he said, by his princely godfather.
A body was produced, said to have been taken from the grave of the slain boy at Uglitch, but in a remarkable state of preservation, since it still displayed the fresh hue of life and held in its hand some strangely preserved nuts.
To accomplish this, the wily minister sent Dmitri and his mother to the distant town of Uglitch, and there, by his orders, the young prince was murdered, in the presence of his nurse and six other people, and buried from his mother's residence. This was in 1591. The lad's death was announced, of course.
But in publishing it abroad in Russia, Boris deemed it prudent to attribute it, some say to a fever, others to an accidental fall upon a knife with which the boy had been playing; and lest the people of Uglitch should embarrass the minister by insisting upon a different diagnosis of the boy's last illness, that prudent official put a great many of them to death, cut the tongues out of others' heads, and banished the rest to Siberia laying the town in ashes.
Siberia, thus conquered by arms, is being made secure for Russia by a trans-continental railroad and hosts of new settlers, and promises in the future to become a land of the greatest prosperity and wealth. On the 15th of May, 1591, five boys were playing in the court-yard of the Russian palace at Uglitch.
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