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Updated: June 20, 2025
The details of its infliction are too dreadful to relate, and we read with incredulous horror that "the terrible carpenter of Saardam plied his own ax in the horrible employment" and that on the last day Peter himself put to death eighty-four of the Streltsui, "compelling his boyars to assist" in inflicting this "chastisement!" The Baltic was at this time a Swedish sea.
A company was formed from the younger domestics of the place, fifty in number, the officers being sons of the boyars or lords. But these were required by the alert boy to pass through all the grades of the service, which he also did himself, serving successively as private, sergeant, lieutenant, and captain, and finally as colonel of the regiment which grew from this youthful company.
The fancy came into Yartsev's mind that perhaps that copse was haunted by the spirits of the Muscovite Tsars, boyars, and patriarchs, and he was on the point of telling Kostya about it, but he checked himself. When they reached the town gate there was a faint light of dawn in the sky.
A new terror seized him, that of a vast conspiracy of the nobles against his power, and for safety he retired to Alexandrovsky, a fortress in the midst of a gloomy forest. Here he assumed the monkish dress with three hundred of his minions, abandoning to the boyars the government of the empire, but keeping the military power in his own hands. On all sides Russia now suffered from its enemies.
His mother's family, the Glinskis, were especially unpopular; and when a terrific fire destroyed nearly the whole of Moscow it was whispered by jealous boyars that the Princess Anna Glinski had brought this misfortune upon them by enchantments. She had taken human hearts, boiled them in water, and then sprinkled the houses where the fire started!
"I thought it must be something like that," replied Rollo. "The old nobility of those Russian countries are called boyars," said Mr. George; "but I don't know why. Most of the common people are slaves to them."
The other boyars and different court people said to the Tsar: "There is nothing wonderful in such a pig. Golden bristles, silver tusks, yes, it is fine. But a pig remains a pig forever. The brothers of thy son-in-law are bragging now that they will steal for thee out of the stables of the fiery dragon a mare with golden mane and diamond hoofs."
"Why, you see," said Rollo, "he was at war with the Turks, and he fought them and drove them off to the southward, until at last he came to the Sea of Asoph. Then he could not fight them any more, unless he could get some ships. So he made a law for all the great boyars of his kingdom, that every one of them must build or buy him a ship. What are boyars, uncle George?" "Nobles," said Mr. George.
Sophia wrote to the Streltsui "You suffer but you will suffer more. Why do you wait? March on Moscow. There is no news of the Tsar." The army was told that he was dead, and that the boyars were scheming to kill his infant son Alexis and then get into power again.
An interest attaches to the marriage of Alexis with Natalia, his second wife. He was dining with one of his boyars and was attracted by a young girl, who was serving him. She was motherless, and had been adopted by her uncle the boyar. The Tsar said to his friend soon after: "I have found a husband for your Natalia." The husband was Alexis himself, and Natalia became the mother of Peter the Great.
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