Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
There were men like Basil Shuiski who knew too much greedy, ambitious men, who might turn their knowledge to evil account. The moment might be propitious to the pretender, however false his claim. Therefore Boris dispatched a messenger to Wisniowiecki with the offer of a heavy bribe if he would yield up the person of this false Demetrius. But that messenger returned empty-handed.
He was a tall man, considerably younger than Boris, who was in his fiftieth year. His face was lean and saturnine, and there was something sinister in the dark, close-set eyes under a single, heavy line of eyebrow. Boris explained his question, telling him what he had learnt from Basmanov. Basil Shuiski laughed. The story was an absurd one. Demetrius was dead.
Himself he had held the body in his arms, and no mistake was possible. Despite himself, a sigh of relief fluttered from the lips of Boris. Shuiski was right. It was an absurd story, this. There was nothing to fear. He had been a fool to have trembled for a moment. Nevertheless, in the weeks that followed, he brooded more and more over all that Basmanov had said.
They fell like seeds of war on the soil of Russia, and for years that unhappy land was torn by faction and harried by invasion. From those ashes new Dmitris seemed to spring, other impostors rose to claim the crown, and until all these shades were laid peace fled from the land. Vassili Shuiski, the leader in the insurrection against Dmitri, had himself proclaimed czar.
Finally, on the occasion of his marriage with Marina, the Polish princess which was celebrated with great pomp by a throng of Polish soldiers and others, invited to Moscow for the purpose a mob, headed by Shuiski, or Schnisky for the name is spelled in both of these and half a dozen other ways stormed the palace, butchered the Poles, and impaled Dmitri on a spear.
There are two ways of governing an empire, tyranny and generosity. I choose the latter. I will not be a tyrant. I will not spare money; I will scatter it on all hands." Only for the offence which he gave his people by disregarding their prejudices, Dmitri might have long and ably reigned. His confidence opened the way to a new conspiracy, of which Shuiski was again at the head.
It has been now and then suggested that he was poisoned. His death was certainly most opportune to Demetrius. But there is nothing in the manner of it to justify the opinion that it resulted from anything other than an apoplexy. His death brought the sinister opportunist Shuiski back to Moscow to place Boris's son Feodor on the throne. But the reign of this lad of sixteen was very brief.
Soon afterwards Marina, wife of the first Dmitri, who had been released, with her father, by Shuiski, was brought into the camp of the pretender. And here an interesting bit of comedy was played. Marina, rather than go back to meet ridicule in Poland, was ready to become the wife of this vulgar impostor, though she saw at once that he was not the man he claimed to be.
"Find Prince Shuiski," he said presently, "and send him to me here." Upon the tale the boyar had brought him he offered now no comment. "We will talk of this again, Basmanov," was all he said in acknowledgment that he had heard, and in dismissal. But when the boyar had gone, Boris Godunov heaved himself to his feet, and strode over to the fire, his great head sunk between his massive shoulders.
Shuiski accepted the terms, and the gates were opened. Bolotnikof advanced boldly to the czar and offered himself as a victim, presenting his sword with the edge laid against his neck. "I have kept the oath I swore to him who, rightly or wrongly, calls himself Dmitri," he said. "Deserted by him, I am in your power.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking