Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ...of his nobles, deserts to the king of Poland; other plots are discovered. All the passions of his malignant nature become aroused. Then follow the seven periods of massacre; a reign of terror hangs over the nobles. Ivan writes to the monastery of St. Cyril, asking the prayers of the Church for his victims. The list shows thirty-five hundred; many of the names are followed by the gloomy addition, " with his wife and children," " with his sons," "with ten men who came to his help." Ivan slew his own child in an altercation. When the spirit of liberty revived in Novgorod, the revolt of that great city was punished by the physical extermination of its inhabitants. For five weeks the work of slaughter went on within its walls, and sixty thousand is the tale of men butchered by his merciless soldiery. Yet Russia grew in power under his government. In his reign, an army went across the Urals under a brigand chief, and conquered much of Siberia, " the great realm that slopes to the Arctic, that sluggish mere and motionless, where you hear the sound of the sun rising." Although Ivan was willing to use the Church as an instrument of his despotism, he was statesman enough to perceive that there was a menace in the great power of the monasteries, so he forbade them to acquire new lands. His latter years were clouded by military disasters in the West, and by the failure of his intrigues for the Polish crown. Such was the fear of assassination at this time, that it was the custom for the relatives of the Czar's wife, and not his own, to take control of the affairs of state. Since they would be the greatest losers by his death, their efforts were directed towards the perpetuation of his life and power. The...