ROMAN OF GALICIA

Now let us turn back to Vladimir Monomachus, whose line we have traced through and from his eighth son, Urii of Souzdal. Vladimir's first son was Mstislav, Grand Prince of Kieff, whose first son was Isiaslav, whose first son was Mstislav II. The first son of Mstislav II was Roman, of Galicia and Volhynia, and his first son was Daniel, surnamed Romanovitch and called "King of Galicia," who in his time was one of the most conspicuous and important princes in Eastern Europe and the founder of the Romanovitch branch of the family of Rurik.

Again let us turn back to Ivan, Grand Prince of Moscow, son of Daniel and grandson of Alexander Nevski. We have traced his line through and from his third son, Ivan II, father of Dimitry Donskoi. The first Ivan's first son was Simeon, Grand Prince of Moscow, known as Simeon Ivanovitch, and Simeon the Proud. He was the first to call himself Grand Prince of All the Russias and to proclaim Moscow as the supreme capital. He died of the Black Death in 1353 and was buried at Moscow in the Cathedral of St. Simeon, which he built. To his court at Moscow there came in 1341 from Eastern Prussia one Andrei, or Andrew, Kobyla, a nobleman adventurer, and entered his service. This Prussian became a Russian, prospered greatly, and had a son Feodor, or Theodore, Koschka, who married a princess of the Romanovitch branch of the line of Rurik and became the founder of four great Russian families, of which two, the Scheremetieffs and the Romanoffs, are distinguished to this day. is a curious coincidence that Nicholas II degraded his brother, the Grand Duke Mikhail, and excluded him from any share in the tercentenary celebration of the Romanoffs, for no other offense than marrying a member

It

of this very Scheremetieff family which sprang from the same source as the Romanoffs themselves. Feodor had a son Ivan, who had a son Sakhariya Ivanovitch, who in turn had a son, Roman Sakhariyavitch. The last named had two children, a son and a daughter. The son, Nikita, married Eudoxia Alexandrovna, a descendant of Andrei, eldest brother of Alexander Nevski, of Rurik's line. The daughter, Anastasia, became the first wife of Ivan the Terrible in 1547.

THE SONS OF IVAN

Ivan the Terrible the first Tsar of Russia, conqueror of Siberia, had numerous wives, and from his domestic infamies proceeded the downfall of his house. Anastasia Romanovna, the daughter of Roman Sakhariyavitch, bore him a son, Dimitry, who died in infancy; a second son, Ivan, whom the Tsar himself murdered; a third son, Feodor, and a daughter, Eudoxia; and then was herself murdered by court conspirators. A year later Ivan married a Tcherkess girl, whom he renamed Maria and who bore him a son, named either Vasili or Dimitry, who died in a few weeks. Maria died in 1569, and three years later Ivan married Martha Sobakin, who died within an hour of the wedding. A few months later he married Anna Koltovskoi, who was childless and whom he accordingly put into a convent so that he might marry another Anna, whom he also presently got rid of. In 1580 he married Maria Nagoi, and the next year planned to dispose of her and to marry Lady Mary Hastings, of England, if he could get her. But in the nick of time Maria Nagoi bore him a son, whom he named Dimitry, and thus saved herself from divorce or death. Happily Ivan himself died in 1584.

The successor to the throne was Feodor, son of Ivan the Terrible and Anastasia Romanovna. He was a weakling and was little more than a puppet in the hands of the Duma of five, of which the dominant members were Boris Godounoff, whose sister Irene was Feodor's wife, and Nikita Romanoff, Feodor's maternal uncle. Nikita died in 1586, however, leaving Boris supreme. Presently the Polish throne fell vacant and Boris put Feodor forward as a candidate for election to it. Feodor could probably have secured it and thus have united Russia and Poland, but for his stubborn refusal to be crowned at Cracow or to recognize the Roman Catholic religion which prevailed in Poland. Thereupon the Poles elected Sigismund Vasa, of Sweden, to be their King and by so doing planted the seeds of great trouble between Poland and Russia. Next arose a conspiracy against Feodor by the Nagoi family, all of whose members had been banished from Moscow to Ouglitch. This was ruthlessly suppressed by Boris and resulted in the sending of the first political exiles to Siberia. A little later, in 1591, the young Prince Dimitry, who had been permitted to remain at Ouglitch was found dead with his throat cut. Suspicion was directed against Boris, but he discreetly had an inquest held by some of the very persons who suspected him, with the result that he was vindicated, the verdict being that Dimitry had killed himself in a fit of epilepsy.

BORIS, THE GREAT BOYAR

Feodor had but one child, a daughter, who died in infancy. In 1598 he himself died, and his widow retired to a convent. Boris Godounoff was thus left supreme and was presently elected Tsar, and for years reigned with skill and justice, winning rank as one of Russia's best

sovereigns. He hoped to form a dynasty of his own, however, and thus feared the rivalry of the four sons of his former colleague, Nikita Romanoff. Accordingly he sent the eldest of them, Feodor, into a monastery, and threw the others, Alexander, Vasili and Mikhail, or Michael, into prison. Boris, who was the founder of the system of serfdom and also of the Russian State Church, died on April 13, 1605, supposedly of poisoning, and was succeeded by his fifteen-year-old son, Feodor. But the latter was soon swept away by an adventurer who was put forward by the King of Poland as the son of Ivan and Maria Nagoi; the story being that the youth who was found at Ouglitch with his throat cut was not Dimitry at all but one of his attendants. This impostor, who was probably Gregory Otrepier, an agent of Polish Jesuits, seized the Imperial crown, and threw the boy Tsar, Feodor, and his mother into prison, where they were soon murdered. Then he brought Maria Nagoi back from her convent prison and compelled her to recognize him as her son. Then, considering his place secure, he brought a Polish bride, Marina Mnishek, to Moscow, with a great train of Poles and Cossacks. At this the people of Moscow revolted. Under the lead of Vasili Shouyskie, the man who had conducted the inquest on the body of young Dimitry at Ouglitch, and who was accordingly convinced that the Tsar Dimitry was an impostor, they stormed the palace, threw the pretender from the window, and slew him with their swords. Then Maria Nagoi recanted her recognition and declared that he was not her son.

THE DAYS OF THE PRETENDERS

Vasili Shouyskie, leader of the Tsar-slaying mob, was next proclaimed Tsar, in the spring of 1606, but was not

long permitted to enjoy his sovereignty in peace. Pretenders sprang up as if by magic, chiefly on the fertile soil of Poland, whose King, Sigismund Vasa, was intent upon becoming the master of Russia. One story was that the false Dimitry had escaped when the palace was stormed, that the man who was thrown from the window and killed was not he but some one impersonating him, and that Dimitry himself was safe in Poland. Another story related to another person altogether, who was said to be the real Dimitry of Ouglitch. A third pretender called himself Peter, son of Feodor Ivanovitch-who, as already related, had only one child, a daughter, who died in infancy. This pretender raised an army of Don Cossacks, but was defeated and slain. A fourth pretended to be a son of Ivan the Terrible; a fifth, the son of Ivan, the murdered son of Ivan the Terrible; and no fewer than eight more claimed to be sons of Feodor Ivanovitch. Of all this array none proved to be formidable. But in the spring of 1608 still another false Dimitry appeared under Polish patronage, who invaded Russia with a considerable army of Poles and Cossacks, penetrated almost to the environs of Moscow, and established a rival imperial court at Toushin. There Marina Mnishek met him and declared him to be her husband, the original false Dimitry, and many Russian cities swore allegiance to him.

Stubborn resistance was made to him, however, by the city of Rostov, where Feodor Romanoff was Metropolitan Bishop under the name of Philaret. In the end, however, the city fell, and Philaret was captured and let to Dimitry at Toushin, with the expectation of being put to death. Dimitry, thinking thus to strengthen his own position, greeted him in friendly fashion as a beloved kinsman of "our late half-brother," the Tsar Feodor Ivano