Ivan the Terrible (35 page)

Ivan's gesture could be interpreted as an abdication, but he had no intention of abdicating. He was after all responsible to God, as an Orthodox Tsar ruling over Russia, for the spiritual and material welfare of his people. He was preparing to face the boyar aristocracy which had remained behind in Moscow, together with his cousin the Prince of Staritsa, with a choice of which the outcome was determined before hand since he held all the cards: either he was given full power to punish
treason as he saw fit, without regard to the traditional Russian customary legal procedures or the traditional right of intercession of the Church, or Russia would be condemned to drift, leaderless and rudderless, before her enemies. The boyars were to surrender their present means of circumventing the wishes of the Tsar, sanctified by time and custom, or be faced with war against their legitimate ruler, supported by the armed forces and the people of Moscow.

The messages reaching Moscow on 3 January were addressed to the Metropolitan
⁵
and to the people of Moscow.
⁶
Ivan proclaimed his wrath with the leaders of the Church, the boyars, the service gentry, and the civil officials who had taken part in treasonable actions and wasted his substance ever since his boyhood. The guilt of the churchmen consisted, in Ivan's view, in their efforts to intercede to protect those whom the Tsar had proclaimed guilty from their just punishment.
⁷
The guilt of the boyars and the senior courtiers was broadly characterized by him as ‘treason’ (
izmena
), a word which covered suspected support of other members of the Riurikovich dynasty, in the first place Vladimir of Staritsa, as successors to or indeed rivals of Ivan on the throne; flight to Lithuania, a supposed intent to fly, any communication with members of Lithuanian embassies in Moscow to which treasonable intent could be attributed; support by means of collective suretyships of those whom the Tsar wished to find guilty and execute; disagreement with the Tsar on issues of foreign policy such as a critical attitude to the choice of war in Livonia instead of concentrating all Russian forces against the Crimean khanate; lack of success in battle which could only be caused by treason, cowardice, laziness or disputes over precedence. He explained his future intentions in his missives in which he ‘laid’ his anger (
gnev
) on the Metropolitan, the bishops, the heads of monasteries, and his disfavour (
opala
) on the boyars and courtiers, duma secretaries, service gentry (
deti boyarskie
) and all lower rank officials.
⁸

The missive to the boyars was read out to them (it was probably quite long – Ivan IV was not laconic by nature) in a meeting in the Metropolitan's chamber in Moscow. The Tsar specifically accused the boyars of wasting his treasure and distributing estates to themselves and their families, of failing to defend Orthodox Christians from their enemies the Crimeans, the Lithuanians and the Germans (Livonians), and of evading service. When he wanted to punish any of these traitors, the church hierarchy, the boyars and the other ranks all joined forces to ‘protect them’. Unable in these circumstances to govern, and unwilling to tolerate such treasonable activity, he felt bound to abandon his realm, with heartfelt grief, and settle where God willed.
⁹

Ivan now extended his appeal for support to the people of Moscow in a special missive to them, which was also read to those who had been allowed into the Kremlin. In it he drove a wedge between high and low. He assured the common people that they, unlike the boyars and high officials, had not incurred his wrath or his disgrace. The Tsar's exclusion of the townspeople from his wrath coupled with his verbal assault on the record of selfish corruption of the boyars served of course to inflame popular resentment and probably led the boyars to fear an outbreak of social unrest. Meanwhile the common people, anxious not to lose the protection of the Tsar and fearing to be delivered over into the hands of the boyars, begged the Metropolitan and the Church Council to petition the Tsar ‘not to leave the country and deliver them to the wolves like unhappy sheep with no shepherd, and to protect them from the strong’ and they would be the first to demand the destruction of the traitors and evil-doers. ‘To whom shall we run? Who will have mercy on us? Who will protect us from attack by people of other races (
inoplemennykh
)? How can a sheep live without a shepherd? How can we live without a lord?’ The Tsar had only to name the evil-doers, and they would have to answer for their deeds, for the Tsar had the right and the power to punish and execute.
¹⁰

Ivan had taken care to be escorted not only by armed men, but by the necessary cadres of administrative officials to constitute an effective
dvor
or administration in Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda, while ensuring that the existing administration in Moscow should be deprived of authority and resources. The boyars, officials and service gentry were in despair at the loss of the protection of the Tsar against their enemies, according to the account of the episode given in the chronicle (no doubt thoroughly vetted by Ivan himself).

The aristocracy was taken completely unawares by Ivan's ploy, so much so that they missed the one and only opportunity they were ever given of accepting the Tsar's offer to abdicate. Besides, there was no tradition in Russia (or scarcely anywhere) of legitimate opposition, of contractual relationship between ruler and ruled, and the boyars were psychologically unprepared for the drastic step of formal opposition to the Tsar, the defender of Orthodoxy – proof if any were needed that plotting against the Tsar had not spread its tentacles very deeply into society. The people of Moscow were profoundly dependent on the protection of the Tsar as their religious leader, in an age of religious controversy and dangerous heresies, and as their defender against the mighty. It was scarcely feasible for a deeply devout people to rise against their ruler at a time when he was leading the struggle against the
Protestant and the Catholic heresies on the battlefields of Livonia and Lithuania.
¹¹

The Metropolitan determined (wise man) to stay in Moscow to govern the city, left without any central authority, and sent Archbishop Pimen and Archimandrite Levkii as his envoys to Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda, with an appeal to the Tsar as ‘the chosen lord of the true apostolic faith’ to ward off the danger that it might be polluted and even destroyed. The two ecclesiastics set out the same evening, 3 January 1565. They begged, in the name of the boyars, and in their own, that the Tsar should withdraw his anger and his disfavour from them, and should stay in his realm and rule it as he saw fit, and be free to act as he pleased with the traitors and evil-doers, and punish them as he saw fit. If the Tsar did indeed know the traitors, he should name them, for he had the right to punish them as he wished.

The envoys from Moscow reached Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda on 5 January 1565, followed by a long trail of nobles, armed men, merchants, townspeople and the common people of the city.
¹²
The Tsar received first the ecclesiastics, then the boyars, who were only admitted under guard, into what was now a fortified camp. Only those whom the Tsar called upon were admitted to his presence, starting with the priests, who begged him to lift his anger from them and to forgive the treacherous boyars and ‘allow them to see his eyes, and remove their disgrace, and rule his lands as he wished’. The Tsar at last allowed himself to be persuaded and permitted the boyars and the officials waiting outside to enter and ‘see his eyes’. The common people were not admitted and played no further part in the proceedings.

The Tsar now made a clear distinction between the Church and the boyars. He would not consult with the boyars, but in view of the entreaty of the Metropolitan, conveyed to him by the two clerics, he decided to return to his throne, and resume his lands, ‘but as to how he would take them and how he would rule them he would issue his orders to the Metropolitan and the churchmen’. The boyars and the Council were simply brushed aside, and the Tsar attempted to render them powerless by dividing the Council, keeping some of the senior boyars like Prince I.D. Bel'sky, with him and sending Prince I.F. Mstislavsky back to Moscow, thus limiting their power to act.

Whether Ivan discussed his plans with the boyars he was holding almost as hostages in Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda who can tell, but some unlikely rumours surround the events of these days.
¹³
There are reports that Ivan genuinely meant to abdicate and to leave his throne to his two sons. According to Schlichting who may well have been an eyewitness,
Ivan pretended that he had grown tired of power and wished to retire to live the life of a monk. Summoning the boyars he said ‘here are my sons whose age and capacity fit them for rule’. He urged the boyars to ‘let them rule, let them dispense justice and lead you in war’ and if untoward events arose they could always call on him, Ivan, for help, ‘for he would not be living far away’; he is said to have drafted a will at the time to that effect. The only surviving will of Ivan's is usually held to date from much later, in 1572 (or even 1579), and what is more, in 1565 his sons were scarcely fit to rule or command armies being seven and five years old respectively.
¹⁴
Ivan himself set it about that on the death of his father Vasily III, the boyars had intended to deprive him of his throne in favour of Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky, the senior of the Suzdal' Shuisky princes, a clan descended from a brother of Alexander Nevsky's, which regarded itself as nearer to the Riurikid throne than the House of Daniel of Moscow to which Ivan belonged. He was a military commander of great prestige and wealth, one of the outstanding generals in the conquest of Kazan', related to the Tsar's family through his daughter, who was married to Prince I.F. Mstislavky.
¹⁵
And these were the men, Ivan added, that he was forced to see every day.

The conditions on which Ivan agreed to return to Moscow were set out in an
ukaz
which has not survived but is described in the account of the two Livonian nobles, Taube and Kruse.
¹⁶
According to them there was a lengthy preamble setting out the treason of the subjects of the grand princes ever since the days of Vladimir Monomakh in the twelfth century, before Ivan stated his terms: he demanded the right to punish traitors as he thought fit, and those who failed to obey him. He could disgrace them and execute them and confiscate their moveable and immoveable property, without any legal process, without the
prigovor
or assent of the boyars in the Council and need pay no regard to the intercession of the church hierarchy.
¹⁷
But Ivan had still a further surprise for his people up his sleeve. He declared that he intended to set up an
oprichnina
for himself, carved out of his realm.

Probably not many people understood what the Tsar meant, for
oprichnina
was an archaic word which was used of an appanage granted for life to the widow of a noble or a prince when the rest of her husband's estate was divided between his children.
¹⁸
In his
ukaz
Ivan already described those parts of Russia and of Moscow he intended to take into this appanage he was carving out for himself, leaving the rest, the
zemshchina
or ‘land’, to be governed by the boyars as before. He had taken care to bring with him to Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda,
¹⁹
which was now to be even more strongly fortified and was to become his unofficial
capital, a contingent of
d'iaki
and minor officials in addition to commanders and a goodly contingent of service gentry who would constitute his new
dvor
or ‘court’. Out of these latter, and with some foreign volunteers, a corps of some one thousand men was to be formed as his own private guard. All Ivan's servants had to swear a special oath of loyalty to him, and ‘neither to eat nor drink’ with any members of the
zemshchina
nor to have anything to do with them, even if they were members of their families. No one can tell how far this injunction was obeyed. In order to pay for these innovations, Ivan imposed an enormous levy of 100,000 rubles on the whole country, already exhausted by the costs of war.
²⁰

Ivan had now to set about implementing his plan for the
oprichnina
. Early in February, he cleared the way for his return to Moscow by ordering the execution of Prince Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky (his alleged rival for the throne)
²¹
together with that of his seventeen-year-old son and his father-in law. The sources do not suggest any particular reason why he should have been charged with treason just at this point, but it will be remembered that he had been the recipient of a letter from the priest Sylvester critical of Ivan's warlike qualities.
²²
It is also possible that Ivan wished to get rid of a prominent and respected figure in the noble bastion of Suzdal' (which he took into the
oprichnina
) before embarking on the further purge which he was planning. Gorbaty is alleged, on the basis of the existence, though not the content, of that single surviving letter to him from the priest Sylvester, to have been a supporter of Vladimir of Staritsa, on the grounds that Sylvester was also a supporter of Vladimir, at the time of Ivan's severe illness in 1553.

Father and son disputed who should lay his head first on the block, according to Kurbsky. The father won and the son kissed his severed head before losing his own.
²³
This was the end of the senior line of the Shuiskys and the junior lines were represented only by younger men in the 1560s. Ivan sent 200 rubles to the Trinity monastery on 12 February for prayers for the souls of Gorbaty and his son, so that he seems to have been torn between dynastic fear and hatred of a successful military rival, and awareness of a crime against them.
²⁴

The date of Ivan's return to Moscow is uncertain, but he had returned by mid-February 1565.
²⁵
The tension of these days had made him unrecognizable: he had previously been regarded as a very tall, well set up man, with a fine head of hair, long moustaches and beard, penetrating light eyes and a Roman nose. He had now lost the hair from his head and his beard (it grew again), his eyes were dimmed, his features marked by a gloomy savagery.
²⁶