Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/157

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In 1547, Ivan had held his own against the mob and the mob-leaders who had egged him on to crime. He had done justice, and several heads had fallen. But after that time, as before it, the boïars held the reins of government, and the tumult of which Moscow had been the scene was as nothing compared with the more permanent disturbances which continued to torture and mangle the whole country. Two or three more years elapsed before Ivan could persuade himself that this intolerable system must be suppressed, or that he himself was strong enough to suppress it. It was in 1549 or 1550—this latter date seems the most probable—that he finally made up his mind. At that time, according to the chroniclers, he convoked an assembly of all classes from every province, at Moscow. The sitting and the palaver were held in the open air, on the Red Square in front of the Kremlin. The Tsar spoke first, and brought his accusation against his untrustworthy boïars. He set forth a long list of their misdeeds, and announced that they were about to come to an end, and to be replaced by 'the triumph of virtue—and of love.' In conclusion, he turned towards the Metropolitan: 'I beseech thee, holy master, to be my help and mainstay in this work, which, as I know, obtains thy favour. Thou knowest that when my father died I was but four years old. My other kinsmen took no care of me, and my powerful boïars thought of nothing but abusing their own strength … and while they multiplied their rapines and their excesses, I, because of my youth, was deaf and dumb. They ruled as masters. Oh, peculators, depredators, and dishonest judges, how will you answer now for the blood and the tears that have been shed through you?My hands are clean from that blood! But you, make you ready for the chastisement you have deserved! Then, bowing on every side, the Sovereign begged his audience to forget for a space the misdeeds from which they might have suffered, because 'it was not possible to repair them all.' But thenceforward he himself, as far as might be, would be their judge and their defender.

That very day Adachev was raised to the rank of okolnitchyï, and appointed to attend to all petitions. Ivan ordered him to look with most particular care into those presented by the humblest of his subjects, and to have no fear of the resentment of the great lords, 'the monopolizers of the great posts, and the oppressors of the poor and weak.'

This story requires some explanation. Ivan was always a great lover of scenic effect, and though he may not have