Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/250

 226 resistance or armed rebellion, have gone so far, indeed, as to deny the existence of any struggle at all. They have confused the Muscovy of the earliest Tsars with the France of Louis XI. Owing to the absence of strongly-constituted classes in Russia, the resistance, in her case, could not assume the same character, become collective in its nature, oppose violence with violence. But the men who, like Biélski, offered their services to the enemy, and besought that enemy's assistance to enforce their abolished privileges, or who, like Mstislavski, showed the Tartars the road to the capital—such fugitives and traitors were insurgents, neither more nor less!

Now, just in the year 1554, this flow of emigrants to foreign parts increased to an alarming extent. In July, Prince Nikita Dmitriévitch Rostovski was stopped. and arrested on one of the roads leading to Lithuania. It was then discovered that all his family and his numerous relations, the Lobanov, the Priïmkov, had been in treaty with the King of Poland. From the point of view of the old appanages, there was nothing criminal in all this. It was no more than a putting into practice of the 'right of departure,' and so strong were the ancient ideas and habits, still, that the Tsar did not dare to use too much severity. Rostovski, on the intercession of a great number of influential persons, was merely interned at Biélooziéro. But the Tsar was none the better pleased with those who interceded for him, and amongst these, again, was Sylvester.

From that time forward, probably, the pope's position and that of Adachev were very much undermined. The two comrades' behaviour when the Livonian war began did nothing to restore their credit. They loudly espoused the cause of the boïars, who, in their dislike of the effort the war necessitated and of the disturbance it caused in the traditional trend of the Muscovite policy, condemned the whole enterprise. Yet up to July, 1560, Adachev seems to have been actively employed in diplomatic work. It was not till this period that, being sent into a kind of honourable exile far from Court, he re-entered the ranks of the army, then in Livonia, as third Voiévode of the first regiment. At the same time, Sylvester went into voluntary retirement at the monastery of Biélooziéro, the common refuge of all fallen grandeurs. In his 'History of Ivan' Kourbski has confused events and dates, and connected these disgraces with the illness and death of the Tsarina Anastasia. According to him, the ex-favourites were accused of having poisoned her. The Tsarina fell ill in November, 1559, and died ten months later, after the departure of Adachev and Sylvester, and the very duration of her sufferings would seem to preclude any suspicion of foul play, which, indeed, would have been punished after quite a different fashion. After that