Ivan the terrible, p.26
Ivan the Terrible, page 26
In turn, when he was confronted with his nobility Ivan felt that he was caught in a spider's web, spun by the treacherous boyars, who were linked together by endless marriage connexions but even more effectively by the net he had woven himself out of the collective sureties, forcing leading courtiers to put up large sums of money, which in turn forced them to make common cause if they did not want to be destroyed, and drew large numbers of service gentry into their orbit. It was a question of quis custodiet ipsos custodies. Ivan believed that the lower military servitors would thwart the boyars and princes if the latter plotted against him, but they knew only too well that if they denounced these supposed plotters, they too would be destroyed – and their families. And Ivan's suspicious nature led him to believe that the very fact that his courtiers put up money and agreed to stand surety for a man whom Ivan distrusted or had disgraced was further proof of the secret treachery of those who signed the sureties. The practice of demanding financial sureties to guarantee loyalty worked both ways. It created guarantees of loyalty to the Tsar, but it rendered it difficult for the Tsar to single out an individual as responsible for an offence, as distinct from the kin as a whole.
What made it even more difficult is that important courtiers at the time of Ivan were drawn from a relatively small number of large princely family clans – there were 120 Princes Yaroslavsky, 69 Obolenskys, 29 Belozerskys, 25 Rostovskys, 28 Starodubskys who could be expected, up to a point, to stand together. Among the non-titled boyars there were a few large clan groups which might be expected to present a common front. Intermarriages between the Tsar's family and princely and boyar families, within princely families, within boyar families, and between princes and boyars rendered the situation still more complex. Ivan was faced by the fact that it was too dangerous for him to bring down a magnate by calling in his sureties, for they would bring too many down with them. At the same time he evidently felt hemmed in by the close network of boyars, priests, courtiers and administrators. Surviving records of collective guarantees of this kind are few, but there were many cases. There are records of at least twelve members of princely and boyar families who fled. Among the ten published surety bonds which are known, the Russian historian Veselovsky has calculated that up to 950 people put up money and guarantees of the loyalty of others, 117 of them twice, sixteen three times, seven four times.59
It should be observed that the disciplining of the nobility in this manner was not confined to Russia. Surety bonds and recognizances, ‘a terrifying system of suspended penalties’, were also widely used in England in the reign of Henry VII. Out of 62 peerage families in his reign some 46 were under various forms of financial threat including the Marquess of Dorset, the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Mountjoy.60
Kurbsky was not the only one to flee at this time. One of those who escaped successfully was an officer in the musketeers, of modest noble origin, T.I. Teterin Pukhov, who had enjoyed a brilliant military career but, after the fall of Adashev, fell into disgrace, was forcibly shorn as a monk and incarcerated in a monastery from which he ran away to Lithuania around 1564. After his flight he wrote an insolent letter to the new governor of Dorpat, the boyar Mikhail Iakovlevich Morozov deriding him for sitting, unpaid, in a Russian fort, while his wife and children remained as hostages in the power of the Tsar. Writing to Teterin in September 1577, in ‘the refuge of your Tsar, prince Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky, in Wolmar, in our ancestral land of Livonia’, Ivan who never forgot or forgave anything, taunted him, the renegade-hero, with taking refuge beyond the Dvina, with not a fort to his name.61 Of course a forsworn monk was an infinitely worse criminal than even a traitor to the Tsar, as Ivan himself recognized in his letter to Kurbsky, where he praised those who had been forcibly tonsured but yet lived to see the light as monks.62 Skrynnikov makes a striking parallel with more recent times when he says that in the 1560s the flood of immigrants from Lithuania was reversed, and it was now Russians who left for Lithuania, forming a veritable ‘Russian emigration’ which for the first time in years could defend their interests and their views against the Tsar.63
Chapter XI
The Setting Up of the Oprichnina
According to the chronicle, on 3 December 1564 Ivan left for Kolomna, to celebrate the day of St Nicholas there on the 6th. He was making for his palace of Kolomenskoye, accompanied by the Tsaritsa Maria and his sons. According to both the chronicle and two Livonian nobles, Johann Taube and Eilhard Kruse, who had been in captivity in Russia and had then entered Russian service, before the Tsar left Moscow he had ordered the removal from churches and monasteries of many icons, crosses, jewels and plate, embroidered robes and money, indeed of all his treasure. He also collected church ornaments from monasteries and churches in the countryside around Moscow. They were to be loaded onto carts and sledges in the Kremlin.1
Ivan then issued a proclamation, ‘either inspired by his native suspiciousness or by the suggestion of the devil or by his tyrannical habit’, communicating the following to all religious and secular ranks: ‘he knew well and had definite information that they did not wish to suffer either him or his heirs, that they were making attempts on his health and life, and wanted to transfer the Russian realm to be ruled by a foreigner; he had therefore summoned them to him in order to hand over his rule to them’. He then divested himself of his Tsarist crown, his sceptre and his robes in the presence of members of all ranks.2
The Tsar then summoned all ecclesiastic and civil ranks to attend a service performed by Metropolitan Afanasii while his servants drew up and loaded the sledges he needed in the courtyard. At the end of the service the Tsar emerged from the church and the Tsaritsa appeared at once with the two children, ready dressed for a journey. The Tsar gave his hand in farewell, and blessed all the high-ranking churchmen and the senior boyars, like Prince Ivan Bel'sky, and Prince Ivan Mstislavsky, gathered there, and all the officials and the commanders and the many merchants.
Then the Tsar sat in his sledge with his sons on either side and drove off accompanied by many distinguished boyars such as Aleksei Basmanov, Prince Afanasii Viazemsky and others to Kolomenskoe. The Tsar also ordered a number of boyars, courtiers and officials to accompany him together with their wives and children, and also a contingent of specially selected military servitors, fully armed and with horses and men-at-arms. The Muscovite public was somewhat astonished at the size and solemnity of the procession, and the number of the escort. This was clearly not an ordinary pilgrimage.3
The Tsar was confined for a fortnight or so in Kolomna, by bad weather, and then moved on to the Trinity monastery, arriving on 21 December. Thence he moved to Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda. This estate, used intermittently by Vasily III, was now Ivan's preferred residence outside Moscow, used for his hunting expeditions; he had been fortifying it and supplying it throughout the summer of 1564. He sent the Tsaritsa and his children there at the time of the Crimean raid on Ryazan' in October 1564. Some half way between the Trinity monastery and Pereiaslavl' Zalesskii, it was surrounded by estates belonging to the élite of the Russian aristocracy, mainly the princes of Suzdal', such as the Shuisky clan, but also other branches, both princes and boyars, who found it convenient to have estates near the Tsar's favourite residence. The boyars remaining in Moscow were bewildered, and so were the people for they did not understand what was happening. Ivan now sent for those boyars and voevody whom he trusted enough to keep them in his service, while those who seemed reluctant to join him were stripped naked and released to make their way back to Moscow in the snow.4
Not until 3 January 1565 was a formal communication of Ivan's intentions received in Moscow, addressed to Metropolitan Afanasii, thus indicating Ivan's rejection of the existing government of Russia, the Boyar Council. Even before reaching Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda, Ivan wrote to the Metropolitan and the men of rank that he: ‘would go where God and the weather would allow, and give his realm to the traitors, though a time might come when he would demand it back again and would take it’.
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 Metropolitan5 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.
