the refractory republic were admirably seconded by the machinery of
communication which had been previously established in the persons of
the boyars, whose local influence was of the first consequence on this
occasion. As the tide of these numerous negotiations changed, Ivan
assumed the humility or the pride, the generosity or the severity,
adapted to the immediate purpose; and, working upon the characters of the
individuals as well as their interests, he succeeded in gaining a great
moral lever before he unsheathed a sword. He made allies of all the
classes and princes that lay in his way to the heart of the independent
corporation. He represented to the nobles the anomalous nature and
usurpation of the democratic institutions of Novgorod, and he roused
their pride into resentment. He gained over the few princes who still
held trembling appanages by painting to them in strong colors the
enormous opulence and commercial monopolies of the republic; and he
filled the whole population with revenge against the fated city, by
exaggerated accounts of its treasonable designs against the internal
security of the empire. Thus, by artful insinuations of the personal
advantages and general benefits that were to spring from the overthrow
of Novgorod, he succeeded in neutralizing all the opposition he had any
reason to apprehend, and in exciting increased enthusiasm on the part of
the people.
Having made these subtle preparations to facilitate his proceedings, he
sent an ambassador to the citizens calling upon them to acknowledge his
authority; and only awaited their decisive refusal, which he anticipated,
as an excuse for immediate hostilities. The Novgorodians returned an
answer couched in terms of scorn and defiance. His reply was carried by
three formidable armies, which, breaking in on the Novgorodian territory
on three different sides, prostrated the hopes of the citizens by
overwhelming masses, against which their gallant resistance was of no
avail. In this brief and desperate struggle, Ivan possessed extraordinary
superiority by the recent acquisition of firearms and cannon, the use of
which he had learned from Aristotle of Bologna, an Italian, whom he had
taken into his service as an architect, mintmaster, and founder. The
triumph of the arms of the Grand Prince was rapidly followed by the
incursions of swarms of the peasantry, who, secretly urged forward
by Ivan, rushed upon the routed enemy, and completed the work of
devastation. This licentious exhibition of popular feeling Ivan affected
to repress, and, availing himself of the opportunity it afforded to
assume toward the Novgorodians a moderation he did not feel, he pretended
to protect them against any greater violence than was merely necessary
to establish his right to the recovery of the domains of which they had
despoiled him, and the payment of the ransom that was customary under
such circumstances. Here his deep and crafty genius had room for
appropriate display. He did not consider it prudent to seize upon the
republic at once, as, in that event, he was bound to partition it among
his kinsmen, by whose aid, extended upon special promises, he had
overthrown it; so he contented himself with a rich ransom, having already
beggared it by suffering lawless followers to plunder it uninterruptedly
before he interfered, and by demanding an act of submission. But in this
act he contrived to insert some words of ambiguous tendency, under the
shelter of which he might, when his own time arrived, leap upon his prey
with impunity.
The confusion into which the Novgorodians were thrown and the great
reduction of strength which they suffered in the contest enabled Ivan
to deprive them of some of their tributaries, under the pretence of
rendering them a service, so that their exhaustion was seized upon as a
fresh source of injustice. The Permians having offered some indignity
to the republic, Ivan interfered, and transferred the commerce of that
people with Germany to Moscow; and, on another occasion, when the Livoman
knights attempted an aggression, Ivan sent his ambassadors and troops
to force a negotiation in his own name; thus actually depriving both
Novgorod and Pskof, they being mutually concerned, of the right of making
peace and war in their own behalf. By insidious measures like these he
continued to oppress and absorb the once independent city that claimed
and kept so towering an ascendency. But not satisfied with such means of
accumulating the supreme power, he sowed dissensions between the rich
classes and the poor, and after fomenting fictitious grievances,
terminating in open quarrel, he succeeded in having all complaints laid
before him for decision. Then, going among them, he impoverished the
wealthy by the lavish presents his visits demanded, and captivated the
imagination of the multitude by the dazzling splendor of his retinues and
the flexible quality of his justice. The time was now approaching for
a more explicit declaration of his views. On pretence of these
disagreements he loaded some of the principal citizens, the oligarchs of
the republic, with chains and sent them to Moscow. It was so arranged
that these nobles were denounced by the mob; and Ivan, in acceding to
their demand for vengeance, secured the allegiance of the great bulk of
the population. The stratagem succeeded; and with each new violation of
justice he gained an accession of popular favor.
The progress of the scheme against the liberties of Novgorod was slow,
but inevitable. The inhabitants gradually referred all their disputes to
the Grand Prince; and he, profiting by the growing desire to erect him
into the sole judge of their domestic grievances, at length summoned the
citizens to appear before him at Moscow. The demand was as unexpected as
it was extraordinary.
Never before had the Novgorodians gone out from their own walls to sue or
receive judgment; but so seductive and treacherous were the professions
of Ivan that, unsuspicious of his designs, they consented to appear
before his throne. Throughout the whole of these encroachments on the
ancient usages in which the rights of the people resided, he appeared to
be lifted above all personal or tyrannical views. Marpha, the ambitious
widow, who had stirred up the revolt and sought to attach Novgorod to
Lithuania, had never been molested; and even the principal persons who
were most conspicuous in resisting his authority at the outset were
suffered to remain unharmed. These instances of magnanimity, as they were
believed to be, lulled the distrust of the citizens, and seduced them by
degrees to abandon their old customs one by one at his bidding. For seven
years he continued with unwearied perseverance to wean them from all
those distinctive habits that marked their original character and
separated them from the rest of the empire; and at last, when he thought
that he had succeeded in obliterating their attachment to the republican
form of government, he advanced his claim to the absolute sovereignty,
which was now sanctioned by numberless acts of submission, and by
traitorous voices of assent within the council of the citizens.
At an audience to which he admitted an envoy, that officer, either
wilfully or by accident, addressed him by the name of sovereign; and
Ivan, instantly seizing upon the inadvertency, claimed all the privileges
of an absolute master. He required that the republic should surrender its
expiring rights into his hands, and take a solemn oath of allegiance;
that his boyars should be received within its gates, with full authority
to exercise their almost irresponsible control over the city; that the
palace of Yaroslaff, the temple of Novgorodian liberty, should be given
up to his viceroy; that the forum should be abolished; and that the
popular assemblies, and all the corresponding immunities of the people,
should be abrogated forever.
The veil was dropped too suddenly. The citizens were not prepared for so
abrupt and uncompromising an assertion of authority. Hitherto they had
admitted the innovations of the Grand Prince, but it was of their
own free will. They did not expect that he would ground any right of
sovereignty upon their voluntary acquiescence in his character of
arbitrator and ally; and the news of his despotic claim filled them with
despair and indignation. The great bell, which had formerly been the
emblem of their citizenship, now tolled for the last time. They assembled
in the market-place in tumultuous crowds, and summoning the treacherous
or imprudent envoy before them, they tried him by a clamorous and summary
process, and, before the sentence was completed, tore him limb from limb.
Believing that some of the nobles were accessory to the surrender of
their freedom, they fell upon those they suspected, and murdered them in
the streets, thus hastening, and confirming by their intemperance, the
final alienation of the wealthy classes from their cause; and having by
these acts of unbridled desperation given the last demonstrations of
their independence, they once more threw themselves into the arms of
Lithuania, which were open to receive them.
But Ivan was prepared for this demonstration of passion. His measures
were too deeply taken to suffer surprise by any course which the
Novgorodians, in their righteous hatred of oppression, might think fit
to adopt. When he learned the reception they gave to his mandate, he
affected the most painful astonishment. He declared that he alone was the
party aggrieved, that he alone was deceived; that they had laid snares
for his counsel and countenance; and that even when, yielding to their
universal requisition, he had consented to take upon him the toils of
government, they had the audacity to confront him with an imposition in
the face of Russia, to shed the blood of their fellow-men, and to insult
heaven and the empire by calling into the sacred limits the soldiers of
an adverse religion and a foreign power. These ingenious remonstrances
were addressed to the priests, the nobles, and the people, and had the
desired effect. The bishops embarked zealously in the crusade, and the
people entered willingly into the delusion. The dependent republic of
Pskof and the principality of Twer, paralyzed in the convulsion, appeared
to waver; but Ivan, resolved to deprive Novgorod of any help they might
ultimately be tempted to offer, drew out their military strength, under
the form of a contingency, and left them powerless. Yet, although
strongly reënforced on all sides, he still avoided a contest. With
a mingled exhibition of revenge and attachment, he threatened and
propitiated in the same breath.
"I will reign supreme at Novgorod," he exclaimed; "as I do at Moscow. You
must surrender all to me; your posadnik, and the bell that calls your
national council together;" and at the same time he professed his
determination to respect those very liberties which by these demands were
to be sacrificed forever. The Novgorodians, terrified by the immense
force Ivan had collected, which it seemed he only used to menace, and not
to destroy, attempted to capitulate; but he was insensible to all their
representations, and, even while he promised them their freedom, he
refused to grant it. The armament, mighty as it was, which he had
prepared, was kept aloof to threaten and not to strike. He acted as if he
feared to risk the issue of a contest with any of his enemies, or as if
he were unwilling to suffer the loss consequent even upon victory. He
wanted to overbear by terror rather than by arms, so that the fearful
agency of his name might do the work of conquest more powerfully and at
less cost than his armies, which must have been thinned by battles, and
might have been subdued by fortune. So long as he could preserve his
terrible ascendency by the force of the fear which he inspired, he was
secure; but the single defeat, or the doubtful issue of a solitary
struggle, might reduce the potent charm of his unvanquished power. In
this way he drew the chain tighter; and in the agonies of the protracted
and narrowing pressure, Novgorod, unable to resist, died in agonies of
despair.
The surrender of the liberties of the republic was complete. On taking
possession of the city, Ivan seized upon the person of the popular
Marpha, and sent her and seven of the principal citizens as prisoners
to Moscow, confiscating their properties in the name of the state. The
national assemblies and municipal privileges ceased January 15, 1478, on
which day the people took the oath of servitude; and on the 18th, the
boyars and their immediate followers, and the wealthy and the influential
classes of the inhabitants, voluntarily came forward and entered into the
service of the Grand Prince. The revenues of the clergy, which were
by the act of submission transferred to the treasury of Ivan, were
immediately devoted by him to the service of three hundred thousand
followers of boyars, through whose intermediate agency he intended to
assert and maintain his unlimited and supreme authority over the fallen
city. But not alone did he possess himself of the private property of
some of the principal persons who had rendered themselves prominent in
the recent declaration of independence, but he demanded a surrender of a
great part of the territories that belonged by charter to the public.
He also further enriched himself, and impoverished the Novgorodians, by
seizing upon all the gold and valuables to which he could, with any show
of propriety, lay claim. He is said to have conveyed to Moscow no less
than three hundred cart-loads of gold, silver, and precious stones,
besides furs, cloths, and merchandise to a considerable amount.
The settlement of his power in Novgorod had scarcely been concluded when
intelligence was received that the Tartars of the Golden Horde were
preparing for a third invasion. The enormous physical force that was at
Ivan's disposal, the late accession of strength and increase of domain,
by which his means were not only improved, but the number and means of
his opponents were reduced, and the general state of the country, which
was, in all respects, favorable to the objects of his ambition, deprived
such a movement of its wonted terrors. Ivan had nothing to fear from the
approach of the enemy. He was surrounded by the princes of the blood, who
had warmly embarked in the common cause; he had an immense army at his
command, panting for new fields of spoil and glory; he had broken up his
domestic enemies in the North, and dismembered or attached the insurgent
republics. He had left Lithuania to the rapacious guardianship of the
Khan of the Crimea, who was sufficiently formidable to neutralize the
incursions of the duchy upon the frontier; and on every side he found an
ardent population impatient to expel the invader. Yet, encouraging
as these circumstances were, and although they seemed to present the
fortunate opportunity for carrying into execution his cherished plan of
autocracy, Ivan held back. He alone of all Russia was intimidated. His
project of empire was so lofty and comprehensive that he appeared to
shrink from any collision that could even remotely peril its ultimate
success. He was so dismayed that he forced the Princess to fly from
Moscow and seek a temporary shelter in the North. Terror-struck and
unmanned, he deserted the army, and shut himself up in the capital for
security; and when the armed population, pouring forth from all quarters,
and animated by one spirit of resistance, had advanced as far as the
Oka to meet the Tartars, he recalled his son to the capital, as if he
apprehended the consummation of some evil either in his own person or
that of his heir. But the voice of the general indignation reached him in
his retreat, and even his son refused to leave his post in the army. The
murmurs of a disappointed people rose into clamors which he could not
affect to misunderstand. They reproached him with having burdened them
with taxes, without having paid the Khan his tribute; and that, now
the Tartars had come into Russia to demand restitution, he fled from
vindication of his own acts, and left the people to extricate themselves
from a dilemma into which he had brought them.
In this difficulty Ivan had no choice left but to submit to the will of
the country. He accordingly convoked a meeting of the bishops and boyars
for the purpose of asking their advice; but their counsel was even still
more conclusive; and the reluctant Prince was compelled to rejoin the
army. The fear by which he was moved, however, could not be concealed,
and it gradually infected the ranks of the soldiery. He had no sooner
taken his station at the head of the army than he became spellbound. A
river, the Lugra, divided him from the enemy; he could not summon courage
to attempt it, but stood gazing in disastrous terror upon the foe, with
whom he opened negotiations to beg for terms. In the mean time the news
of his indecision spread, and the people at Moscow grew turbulent. The
Primate, perceiving the disaffection that was springing up, addressed the
Prince in the language of despair. He represented to him the state of the
public mind, and the inglorious procedure of suing for a peace where he
could insure a victory and dictate his own terms. "Would you," exclaimed
the Primate, "give up Russia to fire and sword, and the churches to
plunder? Whither would you fly? Can you soar upward like the eagle? Can
you make your nest amid the stars? The Lord will cast you down from even
that asylum. No! you will not desert us. You would blush at the name of
fugitive and traitor to your country!"
Ivan was surrounded by two hundred thousand soldiers; reënforcements
were thronging constantly to his side; the enemy was cut off from all
assistance from his ally of Lithuania; and one word of encouragement
would have set all these advantages into action. The troops only awaited
the signal to rush upon the invaders; but Ivan, amid these flattering
and animated circumstances, was dispirited. Even the voice of the Church
addressed him in vain. He was utterly paralyzed; and cowardice had so
completely taken possession of his mind that when the early winter had
set in and frozen the river, so as to obliterate the obstacle that
separated him from the troops of the Khan, he was seized with
consternation, and fled in the wildest disorder from his position. He was
so alarmed that he could not even preserve any regularity on the retreat,
and all was confusion and panic.
So disgraceful an abandonment of his duty, which in other times must have
cost him his throne, if not his life, was not visited with that rigor by
the Russians which so glaring a defection deserved. The sovereign Prince
was removed to too great a distance from the people to be judged of with
precision or promptitude. The motives of his acts were not accessible
to the multitude, who, accustomed to despotism, had not yet learned to
question the wisdom of their rulers. The rapid advances that had been
made toward the concentration of the governing power in the autocratical
form, limited still more the means of popular observation and the vigor
of the popular check upon the supreme authority. The Grand Prince stood
so much aloof from his subjects, surrounded by special advisers and
court favorites, that even the language of remonstrance, which sometimes
reached his ears, was so softened in its progress that its harshness
was that of subservient admonition; and he was as little shaken by
the smothered discontent of the people as they were roused by an open
sacrifice of their interests. But not alone was this reverence for the
autocracy so great as to protect the autocrat from violent reprisals on
the part of his subjects; but the national veneration for the descendant
of St. Vladimir and the stock of Rurik was sufficient to absorb all the
indignation which the weakness or the wickedness of the Prince might have
aroused.
Ivan, however, independently of those acts of prejudice and ignorance
which preserved him from the wrath which he had so wantonly provoked,
was destined to find all the unfavorable circumstances of his position
changed into the most extraordinary and unexpected advantages. In the
crisis of his despair the fortunes of the day turned to his favor. While
he hung behind the Lugra, seeking a base and humiliating compromise at
the hands of the enemy, his lieutenant of Svenigorod, and his ally the
Khan of the Crimea, advanced upon the Golden Horde, and pushed their
victorious arms into the very den of the Tartars, at the time that
the Tartar forces were drawn off in the invasion of Russia. Speedy
intelligence of this disaster having reached the enemy, he made a
precipitate retreat, in the hope of reaching his fastnesses on the
frontier in time to avert the destruction that threatened him; but
the Russians had been too rapid in their movements; and the work of
devastation, begun by them, was completed by a band of marauding Tartars,
who entered soon after they retired, and, carrying away the women and
the remnant of the treasures left behind, reduced the city of the Golden
Horde to ashes before the distant army could accomplish its retrograde
march. Nor was this all the triumph that Ivan was called upon to share,
without any participation in the danger. The return of the Tartars was
arrested midway by a hetman of the Cossacks and the mirza of the
Nogais, who, falling upon the confused and disorderly ranks, on their
ill-conducted flight homeward, cut them in pieces, and left scarcely a
living vestige on the field of the ancient and implacable enemies of the
country.
The extinction of the Tartars was final. The Golden Horde was
annihilated, and the scourge of Russia and her princes was no more. In
a better educated state of society, these events, so sudden and so
important, must have been attributed to proximate and obvious causes--the
combinations of operations over which Ivan had no control, and the
dismay into which the Tartars were surprised, followed up quickly by
overwhelming masses who possessed the superiority in numbers and in plan.
Ivan, who could lay no claim to the honors of the enterprise, would not
have been associated in its results had the people been instructed in
the respect which was due to themselves. But the Russians, profoundly
venerating the person of the Grand Prince, and accustomed to consider
him as the depository of a wisdom refined above the sphere of ordinary
mortality, did not hesitate to ascribe this transcendent exploit to the
genius of the reluctant autocrat. They looked back upon his pusillanimity
with awe, and extracted from his apparent fears the subtle elements of a
second providence. He was no longer the coward and the waverer. He had
seen the body of the future, before its extreme shadows had darkened
other men's vision; and the whole course of his timid bearing, even
including his flight from the Lugra, was interpreted into a prudent
and prophetic policy, wonderful in its progress and sublime in its
consequences. Without risking a life, or spilling a drop of blood, and
merely by an evasive diversion of his means, he had vanquished the
Asiatic spoiler; and at the very moment that the people were disposed to
doubt his skill and his courage, he had actually destroyed the giant by
turning the arms of his own nation against him. Such was the unanimous
feeling of Russia. Transferring the glory of their signal deliverance
from those who had achieved it to him who had evaded the responsibility
of the attempt, they worshipped, in the Grand Prince, the incarnation of
the new-born liberty.
CULMINATION OF THE POWER OF BURGUNDY
TREATY OF PÉRONNE
A.D. 1468
P. F. WILLERT
From the planting of the Burgundian branch of the house of Valois, in
1364, arose a formidable rival of the royal power in France. During the
next hundred years the dukes of Burgundy played prominent parts in French
history, and then appeared one of the line who advanced his house to its
loftiest eminence. This was Charles, surnamed the "Bold," son of Philip,
misnamed the "Good." Charles was born in 1433, and became Duke of
Burgundy in 1467. He "held the rank of one of the first princes in Europe
without being a king, and without possessing an inch of ground for which
he did not owe service to some superior lord." Some of his territories
were held of the Holy Roman Empire, and some of the French crown, and
he was at once a vassal of France and of the Emperor. His dominions
contained many prosperous and wealthy cities.