observe; but these amusements disquieted her. Each day added to the years
of Peter seemed to bring her nearer to the cloister. In vain she proudly
called herself "autocrat"; she saw her stepmother, her rival, lifting up
her head. Galitsyne confined himself to regretting that they had not known
better how to profit by the revolution of 1682, but Chaklovity, who knew
he must fall with his mistress, said aloud, "It would be wiser to put the
Czarina to death than to be put to death by her." Sophia could only save
herself by seizing the throne--but who would help her to take it?
The streltsi? But the result of their last rising had chilled them
considerably. Sophia herself, while trying to bind this formidable force,
had broken it, and the streltsi had not forgotten their chiefs beheaded at
Troitsa. Now what did the emissaries of Sophia propose to them? Again to
attack the palace; to put Leo Narychkine and other partisans of Peter to
death; to arrest his mother, and to expel the patriarch. They trusted
that Peter and Natalia would perish in the tumult. The streltsi remained
indifferent when Sophia, affecting to think her life threatened, fled to
the Dievitchi monastery, and sent them letters of entreaty. "If thy days
are in peril," tranquilly replied the streltsi, "there must be an inquiry."
Chaklovity could hardly collect four hundred of them at the Kremlin.
The struggle began between Moscow and Preobrajenskoe, the village with the
prophetical name (the "Transfiguration" or "Regeneration"). Two streltsi
warned Peter of the plots of his sister, and for the second time he sought
an asylum at Troitsa. It was then seen who was the true czar; all men
hastened to range themselves around him: his mother, his armed squires, the
"battalion of playmates," the foreign officers, and even the streltsi of
the regiment of Soukharef. The patriarch also took the side of the Czar,
and brought him moral support, as the foreign soldiers had brought him
material force. The partisans of Sophia were cold and irresolute; the
streltsi themselves demanded that her favorite Chaklovity should be
surrendered to the Czar. She had to implore the mediation of the patriarch.
Chaklovity was first put to the torture and made to confess his plot
against the Czar, and then decapitated. Medviedef was at first only
condemned to the knout and banishment for heresy, but he acknowledged he
had intended to take the place of the patriarch and to marry Sophia; he was
dishonored by being imprisoned with two sorcerers, condemned to be burned
alive in a cage, and was afterward beheaded. Galitsyne was deprived of
his property, and exiled to Poustozersk. Sophia remained in the Dievitchi
Monastyr, subjected to a hard captivity. Though Ivan continued to reign
conjointly with his brother, yet Peter, who was then only seventeen,
governed alone, surrounded by his mother, the Narychkines, and the
Dolgoroukis (1689). Sophia had freed herself from the seclusion of the
terem, as Peter had emancipated himself from the seclusion of the palace
to roam the streets and navigate rivers. Both had behaved scandalously,
according to the ideas of the time--the one haranguing soldiers, presiding
over councils, walking with her veil raised; the other using the axe like
a carpenter, rowing like a Cossack, brawling with foreign adventurers, and
fighting with his grooms in mimic battles. But to the one her emancipation
was only a means of obtaining power; to the other the emancipation of
Russia, like the emancipation of himself, was the end. He wished the nation
to shake off the old trammels from which he had freed himself. Sophia
remained a Byzantine, Peter aspired to be a European. In the conflict
between the Czarevna and the Czar, progress was not on the side of the
Dievitchi Monastyr.
The first use the Czar made of his liberty was to hasten to Archangel.
There, deaf to the advice and prayers of his mother, who was astounded at
this unexpected taste for salt water, he gazed on that sea which no czar
had ever looked on. He ate with the merchants and the officers of foreign
navies; he breathed the air which had come from the West. He established
a dockyard, built boats, dared the angry waves of this unknown ocean,
and almost perished in a storm, which did not prevent the "skipper Peter
Alexeievitch" from again putting to sea, and bringing the Dutch vessels
back to the Holy Cape. Unhappily, the White Sea, by which, since the time
of Ivan IV, the English had entered Russia, is frost-bound in winter.
In order to open permanent communications with the West, with civilized
countries, it was necessary for Peter to establish himself on the Baltic or
the Black Sea. Now the first belonged to the Swedes, and the second to the
Turks, as the Caspian did to the Persians. Who was first to be attacked?
The treaties concluded with Poland and Austria, as well as policy and
religion, urged the Czar against the Turks, and Constantinople has always
been the point of attraction for orthodox Russia.
Peter shared the sentiments of his people, and had the enthusiasm of a
crusader against the infidel. Notwithstanding his ardent wish to travel in
the West, he took the resolution not to appear in foreign lands till he
could appear as a victor. Twice had Galitsyne failed against the Crimea;
Peter determined to attack the barbarians by the Don, and besiege Azov. The
army was commanded by three generals, Golovine, Gordon, and Lefort, who
were to act with the "bombardier of the Preobrajenski regiment, Peter
Alexeievitch." This regiment, as well as three others which had sprung from
the "amusements" of Preobrajenskoe--the Semenovski, the Botousitski, and
the regiment of Lefort--were the heart of the expedition. It failed because
the Czar had no fleet with which to invest Azov by sea, because the new
army and its chiefs wanted experience, and because Jansen, the German
engineer, ill-treated by Peter, passed over to the enemy. After two
assaults the siege was raised. This check appeared the more grave because
the Czar himself was with the army, because the first attempt to turn from
the "amusements" of Preobrajenskoe to serious warfare had failed, and
because this failure would furnish arms against innovations, against
the Germans and the heretics, against the new tactics. It might even
compromise, in the eyes of the people, the work of regeneration (1695).
Although Peter had followed the example of Galitsyne, and entered Moscow in
triumph, he felt he needed revenge. He sent for good officers from foreign
countries. Artillerymen arrived from Holland and Austria, engineers from
Prussia, and Admiral Lima from Venice. Peter hurried on the creation of a
fleet with feverish impatience. He built of green wood twenty-two galleys,
a hundred rafts, and seventeen hundred boats or barks. All the small ports
of the Don were metamorphosed into dock-yards; twenty-six thousand workmen
were assembled there from all parts of the empire. It was like the camp
of Boulogne. No misfortune--neither the desertion of the laborers, the
burnings of the dock-yards, nor even his own illness--could lessen his
activity. Peter was able to write that, "following the advice God gave to
Adam, he earned his bread by the sweat of his brow." At last the "marine
caravan," the Russian armada, descended the Don. From the slopes of Azov he
wrote to his sister Natalia[1]: "In obedience to thy counsels, I do not go
to meet the shells and balls; it is they who approach me, but tolerably
courteously."
[Footnote 1: His mother died in 1694, his brother Ivan in 1696.]
Azov was blockaded by sea and land, and a breach was opened by the
engineers. Preparations were being made for a general assault, when the
place capitulated. The joy in Russia was great, and the streltsi's jealousy
of the success of foreign tactics gave place to their enthusiasm as
Christians for this victory over Islamism, which recalled those of Kazan
and Astrakhan. The effect produced on Europe was considerable. At Warsaw
the people shouted, "Long live the Czar!" The army entered Moscow under
triumphal arches, on which were represented Hercules trampling a pacha and
two Turks under foot, and Mars throwing to the earth a _mirza_ and two
Tartars. Admiral Lefort and Schein the generalissimo took part in the
_cortège_, seated on magnificent sledges; while Peter, promoted to the rank
of captain, followed on foot. Jansen, destined to the gibbet, marched among
the prisoners (1696).
Peter wished to profit by this great success to found the naval power
of Russia. By the decision of the _douma_ three thousand families were
established at Azov, besides four hundred Kalmucks, and a garrison of
Moscow streltsi. The patriarch, the prelates, and the monasteries taxed
themselves for the construction of one vessel to every eight thousand
serfs. The nobles, the officials, and the merchants were seized with the
fever of this holy war, and brought their contributions toward the infant
navy. It was proposed to unite the Don and the Volga by means of a canal.
A new appeal was made to the artisans and sailors of Europe. Fifty young
nobles of the court were sent to Venice, England, and the Low Countries
to learn seamanship and shipbuilding. But it was necessary that the Czar
himself should be able to judge of the science of his subjects; he must
counteract Russian indolence and prejudice by the force of a great example;
and Peter, after having begun his career in the navy at the rank of
"skipper," and in the army at that of bombardier, was to become a carpenter
of Saardam. He allowed himself, as a reward for his success at Azov, the
much-longed-for journey to the West.
In 1697 Admiral Lefort and Generals Golovine and Vosnitsyne prepared
to depart for the countries of the West, under the title of "the great
ambassadors of the Czar." Their suite was composed of two hundred seventy
persons--young nobles, soldiers, interpreters, merchants, jesters, and
buffoons. In the cortège was a young man who went by the name of Peter
Mikhailof. This _incognito_ would render the position of the Czar easier,
whether in his own personal studies or in delicate negotiations. On the
journey to Riga Peter allowed himself to be insulted by the governor, but
laid up the recollection for future use. At Koenigsburg the Prussian,
Colonel Sternfeld, delivered to "M. Peter Mikhailof" "a formal brevet of
master of artillery." The great ambassadors and their travelling
companion were cordially received by the courts of Courland, Hanover, and
Brandenburg.
Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, afterward Queen of Prussia, has left us some
curious notes about the Czar, then twenty-seven years of age. He astonished
her by the vivacity of his mind and the promptitude and point of his
answers, not less than by the grossness of his manners, his bad habits
at table, his wild timidity, like that of a badly brought-up child, his
grimaces, and a frightful twitching which at times convulsed his whole
face. Peter had then a beautiful brown skin, with great piercing eyes, but
his features already bore traces of toil and debauchery. "He must have
very good and very bad points," said the young Electress; and in this he
represented contemporary Russia. "If he had received a better education,"
adds the Princess, "he would have been an accomplished man." The suite of
the Czar were not less surprising than their master; the Muscovites danced
with the court ladies, and took the stiffening of their corsets for their
bones. "The bones of these Germans are devilish hard!" said the Czar.
Leaving the great embassy on the road Peter travelled quickly and reached
Saardam. The very day of his arrival he took a lodging at a blacksmith's,
procured himself a complete costume like those worn by Dutch workmen, and
began to wield the axe. He bargained for a boat, bought it, and drank the
traditional pint of beer with its owner. He visited cutleries, ropewalks,
and other manufactories, and everywhere tried his hand at the work: in a
paper manufactory he made some paper. However, in spite of the tradition,
he only remained eight days at Saardam. At Amsterdam his eccentricities
were no less astonishing. He neither took any rest himself nor allowed
others to do so; he exhausted all his _ciceroni_, always repeating, "I must
see it." He inspected the most celebrated anatomical collections; engaged
artists, workmen, officers, and engineers; and bought models of ships and
collections of naval laws and treaties. He entered familiarly the houses of
private individuals, gained the good-will of the Dutch by his _bonhomie_,
penetrated into the recesses of the shops and stalls, and remained lost in
admiration over a dentist.
But, amid all these distractions, he never lost sight of his aim. "We
labor," he wrote to the patriarch Adrian, "in order thoroughly to master
the art of the sea; so that, having once learned it, we may return to
Russia and conquer the enemies of Christ, and free by his grace the
Christians who are oppressed. This is what I shall long for to my last
breath." He was vexed at making so little progress in shipbuilding, but in
Holland everyone had to learn by personal experience. A naval captain told
him that in England instruction was based on principles, and these he could
learn in four months; so Peter crossed the sea, and spent three months in
London and the neighboring towns. There he took into his service goldsmiths
and gold-beaters, architects and bombardiers. He then returned to Holland,
and, his ship being attacked by a violent tempest, he reassured those who
trembled for his safety by the remark, "Did you ever hear of a czar of
Russia who was drowned in the North Sea?"
Though much occupied with his technical studies, he had not neglected
policy; he had conversed with William III, but did not visit France in this
tour, for "Louis XIV," says St. Simon, "had procured the postponement of
his visit"; the fact being that his alliance with the Emperor and his wars
with the Turks were looked on with disfavor at Versailles. He went to
Vienna to study the military art, and dissuaded Leopold from making peace
with the Sultan. Peter wished to conquer Kertch in order to secure the
Straits of Ienikale. He was preparing to go to Venice, when vexatious
intelligence reached him from Moscow.
The first reforms of Peter, his first attempts against the national
prejudices and customs, had raised him up a crowd of enemies. Old Russia
did not allow herself quietly to be set aside by the bold innovator. There
was in the interior a sullen and resolute resistance, which sometimes gave
birth to bloody scenes. The revolt of the streltsi, the insurrection of
Astrakhan, the rebellion of the Cossacks, and later the trial of his son
and first wife are only episodes of the great struggle. Already the priests
were teaching that Antichrist was born. Now it had been prophesied that
Antichrist should be born of an adulteress, and Peter was the son of the
_second_ wife of Alexis, therefore his mother Natalia was the "false
virgin," the adulterous woman of the prophecies. The increasingly heavy
taxes that weighed on the people were another sign that the time had come.
Others, disgusted by the taste shown by the Czar for German clothes and
foreign languages and adventures, affirmed that he was not the son of
Alexis, but of Lefort the Genevan, or that his father was a German surgeon.
They were scandalized to see the Czar, like another Gregory Otrepief,
expose himself to blows in his military "amusements." The lower orders were
indignant at the abolition of the long beards and national costume, and
the _raskolniks_[1] at the authorization of "the sacrilegious smell of
tobacco."
[Footnote 1: Dissenters from the orthodox church of Russia (Greek
Church).--ED.]
The journey to the west completed the general dissatisfaction. Had anyone
ever before seen a czar of Moscow quit Holy Russia to wander in the
kingdoms of foreigners? Who knew what adventures might befall him among the
_niemtsi_ and the _bousourmanes_? for the Russian people hardly knew how to
distinguish between the Turks and the Germans, and were wholly ignorant of
France and England. Under an unknown sky, at the extremity of the world, on
the shores of the "ocean sea," what dangers might he not encounter? Then
a singular legend was invented about the travels of the Czar. It was said
that he went to Stockholm disguised as a merchant, and that the Queen had
recognized him and had tried in vain to capture him. According to another
version, she had plunged him in a dungeon, and delivered him over to his
enemies, who wished to put him in a cask lined with nails and throw him
into the sea. He had only been saved by a streletz who had taken his place.
Some asserted that Peter was still kept there; and in 1705 the streltsi and
raskolniks of Astrakhan still gave out that it was a false czar who had
come back to Moscow--the true czar was a prisoner at Stockholm, attached to
a stake.
In the midst of this universal disturbance, caused by the absence of Peter,
there were certain symptoms peculiarly disquieting. The Muscovite army
grew more and more hostile to the new order of things. In 1694 Peter had
discovered a fresh conspiracy, having for its object the deliverance of
Sophia; and at the very moment of his departure from Russia he had to put
down a plot of streltsi and Cossacks headed by Colonel Tsykler. Those of
the streltsi who had been sent to form the garrison of Azov pined for their
wives, their children, and the trades they had left in Moscow. When in the
absence of the Czar they were sent from Azov to the frontiers of Poland,
they again began to murmur. "What a fate is ours! It is the boyars who do
all the mischief; for three years they have kept us from our homes."
Two hundred deserted and returned to Moscow; but the douma, fearing their
presence in the already troubled capital, expelled them by force. They
brought back to their regiments a letter of Sophia. "You suffer," she
wrote; "later it will become worse. March on Moscow. What is it you wait
for? There is no news of the Czar." It was repeated through the army that
the Czar had died in foreign lands, and that the boyars wished to put his
son Alexis to death. It was necessary to march on Moscow and exterminate
the nobles.
The military sedition was complicated by the religious fanaticism of the
raskolniks and the demagogic passions of the popular army. Four regiments
revolted and deserted. Generals Schein and Gordon, with their regular
troops, hastened after them, came up with them on the banks of the Iskra,
and tried to persuade them to return to their duty. The streltsi replied
by a petition setting forth all their grievances: "Many of them had died
during the expedition to Azov, suggested by Lefort, a German, a heretic;
they had endured fatiguing marches over burning plains, their only food
being bad meat; their strength had been exhausted by severe tasks, and they
had been banished to distant garrisons. Moscow was now a prey to all sorts
of horrors. Foreigners had introduced the custom of shaving the beard and
smoking tobacco. It was said that these niemtsi meant to seize the town. On
this rumor, the streltsi had arrived, and also because Romodanovski wished
to disperse and put them to the sword without anyone knowing why." A few
cannon-shots were sufficient to scatter the rebels. A large number were
arrested; torture, the gibbet, and the dungeon awaited the captives.
When Peter hastened home from Vienna he decided that his generals and his
douma had been too lenient. He had old grievances against the streltsi;
they had been the army of Sophia, in opposition to the army of the Czar;
he remembered the invasion of the Kremlin, the massacre of his mother's
family, her terrors in Troitsa, and the conspiracies which all but delayed
his journey to the west. At the very time that he was travelling in Europe
for the benefit of his people, these incorrigible mutineers had forced him
to renounce his dearest projects and had stopped him on the road to Venice.
He resolved to take advantage of the opportunity by crushing his enemies
_en masse_, and by making the Old Russia feel the weight of a terror that
would recall the days of Ivan IV. The long beards had been the standard of
revolt--they should fall. On August 26th he ordered all the gentlemen of
his court to shave themselves, and himself applied the razor to his great
lords. The same day the Red Place was covered with gibbets. The patriarch
Adrian tried in vain to appease the anger of the Czar by presenting to him
the wonder-working image of the Mother of God. "Why hast thou brought out
the holy icon?" exclaimed the Czar. "Retire and restore it to its place.
Know that I venerate God and his Mother as much as thyself, but know also
that it is my duty to protect the people and punish the rebels."
On October 30th there arrived at the Red Place the first instalment of two
hundred thirty prisoners: they came in carts, with lighted torches in their
hands, nearly all already broken by torture, and followed by their wives
and children, who ran behind chanting a funeral wail. Their sentence was
read, and they were slain, the Czar ordering several officers to help the
executioner. John George Korb, the Austrian agent, who as an eye-witness
has left us an authentic account of the executions, heard that five rebel
heads had been sent into the dust by blows from an axe wielded by the
noblest hand in Russia. The terrible carpenter of Saardam worked and
obliged his boyars to work at this horrible employment. Seven other days
were employed in this way; a thousand victims were put to death. Some were
broken on the wheel, and others died by various modes of torture. The
removal of the corpses was forbidden: for five months Moscow had before its
eyes the spectacle of the dead bodies hanging from the battlements of the
Kremlin and the other ramparts; and for five months the streltsi suspended
to the bars of Sophia's prison presented her the petition by which they
had entreated her to reign. Two of her confidants were buried alive; she
herself, with Eudoxia Lapoukhine, Peter's wife, who had been repudiated for
her obstinate attachment to the ancient customs, had their heads shaved
and were confined in monasteries. After the revolt of the inhabitants of
Astrakhan, who put their waywode to death, the old militia was completely
abolished, and the way left clear for the formation of new troops.
%TYRANNY OF ANDROS IN NEW ENGLAND%
THE "BLOODLESS REVOLUTION"
A.D. 1689
CHARLES W. ELLIOT
When the spirit of the English Revolution of 1688 crossed the Atlantic
and stirred the New England colonists to throw off the Stuart tyranny
represented by Andros, a long step was taken in the development of early
American self-government. The Charter Oak tradition, whether or not
resting on actual occurrences, correctly typifies the temper of that
self-government as it has ever manifested itself in the crises of patriotic
development in this country. And the ending of theocratic government,
as here recorded of Massachusetts, foreshadowed the further growth of
democracy in America.
Sir William Andros, an Englishman, was colonial governor of New York from
1674 to 1681, and of New England, including New York, from 1686 to 1689.
His rule "was on the model dear to the heart of his royal master--a harsh
despotism, but neither strong nor wise; it was wretched misgovernment and
stupid, blundering oppression." What poor success Andros had in his attempt
to force such a rule upon people of the English race who had already
accustomed themselves to a large measure of independence and
self-government Elliott's account briefly but fully shows.
While colonies are poor they are neglected by the parent state; when they
are able to pay taxes then she is quite ready to "govern them"; she is
willing to appoint various dependents to important offices, and to allow
the colonies to pay liberal salaries; she likes also to tax them to the
amount of the surplus production which is transferred to the managers
in the mother-country. Surprising as this is, it is what many call
"government," and is common everywhere. England has been no exception to
this, and her practice in New England was of this character till, in the
year 1776, the back of the people was so galled that it threw its rider
with violence.
At various times attempts had been made to destroy the Massachusetts
charter. At the restoration of Charles II, in 1660, the enemies of the
Puritans roused themselves. All who scented the breath of liberty in those
Western gales--all who had been disappointed of fond hopes in those
infant states--all who had felt in New England, too, the iron hand of
ecclesiastical tyranny, who chafed in the religious manacles which there,
as everywhere else, were imposed upon the minority--all united against
them; and in 1664 commissioners were sent over with extraordinary powers.
The colony withstood them to the best of its ability; but at last, in 1676,
a _quo warranto_ was issued, and judgment was obtained in England against
the Massachusetts charter.