The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1875-01-22

household, which he was resolved unon
ruling absolutely, at least, If not well.
One of the Princes made himself fIisa.
greeable by declining to particinate
freely IN the pleasures of the place. and
Tor the sake of domestic harmony. Ivan
had him poniarded while he was at his
prayers. EAnother so far overstepped
the bounds Of courtesy and propriety az
TO demonstrate with one Of the new IA
vorltes upon his improper conduct. and
Ivan, in order that there might be nc
chickering's and hard feelings in his
family, slew the discourteous Prince
with his own hand.
He was In the habit OF carrying an
iron rod about with him, and he had 3
playful way of striking his friends with
1t now and then, merely for his a1ouse-
ment. His pleasantries of this and
other like sorts, were endless. One
day Prince Boris, . boyard, came to
pay his respects to the Czar. and as he
bowed to the ground, eccording to cus-
tom, Ivan, seizing knife, said 's God
bless thee, my dear Boris thou de.
servest q proof of my favor" and
with that he kindly cut the nobleman'a
ear of.
When Prince Kurbsky, whom he had
threatened with death, fed to Poland.
and wrote him letter thence, telling
him pretty plainly what he thought Of
him, the Czar playfully struck the bear
er Of the missive with his iron rod, as q
preliminary to the reading of the letter.
and the blood flowed copiously from
the mans wounds while Ivan pondered
the words Of his rebellious subject. He
then became convinced that the boyards
generally sympathized with Kurbsky,
and to teach them better, he put a good
many Of them to death by torture. and
deprived many others of their estates.
HIS alarm was very real, however, for
he was q phenomenon of abiect cow
ardice. He therefore fed to q fortified
place in the midst of dense forest.
where he remained q month. writing
letters to the people, telling them that
he had abdicated and left them to their
fate as q punishment for their disloyal-
ty and their crimes. Singularly enough.
his fight terrified the people. He had
taught them that he was their god as
God was his, and has fight to Alexan.
drovsky seemed to them a withdrawal
of the protection of Providence itself.
Business was suspended. The courts
ceased to sit. The people were in an
agony of terror. A large deputation
of boyarG1s and priests iourneyed to
Aexandrovsky, and besought the sove-
reign to return and resume his holy
functions as the head of the church.
that the souls of 80 many millions
might not perish. Exacting of clergy
and nobles an admission of his absolute
right to do as he pleased. and promise
that they would in no way interfere with
or resist authority, he returned to Mos
cow. Here he surrounded himself with
a body-guard OF desperadoes. 1000
streng at first, and afterwards increased
to 5000, whose duty it was to discover
the Cars enemies and sweep them
from the face of the earth. As emblems
OF these, their functions, each member
of the guard carried at his saddle-bow
a dogs head and broom. As the pun
lshment of the Cars enemies included
the confscation of their property. a
large part of which was given to the
guards themselves, these were always
singularly successful in discovering the
disaHection of wealthy mobiles, discov-
erlng it oftentimes before the mobiles
themselves were aware of their own
reasonable sentiments.
Feeling unsafe still, Ivan built for
himself a new palace, outside the walls
of the Kremlin, making it an impregna-
bic castle. Then, finding that even this
did not lull his shaken nerves to rest,
he proceeded to put danger afar off by
dispossessing the $4,000 rich mobiles
whose estates lay nearest the palace,
and giving their property to his person
al followers, so that the head which
wore the crown might lie easy In the
conviction that there were NO possible
enemies near on the other side of the
impregnable walls which shut him in.
Bnt even then be could not sleep easi-
", and SO he repaired again to his forest
stronghold at Ale1androvsky, where he
surrounded himself with guards and
ramparts. Here he converted the pal
ace into amonastery, made himself abbot
and his rascally followers monks. He
enforced monastic observ-
ances, of the severest sort, and no
doubt became saint, in his own estima-
tion. He spent most of his time at
prayers, allowing himself no recreati on
except daily sight of the torture Of
the prisoners who were confined in the
dungeons of the fortress, His guards
were allowed q rather larger share of
amusement, and they wandered from
street to street during the day, punish
ing, with their hatchets, such disloyal
people as they encountered. They were
moderate in their indulgences, however,
in imitation of their sovereign. doubt
less, and it is recorded to their credit,
that, at this time, they rarely ever
killed more than twenty people in one
day, while sometimes the number was
as low as five.
3 But quiet life OF this kind could not
always content the Gar. Naturally, he
grew tired Of individual killings, and
began to long for some more exciting
sport. When one day quarrel arose
between some of his guards and few
Of the people of Torjek, Ivan saw at
glance that all the inhabitants OF Tor
iek were mutinous rebels, and Of course
it became his duty to put them all to
death, which he straightway did.
Up to this time, the genius of Ivan
seems to have been cautiously feeling
its way, and SO the part of his history
already sketched may be regarded as
mere preliminary to his real career.
His extraordinary capacity for ruling
an empire on the principles taught him
by the Prince Gluisky was now
about to show itself in all its greatness.
A criminal Of Novgorod, feeling himself
aGgrieved by the authorities of that
city. who had incarcerated him for q
time, wrote letter offering to place the
city under Polish protection. This
letter he signed, notwith his own name,
but with that Of the Archbishop, and