In the fifteenth century Russia began to assume a form. Ivan III. broke off the vassalage of Russia to the “Golden Horde.” He had married Sophia, the niece of the Greek emperor, to which we may attribute his civilisation; and he received the embassies of Germany, Venice, and Rome, at Moscow. His son, Ivan IV., took Novgorod, which he ruined, and continued to fight the Poles and Tartars until he died. His son Ivan, in the middle of the sixteenth century, was crowned by the title of Czar, formed the first standing army of Russia, named the Strelitzes, and established a code of laws. In 1598, by the death of the Czar Feodor without children, the male line of Ruric, which had held the throne for seven hundred and thirty-six years, and under fifty-six sovereigns, became extinct. Another dynasty of remarkable distinction ascended the throne, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Michael Romanoff, descended from the line of Ruric by the female side, was declared Czar. His son Alexis was the father of Peter the Great, who, with his brother Ivan, was placed on the throne at the decease of their father, but both under the guardianship of the Princess Sophia. But the Princess, who was the daughter of Alexis, exhibiting an intention to seize the crown for herself, a revolution took place in 1689, in which the Princess was sent to a convent. Ivan, who was imbecile in mind and body, surrendered the throne, and Peter became sole sovereign of Russia. The accession of Peter began the last and greatest period of Russian history. Though a man of fierce passions and barbarian habits, he had formed a high conception of the value of European arts, chiefly through an intelligent Genevese, Lefort, who had been his tutor. The first object of the young emperor was to form an army; his next was to construct a fleet. But both operations were too slow for his rapidity of conception; and, in 1697, he travelled to Holland and England for the purpose of learning the art of ship-building. He was forced to return to Russia after an absence of two years, by the revolt of the Strelitzes in favour of the Princess Sophia. The Strelitzes wore disbanded and slaughtered, and Peter felt himself a monarch for the first time. The cession of Azof by the Turks, at the peace of Carlowitz in 1699, gave him a port on the Black Sea. But the Baltic acted on him like a spell; and, to obtain an influence on its shores, he hazarded the ruin of his throne. Sweden, governed by Charles XII., was then the first military power of the north. The fame of Gustavus Adolphus in the German wars, had given the Swedes the example and the renown of their great king; and Charles, bold, reckless, and half lunatic, despising the feebleness of Russia, had turned his arms against Denmark and Poland. But the junction of Russia with the “Northern League” only gave him a new triumph. He fell upon the Russian army, and broke it up on the memorable field of Narva, in 1700.