But a still more formidable test was to be undergone. The Dowager
Czarina forsook the convent in which she had so long been immured to
behold the man claiming to be her son. Demetrius went to meet her in
regal state, and their first interview took place in a magnificent
tent, specially prepared for the interesting ceremony. After they had
been left together for a few minutes they came out, and threw
themselves into one another's arms, in the full view of the enormous
multitude which had assembled. Ivan's widow had recognized her son,
and the new monarch was master of the situation. He respectfully
conducted the Czarina to a carriage, walking bare-headed by its side.
In the capital he treated her with every attention, visited her daily,
and provided her with a competent revenue to maintain her royal
dignity. A few moments after the murder of her son at Uglitch, she was
on the spot and recognized the body; and yet, after having maintained
for fourteen years her belief in his death, she came forward and
recognized him in the successful adventurer, at the exact instant that
recantation was worth any price.
Demetrius now set to work to govern with humanity and justice; both
qualities quite unsuited to Russian tastes, who soon grew as tired of
their new Czar as they had been of his predecessors. He appears to
have been an able and forbearing man, but he outraged the nobles by
pointing out their educational deficiencies, and the Greek priesthood
by a careless or irreverent demeanour towards their Church. This
latter error was his ruin. The treasury being exhausted, he began to
cast wistful glances at the swollen revenues of the clergy, who at once
determined upon his destruction.
On the 29th of May, 1606, "Death to the heretic!" rang through the
streets of Moscow. The excited mobs, headed by priests and Shuiski, a
discontented noble, who had previously been pardoned for conspiracy,
broke into the palace, hunted their prey from room to room, until,
already bleeding from a sabre wound, the unfortunate victim leaped out
of a window into the court below, a height of thirty feet. He broke
his leg in the fall, and fainted. The insurgents speedily found him,
dragged him mid curses and blows into the palace, dressed him in a
pastrycook's caftan in mockery, and taunted him as to his birth. The
wretched man, collecting his strength, exclaimed, "I am your Czar, the
son of Ivan Vassilievitch!" when his agony was terminated by a shot
from an arquebuss.
His followers were destroyed, his wife barely escaped with life, and
every kind of indignity was offered to the Polish ladies in attendance
upon her. The body of the murdered man, after lying exposed for some
days, was unceremoniously buried without the walls, then disinterred
and burnt, the ashes collected, and, to make sure of no further
resuscitation, mixed with gunpowder and fired off from a cannon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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