The distinction of Vladimir rule lay in the fact that the power of the prince acted firmly. Dolgoruki, and still more his son Andrei Bogolyubski, put an end to boyar control, which in other principalities was strong, and in some of them absolute, almighty. The struggle of boyars to uphold the ancient, and for them useful order of rule, their struggle for exceptional rights above other men, had in the Vladimir land dropped to the place and the character of intrigue and of treason, against which the people rose almost unanimously. The power of the prince thus appeared with single effect, and the people hastened to make it a state power. By precisely this aid of the people Big Nest had overcome the proud and powerful “great ones,” who stood against the “small people.” He had ended every claim of the boyars, claims hostile to all rule which favored the people. He had earned the love of earth-tillers and other workers by the fact that he permitted no town or district to be governed through boyar authority, but sent his own faithful servants to manage, and went himself yearly with his family and trusted persons to see what was taking place, and to personally give justice to all men. These servants differed greatly from boyars; they were just as much subject to the Vladimir prince as were the rest of the people. It was for their profit to strengthen and support the native prince who was ruling. In the Vladimir principality the whole social structure was built upon land. The interests of all coincided. All, from small to great, earth-tillers, artisans, clergy, merchants, warriors up to the prince himself, formed one solid power, and this was Great Russia. When Big Nest, near the end of his life, was opposed by his eldest son, Constantine, and resolved on a radical change, he turned for support to the people. He desired strength from the whole land as a unit. He did not assemble simply boyars in an affair of such magnitude, he did not turn to his confidants only, he called boyars, merchants, and all classes of people. Such a union of the prince and the people ruled by him was confirmed by kissing the cross, and was a pledge of future union and consequent greatness. This union was the special distinction, and formed the main force of Great Russia. This belonged not to Rostoff and Suzdal, where, through ties with Great Novgorod and the old time, the boyar spirit was still strong. Not to the earliest cities did the trait belong at its best, but to later places, and most of all to the youngest, for this trait depended much on the general success attained not immediately, but slowly, with pain and great labor, by the princes of Vladimir, and later on by the princes of Moscow.