As Regent his rule was milder and less overbearing than that of the kniaz he had supplanted, and a firmer front was shown against the Tartars of Kazan and the Krim Horde, who were continually devastating the frontiers. Possibly the increased activity was rather forced by their side, for in the year 1541 both Hordes set themselves in motion against Moskva. The Krim Tartars brought a formidable force into the field, augmented by cannon, musketeers, and some squadrons of Ottoman cavalry--the first warriors of that nation who had fought against the Russians. The double danger stifled for the moment the bickerings of the Shouyskie and Bielski factions, and the Moskovites found themselves strong enough, when thus united, to repel the incursion of both Hordes. Safa-Girei and the Kazanese were chased out of the neighbourhood of Mourom, which town they had fruitlessly attacked; Saip-Girei, confronted by a powerful army on the yonder bank of the Oka, dared not attempt to force the passage, and retired to the Don. The jealousy which existed between the leading boyarins made it impossible for the Russians to follow up their advantage by a campaign in Tartar territory, and Ivan Shouyskie turned instead to his own advantage the employment of the troops which the war had placed at his disposal. Secretly supported by many of the notables of Moskva, and openly by those of Novgorod, he resolved upon a bold bid for the recovery of his ascendency. [Sidenote: 1542] On a dark night in January Petr Ivanovitch Shouyskie rode into Moskva with a picked body of soldiers from Vladimir, and before morning the Kreml was in his hands. Bielski was seized in his bed, and the Metropolitan was disagreeably awakened by showers of stones hurtling through his windows and weapons hammering against his door. The chief of the Church barely escaped with his life to the shelter of the Troitza, an unpleasant exercise for an early morning in mid-winter. At daybreak Ivan Shouyskie entered the city and resumed his old position of authority. Bielski and the Metropolitan were sent off to safe keeping at Bielozero, the lonely stronghold on the waters of the lake of that name, where the Grand Princes’ treasures and prisoners were securely stored away.[135] This time Shouyskie took good care that his rival should not emerge from prison to trouble him, and the soul of Bielski put on immortality.[136] A new Metropolitan, the second who had been nominated by the Shouyskies, was elected to fill the place of the shifty Ioasaf, who had leisure, in the seclusion of the Kirillov monastery at Bielozero, to reflect on the unwisdom of being all things to all men in sixteenth-century Moskva. The Novgorodskie had supported the _coup d’etat_, and their Archbishop Makarie was rewarded with the vacant post. In the meantime, while these various Ivans were ruling the State and crushing one another in turn, how fared it with the other Ivan in the background? The much-prayed-for