While these events had been passing in the north, Daniel Romanovitch had quietly slipped out of existence, the date of his death being vaguely fixed “between 1264-1266.”[53] Taking into consideration the very open question which the possession of his province had been when he first enforced his claims upon it, the scant notice which his death attracted was rather a compliment to his statecraft. “King of Galitz,” where his forerunners had been simply princes, he was probably the only sovereign in Europe who had outwitted Innocent IV., and swallowed unconcernedly the bait which was to have lured him into the Catholic fold. Of his four sons, Roman (who had been successively dazzled, utilised, and disillusioned by Bela IV. in the expectation of the reversion of the contested Austrian lands) had died before him, and the remaining three--Lev, Mstislav, and Shvarn--were established at Pérémysl, Loutzk, and Galitz respectively, while their uncle Vassilko reigned at Vladimir. The influence of the latter, who had loyally supported his brother in all his vicissitudes, prevented the province from falling to pieces, and an unlooked-for event gave Galicia new importance. Voeshelk, son of Mindovg, who had succeeded to a reduced share of his father’s dominions and authority, had adopted the Christian religion, and displayed from time to time the uncomfortable zeal of a convert; already he had tasted the sweets of monastic retirement, and after the short interval of a rule which was not remarkable for over much mercy towards his subjects, he wished again for the solitude of the cloister. It was necessary to appoint a successor, and as a Christian prince was preferred in that capacity, his choice fell upon Shvarn Danielovitch, who possessed the further recommendation of having married the Lit’uanian chief’s daughter. Thus Galitz and the greater part of Lit’uania became united under one ruler, and it seemed possible that in this direction was to be looked for the building up of a Russian monarchy--a development from the West rather than from the East. The union of the States, however, was followed by a dark and ill-omened deed, when the Prince of Pérémysl, incensed by the preference shown to his youngest brother, murdered the monk-prince Voeshelk after a banquet in the city of Vladimir. The sudden death of Shvarn (1270) ended the union so inauspiciously inaugurated; Lev succeeded to the fief of Galitz, and Lit’uania was wrested from Russia and Christianity by the heathen Prince Troiden. [Sidenote: 1272]