another son of the ill-fated Mikhail, succeeded to the principality of Tver and to the dignity of Grand Prince, but a mad act of fear-impelled violence drew down on himself, his family, and province the consuming fury of the Khan. A harmless, or at any rate customary, visit from a Mongol envoy to the city of Tver, roused the apprehensions of Prince and people, who feared that an attempt was to be made to convert them forcibly to Islam. Taking courage from the fact that the stranger had but a feeble escort--a circumstance which should have confuted his suspicions--Aleksandr roused his subjects, (gathered in great numbers at Tver for the Feast of the Assumption), to fall upon and annihilate the Mongol band. [Sidenote: 1327] The Russians can scarcely be condemned for an act of treachery towards an enemy who had never shown a scrupulous regard for honour and good faith, but the deed was one of criminal folly, and even its heroic aspect is blighted by the fact that Aleksandr had remained subservient to the Khan despite the murder of his father and brother, and was only roused to rebellion by an alarm of personal danger. The vengeance of Usbek took a cynical turn; instead of sending his hordes killing and harrying into the devoted province, he entrusted the vindication of his outraged majesty to a Russian prince and Russian troops. Ivan Danielovitch of Moskva, with his own forces and those of Souzdal, reinforced by a strong detachment of Mongols, marched, nothing loth, into the domains of his rival, and scattered desolation around him with a thoroughness which left the Khan nothing to complain of. [Sidenote: 1328] The Prince of Tver did not wait to share with his people the chastisement he had drawn down upon them, and Ivan obtained permission to assume the well-earned title of Grand Prince.