In the year 1147 the Prince of Suzdal, George Dolgoruki, found a village, the site of which is now covered by the opulent Kreml, on the banks of the Moscowa, and is said to have conceived an affection for it. His patronage cannot have extended far, since we find that it remains an obscure village, or small town, for more than a century. It then passed, with a few other towns, to a son of the heroic Alexander Nevski, who (by sharp practice--a fit beginning of the fortune of the Moscovites) enlarged his little principality and bequeathed it to an even less scrupulous brother. George Danielovitch (1303-25) laid claim to the principality of Tver and took very powerful arguments to enforce his claim, in the shape of handsome presents, to the Mongol court at Sarai. He got his title, a sister of the Khan for wife, and a Mongol army; but he did not get the principality, and the Khan, scenting a larger bargain, summoned both claimants to Sarai. There George ended the argument by having his rival assassinated. He in turn was assassinated, and a terrible feud subsisted for half a century between Moscow and Tver. Ivan, the successor of George, secured another Mongol army to reduce Tver, induced the Khan to remove his rival to another world, and entered upon a series of annexations and purchases which made Moscow the centre of a fairly large dominion, the seat of an archbishop, and a prosperous soil for churches and monasteries; for the piety of all these lords of Moscow was even more conspicuous than their craft and insidious truculence. This malodorous tradition was sustained by the later princes. There was Simeon the Proud (1341-53) who, at the death of his father Ivan, found the largest bribe for the Mongols and ousted his competitors. At least he held in some check the lawlessness which was bleeding Russia, and it is one of those painful dilemmas of the historian that the valuable service rendered by the crafty Simeon was entirely neglected by his pious and gentle brother and successor, Ivan II. But Dmitri Ivanovitch, the son and successor of Ivan, returned to the sturdy lines of princely tradition. He defied and defeated the Tatars, and in the hour of triumph cried to Russia: “Their hour is past.” But the cry was premature. A rival Russian prince arranged a coalition against Dmitri of the Catholic Lithuanians, and the Mohammedan Tatars, and the great army of Dmitri once more cut to pieces its opponents. In the meantime, however, the famous Tatar general, Timur, had come from Asia and fallen upon the “usurpers” of the Golden Horde. Dmitri unwisely refused the friendship which Timur offered him, and before long the fierce Mongols set flame to the splendid buildings of his capital and littered the streets with the corpses of its children.