Such was the Russia created by Ivan and his Greek wife, with the aid of the Greek-minded clergy, and bequeathed to their second son Vassili. That prince, zealously educated by his mother, sustained the policy of enlarging and coercing his dominions. The republic of Pskoff had, we saw, retained its democratic forms. Vassili held a court at Novgorod, and thither he summoned the chief men of the neighbouring republic to do homage. Too weak to rebel, yet aware that the monarch sought to swallow the last remnant of the primitive democracy, the citizens appealed eloquently to the sense of honour which the Moscovite might be assumed to have. It was useless, and the republic was dismantled. Amidst the tears of the citizens and the laments of the patriotic poets Vassili removed the great bell to Novgorod and suppressed the _Véché_ or democratic council. The commercial life of Pskoff was ruined, and three hundred docile families from Moscow were substituted for threes hundred who had clung to independence and were now sent into exile. Riazan was the next victim. The familiar crime of corresponding with heretics--with the Khan of the Crimea--was charged against its prince, and the fertile province was added to the Moscow principality. Vassili recovered territory also from the Tatars and the Lithuanians. Russia expanded rapidly, and the splendour and autocracy of the court proportionately increased. There was now only one court for the innumerable descendants of the earlier princes and boyars, and the sternness of the competition for rewards made the nobles more and more sycophantic. Even less than his father did Vassili ask the counsel of his boyars. The death of Vassili in 1533 led to a romantic and important interlude. Vassili’s first wife had been thrust into a convent on the ground that she could not furnish an heir to the brilliant throne. Whether or no it is true that she disturbed the solitude of the cloister with the pangs of motherhood, it seems clear that the chief motive for the divorce was that Vassili had fallen in love with the very pretty and capable daughter of a Lithuanian refugee, Helena Glinski. Helena gave birth to two sons, but the eldest was only three years old at the time of his father’s death. The mother vigorously grasped the regency and held power from the furious boyars. Only the Master of Horse, Prince Telepnieff, was allowed to share her despotism, as he shared her affection. The nobles split into factions, and they presently found that the easy-going princess could use the most truculent machinery of despotism. When the heads of a few of them had fallen, they poisoned Helena and her lover, and there followed a sordid scramble for power and plunder.