There were, however, urgent affairs to be settled, and by raising the taxation to one fourth of the individual’s income sufficient money was gathered, and escaped the fingers of the nobles, to raise an army. So great had been the disorder of the previous twenty years that Moscow itself had lost a third of its population, and the impoverished merchants writhed under the tax. But the Cossacks were threatening. The romantic Maryna, who will be remembered as the wife of the first and companion of the second false Dmitri, had given birth to a son, and she transferred her versatile affection to the Cossack leader, Zarutski, and relied upon him to secure the crown for her little Ivan. Zarutski swept triumphantly from town to town, while other brigands emptied villages, and the Swedes and Poles pursued their accustomed inroads. The new army scattered the Cossacks, impaled their leader, and hanged the little Ivan--an infant of three years--in order effectually to settle the brood of pretenders. Maryna ended her curious career in prison, and southern Russia was restored to comparative calm. The councillors of Marfa now turned toward the Swedes and Poles. A direct struggle with such adversaries was impossible, and Russian envoys made the round of Europe seeking either money and men to meet them or mediation to disarm them. At the western courts the Moscovites did not convey a favourable impression of their country. Their gross manners and dirty ways affronted even the English and Dutch of the early seventeenth century, nor were the silver articles of the table or the maids on the streets quite safe from their ready hands. But England and Holland had, besides the moderate advantage of hating Rome, a keen desire to trade with Russia and the East, and they endeavoured to secure peace. Poland scornfully refused to treat with “the son of a Pope” who had usurped the throne of their Ladislas. In 1617, however, Gastavus Adolphus, of Sweden, was bought off by a large indemnity and a few towns, and Russia was able to oppose a stronger defence to Poland. King Sigismund now offered a truce, and at a conference it was arranged that he should renounce the claim to the Russian crown, but keep Smolensk and other cities.