Then Ivan made a visit to the monastery at Bielo Ozersk--the White Lake--and there he saw the aged Vassian, the old counsellor of his father, who gave him advice contrary to that so earnestly and frequently dinned into his ears by Sylvester and Adashef. "If you wish to become absolute monarch," said Vassian, "seek no counsellor wiser than yourself. Never take advice from any: instead, give it. Command, never obey. Then will you become a sovereign in all truth." This advice pleased Ivan. "My father himself," he answered, "could not have given wiser counsel." Ivan could wait for his triumph over his associates. He went now to the Volga again, completed the conquest of Kazan, and his troops pressed on as far as Astrakhan, which they took after slight resistance. In Moscow Ivan kept the grand-dukes, princes, and boyards his nearest relatives; his voievodes, or military leaders, were men of good birth, but with no claim on the succession. Under the administration of Adashef, the outlying parts of the Tsar's dominions were so effectually governed that when the English ships first appeared on the White Sea, Chancellor was not allowed to trade, or penetrate into the interior of the country, until the permission of the Tsar had been received from Moscow. In 1560 Anastasia died, and Ivan fretted under the constant surveillance of Sylvester. He was always at hand, entreating the Tsar to shew mercy, and to live straightly. Both Sylvester and Adashef retired within a short time of Anastasia's death. For bad generalship in Lithuania, Adashef was imprisoned in the fortress of Dorpat, where he died shortly afterwards. Sylvester was ready enough to send the Tsar and his Russian armies to war against the Tartars and infidels; he opposed wars with Livonia, Lithuania and Poland, where Ivan was particularly desirous of extending his dominion. On the withdrawal of these counsellors again commenced the murders and massacres in which Ivan delighted. Historians divide these into seven cycles; it is a purely arbitrary division--with the exception of the thirteen years 1547-1560, during which he was wedded to Anastasia and engaged in foreign wars, the whole of his long reign was given to terrorising his subjects. Obolenski was the first noble killed by Ivan himself; Repnin was murdered whilst at his devotions in church; another was slain simply because he remonstrated with the Tsar for such a display of cruelty. Ivan always used the hour of victory to exterminate foes, and he now relentlessly hunted down all his past advisers and their friends. He was determined on absolute supremacy. "To shew his soveraintie over the lives of his subjects, Ivan in his walks, if he disliked the face or person of any man he met by the way, or that looked at him, would command his head to be struck off. There and then the thing was done, and the head cast before him."