Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

and the boyard children*, and that he should give them in his territories, fiefs, the actual proprietors of which would be transferred to other places.

" He took possession, in Moscow itself, of several streets, whence he drove the gentlemen and official persons whose names were not written among the thousand of the Czar. *

" As though he had conceived a hatred for the august associations of the Kremlin and for the tombs of his ancestors, he refused to inhabit the magnificent abode of Ivan III.; beyond the Avails of the citadel, he built another palace, fortified with strong ramparts. This new abode was peopled with the thousand of the Czar, who formed a court, peculiar to Ivan IV., that received the name of Opritchnina."

Further on, Ave come to the re-commencement of the murders of the boyards.

ee On the fourth of February, Moscow witnessed the fulfilment of the conditions announced by the Czar in the town of Alexandrowsky. They began with the executions of the pretended traitors accused of having conspired, with Kourbsky, against the life of the monarch, of the Czarina Anastasia and their children. The first victim was the celebrated Vaivode, Prince Alexander Gorbati-Schouïsky, descendant of Saint Vladimir, of Vsevolod the Great, and the ancient princes of Souzdal. This man, who possessed a superior genius, military skill, and an equal love of religion and his country, and who had powerfully aided in

* Les enfants boyards, a corps of 500,000 men, tenants of the crown, instituted as an order of inferior noblesse b7 Ivan III., grandfather of Ivan IV.