northeast had not even the honor of falling in a great battle like the
Russia of the southwest, united for once against the common enemy. The
Suzdalian army, commanded by a son of George II, was beaten on the day
of Kolomna, on the Oka. The Tartars burned Moscow, then besieged
Vladimir, the royal city, which George II had abandoned to seek for
help in the North. His two sons were charged with the defence of the
capital. Princes and boyars, feeling there was no alternative but
death or servitude, prepared to die. The princesses and all the nobles
prayed Bishop Metrophanes to give them the tonsure; and when the
Tartars rushed into the town by all its gates, the vanquished retired
into the cathedral, where they perished, men and women, in a general
conflagration. Suzdal, Rostoff, Yaroslavl, fourteen towns, and a
multitude of villages in the grand principality were also given over
to the flames, 1238. The Tartars then went to seek the Grand Prince,
who was encamped on the Sit, almost on the frontier of the possessions
of Novgorod.

George II could neither avenge his people nor his family. After the
battle, the Bishop of Rostoff found his headless corpse. His nephew,
Vassilko, who was taken prisoner, was stabbed for refusing to serve
Batu. The immense Tartar army, after having sacked Tver, took Torjok;
there "the Russian heads fell beneath the sword of the Tartars as
grass beneath the scythe." The territory of Novgorod was invaded; the
great republic trembled, but the deep forests and the swollen rivers
delayed Batu. The invading flood reached the Cross of Ignatius, about
fifty miles from Novgorod, then returned to the southeast. On the way
the small town of Kozelsk (near Kaluga) checked the Tartars for so
long, and inflicted on them so much loss, that it was called by them
the "wicked town." Its population was exterminated, and the prince
Vassili, still a child, was "drowned in blood."