slowly, working a transformation in his character. And when soon
thereafter Anastasia mysteriously and suddenly died, his whole nature
seemed to be undergoing a change. He was passing from Ivan the gentle
and confiding, into "Ivan the Terrible."

Ivan said later, in his own vindication: "When that dog Adashef
betrayed me, was anyone put to death? Did I not show mercy? They say
now that I am cruel and irascible; but to whom? I am cruel toward
those that are cruel to me. The good! ah, I would give them the robe
and the chain that I wear! My subjects would have given me over to the
Tatars, sold me to my enemies. Think of the enormity of the treason!
If some were chastised, was it not for their crimes, and are they not
my slaves--and shall I not do what I will with mine own?"

His grievances were real. His _boyars_ were desperate and determined,
and even with their foreheads in the dust were conspiring against him.
They were no less terrible than he toward their inferiors. There never
could be anything but anarchy in Russia so long as this aristocracy of
cruel slave-masters existed. Ivan (like Louis XI.) was girding himself
for the destruction of the power of his nobility, and, as one
conspiracy after another was revealed, faster and faster flowed the
torrent of his rage.

In 1571 he devoutly asked the prayers of the Church for 3470 of his
victims, 986 of whom he mentioned by name; many of these being followed
by the sinister addition: "With his wife and children"; "with his
sons"; "with his daughters." A gentle, kindly Prince had been
converted into a monster of cruelty, who is called, by the historians
of his own country, the Nero of Russia.