He was a pious Prince, like all of the Muscovite line. Not one of his
subjects was more faithful in religious observances than was this
"torch of orthodoxy"--who frequently called up his household in the
middle of the night for prayers. Added to the above pious petition for
mercy to his victims, is this reference to Novgorod: "Remember, Lord,
the souls of thy servants to the number of 1505 persons--Novgorodians,
whose names, Almighty, thou knowest."

That Republic had made its last break for liberty. Under the
leadership of Marfa, the widow of a wealthy and powerful noble, it had
thrown itself in despair into the arms of Catholic Poland. This was
treason to the Tsar and to the Church, and its punishment was awful.
The desperate woman who had instigated the act was carried in chains to
Moscow, there to behold her two sons with the rest of the conspirators
beheaded. The bell which for centuries had summoned her citizens to
the _Vetché_, that sacred symbol of the liberty of the Republic, is now
in the Museum at Moscow. If its tongue should speak, if its clarion
call should ring out once more, perhaps there might come from the
shades a countless host of her martyred dead--"Whose names, Almighty,
thou knowest." Ivan then proceeded to wreck the prosperity of the
richest commercial city in his empire. Its trade was enormous with the
East and the West. It had joined the Hanseatic League, and its wealth
was largely due to the German merchants who had flocked there. With
singular lack of wisdom, the Tsar had confiscated the property of these
men, and now the ruin of the city was complete.

While Germany, and Poland, and Sweden,--resolved to shut up Russia in
her barbaric isolation,--were locking the front door on the Baltic and
the Gulf, England had found a side door by which to enter. With great
satisfaction Ivan saw English traders coming in by way of the White