offered by the proscribed youth were examined in the diet; they were pronounced convincing,. and he was acknowledged as legimate heir to the crown of Russia, and an army levied to place him on the Russian throne. In the mean time, an embassy arrived from Boris, to remind the king of Poland of the peace which subsisted between him and the czar; to insist on his delivering up Demetrius; and to warn him that his assisting that impostor, as he termed him, would occasion a war between the two nations, of which he might afterwards have cause to repent.

The grandees of Poland, unintimidated by the menaces of the czar, raised four thousand men, at the head of whom they placed Demetrius, who marched directly into Moscow, where many places immediately declared for him. This success, added to the miseries of the still raging famine, and the appearance of some extraordinary phenomena in the air, occasioned the utmost consternation and dismay among the Moscovites. Boris, extremely alarmed, assembled an army of two hundred thousand men, but distracted with suspicions, knew not to whom to confide the command of his troops. Concluding from the general complexion of his affairs, that it would be difficult, and perhaps impossible, to oppose effectual résistance to Demetrius, in a moment of despair he took poison, of which he died. Such was the end of Boris Gudenow, man of strong parts, great courage, and a perfect master in the art of dissimulation. He seemed formed to govern; and had it not been for his cruel and tyrannical temper, no prince would have been more beloved by his subjects.

On

On the death of Boris, his son Theodore, A. D. who was only fifteen years of age, and 1605.

had been educated amidst flatterers and parasites, was raised to the throne. The conduct of this prince was brutal and insolent, and his disposition tyrannical. The army had not been informed of the death of Boris, when an officer, named Bosmanoff, arrived from Moscow, with orders to assume the chief command of the troops, and to administer to them the usual oath of fidelity and allegiance to the new czar. But instead of faithfully discharging his trust, he persuaded the soldiers to revolt to Demetrius, who received them with the greatest affability and kindness.

This defection of the army was soon known at court, where it occasioned the utmost consternation and dismay. Every one resolved to act as suited best his interest and advantage; and the name of Demetrius immediately resounded through the whole city of Moscow. The people entered the palace, which they plundered, and imprisoned the young czar, his mother, sister, and other relations. Demetrius being informed of these transactions, sent an order for strangling Theodore and his mother, which was accordingly executed. A few days after, he made his public entry into Moscow, and was crowned soA. D. vereign of all the Russias, with the great- 1605. est solemnity and magnificence, in the midst of universal plaudits.

Notwithstanding these successes, a party was formed against him, at the head of which were three brothers, of an ancient and noble family, named Zuski. They declared that Demetrius was an impostor, whose design was to extirpate

the nobility, to overturn the religion of Russia, and render the people slaves to Poland. The czar being informed of this conspiracy, caused the Zuskis to be arrested, condemned the two younger of three to banishment, and the eldest to be beheaded. Extraordinary preparations were made for the execution, that the example might awe the malcontents and quiet faction; the criminal was already on his knees upon the scaffold, and momentarily awaited the fatal stroke of the executioner, whose hand was uplifted, when Demetrius sent Zuski his pardon, and committed his punishment into exile. The czar was afterwards guilty of the decisive error of almost immediately recalling him, and even granting him his favour.

This conspiracy, and the causes which had occasioned it, ought to have rendered Demetrius extremely circumspect and cautious in his conduct towards the Russians: but, having been indebted for his good fortune to the Poles, he continued to show them attentions, which excited the jealousy of his subjects. The palatine of Sandomir had, from his protector, become his fatherin-law; and Demetrius's marriage with the prin cess introduced at court the German manners, to which the complaisant husband appeared to give a preference. He even affected to disregard and contemn many of the rites and ceremonies of the Russians, their frequent ablutions, their genuflexions before images; and he indulged himself in the use of veal, which they consider as impure food. The ungreatful Zuski took care artfully to point out to public notice these acts of imprudence, which might exasperate the Russians against their sovereign; and also fomented

fomented and exasperated the discontent thue excited.

Though Demetrius was repeatedly forewarned of the designs of the conspirators, he neglected to take proper means for his safety, and had only thirty guards about him, when Zuski came at the head of an insurgent multitude to attack the palace. The czar immediately arose, and the cries of the wounded and the dying informing him of the cause of the tumult, he snatched a sabre, with which he would have engaged the conspirators; but being surrounded on all sides, he leaped from a window, broke his thigh in the fall, and remained helpless on the spot. In this condition, he was taken, and carried into the great hall of audience, where a strong guard was set over him. The conspirators put to death all the Poles they met with, treated the Polish ladies with the greatest brutality, and the empress herself escaped from the last insult only by the assistance of a Russian lady, who concealed her under her garments.

Zuski flattered himself, that, by dint of threats he should obtain from Demetrius a declaration, that the story of his mother having substituted another child in his place was false and without foundation. But the unfortunate czar still boldly maintained the legitimacy of his birth, and appealed to the testimony of his mother. Zuski, therefore, had recourse to the dowager-czarina, and insisted on her declaring upon oath whether the captive prince was her son or not. She clined for some time to give an answer to this question, but at length confessed, that her child had been put to death. Zuski returned with this reply; upon which Demetrius adF3

vanced

vanced such cogent arguments in refutation of that confession, whether feigned or extorted by fear, that, through an apprehension lest his words should produce conviction in the minds of his hearers, he was murdered. His dead body was afterwards stripped naked, and abandoned to the outrages of the populace, who dragged it through the streets of Moscow, to the very spot where Zuski had received his pardon at the moment of impending death. Did the people intend this as an indirect censure of the mistaken lenity of the unfortunate Demetrius; or was this act designed to cast a reproach on the ingratitude and baseness of his murderer?

Great pains were taken by Zuski to publish all the reasons, which could tend to establish a belief that Demetrius was an impostor; but the "testimonies, which he adduced, were, even at the time, considered as futile and unsatisfactory; and when set in opposition to those with which nature herself had furnished that unfortunate prince, his proofs fall to the ground. It had been observed in his childhood, that one of his legs was shorter than the other, and that he had a wart under his right eye: the emperor Demetrius had the same marks. Besides, we can scarcely imagine that so prudent and generous a nation as the Poles, should have been mistaken in an affair, which they so attentively examined. Or, if we suppose that a wish of keeping the Russians employed at home, by 'domestic and intestine dissentions, should have induced them to favour the imposture, how could the palatine of Sandomir have consented -to sacrifice his daughter to a man, whose rank

and