According to one of the current legends, a third mistress succeeded these two in 1573, Maria Dolgorouki by name, who was sent away after the very first night—either because the Tsar suspected her affections were engaged elsewhere, or because he had discovered she was not a maid—and drowned in a carriage dragged by runaway horses into the river Siéra. But this story has been told of several of the Tsar's temporary companions, and Anne Vassiltchikov, according to several chroniclers, whose testimony is confirmed by that of Printz von Buchau, was still in favour three years later than this, and finally died a violent death, as it would seem. Vassilissa, after a much shorter career, was shut up, while still young and beautiful, if we may believe the chroniclers, in a cloister at Novgorod, Ivan having perceived that she cast a too friendly eye on Prince Ivan Devtelev, whom he caused to be executed at the same time.
In September, 1580, just when Batory was preparing for his second victorious campaign, the Tsar contracted a seventh or eighth union, more or less legitimate, with Maria Nagoï, daughter of Feodor Feodorovitch, one of his boïars, and this lady soon became the mother of the Tsarevitch Dmitri. At the same time he married his son Feodor to Irene, sister of Boris Godounov, and thus provided himself with a fresh family circle, on which he seems to have concentrated all the affections of his later years. This, however, did not prevent him, as we have already seen, from pursuing his plan for a marriage with Mary Hastings.
My readers will imagine what were the conditions, under such circumstances, of the family life still further disturbed and darkened, in 1581, by a catastrophe to which I have already referred.
IV.—The Tsar's Family.
By his first wife Ivan had two sons. Of these, the second, Feodor, sickly in body and weak in mind, was a person of small importance. The eldest, Ivan, seems to have borne a considerable resemblance, both physically and morally, to his father, and he shared all his occupations and amusements. Like his progenitor, he had literary tastes, and composed a Life of St. Anthony, the manuscript of which is preserved amongst the papers of Count A. Tolstoï. And by the time he was thirty he had married his third wife. Oderborn declares the father and son were in the habit of exchanging their mistresses. When one of these, living at that moment with the Tsarevitch, complained of the language used about her by other ladies, the Tsar is said to have had the culprits
