were all struck with terror and sitting in silence, he would awake, rub his eyes, and then first begin to joke and make merry with them. But although this Grand Duke was so powerful a prince, he was nevertheless compelled to acknowledge the sway of the Tartars, for when the Tartar ambassadors were approaching, he would go forth from the city to meet them, and make them be seated while he stood to receive their addresses, a circumstance which so annoyed his Greek wife, that she would daily tell him she had married a slave of the Tartars, and to induce her husband to throw off this servile habit would sometimes persuade him to feign sickness on the approach of the Tartars. There was within the citadel of Moscow a house in which the Tartars lodged for the purpose of learning what was going on at Moscow, and as this also gave great offence to his wife, she sent messengers with liberal presents to the queen of the Tartars, begging her to give up that house to her; for that she had been admonished in a dream from heaven to build a temple upon that spot; at the same time she promised to allot another house to the Tartars. The queen granted her request; the house was destroyed and a temple was built on its site, and the Tartars thus driven out of the citadel have never been able to obtain a house from any subsequent Duke.
This Ivan the Great died A.M. 7014 [1506], and his son Gabriel, afterwards called Vasiley, succeeded him as Grand Duke, but kept his brother’s son, Dimitry, in prison, who, according to the custom of the people, had been constituted the lawful monarch during the lifetime of his grandfather; for this reason Vasiley refused to receive the solemn investiture of the monarchy, not only while his nephew lived but even after his death. He imitated his father in many things; all the dominions that his father had left him he not only kept entire, but added thereto many provinces besides, not so much by war, in which he had but little success, as by industry. As his father had reduced Great Novogorod into subjection,
