After having decimated and terrorized the nobility and the clergy, Ivan turned his attention principally to the merchants and wealthy citizens. The commercial centres, in which a great amount of capital had accumulated, were the special objects of his greed, especially if they showed a spirit of independence. Prominent among these was Novgorod, the ancient and wealthy city, proud of her free institutions and her honored name. It was this pride and her great wealth which pointed out Novgorod as a victim for Ivan’s wrath and cupidity, and the manner in which he planned and executed his evil designs on the city shows his diabolical genius at its height. Never has tyrant or despot conceived a more sinister and treacherous plot for the ruin of a great city and for the assassination of its inhabitants. The horrors of St. Bartholomew’s night pale in comparison.
A Polish vagabond, on the personal command of Ivan, wrote a petition, with the forged signatures of the Archbishop of Novgorod and a large number of leading and wealthy citizens and addressed to the King of Poland, in which the latter was supplicated to assume the sovereignty over Novgorod and the province in which it was situated, and to assist the citizens in their desire of shaking off the yoke of Ivan. By Ivan’s direction this petition was concealed in the great cathedral, behind a picture of the Holy Virgin. The Polish vagabond, after having executed the task dictated to him, came to Moscow and charged the city of Novgorod with treasonable designs against the Czar. Upon this information the Czar immediately sent messengers with the Polish vagabond to Novgorod, where, as a matter of course, the forged petition was found hidden behind the picture of the Holy Virgin in the cathedral. This was considered proof sufficient to condemn the whole city. No further investigation was deemed necessary. Ivan kept quiet, but the inhabitants knew what was in store for them. They trembled and waited. They had not to wait a long time. Two weeks after the discovery, on the twenty-first day of January, 1570, the first detachments of an imperial army, commanded by some of Ivan’s most trusted and most cruel lieutenants, entered the city. They immediately proceeded to seal the doors of all the churches and chapels, and took possession of the residences of the wealthy inhabitants, where they established their headquarters. All traffic was suspended. No citizen was permitted to leave the city, nor could goods of any kind be shipped from it. A dead silence and fear hung over the city. Nobody knew what the Czar intended to do, but that he would do something horrible, everybody felt, and also that there was no escape from him.