All this was bitter to the Russian Macbeth. The princely blood which he had shed to gain the throne seemed to redden the air about him. The ghost of his slain victim haunted him. His power, indeed, seemed as great as ever. He was an autocrat still, the master of a splendid court, the ruler over a vast empire. Yet he knew that they who came with reverence and adulation into his presence hated him in their hearts, and anguish must have smitten the usurper to the soul.
His sudden death seemed to indicate this. On the 13th of April, 1605, after dining in state with some distinguished foreigners, illness suddenly seized him, blood burst from his mouth, nose, and ears, and within two hours he was dead. He had reigned six years,--nearly the full term predicted by the soothsayers.
The story of Dmitri is a long one still, but must be dealt with here with the greatest brevity. Feodor, the son of Boris, was proclaimed czar by the boyars of the court. The oath of allegiance was taken by the whole city; all seemed to favor him; yet within six weeks this boyish czar was deposed and executed without a sword being drawn in his defence.
Basmanof, the leading general of Boris, had turned to the cause of Dmitri, and the army seconded him. The people of Moscow declared in favor of the pretender, there were a few executions and banishments, and on the 20th of June the new czar entered Moscow in great pomp, amid the acclamations of an immense multitude, who thronged the streets, the windows, and the house-tops; and the young man who, less than two years before, had had his ears boxed by a Polish prince, was now proclaimed emperor and autocrat of the mighty Russian realm.
It was a short reign to which the false Dmitri--for there seems to be no doubt of the death of the true Dmitri--had come. Within less than a year Moscow was in rebellion, he was slain, and the throne was vacant. And this result was largely due to his generous and kindly spirit, largely to his trusting nature and disregard of Russian opinion.
No man could have been more unlike the tyrant Ivan, his reputed father. Dmitri proved kind and generous to all, even bestowing honors upon members of the family of Godunof. He remitted heavy taxes, punished unjust judges, paid the debts contracted by Ivan, passed laws in the interest of the serfs, and held himself ready to receive the petitions and redress the grievances of the humblest of his subjects. His knowledge of state affairs was remarkable for one of his age, and Russia had never had an abler, nobler-minded, and more kindly-hearted czar.