denounce them, and at once seized them and
sent them in chains to Moscow. The people, blinded by this seeming
attention to their complaints, remained heedless of the violation of the
ancient law of their republic, "that none of its citizens should ever be
tried or punished out of the limits of its own territory."

Thus tyranny made its slow way. The citizens, once governed and judged
by their own peers, now made their appeals to the grand prince and were
summoned to appear before his tribunal. "Never since Rurik," say the
annals, "had such an event happened; never had the grand princes of Kief
and Vladimir seen the Novgorodians come and submit to them as their
judges. Ivan alone could reduce Novgorod to that degree of humiliation."

This work was done with the deliberation of a settled policy. Ivan did
not molest Marfa, who had instigated the revolt; his sentences were just
and equitable; men were blinded by his seeming moderation; and for full
seven years he pursued his insidious way, gradually weaning the people
from their ancient customs, and taking advantage of every imprudence and
thoughtless concession on their part to ground on it a claim to
increased authority.

It was the glove of silk he had thus far extended to them. Within it lay
concealed the hand of iron. The grasp of the iron hand was made when,
during an audience, the envoy of the republic, through treason or
thoughtlessness, addressed him by the name of sovereign (_Gosudar_,
"liege lord," instead of _Gospodin_, "master," the usual title).

Ivan, taking advantage of this, at once claimed all the absolute rights
which custom had attached to that title. He demanded that the republic
should take an oath to him as its judge and legislator, receive his
boyars as their rulers, and yield to them the ancient palace of
Yaroslaf, the sacred temple of their liberties, in which for more than
five centuries their assemblies had been held.

This demand roused the Novgorodians to their danger. They saw how
blindly they had yielded to tyranny. A transport of indignation inspired
them. For the last time the great bell of liberty sent forth its peal of
alarm. Gathering tumultuously at the palace from which they were
threatened with expulsion, they vigorously resolved,--

"Ivan is in fact our lord, but he shall never be our sovereign; the
tribunal of his deputies may sit at Goroditch, but never at Novgorod:
Novgorod is, and always shall be, its own judge."

In thei