trickery and knavery, Boris Godounof was elected czar by the
_douma_ or council of nobles, a body presided over by his friend the
Patriarch, and containing many of his partisans. The great nobles,
many of whom traced their descent to Rurik, objected to a czar, whom
they considered and called an upstart. But Boris displayed cruelty as
well as severity. Feodor, the eldest of the noble family of the
Romanofs, was forced to become a monk and his wife a nun. He took (p. 132)
the name of Philarete, and she that of Marfa.

Godounof did reign seven years, according to the wizard's prediction,
but it was a stormy time for Russia. A young adventurer named Gregory
Otrepief, pretended that he was the murdered Dmitri, and secured a
large following. The troops sent against him "had no hands to fight
but only feet to fly." At Godounof's death, in 1605, he confided his
son and heir to a favorite named Basmanof, who turned traitor, joined
the false Dmitri, and caused Godounof's widow and son to be murdered.
Otrepief, who lacked neither courage nor ability, was made czar, but
he reigned little over a month, when he, too, was murdered by a band
of nobles under the leadership of Chouiski. This man seized the throne
in 1606. The people in the country, owing to its vast extent and the
poor roads, heard of Otrepief's coronation, his death, and the
succession of Chouiski almost at the same time, and anarchy followed.
At the same time Russia was involved in a war with Poland, at the time
when a second false Dmitri made his appearance. The Cossacks and a
host of Polish adventurers joined him, and he laid siege to the
immensely wealthy Troitsa monastery, where the monks defended
themselves for sixteen months, and he was forced to withdraw. Affairs
came to such a pass that the people of Moscow "humbly requested the
czar to abdicate, because he was not successful, and also because he
was to blame for the shedding of Christian blood." Chouiski was forced
to yield, and soon after entered a monastery as a monk.

Two candidates appeared for the vacant throne; the second false (p. 133)
Dmitri and Vladislas, the second son of Sigismund, King of Poland. The
douma, not fancying the idea that an impostor should rule over them,
invited the hetman of a Polish army to Moscow, to discuss the other
candidate. This hetman promised in name of the prince to maintain the
Greek Church and the privileges of the three orders, nobles, priests,
and people, and that