roitsa, they went there to beg her pardon.
Sophia forgave them, but their leaders were executed.

Sophia trusted the government to two favorites, Prince Galitsyne who
was at the head of Foreign Affairs, and Chaklovity whom she made
commandant of the streltsi. Galitsyne tried hard to form an alliance
among the Christian powers against the Turks and Tartars. His scheme
failed because Louis XIV of France kept the whole of Western Europe in
turmoil by his constant wars with the House of Austria, and the
Christian princes had to look after their own interests. He was more
fortunate in Poland where John Sobieski was king. A treaty of
"perpetual" peace was concluded between Russia and Poland at
Androussovo, in 1686, and an alliance was entered into against the
Turks.

In 1687, an army of 100,000 Russians and 50,000 Cossacks marched
against the Crimea. The Tartars had burned the steppes, and the
Russians suffered such severe hardships that they were forced to
retreat. The hetman of the Cossacks was accused of treachery, and
deported to Siberia, when Mazeppa, who had been his secretary, was
appointed hetman. In the spring of 1689, the Russians under Galitsyne
and the Cossacks under Mazeppa started again for the Crimea, but they
had no better success than before.

Peter, who was born in 1673, was then sixteen years old, but being
tall and strongly built, he looked much older. He was bright and
anxious to learn, and at an early age had shown that he possessed (p. 148)
a will of his own. He had read much, but his tutor, a man named Zorof,
had allowed him to have his own way, and when the boy grew up to be a
man, he made that tutor "the arch-priest of fools." When the boy was
tired, Zorof would allow him to put his work aside, and would read to
him about the great deeds of his father Alexis, and of those of Ivan
the Terrible, their campaigns, battles, and sieges; how they endured
privations better than the common soldiers, and how they added other
territory to Russia. He also learned Latin, German, and Dutch. He
afterwards complained that his education was neglected, because he was
allowed to do as he pleased. He chose his own companions, and as he
did not like to be confined within the palace grounds, he roamed in
the streets and often became acquainted with men whom he would not
have met in the palace, Russians, Dutch, Swiss, English, and Germans.
His usual attendants were Boris Galitsyne and other young nobles with
whom he p