ll of the dying monarch, the
regency, during the minority of the child, was placed in the hands of
the youthful mother, the princess Helene. The brothers of Vassili and
twenty nobles of distinction were appointed as counselors for the
queen regent. Two men, however, in concert with Helene, soon took the
reins of government into their own hands. One of these was a sturdy,
ambitious old noble, Michel Glinsky, an uncle of Helene; the other was
a young and handsome prince, Ivan Telennef, who was suspected of
tender _liaisons_ with his royal mistress.

The first act of the new government was to assemble all the higher
clergy in the church of the Assumption, where the metropolitan bishop
gave his benediction to the child destined to reign over Russia, and
who was there declared to be accountable to God only for his actions.
At the same time embassadors were sent to all the courts of Europe to
announce the death of Vassili and the accession of Ivan IV. to the
throne.

But a week passed after these ceremonies ere the prince Youri, one of
the brothers of Vassili, was arrested, charged with conspiracy to
wrest the crown from his young nephew. He was thrown into prison,
where he was left to perish by the slow torture of starvation. This
severity excited great terror in Moscow. The Russians, ever strongly
attached to their sovereigns, now found themselves under the reign of
an oligarchy which they detested. Conspiracies and rumors of
conspiracies agitated the court. Many were arrested upon suspicion
alone, and, cruelly chained, were thrown into dungeons. Michel
Glinsky, indignant at the shameful intimacy evidently existing between
Helene and Telennef, ventured to remonstrate with the regent boldly
and earnestly, assuring her that the eyes of the court were
scrutinizing her conduct, and that such vice, disgraceful anywhere,
was peculiarly hideous upon a throne, where all looked for examples of
virtue. The audacious noble, though president of the council, was
immediately arrested under an accusation of treason, and was thrown
into a dungeon, where, soon after, he was assassinated. A reign of
terror now commenced, and imprisonment and death awaited all those who
undertook in any way to thwart the plans of Helene and Telennef.

Andre, the youngest of the brothers of Vassili, a man of feeble
character, now alone remained of the royal princes at court. He was
nominally the tutor of his nephew, the young emperor, Ivan IV., and
though