range that a class of men which had formerly shown a proud
spirit of independence should have submitted quietly to such humiliation
and oppression without making a serious effort to curb the new power,
which had no longer a Tartar Horde at its back to quell opposition. But
we must remember that the nobles, as well as the Princes, had passed in
the meantime through the school of the Mongol domination. In the course
of two centuries they had gradually become accustomed to despotic rule
in the Oriental sense. If they felt their position humiliating and
irksome, they must have felt, too, how difficult it was to better it.
Their only resource lay in combining against the common oppressor;
and we have only to glance at the motley, disorganised group, as they
cluster round the Tsar, to perceive that combination was extremely
difficult. We can distinguish there the mediatised Princes, still
harbouring designs for the recovery of their independence; the Moscow
Boyars, jealous of their family honour and proud of Muscovite supremacy;
Tartar Murzi, who have submitted to be baptised and have received land
like the other nobles; the Novgorodian magnate, who cannot forget the
ancient glory of his native city; Lithuanian nobles, who find it more
profitable to serve the Tsar than their own sovereign; petty chiefs who
have fled from the opposition of the Teutonic order; and soldiers of
fortune from every part of Russia. Strong, permanent political factors
are not easily formed out of such heterogeneous material.

At the end of the sixteenth century the old dynasty became extinct,
and after a short period of political anarchy, commonly called "the
troublous times" (smutnoe vremya), the Romanof family were raised to the
throne by the will of the people, or at least by those who were assumed
to be its representatives. By this change the Noblesse acquired a
somewhat better position. They were no longer exposed to capricious
tyranny and barbarous cruelty, such as they had experienced at the hands
of Ivan the Terrible, but they did not, as a class, gain any political
influence. There were still rival families and rival factions, but
there were no political parties in the proper sense of the term, and the
highest aim of families and factions was to gain the favour of the Tsar.

The frequent quarrels about precedence which took place among the rival
families at this period form one of the most curious episodes of Russian
history. The old patriar