Two of the most illustrious of the hostile princes were among the prisoners. The people, enraged at the destruction of their city, fell upon the captives, and, seizing the two princes, tore out their eyes.
Vsevelod was a young man who had not acquired renown. Many of the warlike princes of the spacious provinces regarded his elevation with envy. Sviatoslaf, prince of Tchernigof, was roused to intense hostility, and gathering around him the nobles of his province, resolved with a vigorous arm to seize for himself the throne. Enlisting in his interests several other princes, he commenced his march against his sovereign. Vsevelod prepared with vigor to repulse his assailants. After long and weary marchings the two armies met in the defiles of the mountains. A swift mountain-stream rushing along its rocky bed, between deep and precipitous banks, separated the combatants. For a fortnight they vainly assailed each other, hurling clouds of arrows and javelins across the stream, which generally fell harmless upon brazen helmet and buckler. But few were wounded, and still fewer slain. Yet neither party dared venture the passage of the stream in the presence of the other. At length, weary of the unavailing conflict, Sviatoslaf, the insurgent chief, sent a challenge to Vsevelod, the sovereign.
"Let God," said he, "decide the dispute between us. Let us enter into the open field with our two armies, and submit the question to the arbitrament of battle. You may choose either side of the river which you please."
Vsevelod did not condescend to make any reply to the rebellious prince. Seizing his embassadors, he sent them as captives to Vlademer, a fortress some hundred miles east of Moscow. He hoped thus to provoke Sviatoslaf to attempt the passage of the stream. But Sviatoslaf was not to be thus entrapped. Breaking up his camp, he retired to Novgorod, where he was received with rejoicings by the inhabitants. Here he established himself as a monarch, accumulated his forces, and began, by diplomacy and by arms, to extend his conquests over the adjacent principalities. He sent a powerful army to descend the banks of the Dnieper, capturing all the cities on the right hand and on the left, and binding the inhabitants by oaths of allegiance. The army advancing with resistless strides arrived before the walls of Kief, took possession of the deserted palaces of this ancient capital, and Sviatoslaf proclaimed himself monarch of southern Russia.
But while Sviatoslaf was thus prosecuting his conquests, at the distance of four hundred miles south of Novgorod, Vsevelod advanced with an army to this city, and was in his turn received by the Novgorodians with the ringing of bells, bonfires and shouts of welcome. All the surrounding princes and nobles promptly gave in their adhesion to the victorious sovereign, and Sviatoslaf found that all his conquests had vanished as by magic from beneath his hand.
Under these circumstances, Vsevelod and Sviatoslaf were both inclined to negotiation. As the result, it was agreed that Vsevelod should be recognized as the monarch of Russia, and that Sviatoslaf should reign as tributary prince of Kief. To bind anew the ties of friendship, Vsevelod gave in marriage his beautiful sister to the youngest son of Sviatoslaf. Thus this civil strife was terminated.
But the gates of the temple of Janus were not yet to be closed. Foreign war now commenced, and raged with unusual ferocity. Six hundred miles east of Moscow, was the country of Bulgaria. It comprehended the present Russian province of Orenburg, and was bounded on the east by the Ural mountains, and on the west by the Volga. A population of nearly a million and a half inhabited this mountainous realm. Commerce and arts flourished, and the people were enriched by their commerce with the Grecian empire. They were, however, barbarians, and as even in the nineteenth century the slave trade is urged as a means of evangelizing the heathen of Africa, war was urged with all its carnage and woe, as the agent of disseminating Christianity through pagan Bulgaria. The motive assigned for the war, was to serve Christ, by the conversion of the infidel. The motives which influenced, were ambition, love of conquest and the desire to add to the opulence and the power of Russia.
Vsevelod made grand preparations for this enterprise. Conferring with the warlike Sviatoslaf and other ambitious princes, a large army was collected at the head waters of the Volga. They floated down the wild stream, in capacious flat-bottomed barges, till they came to the mouth of the Kama. Thus far their expedition had been like the jaunt of a gala day. Summer warmth and sunny skies had cheered them as they floated down the romantic stream, through forests, between mountains and along flowery savannas, with pennants floating gayly in the air, and music swelling from their martial bands. War has always its commencement of pomp and pageantry, followed by its terminations of woe and despair.
Vsevelod in person led the army. Near the mouth of the Kama they abandoned their flotilla, which could not be employed in ascending the rapid stream. Continuing their march by land, they pushed boldly into the country of the Bulgarians, and laid siege to their capital, which was called "The Great City." For six days the battle raged, and the city was taken. It proved, however, to be but a barren conquest. An arrow from the walls pierced the side of a beloved nephew of Vsevelod. The young man, in excruciating agony, died in the arms of the monarch. Vsevelod was so much affected by the sufferings which he was thus called to witness, that, dejected and disheartened, he made the best terms he could, soothing his pride by extorting from the vanquished a vague acknowledgment of subjection to the empire. He then commenced his long march of toil and suffering back again to Moscow, over vast plains and through dense forests, having really accomplished nothing of any moment.
The reign of Vsevelod continued for thirty-seven years. It was a scene of incessant conflict with insurgent princes disputing his power and struggling for the supremacy. Often his imperial title was merely nominal. Again a successful battle would humble his foes and bring them in subjection to the foot of his throne. But, on the whole, during his reign the fragmentary empire gained solidity, the monarchical arm gained strength, and the sovereign obtained a more marked supremacy above the rival princes who had so long disputed the power of the throne. Vsevelod died, generally regretted, on the 12th of April, 1212. In the Russian annals, he has received the surname of Great. His reign, compared with that of most of his predecessors, was happy. He left, in churches and in fortresses, many monuments of his devotion and of his military skill.
His wife, Maria, seems to have been a woman of sincere piety. Her brief pilgrimage on earth, passed six hundred years ago, led her through the same joys and griefs which in the nineteenth century oppress human hearts. The last seven years of her life she passed on a bed of sickness and extreme suffering. The patience she displayed caused her to be compared with the patriarch Job. Just before she died, she assembled her six surviving children around her bed. As with tears they gazed upon the emaciated cheeks of their beloved and dying mother, she urged them to love God, to study the Bible, to give their hearts to the Saviour and to live for heaven. She died universally regretted and revered.
The reign of Vsevelod was cotemporaneous with the conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders. The Latin or Roman church thus for a season extended its dominion over the Greek or Eastern church. The French and Venetians; robbed the rich churches of Constantine of their paintings, statuary, relics and all their treasures of art. The Greek emperor himself fled in disguise to Thrace.
The Roman pontiff, Innocent III., deeming this a favorable moment to supplant the Greek religion in Russia, sent letters to the Russian clergy, in which he said:
"The religion of Rome is becoming universally triumphant. The whole Grecian empire has recognized the spiritual power of the pope. Will you be the only people who refuse to enter into the fold of Christ, and to recognize the Roman church as the ark of salvation, out of which no one can be saved? I have sent to you a cardinal; a man noble, well-instructed, and legate of the successors of the Apostles. He has received full power to enlighten the minds of the Russians, and to rescue them from all their errors."
This pastoral exhortation was entirely unavailing. The bishops and clergy of the Russian church still pertinaciously adhered to the faith of their fathers. The crusaders were ere long driven from the imperial city, and the Greek church again attained its supremacy in the East, a supremacy which it has maintained to the present day.
CHAPTER VI
THE GRAND PRINCES OF VLADIMIR, AND THE INVASION