We find, therefore, in some of the principalities the old relations still subsisting under Mongol rule.  The famous Dmitri of the Don, for instance, when on his death-bed, speaks thus to his Boyars:  “You know my habits and my character; I was born among you, grew up among you, governed with you—­fighting by your side, showing you honour and love, and placing you over towns and districts.  I loved your children, and did evil to no one.  I rejoiced with you in your joy, mourned with you in your grief, and called you the princes of my land.”  Then, turning to his children, he adds, as a parting advice:  “Love your Boyars, my children; show them the honour which their services merit, and undertake nothing without their consent.”

When the Grand Princes of Moscow brought the other principalities under their power, and formed them into the Tsardom of Muscovy, the nobles descended another step in the political scale.  So long as there were many principalities they could quit the service of a Prince as soon as he gave them reason to be discontented, knowing that they would be well received by one of his rivals; but now they had no longer any choice.  The only rival of Moscow was Lithuania, and precautions were taken to prevent the discontented from crossing the Lithuanian frontier.  The nobles were no longer voluntary adherents of a Prince, but had become subjects of a Tsar; and the Tsars were not as the old Princes had been.  By a violent legal fiction they conceived themselves to be the successors of the Byzantine Emperors, and created a new court ceremonial, borrowed partly from Constantinople and partly from the Mongol Horde.  They no longer associated familiarly with the Boyars, and no longer asked their advice, but treated them rather as menials.  When the nobles entered their august master’s presence they prostrated themselves in Oriental fashion—­occasionally as many as thirty times—­and when they incurred his displeasure they were summarily flogged or executed, according to the Tsar’s good pleasure.  In succeeding to the power of the Khans, the Tsars had adopted, we see, a good deal of the Mongol system of government.

It may seem strange 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