The young lady selected, was Eudocia Streschnew, who chanced to be the daughter of a very worthy gentleman, in quite straitened circumstances, residing nearly two hundred miles from Moscow.  The messenger who was sent to inform him that his daughter was Empress of Russia, found him in the field at work with his domestics.  The good old man was conducted to Moscow; but he soon grew weary of the splendors of the court, and entreated permission to return again to his humble rural home.  Eudocia, reared in virtuous retirement, proved as lovely in character as she was beautiful in person, and she soon won the love of the nation.  The first year of her marriage, she gave birth to a daughter.  The three next children proved also daughters, to the great disappointment of their parents.  But in the year 1630, a son was born, and not only the court, but all Russia, was filled with rejoicing.  In the year 1634, the tzar met with one of the greatest of afflictions in the loss of his father by death.  His reverence for the venerable patriarch Feodor, had been such that he was ever his principal counselor, and all his public acts were proclaimed in the name of the tzar and his majesty’s father, the most holy patriarch.

“As he had joined,” writes an ancient historian, “the miter to the sword, having been a general in the army before he was an ecclesiastic, the affable and modest behaviour, so becoming the ministers of the altar, had tempered and corrected the fire of the warrior, and rendered his manners amiable to all that came near him.”

The reign of Michael proved almost a constant success.  His wisdom and probity caused him to be respected by the neighboring States, while the empire, in the enjoyment of peace, was rapidly developing all its resources, and increasing in wealth, population and power.  His court was constantly filled with embassadors from all the monarchies of Europe and even of Asia.  The tzar, rightly considering peace as almost the choicest of all earthly blessings, resisted all temptations to draw the sword.  There were a few trivial interruptions of peace during his reign; but the dark clouds of war, by his energies, were soon dispelled.  This pacific prince, one of the most worthy who ever sat upon any throne, died revered by his subjects on the 12th of July, 1645, in the forty-ninth year of his age and the thirty-third of his reign.  He left but two children—­a son, Alexis, who succeeded him, and a daughter, Irene, who a few years after died unmarried.

Alexis was but sixteen years of age when he succeeded to the throne.  To prevent the possibility of any cabals being formed, in consequence of his youth, he was crowned the day after his father’s death.  In one week from that time Eudocia also died, her death being hastened by grief for the loss of her husband.  An ambitious noble, Moroson, supremely selfish, but cool, calculating and persevering, attained the post of prime minister or counselor of the young