In the year 1249, Alexander returned from his humiliating journey to Tartary.  The khan was so well satisfied with his conduct, that he appointed him king of all the realms of southern Russia.  The pope, now thoroughly alienated from Daniel, corresponded with Alexander, entreating him to bring the Greek church under the supremacy of Rome, and thus secure for himself the protection and the blessing of the father of all the faithful.  Alexander returned the peremptory reply,

“We wish to follow the true doctrines of the church.  As for your doctrines, we have no desire either to adopt them or to know them.”

Alexander administered the government so much in accordance with the will of his haughty masters, that the khan gradually increased his dominion.  Bati, the Tartar chieftain, who was encamped with his army on the banks of the Volga and the Don, died in the year 1257, and his bloody sword, the only scepter of his power, passed into the hands of his brother Berki.  Alexander felt compelled to hasten to the Tartar camp, with expressions of homage to the new captain, and with rich presents to conciliate his favor.  Many of the Tartars had by this time embraced Christianity, and there were frequent intermarriages between the Russian nobles and princesses of the Tartar race.  It is a curious fact, that even then the Tartars were so conscious of the power of the clergy over the popular mind, that they employed all the arts of courtesy and bribes to secure their influence to hold the Russians in subjection.

The Tartars exacted enormous tribute from the subjugated country.  An insurrection, headed by a son of Alexander, broke out at Novgorod.  The grand prince, terrified in view of the Mogol wrath which might be expected to overwhelm him, arrested and imprisoned his son, who had countenanced the enterprise, and punished the nobles implicated in the movement with terrible severity.  Some were hung; others had their eyes plucked out and their noses cut off.  But, unappeased by this fearful retribution, the Tartars were immediately on the march to avenge, with their own hands, the crime of rebellion.  Their footsteps were marked with such desolation and cruelty that the Russians, goaded to despair, again ventured, like the crushed worm, an impotent resistance.  Alexander himself was compelled to join the Tartars, and aid in cutting down his wretched countrymen.

The Tartars haughtily entered Novgorod.  Silence and desolation reigned through its streets.  They went from house to house, extorting, as they well knew how, treasure which beggared families and ruined the city.  Throughout all Russia the princes were compelled to break down the walls of their cities and to demolish their fortifications.  In the year 1262, Alexander was alarmed by some indications of displeasure on the part of the grand khan, and he decided to take an immediate journey to the Mogol capital with rich presents, there to attempt to explain