LITHUANIA AND ITS PEOPLE. 97 



his own family, and was the subject of no one. At a later 

 period the so-called noblemen were nominally and to some 

 extent under the authority of the prince, but it was a 

 subjection which left the man free to do as he liked. By 

 degrees the prince gained power, and the nobles lost it. 

 And in reference to the changes going on in the times 

 just alluded to, Mackenzie Wallace writes : ' 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 Lithu- 

 ania, and precautions were taken to prevent the discon- 

 tented 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 Tartar 

 Horde. They no longer associated familiarly with the 

 Boyars, and no longer asked their ad vice, but treated them 

 rather as menials. W^hen 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 Tartar system of 

 government/ 



To this has to be added the impoverishment of the 

 nobles through extravagant expenditure, and the priva- 

 tions of the poor through lack of remunerative employ- 

 ment, and, it may be, want of energy and past wrongs 

 done to them by petty local officials. The last mentioned evil 



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