young tzar, aided by
the counsels of his excellent father, devoted himself with untiring
energy to the promotion of the prosperity of his subjects. It was
deemed a matter of much political importance that the tzar should be
immediately married. According to the custom of the empire, all the
most beautiful girls were collected for the monarch to make his
choice. They were received in the palace, and were lodged separately
though they all dined together. The tzar saw them, either incognito or
without disguise, as suited his pleasure. The day for the nuptials
was appointed, and the bridal robes prepared when no one knew upon
whom the monarch's choice had been fixed. On the morning of the
nuptial day the robes were presented to the empress elect, who then,
for the first time, learned that she had proved the successful
candidate. The rejected maidens were returned to their homes laden
with rich presents.

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."