rs, by nature more strongly attached
to a chivalrous young man than to an intriguing, ambitious woman,
whose character was of very doubtful reputation, broke out into open
revolt, and, abandoning their officers, marched directly to the
monastery and offered their services to Peter. The patriarch, whose
religious character gave him almost unbounded influence with the
people, also found that he was included as one of the victims of the
conspiracy; that he was to have been assassinated, and his place
conferred upon one of the partisans of Sophia. He also fled to the
convent of the Trinity.

Sophia now found herself deserted by the soldiery and the nation. She
accordingly, with the most solemn protestations, declared that she had
been accused falsely, and after sending messenger after messenger to
plead her cause with her brother, resolved to go herself. She had not
advanced more than half way, ere she was met by a detachment of
Peter's friends who informed her, from him, that she must go directly
back to Moscow, as she could not be received into the convent. The
next day Peter assembled a council, and it was resolved to bring the
traitors to justice. A colonel, with three hundred men, was sent to
the Kremlin to arrest the officers implicated in the conspiracy. They
were loaded with chains, conducted to the Trinity, and in accordance
with the barbaric custom of the times were put to the torture. In
agony too dreadful to be borne, they of course made any confession
which was demanded.

Peter was reluctant to make a public example of his sister. There
ensued a series of punishments of the conspirators too revolting to be
narrated. The mildest of these punishments was exile to Siberia,
there, in the extremest penury, to linger through scenes of woe so
long as God should prolong their lives. The executions being
terminated and the exiles out of sight, Sophia was ordered to leave
the Kremlin, and retire to the cloisters of Denitz, which she was
never again to leave. Peter then made a triumphal entry into Moscow.
He was accompanied by a guard of eighteen thousand troops. His feeble
brother Ivan received him at the outer gate of the Kremlin. They
embraced each other with much affection, and then retired to their
respective apartments. The wife and mother of Peter accompanied him on
his return to Moscow.

Thus terminated the regency of Sophia. From this time Peter was the
real sovereign of Russia. His brother Ivan took no other