abettors
of this rebellion with severity, which should appall all the
discontented. General Gordon, in the battle, had slain three thousand
of the insurgents and had taken five thousand captive. These prisoners
he had punished, decimating them by lot and hanging every tenth man.
Peter rewarded magnificently the royal guard, and then commenced the
terrible chastisement of all who were judged guilty of sympathizing in
the conspiracy. Some were broken on the wheel and then beheaded.
Others were hung in chains, on gibbets near the gates of the city, and
left, frozen as solid as marble, to swing in the wind through the long
months of winter. Stone monuments were erected, on which were engraved
the names, the crimes and the punishment of the rebels. A large number
were banished to Siberia, to Astrachan, and to the shores of the Sea
of Azof. The entire corps of the _strelitzes_ was abolished, and their
place supplied by the new guard, marshaled and disciplined on the
model of the German troops. The long and cumbersome robes which had
been in fashion were exchanged for a uniform better adapted for rapid
motion. The sons of the nobles were compelled to serve in the ranks as
common soldiers before they could be promoted to be officers. Many of
the young nobles were sent to the tzar's fleet in the Sea of Azof to
serve their apprenticeship for the navy. The revenue of the empire had
thus far been raised by the payment of a stipulated sum from each
noble according to his amount of land. The noble collected this sum
from his vassals or bondmen; but they often failed of paying in the
amount demanded. Peter took now the collection of the revenue into his
own hands, appointing officers for that purpose.

Reforms in the church he also undertook. The patriarch, Adrian, who
was the pope of the Greek church, dying about this time, Peter
declared that he should have no successor. Virtually assuming the
authority of the head of the church, he gathered the immense revenues
of the patriarchal see into the royal treasury. Though professedly
intrusting the government of the church to the bishops, he controlled
them with despotism which could brook no opposition. Anxious to
promote the population of his vast empire, so sparsely inhabited, he
caused a decree to be issued, that all the clergy, of every, grade,
should be married; and that whenever one of the clergy lost a wife his
clerical functions should cease until he obtained another. Regarding