There was famine in Moscow,
and empty bellies do not make for loyalty. Then, too, the
Muscovite nobles did not love him. He had ruled too sternly, and
had curbed their power. There were men like Basil Shuiski who
knew too much--greedy, ambitious men, who might turn their
knowledge to evil account. The moment might be propitious to the
pretender, however false his claim. Therefore Boris dispatched a
messenger to Wisniowiecki with the offer of a heavy bribe if he
would yield up the person of this false Demetrius.
But that messenger returned empty-handed. He had reached Bragin
too late. The pretender had already left the place, and was
safely lodged in the castle of George Mniszek, the Palatine of
Sandomir, to whose daughter Maryna he was betrothed. If these
were ill tidings for Boris, there were worse to follow soon.
Within a few months he learned from Sandomir that Demetrius
had removed to Cracow, and that there he had been publicly
acknowledged by Sigismund III. of Poland as the son of Ivan
Vassielivitch, the rightful heir to the crown of Russia. He
heard, too, the story upon which this belief was founded.
Demetrius had declared that one of the agents employed by Boris
Godunov to procure his murder at Uglich had bribed his physician
Simon to perform the deed.
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