Under such training any boy would have been spoiled, and the result was that as he grew to manhood Ivan's nature was dwarfed and perverted, all that was good in him having been repressed and all that was bad having been stimulated and cultivated.
With his fourteenth year, old in wickedness, he was ripe for revolt against his oppressors, and declared that he would rule without aid of a Council, and in a fit of passion against Andrew Shuiski, he ordered him to be thrown to his dogs. The order was obeyed, and the head of the powerful house of Shuiski expiated a life of violence and crime by being torn to pieces in the kennels of the bloodhounds.
The young Czarowitch was not, however, to gain his liberty thus easily, for the Gluiskis, another powerful family, rose to ascendancy in the State, and the young prince fell under their evil influence for the next three or four years after his summary liberation from the other tyrant. Finally in his eighteenth year, after a minority of blood and horror, Ivan IV was crowned Tsar. This was in January, 1547. Soon afterwards he was married to a lady named Anastasia Romanova.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
