Both their Majesties sat ... on a silver throne like a bishop's chair, somewhat raised and covered with red cloth. . . . The Tsars wore robes of silver cloth woven with red and white flowers and, instead of scepters, had long golden staves bent at the end like bishops' croziers, on which, as on the breastplate of their robes, their breasts and their caps, glittered white, green and other precious stones. The elder drew his cap down over his eyes several times and, with looks cast down on the floor, sat almost immovable. The younger had a frank and open face, and his young blood rose to his cheeks as often as anyone spoke to him. He constantly looked about, and his great beauty and his lively manner—which sometimes brought the Muscovite magnates into confusion—struck all of us so much that had he been an ordinary youth and no imperial personage we would gladly have laughed and talked with him. The elder was seventeen, and the younger sixteen years old.* When the Swedish ambassador gave his letters of credence, both Tsars rose from their places ... but Ivan, the elder, somewhat hindered the proceedings through not understanding what was going on, and gave his hand to be kissed at the wrong time. Peter was so eager that he did not give the secretaries the usual time for raising him and his brother from their seats and touching their heads. He jumped up at once, put his own hand to his
hat and began quickly to ask the usual question: "Is His Royal Majesty, Charles of Sweden, in good health?" He had to be pulled back until the elder brother had a chance to speak.
*A measure of Peter's size and vitality was that, although he was only eleven, the Swedes took him for sixteen.
In 1684, when Peter was twelve, a German physician reported:
Then I kissed the right hand of Peter, who with a half-laughing mouth gave me a friendly and gracious look and immediately held out to me his hand; while the hands of the Tsar Ivan had to be supported. He [Peter] is a remarkably good-looking boy, in whom nature has shown her power; and has so many advantages of nature that being the son of a king is the least of his good qualities. He has a beauty which gains the heart of all who see him and a mind which, even in his early years, did not find its like.
Van Keller, the Dutch ambassador, writing in 1685, was effusive:
The young Tsar has now entered his thirteenth year. Nature develops herself with advantage and good fortune in his whole personality; his stature is great and his mien is fine; he grows visibly and advances with as much in intelligence and understanding as he gains the affection and love of all. He has such a strong preference for military pursuits that when he comes of age we may surely expect from him brave actions and heroic deeds.
Ivan made a woeful contrast. In 1684, when Peter was ill with measles, the Austrian ambassador was received only by Ivan, who had to be supported under the arms by two servants and whose responses were in a voice barely audible. When General Patrick Gordon, a Scottish soldier in Russian service, was received in the presence of Sophia and Vasily Golitsyn, Ivan was so sickly and weak that during the interview he did nothing but stare at the ground.
Throughout Sophia's regency, and although they saw each other only on formal occasions, Peter's relations with Ivan remained excellent. "The natural love and intelligence between the two Lords is "even better than before," wrote Van Keller in 1683. Naturally, Sophia and the Miloslavskys worried about Ivan. He was the foundation of their power, and from him must come their future. His life might be short, and unless he produced an heir, they would be cut off from the succession. Thus, in spite of Ivan's infirmities of eyes, tongue and mind, Sophia decided that he must marry and attempt to father a child. Ivan bowed and took as his wife Praskovaya Saltykova, the spirited daughter of a distinguished family. In their initial effort, Ivan and Praskovaya were partially successfuclass="underline" they conceived a daughter; perhaps next time it would be a son.
For the Naryshkins, who found a grim satisfaction in Ivan's debilities, these developments were cause for gloom. Peter was still too young to marry and compete with Ivan in producing an heir. Their hope lay in Peter's youth and health; in 1684, when Peter had measles and high fever, they were in despair. They could only wait and endure Sophia's rule while Natalya's tall, bright-faced son grew to manhood.
The political exile of the Naryshkins had been Peter's personal good fortune. Sophia's coup d'elat and the expulsion of his party from power had freed him from all but occasional ceremonial duties. He was at liberty to grow in the free, unrestricted, fresh-air life of the country. For a while after the Streltsy revolt, the Tsaritsa Natalya had remained with her son and daughter in the Kremlin, keeping the same apartment she had occupied since her husband's death. But increasingly, with Sophia in power, the atmosphere seemed narrow and oppressive. Natalya still resented bitterly the murder of Matveev and her brother Ivan Naryshkin, and she was never certain that Sophia might not take some new action against her and her children. But there was little danger of this; for the most part, Sophia simply ignored her stepmother. Natalya was given a small allowance to live on; it was never enough, and the humbled Tsaritsa was forced to ask the Patriarch or other members of the clergy for more.
To escape the Kremlin, Natalya began to spend more time at Tsar Alexis' favorite villa and hunting lodge at Preobrazhenskoe on the Yauza River, about three miles northeast of Moscow. In Alexis' time it had been part of his huge falconry establishment, and it still included rows of stables and hundreds of coops for falcons and for the pigeons who were their prey. The house itself, a rambling wooden structure with red curtains at the windows, was small, but it stood in green fields patched with trees. From the crest of a hill, Peter could gaze on rolling meadowlands, fields of barley and oats, a silvery river looping through groves of birch trees, small villages dominated by white walled churches and a blue or green onion church dome.
Here, in the fields and woods of Preobrazhenskoe and along the banks of the Yauza, Peter could ignore the classroom and do nothing but play. His favorite game, as it had been from earliest childhood, was war. During Fedor's reign, a small parade ground had been laid our for Peter in the Kremlin where he could drill the boys who were his playmates. Now, with the open world of Preobrazhenskoe around him, there was infinite space for these fascinating games. And, unlike most boys who play at war, Peter could draw on a government arsenal to supply his equipment. The arsenal records show that his requests were frequent. In January 1683, he ordered uniforms, banners and two wooden cannon, their barrels lined with iron, mounted on wheels to allow them to be pulled by horses—all to be furnished immediately. On his eleventh birthday, in June 1683, Peter abandoned wooden cannon for real cannon with which, under the supervision of artillerymen, he was allowed to fire salutes. He enjoyed this so much that messengers came almost daily to the arsenal for more gunpowder. In May 1685, Peter, nearing thirteen, ordered sixteen pairs of pistols, sixteen carbines with slings and brass mountings and, shortly afterward, twenty-three more carbines and sixteen muskets. i
By the time Peter was fourteen and he and his mother had settled permanently at Preobrazhenskoe, his martial games had transformed the summer estate into an adolescent military encampment. Peter's first "soldiers" were the small group of playmates who had been appointed to his service when he reached the age of five. They had been selected from the families of boyars to provide the Prince with a personal retinue of young noblemen who acted the roles of equerry, valet and butler; in fact they were his friends. Peter also filled his ranks by drawing from the enormous, now largely useless group of attendants of his father, Alexis, and his brother, Fedor. Swarms of retainers, especially those involved in the falconry establishment of Tsar Alexis, remained in the royal service with nothing to do. Fedor's health had prevented him from hunting, Ivan was even less able to enjoy the sport and Peter disliked it. Nevertheless, all these people continued to receive salaries from the state and be fed at the Tsar's expense, and Peter decided to employ some of them in his sport.