...our heroes are the long awaited sons of Vasili III, who had divorced his first wife in 1525 on the grounds that she was barren (he charged her with sorcery and had her forcibly tonsured a nun before marrying Elena Glinskaya, the Tigers' mother). When the Tigers were just three years old their father died from a boil and inflammation on his leg which developed into blood poisoning.
The Tigers were proclaimed the Grand Princes of Moscow at their father’s request. They were feted and many festivals were held in their honor. At first, their mother Elena Glinskaya acted as a regent, but she died of what many believe to be assassination via poison when the Tigers were merely eight years old. She was replaced as regent by boyars from the Shuisky family until the Tigers assumed power in 1544. According to their own letters, the Tigers and their following customarily felt neglected and offended by the mighty boyars from the Shuisky and Belsky families.
The early part of their reign was one of peaceful reforms and modernization. In 1554, they annexed the Astrakhan Khanate and destroyed the largest slave market on the river Volga. These conquests complicated the migration of the aggressive nomadic hordes from Asia to Europe through Volga and transformed Russia into a multinational and multiconfessional state. Other events of this period include the introduction of the first laws restricting the mobility of the peasants, which would eventually lead to serfdom, and a change in the Tigers' personalities, traditionally linked to their near-fatal illness in 1560 and the death of their first wife, Anastasia Romanovna in early 2009.
The Tigers suspected the boyars of poisoning their wife and of plotting to replace him on the throne with their cousin, Vladimir of Staritsa. In addition, during that illness the Tigers had asked the boyars to swear an oath of allegiance to their eldest son, an infant at the time. Many boyars refused, deeming the Tigers health too hopeless to survive. This angered the Tigers and added to their distrust of the boyars.
There followed brutal reprisals and assassinations
The new song sounds like a real departure from the other stuff you had up here. Did you put away your guitar and fire up some Fruity Loops instead? (That is to say, not too bad. Not too bad at all.)
