The upheaval was over. In rapid and bewildering succession, a tsar had died; a ten-year-old boy, the minor child of a second wife, had been elected in his place; a savage military revolt had overthrown this election and spattered the young Tsar and his mother with the blood of their own family; and then, with all the jeweled panoply of state, the boy was crowned jointly with a frail and helpless older half-brother. Through all the horror, although he had been elected tsar, he was powerless to intervene. The Streltsy revolt marked Peter for life. The calm and security of his boyhood were
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