68 Muscovite Roots, 1462-1689Theodore's reign power lay with the Miloslavsky clan, related to the dynasty
by Tsar Alexis's first marriage. As the nominal ruler's health deelined-he
died on 27 April-this group lost influence to the Naryshkins, the kin of
Alexis's second wife. On^23 April the stre/'tsy submitted anoth,er petition,
directed against the most unpopular of their colonels, S. Gribo~ov. This
time Yazykov had the accused man arrested, but freed him the next day. Such
token punishment suggested that the authorities recognized the justice of the
men's complaints but were unwilling to act on them. The petitioner was
ordered to be publicly whipped, but his comrades freed him from arrest and
assaulted several officials. Within days most of the nineteen musketeer
regiments stationed in the capital were in uproar. ss
On Theodore's death the Naryshkin family acceded to prominence with the
aid of the patriarch, who tried to settle the succession in their favour by install-
ing the ten-year-old Peter (born of Alexis's second marriage) ~ tsar. Many
strertsy, notably those in A. Karandeyev's detachment, feared that this move
heralded tough repressive measures; they were particularly nervous at the im-
pending return to Moscow of A. S. Matveyev, a Naryshkin supporter who had
been exiled under the previous regime. Thus what had begun as a simple protest
over service conditions was now becoming politicized. The conventional view
of the musketeers as mere tools of the ambitious Miloslavskys is no longer ade-
quate. These embittered servicemen sought to exploit the power struggle in the
Kremlin to advance their cause. Men in twelve \mits now jointly submitted a
petition demanding redress of grievances. The panic-stricken officials arrested
several senior officers against whom complaints of extortion were lodged and
subjected them to the pravezh, that is, to a public beating, the normal judicial
method of forcing a defaulter to pay his debts. This spectacle naturally whet-
ted the men's appetites for vengeance, and they began to take the law into their
own hands. At least fourteen colonels were beaten, two of them with the knout
(an indignity from which officials tried in vain to save them), and forced to
hand over large sums of money.^59 New officers were hastily appointed to take
their place, but they exercised little authority.
By mid-May the mutinous troops were questioning the rights of all those
who had held high office under the last administration. Their political ideal
was a 'good' tsar, such as the feeble-witted Ivan, brother of the late Theodore,
who they hoped would rule through officials sympathetic to popular aspira-
tions. They did not challenge the existing system of government; theJ wanted a
change of heart, a moral renewal, manifest in immediate changes of policy
towards them and in the appointment of 'righteous' men to positions of
authority. When Matveyev returned to Moscow (on or about^12 May) be com-
mitted the error of conferring secretly with Dolgorukiy. The musketeers felt
ss Keep, 'Mutiny', pp. 414-15; Medvedev, Sozertsaniye, pp. 41-2; Buganov, MMk. vosstaniya,
p. 90; Voss1aniye^1682 g., pp. 20-1.
S9 Keep, 'Mutiny', pp. 416-17; Medvedev, Sozertsaniye, pp. 47-8; Buganov, Mmlc. vosstaniya,
p. 117.