[MIKHAIL III,

The descriptions are an invaluable record of Moscow and other cities in the early 17th century, of clothes and customs, and of the chief actors in the unfolding drama. Mikhail was elected on 21st February 1613, but it was not till 24th March that the delegates of the council discovered the young tsar and his mother Martha at the Ipatievsky monastery near Kostroma. At first Martha protested that her son was too young, but the weeping boyars declared that if he refused they would hold him responsible for the destruction of Muscovy. The original paintings identify many buildings and streets, and their modern equivalents are given in the text where different.With the bookplate in red and black of the Coburg library, bearing the arms of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1844-1900), whose wife Maria Alexandrovna (1853-1920) was the only daughter of Alexander II.From the collection of Grand Duke Kyril & Victoria Melita