The Regency
Vasily Bledny's grand nephew, Prince Vasily Vasilievich "Nemoy" ("the Mute") was Grand Prince Vasily III's taciturn aide-de-camp who accompanied him on every military campaign and became an éminence grise of Muscovite politics. In 1517, he defeated forces of Poland and Lithuania under Konstantin Ostrogski as part of the 4th Muscovite-Lithuanian War. Six years later, Vasily Nemoy led a Russian expedition along the Volga against Kazan. Upon the death of Vasily III's widow, Elena Glinskaya, he challenged the authority of Prince Ivan Belsky, procured his incarceration, married Anastasia of Kazan (Ivan III's granddaughter), and proclaimed himself regent for Vasily III's heir, the young Ivan IV, in 1538.
Vasily Nemoy died later that year, and the power of the regency devolved upon his younger brother, Prince Ivan Vasilievich Shuysky, who began his rule by ousting Metropolitan Daniel from office and contriving the election of Joasaphus Skripitsin as the new head of the Russian Orthodox Church. He also released from prison his cousin, Prince Andrey Mikhailovich, who had governed Yugoria and Nizhny Novgorod during Vasily III's reign before having been incarcerated on charges of high treason.
Pending Ivan IV's majority, Ivan and Andrey were de facto rulers of Russia. Their arrogant and unruly behavior provoked the anger and frustration of the young sovereign, thus sowing seeds for his future wide-scale crackdown on the Russian nobility. In one of his letters to Prince Kurbsky Ivan painfully recalls that Prince Andrey Shuysky had put his dirty boots on his bed. The matter ended with Andrey being thrown into a cell full of hungry dogs and devoured by them (1543).
In 1540, Metropolitan Joasaphus managed to recall Ivan Belsky from exile, helping him clear the court of the Shuyskys. Two years later, Ivan Shuysky instigated a military revolt and again gained power. He had Macarius elected the new metropolitan and regent, but Macarius gradually ousted him from the Kremlin and persuaded him to resign his powers. Ivan Vasilevich Shuysky died in semi-obscurity in 1546.
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