Ivan IV the Terrible - the tsar and grand duke of all Russia was the real "Blue Beard" of his time. Some historians believe that most of the women were attributed to Ivan the Terrible later. Only legal wives he had four, while the church allowed only three marriages. The other four wives could not be recognized as legal.
For the first time, Ivan the Terrible married Anastasia Romanovna at the age of 17. She was destined to become the first Russian queen. This marriage lasted 13 years. Anastasia gave John six children, most of whom died in early childhood. The most famous children from marriage with Anastasia are the princes Ivan, who was killed by John in a quarrel, and Fedor. Anastasia died by violent death, allegedly poisoned by the boyars.
A few days after the death of Anastasia, the king expressed a desire to marry a second time. A traditional brides’show was arranged, and the Tsar’s choice fell on the Kabardian beauty Maria Temryukovna, and a year later their wedding took place. According to contemporaries, the new queen was a very cruel, licentious and treacherous woman. The marriage lasted more than eight years, ended in the death of Mary. Historians believe that she was poisoned by the king himself, who, however, blamed the boyars for everything.
The third wife of Tsar John was Marfa Vasilyevna Sobakina in 1571. Shortly before the wedding, she fell ill, but they decided not to postpone the wedding. Queen Martha spent only two weeks. She died without knowing the marriage bed. The king suspected that the brother of the previous wife had poisoned her, and ordered the killer put on a stake.
The third marriage, according to the Orthodox custom, was supposed to be the last, but Ivan the Terrible convinced the Metropolitan that "he did not become Martha’s husband." And in 1572, the Metropolitan allowed John to get married for the fourth time. His chosen one was Anna Koltovskaya. Shortly after the wedding, at the instigation of the boyars, she was exiled to the monastery and forcibly tonsured as a nun. She was lucky most of all - she died her death in 1626, having survived Ivan the Terrible for more than forty years.
John did not ask permission from the clergy for a fifth marriage. The wedding ceremony was performed by Protopope Nikita, who had previously served in the guardsmen. The fifth wife of Ivan the Terrible was Maria Dolgorukaya in 1573. This marriage lasted less than a day. After the wedding night, it turned out that Mary was not a virgin, and in the morning the king in a sleigh took the bound queen to Alexandrovskaya Sloboda and drowned her in the hole.
In 1575, Ivan had a sixth marriage with the young Anna Vasilchikova. Like the previous one, this marriage was not recognized as legal, and less than a year later the young wife was fed up with the king, he sent Anna to the monastery, where she soon died under strange circumstances.
The seventh wife of Vasilisa Melentyeva also did not stay for long. John found her in bed with her lover and severely punished her unfaithful wife for adultery. According to legend, he buried Vasilisa alive in the same grave with her dead lover.
In 1580, Ivan Vasilievich liked Maria Nagaya, she became the eighth and last wife of Ivan the Terrible. Maria managed to give birth to Ivan the last son - Tsarevich Dmitry, soon after which she became objectionable and was exiled to the monastery, where she lived until 1612.
Contemporaries called Ivan the Terrible "lascivious" and "lecherous." According to the descriptions of the appearance and general condition of the cruel king, in the last years of his life he was probably sick with syphilis. At 41, at the time of his marriage to Martha Sobakina, John looked like a sick old man. And at 53, before his death, he could no longer walk independently.
