of the lost. He took the money of all of the goods and land he had taken from others and gave that money to 200 monasteries throughout Russia. Towards the end of his life he became infatuated with an unknown English woman, believed to be a figment of his imagination. He had prophets predict his death, and they set the date at March 18, 1584. When that day came, he was extremely cheerful and playful as he awaited his death. He joked that they had gotten the date wrong, but they told him to wait. That evening, while playing chess, he dropped over dead. Ivan the Terrible did horrible things in his lifetime, but his illness was conditioned for him from birth. No one knows what illness he had, or what could have brought it about. He was obviously a sick man, but it seems as if the death of his son threw him into the depths of insanity. "He had been ill-treated and scoffed at in his youth, and all his life long he seems to have sought impossible revenges"(Waliszewski, p. 382). He thought, "everyone was guilty, except himself"(Troyat, p. 242). There are some people who believe that he never had a mental illness to begin with. He was doing what the times had conditioned him for, even if they were extreme. He might not have been mad when he had thousands of people murdered, but the symptoms that came about after the death of his son cannot be dismissed. His history, presented here, is merely a testimony for the reader to think about and make a judgement call. ...
