The early Romanovs are weak rulers.

Under Mikhail, state affairs are in the hands of the tsar's father, Filaret, who in 1619 becomes patriarch of the Orthodox Church.

Later, Mikhail's son Aleksey (r. 1645-76) relies on a boyar, Boris Morozov, to run his government.

Morozov abuses his position by exploiting the populace, and in 1648 Aleksey dismisses him in the wake of a popular uprising in Moscow.

The autocracy survives the Time of Troubles and the rule of weak or corrupt tsars because of the strength of the government's central bureaucracy.

Government functionaries continue to serve, regardless of the ruler's legitimacy or the boyar faction controlling the throne.

In the seventeenth century, the bureaucracy expands dramatically.

The number of government departments (prikazy; sing., prikaz) increases from twenty-two in 1613 to eighty by mid-century.

Although the departments often have overlapping and conflicting jurisdictions, the central government, through provincial governors, is able to control and regulate all social groups, as well as trade, manufacturing, and even the Orthodox Church.

Muscovy enters a period of continuous chaos.

The Time of Troubles includes a civil war in which a struggle over the throne is complicated by the machinations of rival boyar factions, the intervention of regional powers Poland and Sweden, and intense popular discontent.

The first False Dmitriy and his Polish garrison are overthrown, and a boyar, Vasiliy Shuyskiy, is proclaimed tsar in 1606.

In his attempt to retain the throne, Shuyskiy allies himself with the Swedes.

A second False Dmitriy, allied with the Poles, appears.

In 1610 this heir apparent is proclaimed tsar, and the Poles occupy Moscow.

The Polish presence leads to a patriotic revival among the Russians, and a new army, financed by northern merchants and blessed by the Orthodox Church, drives the Poles out.

In 1613 a new zemskiy sobor proclaims the boyar Mikhail Romanov as tsar, beginning the three-hundred-year reign of the Romanov family.

Lisowczycy meanwhile take and plunder Pskov in 1610 and clash with the Swedes operating in Russia during the Ingrian War.

The short reign of Charles IX of Sweden has been one of uninterrupted warfare.

The hostility of Poland and the breakup of Russia has involved him in two overseas contests for the possession of Livonia and Ingria, while his pretensions to claim Lappland has brought upon him a war with Denmark in what is to be the last year of his reign.

In all these struggles, he has been more or less unsuccessful, owing partly to the fact that he and his forces have had to oppose superior generals (e.g., Jan Karol Chodkiewicz and Christian IV of Denmark) and partly to sheer ill-luck.

Compared with his foreign policy, the domestic policy of Charles IX has been comparatively unimportant, aimed at confirming and supplementing what had already been done during his regency.

He had not officially become king until March 6, 1604.

Charles dies at Nyköping four-and-a-half years later, on October 30, 1611; he is succeeded by his oldest son, the seventeen year old Gustavus Adolphus, who, on ascending the throne, sues for peace with the Commonwealth and with Denmark, but Christian IV sees an opportunity for larger victories, and strengthens his armies in southern Sweden.

The young King Gustavus Adolphus, after succeeding to the Swedish throne in 1611, had decided to press his brother's claim to the Russian throne even after the Poles had been expelled from Moscow by the patriotic uprising of 1612 and Mikhail Romanov had been elected the new tsar.

While the Swedish statesmen envisage the creation of a Trans-Baltic dominion extending northwards to Archangelsk and eastwards to Vologda, Jacob De la Gardie, appointed Privy Councilor in 1613, and other Swedish soldiers, still holding Novgorod and Ingria, see the war as a reaction for their forces not receiving payment for their succor during the De la Gardie Campaign of July 1610.

The Swedish forces advance towards Tikhvin in 1613 and lay siege to the city, but are repulsed.

The Russian counter-offensive fails to regain Novgorod, however.

The Russian tsar refuses to commit his troops to battle and the war lumbers on.

In so dilapidated a condition is the Russian capital at this time that Michael has had to wait for several weeks at the Troitsa monastery, seventy-five miles (one hundred and twenty-one kilometers) from Moscow, before decent accommodation can be provided for him in the city.

Crowned on July 22, 1613, his first task is to clear the land of the robbers infesting it.

Marfa (or the "great nun" as she will come to be known) exerts great influence on her moribund and listless son.

She places her relatives, the Saltykovs, at the important posts in the government, which will lead to widespread corruption.

The Russian Time of Troubles is far from over, and Russia has no strength to take advantage of the Commonwealth's weakness.

The Zemsky Sobor ("assembly of the land") had on February 21, 1613, named Michael Romanov, the seventeen-year old son of Fyodor Romanov, the new tsar.

Fyodor, now installed as Patriarch Filaret, is a popular boyar and patriarch of Moscow, one of several boyars who had vies to gain control of the Russian throne during the Time of Troubles.

The Romanovs are a powerful boyar family; Michael's great-aunt (the sister of his grandfather) was Anastasia Romanovna, the wife of Ivan the Terrible.

The new tsar has many opponents, however.

Marina Mniszech tries until her death in 1614 to install her child as Tsar of Russia; various boyar factions still vie for power, trying to unseat the young Tsar Michael; and Sweden intervenes in force, trying to gain the throne for Duke Carl Philip, even succeeding for a few months.

Philip receives even less support than Władysław, however, and the Swedes are soon forced to retreat from Russia.

Both Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth are shaken by internal strife while many smaller factions thrive.

Polish Lisowczycy mercenaries, who had been essential in the defense of Smolensk in 1612, when most of regulars (wojsko kwarciane) mutinied and joined the konfederacja rohatynska, had been content to guard the Polish border against the Russian incursions for the next three years.

Aleksander Józef Lisowski gathers many outlaws in 1615, however, and invades Russia with six chorągiew of cavalry.

He besieges Bryansk and ...

...defeats the relief force of a few thousand soldiers under Prince Yuri Shakhovskoy near Karachev.

Lisowski then defeats the front guard of a force several times larger than his own, under the command of knyaz Dmitry Pozharsky, who decides to defend instead of attack and fortifies his forces in a camp.

Lisowczycy breaks contact with his forces, burns ...

...Belyov and ...