After the death of Tsar Fedor I, his cousin Fedor Romanov was regarded as the next in line of succession. Boris Godunov responded by incarcerating him in a monastery as the monk Filaret. Fedor's wife Xenia was forced to take the veil under the name of Martha, while their five-year-old son Michael was imprisoned along with his aunt Anastasia at the White Lake Monastery. When False Dmitry I captured the Russian throne, he promoted his "cousin" Fedor to the rank of Metropolitan of Rostov. Fedor Romanov preferred to side with the opposition, however, and played an active part in his overthrow. He was similarly unimpressed when False Dmitry II elected him Patriarch of Russia. Fedor thought it better to politely decline such an offer, forseeing the possible consequences of allying himself with a foreign usurper. He did, however, accept the post after helping to overthrow Basil Shuisky in May 1610. In April 1611, he headed an embassy to King Sigismund of Poland, who wanted to place his own son Wladyslaw on the Russian throne. During the negotiations, the patriarch was imprisoned and spent eight years in a Polish dungeon.

When Fedor Romanov was languishing in Poland, his son was elected Tsar of Russia. The council convened to make the decision dispatched a large delegation of clergymen, boyars and public officials to Michael. The only problem was that no one in Moscow knew exactly where he was.

The delegates were commanded to "travel to His Majesty, Tsar and Grand Duke Michael Fedorovich of All the Russias, in Yaroslavl or where he might be." Armed with this order, the deputation set off to find their new sovereign. The Polish forces still occupying Russia also set out to find and kill the new tsar. They had more information than the Russians on the whereabouts of Michael and his mother, whom they knew to be in the village of Domnino, fifty miles from Kostroma, where they were found by the delegates of the Land Council on 14 March, 1613. When they asked Michael to accept the throne, his mother reminded the delegation that the Russian people had been disloyal to their rulers in times of trouble, saying that she would not let her son become tsar. After the envoys prayed, argued and finally threatened her, she conceded and gave her blessing. Michael then returned to Moscow with the delegation. Alexei Tolstoy described the country inherited by Tsar Michael: "Russia was ravaged and ruined. The Crimean Tatars stopped their incursions across the wild steppes, for there was nothing left to steal. For the past ten years, pretenders, thieves and Polish horsemen had passed this way with sabre and fire, from one end of Russia to the other. There was famine and plague; people ate horse manure and human salt-meat. Those who survived made their way north, towards the White Sea, the Urals and Siberia. On those difficult days, a boy was brought on a sledge across the dirty March roads to the charred walls of Moscow--a plundered and ravaged heap of ashes, only freed at great cost from the Polish occupants. A frightended boy elected Tsar of Muscovy, at the advice of the patriarch, by impoverished boyars, empty-handed merchants and hard men from the north and the Volga. The boy prayed and wept, looking out of the window of his coach in fear and dejection at the ragged, frenzied crowds who had come to greet him at the gates of Moscow. The Russian people had little faith in the new tsar, but life had to go on . . .

Muscovite Ambassadors begging Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to accept the crown in the
Trinity Cathedral of the Ipatiev Monastery. Artist: Alexei Kivshanko

Cap of Monomakh. Moscow Kremlin

Michael's reign witnessed several other events, perhaps not so important, yet nonetheless interesting. They include the public execution of Maryna Mniszech in Moscow, the construction of the Prison Yard in Moscow (1636), the capture by Cossacks of the Turkish fortress of Azov (1637) and the unsuccessful attempt to marry the tsar's eldest daughter, Irina, to Prince Valdemar of Denmark (1644).

In spring 1645, Tsar Michael contracted an illness of the stomach and kidneys and died at the age of forty-nine on the night of 12/13 June, 1645. He was buried in the Archangel Cathedral in Moscow.