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ISSUE 2119 Wednesday 14 March 2001
Mercury poisoned Ivan the Terrible's mother and wife
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent
IVAN the Terrible's mother and wife were poisoned with mercury, according to
scientists who claim to have solved two 500-year-old murder
mysteries.Forensic science experts have discovered that the remains of Yelena
Glinskaya and Anastasia Romanovna, the mother and the wife of the first
Russian tsar, contain suspiciously high concentrations of mercury.According
to legend, Yelena was poisoned by political enemies in 1538 when Ivan was
still a boy. Anastasia, the great aunt of the first Romanov tsar, was
murdered in 1560 at 26.Researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences made
the discoveries after studying remains from the Necropolis of the Archangel
Cathedral inside the Kremlin. The team was trying to shed light on life
inside the Kremlin in the middle ages. Instead, they stumbled on evidence of
homicide.A sample of the Tsarina Anastasia's brown hair showed high
concentrations of mercury. Scraps of shroud at the bottom of her tomb also
contained the poisonous metal. Cosmetics and paints in the 16th century were
known to contain mercury but that cause was ruled out by the researchers.A
spokesman from the Russian Academy of Sciences said: "We believe that the
body of the young woman could not accumulate such amounts of mercury, even if
she used cosmetics and ointments daily. Upon acute poisoning, the body tries
to excrete mercury through kidneys, bowels and with sweat. Bones do not have
enough time to accumulate mercury but the hair is soaked with poisoning sweat
and keeps the metal for a long time."The team also found high levels of
mercury in red hair taken from a cap belonging to another suspected murder
victim, Grand Duchess Yelena Glinskaya, the second wife of Vasily III who
died in 1538 and the mother of Ivan IV. Yelena ruled Moscow in Ivan's name
until her death.Anastasiya Romanovna married Ivan IV in February 1547, a
month after he was crowned "tsar and grand prince of all Russia". The
circumstances of her death were suspicious, particularly as her husband
married five times in the 1560s and went on to kill his son and heir Ivan in
1581.
