The battle of the Neva was preserved in a dramatic legend.  An Ingrian chief told Alexander how, in the eve of the combat, he had seen a mysterious bark, manned by two warriors with shining brows, glide through the night.  They were Boris and Gleb, who came to the rescue of their young kinsman.  Other accounts have preserved to us the individual exploits of the Russian heroes—­Gabriel, Skylaf of Novgorod, James of Polotsk, Sabas, who threw down the tent of Birger, and Alexander Nevski himself, who with a stroke of the lance “imprinted his seal on his face,” 1240.  Notwithstanding the triumph of such a service, Alexander and the Novgorodians could not agree; a short time after, he retired to Pereiaslavl-Zaliesski.  The proud republicans soon had reason to regret the exile of this second Camillus.  The Order of the Swordbearers, the indefatigable enemy of orthodoxy, took Pskof, their ally; the Germans imposed tribute on the Vojans, vassals of Novgorod, constructed the fortress of Koporie on her territory of the Neva, took the Russian town of Tessof in Esthonia, and pillaged the merchants of Novgorod within seventeen miles of their ramparts.  During this time the Tchuds and the Lithuanians captured the peasants, and the cattle of the citizens.  At last Alexander allowed himself to be touched by the prayers of the archbishop and the people, assembled an army, expelled the Germans from Koporie, and next from Pskof, hanged as traitors the captive Vojans and Tchuds, and put to death six knights who fell into his hands.

This war between the two races and two religions was cruel and pitiless.  The rights of nations were hardly recognized.  More than once Germans and Russians slew the ambassadors of the other side.  Alexander Nevski finally gave battle to the Livonian knights on the ice of Lake Peipus, killed four hundred of them, took fifty prisoners, and exterminated a multitude of Tchuds.  Such was the “Battle of the Ice,” 1242.  He returned in triumph to Novgorod, dragging with him his prisoners in armor of iron.  The grand master expected to see Alexander at the gates of Riga, and implored help of Denmark.  The Prince of Novgorod, satisfied with having delivered Pskof, concluded peace, recovered certain districts, and consented to the exchange of prisoners.  At this time Innocent IV, deceived by false information, addressed a bull to Alexander, as a devoted son of the Church, assuring him that his father Yaroslaff, while dying among the Horde, had desired to submit himself to the throne of St. Peter.  Two cardinals brought him this letter from the Pope, 1251.

It is this hero of the Neva and Lake Peipus, this vanquisher of the Scandinavians and Livonian knights, that we are presently to see grovelling at the feet of a barbarian.  Alexander Nevski had understood that, in presence of this immense and brutal force of the Mongols, all resistance was madness, all pride ruin.  To brave them was to complete the overthrow of Russia.  His conduct may not have been chivalrous,