George, prince of Novgorod, son of Andre, escaped from the carnage of that ensanguined field, and overwhelmed with shame, returned to his father in Moscow.  The king, in this extremity, developed true greatness of soul.  He exhibited neither dejection nor anger, but bowed to the calamity as to a chastisement he needed from God.  The victory of the insurgents, if they may be so called, who occupied the provinces in the valley of the Dnieper, was not promotive either of prosperity or peace.  Mindful of the former grandeur of Kief, as the ancient capital of the Russian empire, ambitious princes were immediately contending for the possession of that throne.  After several months of confusion and blood, Andre succeeded, by skillful diplomacy, in again inducing them, for the sake of general tranquillity, to come under the general government of the empire.  The nobles could not but respect him as the most aged of their princes; as a man of imperial energy and ability, and as the one most worthy to be their chief.  He alone had the power to preserve tranquillity in extended Russia.  They therefore applied to him to take Kief, under certain restrictions, again into his protection, and to nominate for that city a prince who should be in his alliance.  This homage was acceptable to Andre.

But while he was engaged in this negotiation, a conspiracy was formed against the monarch, and he was cruelly assassinated.  It was the night of the 29th of June, 1174.  The king was sleeping in a chateau, two miles from Moscow.  At midnight the conspirators, twenty in number, having inflamed themselves with brandy, burst into the house and rushed towards the chamber where the aged monarch was reposing.  The clamor awoke the king, and he sprang from the bed just as two of the conspirators entered his chamber.  Aged as the monarch was, with one blow of his vigorous arm he felled the foremost to the floor.  The comrade of the assassin, in the confusion, thinking it was the king who had fallen, plunged his poignard to the hilt in his companion’s breast.  Other assassins rushed in and fell upon the monarch.  He was a man of gigantic powers, and struggled against his foes with almost supernatural energy, filling the chateau with his shrieks for help.  At last, pierced with innumerable wounds, he fell in his blood, apparently silent in death.  The assassins, terrified by the horrible scene, and apprehensive that the guard might come to the rescue of the king, caught up their dead comrade and fled.

The monarch had, however, but fainted.  He almost instantly revived, and with impetuosity and bravery, seized his sword and gave chase to the murderers, shouting with all his strength to his attendants to hasten to his aid.  The assassins turned upon him.  They had lanterns in their hands, and were twenty to one.  The first blow struck off the right arm of the king; a saber thrust pierced his heart, passed through his body, and the monarch fell dead.  His last words were, “Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit.”  There is, to this day, preserved a cimeter of Grecian workmanship, which tradition says was the sword of Andre.  Upon the blade is inscribed in Greek letters, “Holy mother of God, assist thy servant.”