He seemed a gentle, indolent youth; very confiding in those he trusted; inclined to be a voluptuary, loving pleasure and study and everything better than affairs of state.

In 1547 he was crowned Tsar of Russia, and soon thereafter married Anastasia of the house of Romanoff, whom he devotedly loved.

As was the custom, he surrounded himself with his mother's and his wife's relations.

So the Glinskis and the Romanoffs were the envied families in control of the government.

His mother's family, the Glinskis, were especially unpopular; and when a terrific fire destroyed nearly the whole of Moscow it was whispered by jealous _boyars_ that the Princess Anna Glinski had brought this misfortune upon them by enchantments.
She had taken human hearts, boiled them in water, and then sprinkled the houses where the fire started! An enraged populace burst into the palace of the Glinskis, murdering all they could find.
Ivan, nervous and impressionable, seems to have been profoundly affected by all this.