The Princes Shuisky () was a Rurikid family of Boyars descending from Grand Duke Dimitri Konstantinovich of Vladimir-Suzdal and Prince Andrey Yaroslavich, brother to Alexander Nevsky. The surname is derived from the town of Shuya, of which the Shuiskys gained ownership in 1403. From 1606 to 1610, Vasili Shuisky ruled as tsar over Russia during the Time of Troubles. Early service in Muscovy The foundations for their fortunes in Muscovite service were laid by Prince Vasily Vasilievich "Bledny" ("the Pale"), who was dispatched by Ivan III to govern Pskov and then Nizhny Novgorod (1478–80). The following year, he devastated Livonia and was sent as a governor to Novgorod. In 1487, he was recorded as leading a Russian contingent against Kazan. The Shuyskys represented a senior line among the descendants of Vsevolod the Big Nest and therefore treated the ruling princes of Muscovy, who were descended from a junior line, with arrogance. The Regency Vasily Bledny's grand nephew, Prince Vasily Vasilievich "Nemoy" ("the Mute") was Grand Prince Vasily III's taciturn aide-de-camp who accompanied him on every military campaign and became an éminence grise of Muscovite politics. In 1517, he defeated forces of Poland and Lithuania under Konstantin Ostrogski as part of the 4th Muscovite-Lithuanian War. Six years later, Vasily Nemoy led a Russian expedition along the Volga against Kazan. Upon the death of Vasily III's widow, Elena Glinskaya, he challenged the authority of Prince Ivan Belsky, procured his incarceration, married Anastasia of Kazan (Ivan III's granddaughter), and proclaimed himself regent for Vasily III's heir, the young Ivan IV, in 1538. Vasily Nemoy died later that year, and the power of the regency devolved upon his younger brother, Prince Ivan Vasilievich Shuysky, who began his rule by ousting Metropolitan Daniel from office and contriving the election of Joasaphus Skripitsin as the new head of the Russian Orthodox Church. He also released from prison his cousin, Prince Andrey Mikhailovich, who had governed Yugoria and Nizhny Novgorod during Vasily III's reign before having been incarcerated on charges of high treason. Pending Ivan IV's majority, Ivan and Andrey were de facto rulers of Russia. Their arrogant and unruly behavior provoked the anger and frustration of the young sovereign, thus sowing seeds for his future wide-scale crackdown on the Russian nobility. In one of his letters to Prince Kurbsky Ivan painfully recalls that Prince Andrey Shuysky had put his dirty boots on his bed. The matter