on 19 March 1611 while defending his house at Lubyanka Square and was transported by his adherents to the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius for convalescence. In autumn 1611, when Pozharsky was recuperating at his Puretsky patrimony near Suzdal, he was approached by a delegation who offered him command of the Second Volunteer Army then gathered in Nizhny Novgorod to oust the Polish occupiers. Pozharsky agreed on condition that he would be assisted by Kuzma Minin, a representative of the merchants of Nizhny Novgorod that was instrumental in the army's founding. Although the volunteer corps aimed at clearing the Polish invaders out of Moscow, Pozharsky and his contingent marched towards Yaroslavl first. There they resided for half a year, vacillating until the opportunity for rapid action was gone. A man of devout disposition, Pozharsky fervently prayed before Our Lady of Kazan, one of the holiest Russian icons, prior to advancing towards Moscow. Yet even then he proceeded so slowly and timorously, performing religious ceremonies in Rostov and paying homage to ancestral graves in Suzdal, that it took him several months to reach the Trinity, whose authorities ineffectually sought to accelerate the progress of his forces. Battle of Moscow Finally, on 18 August 1612, the Volunteer Army encamped within five versts from Moscow, just in time when Hetman Chodkiewicz arrived with provisions to the relief of the Polish garrison barricaded within the Moscow Kremlin. The very next day, Pozharsky advanced to the Arbat Gate of the city and two days later he engaged with Chodkiewicz's contingent in a four-day battle. The outcome was in no small part due to decisive actions of Pozharsky's ally, Prince Dmitry Trubetskoy, who captured the provisions intended for the Poles quartered in the Kremlin. As a result, a famine broke out among the Poles and they had to surrender to Pozharsky and Trubetskoy in October, after being guaranteed safe passage and humane treatment. Nonetheless, most of the Poles were slaughtered upon exiting the Kremlin and few survived captivity. The soldiers of Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin observed the obligations but Dmitry Troubetskoy's Cossacks attacked the prisoners and robbed them, killing many in the process. After the war Pozharsky and Trubetskoy presided over the Muscovite government for half a year, until a new tsar was elected by the Zemsky Sobor, whereupon Pozharsky was made a boyar and Trubetskoy was honoured even more highly. The Time of Troubles