Career
Ivan Belsky is the only boyar son of Prince Dmitry Belsky (1499-1551) from the marriage with Maria Chelyadnina. A distant relative (cousin's nephew) of the Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich Grozny. His sisters Evdokia and Anastasia of Belsky became the wives of the boyars Mikhail Morozov and Vasili Zakharyin-Yuryev.
After the death of his father in 1551, Ivan Dmitrievich Belsky inherited the paternal Luho specific principality (Kineshma, Vichuga, Gorokhovets, Yuryevets, Puchezh, Porzdni, Landeh) in the Middle Volga.
The first mention of Prince Ivan Belsky dates back to 1546 when he attended the wedding of Tsar John IV Grozny with Anastasia Romanovna Zakharina.
In 1554 he was granted royal carver and married Princess Martha Shuiskaya (1538-1571), the daughter of the great Moscow voivode Prince Vasily Nemoy Shuisky and the Litsevoi chronicles especially emphasizes the blood relationship between the bride with Ivan Grozny:
on the 8th of November, on Thursday, the great Tsar Ivan Vasilievich, an autocrat of all Russia, married the prince Ivan Belsky, Tsarevich Petra to his granddaughter, and grandfather of his grand duke Ivan of all Rus a great-granddaughter, and his daughter Prince Vasili Vasilyevich Shuisky; but the emperor gave himself away from his court.
In 1556, Ivan Dmitriyevich Belsky was sent by the tsar in a large regiment "on Crimean News" in Kaluga. In the same year, he was a voivode in the royal regiment in Serpukhov. In 1559 Ivan Belsky was raised in a boyar and sent by a voivode to a large regiment in Dedilov. In 1560, Prince Ivan Belsky was sent to pursue the Tatar detachments of the Divei-Murza. In 1561, he repelled an attack by Crimean Tatars on the southern border.
At the beginning of 1562, Prince Ivan Belsky fell into short-term disgrace. For three months the prince was kept in the Ugreshesky court in the capital. Its specific principality was confiscated to the treasury. Ivan Belsky was accused of trying to escape to Lithuania. At the arrest, he was found guarding letters, signed by the Grand Duke Lithuanian Sigismund Augustus. On March 20, 1562, Prince Ivan Belsky was released from custody. For him the members of the Boyar Duma many princes and noblemen were vouched. In April 1562 Metropolitan Macarius and all the higher clergy vouched for Ivan Belsky. Ivan Belsky was forced to sign a special charter, in which he swore not to renew attempts to leave for Lithuania, he promised to correspond with the Polish King and his relatives in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He was returned to the previously selected specific principality.
Since 1563 Ivan Belsky participated in the Livonian War, in the fall of 1562 during the royal campaign against Polotsk boyar Ivan Belsky was the second voivode of a large regiment in the Russian army. In February 1563, after the capture of Polotsk, Prince Ivan Belsky participated in negotiations with the Lithuanian ambassadors. In 1564 at the head of a large regiment was in Vyazma and Dorogobuzh. In 1565, Ivan Dmitrievich Belsky was appointed Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich Grozny, the first boyar in Zemshchina, that is, the head of the Boyar Duma. In the autumn of the same year 1565, Ivan Belsky, being the first voivode of a large regiment on the southern border, commanded the Russian regiments with the reflection of the Crimean Khan Devlet Geray from Bolkhov. In 1566, he participated in a meeting on the conclusion of an armistice with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
In 1567 the Russian authorities intercepted the letters from the Grand Duke of Lithuania and the Polish King with the invitation to the noble Moscow noblemen, boyars, princes Ivan Dmitriyevich Belsky, Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky, Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky and stables Ivan Petrovich Fedorov, to go to the service of Sigismund II Augustus. The Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund Augustus suggested Prince Ivan Belsky to go to the Lithuanian possessions and promised to return him the ancient patrimonial possessions. However, Ivan Dmitrievich happily managed to get out of this trouble.
