A horrible reign of terror ensued, in the course of which the ex-tsaritsa Eudoxia was dragged from her monastery and publicly tried for alleged adultery, while all who had in any way befriended Alexius were impaled, broken on the wheel and otherwise lingeringly done to death.
Under the Reign of Terror he was arrested and imprisoned for nearly a year, during which he studied Condillac and Locke, and abandoned the natural sciences for philosophy.
The Unitarians were relentlessly hunted down and a veritable reign of terror ensued.
Actually, however, its activity, directed mainly to the discovery of political offences, degenerated into a hideous reign of terror.
Then suddenly, for reasons which cannot easily be explained, he inaugurated a reign of terror which lasted for twenty-four years and earned for him the epithet of "theTerrible."
