The only son of Andrey of Staritsa and his wife Yefrosinya Staritskaya (née Khovanskaya), Vladimir spent his childhood under strict surveillance in Moscow.

There he married and lived in peace until 1553, when the tsar fell mortally ill. During the final crisis of Ivan's illness, most boyars refused to swear fealty to his baby son and decided to put Vladimir on the throne instead.

[4] His mother and wife, who resided at the Goritsy Convent near Vologda, were forcibly drowned in the Sheksna River several days later.

The extermination of Vladimir's family precipitated the extinction of the Muscovite branch of the Rurik dynasty and the dynastic crisis known as the Time of Troubles.

Upon her husband's death, she was summoned from Courland to the court of Boris Godunov and forced to take the veil in a convent adjacent to the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra.