In the early years of his reign, Mikhail I wisely asked the members of the zemsky sobor to remain in Moscow in order to help him to rebuild the shattered Russian state. In fact, he made far more extensive use of the zemsky sobor than any other tsar and he was wise to do so. The experienced patriots in that assembly maintained the contact with the towns and provinces they represented and they provided the central government with valuable information about conditions far from the capital. Unlike some of the young tsar's greedy courtiers, the zemsky sobor delegates helped with the difficult tasks of restoring the state administration and renewing the flow of taxes to fund the day-to-day operations and to maintain military forces capable of challenging foreign interventionists.

Continuing the warfare in the Novgorod region, the exhaustion of the Swedish troops and severe fiscal problems at home threatened to reverse their gains made in Russia during the Time of Troubles. That prompted the new king, Gustav II Adolph, personally to lead a military campaign into north Russia during 1614. After some initial success against the Russians, Swedish army got bogged down in a siege of the strategically and economically important town of Pskov, which stubbornly resisted the Swedes throughout 1615-1616. By then, fiscal and domestic political pressures on the frustrated king forced him to begin serious negotiations to end the war in Russia. And after months of complex diplomacy in which Pozharsky played an important role, both countries agreed to sign the Treaty of Stolbovo on 27 February 1617. By the agreed terms, Sweden restored Novgorod and Ladoga to Russia but retained the strategically located lands and towns it had acquired along the coast of the Gulf of Finland - thereby cutting Russia off completely from the Baltic Sea.

In 1617, 'Tsar Wladyslaw' himself made one final attempt to capture Moscow. Mikhail I felt compelled at long last to richly reward and publicly exalt Pozharsky and to trust him with the defense of the capital in the fall of 1618. The population of the city was summoned for the task of resisting the Poles and they responded willingly and enthusiastically to the beloved Pozharsky. As a result, Wladyslaw were stopped and forced to withdraw. Thus the Polish government was forced by fiscal constraints to immediately enter into serious peace negotiations with the Russians. Nevertheless, the fourteen years Truce of Deulino that was signed in December 1618 proved to be a harsh one for the Russians. By its terms, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth gained Smolensk and Chernigov regions and much of Severia. During the negotiations, Mikhail I hastily ordered the evacuation and transfer to the Poles of several border towns and fortresses that, up to that point, had been actively and successfully resisting enemy forces. The most important result of this truce was the return from exile of the tsar's father.

On 14 June 1619, Mikhail accompanied by excited crowds, travelled to the Pryesna River five miles outside Moscow and waited. A carriage with its own escort was approaching. When it was close, now almost seventy years old Filaret climbed out. After nine years of separation, son and father were both so moved that they hugged for a long time, weeping with joy. When they set off home, Filaret rode in a sleigh while Mikhail walked alongside back to Moscow. A week later, in the Golden Chamber, Filaret was nominated Patriarch of Moscow. Filaret took charge of his son's regime and became the ruler of Russia until his own death in 1633. Under his firm hand, Russia by the 1620s appeared to be much like it had been before the civil war.

Just before his father was freed, Mikhail called a brideshow. Courtiers fanned out across the kingdom to select the virgins, who were despatched to Moscow where they lived with relatives or in a specially chosen mansions. The contestants first appeared before a jury of courtiers and doctors who weeded out the weakest. As they waited nervously, their family trees were researched in detail. The rejected were given presents and sent home, but the lucky six or so finalists moved into a special Kremlin mansion, then were presented to the tsar who signalled his choice by giving his handkerchief and golden ring to the chosen maiden. The winner and her father changed their names to signify their new status as royal-in-laws; the girl assumed the title of 'Tsarevna' and she and her mother moved into the Terem Palace to be trained, but also to be guarded because, as Mikhail's bride was about to discover, the winner was always in danger.

Just before Christmas 1615, the girls arrived to be inspected by Mikhail who chose Maria Khlopova. Receiving the higher title of 'Tsarevna', Maria, her grandmother and her aunt were installed in the top storey of the Terem Palace while her uncle Gavril Khlopov joined the royal retinue. However, this choice threatened the powerful of Mikhail's courtiers. Fedor Sheremetev, the cousin who travelled to Kostroma to offer Mikhail the throne, ran much of the government, but Mikhail Saltykov, the nephew of the tsar's mother, Xenia Shestova, who had been with them in Kostroma, had the most to lose, thus Saltykov and Xenia Shestova opposed the new bride. Soon Maria vomited and fainted before the whole court. The tsar or his mother ordered Saltykov to supervise the poor girl's health, however Saltykov started dosing her with potions, after which she began suffering convulsions and vomiting. Probably backed by the tsar's mother, Saltykov suborned the doctors to say the girl was concealing an incurable disease and was incapable of having children. In the result, Maria along with her family were exiled to Siberia, her father appointed governor of faraway Vologda. Mikhail loved Maria, yet he did not investigate further: he did not feel strong enough to overrule his mother.

Mikhail refused to consider any other candidates for few years, still dreaming about the exiled Maria Khlopova. However, the tsar's mother finally presented his son with her own match - Maria Dolgorukaya, daughter of Vladimir Dolgorukov and Maria Barbashina-Shuiskaya. The tsar remained close to his mother and she presided over the brideshow in which Mikhail selected her choice. On 19 September 1624, he married Dolgorukaya, but four months later, the bride died while giving birth.

There was no time to mourn: Mikhail had to marry again and fast. At the new brideshow viewing, Mikhail presented Eudoxia Streshneva with his handkerchief and golden ring. Patriarch Filaret had her closely guarded in the Terem Palace during the engagement and, on 5 February 1626, they were married. Eudoxia suffered the constant interference of her mother-in-law, but even without that, her life was stiflingly puritanical and limited. Yet Eudoxia thrived there. The first of their ten children, Irina, was born exactly nine months after the wedding. Each child was celebrated with a banquet in the Golden Chamber. After another daughter, Alexis was born in May 1629, followed by two more sons.

In April 1632, Sigismund III died. Although the Polish nobility quickly elected Sigismund's son Wladyslaw IV their new ruler, Poland's neighbours, expecting delays in the electoral process, tested its perceived weakness. The Russian army that crossed the Lithuanian border in early October 1632 had been carefully prepared and was under the experienced command of Mikhail Borisovich Shein, who had previously defended Smolensk against the Poles during the 1609-1611 siege. Several towns fell as the Russians advanced and, on 28 October 1632, Shein moved to begin the siege of Smolensk. In December 1632, after a preliminary artillery bombardment, Shein ordered an assault, which was repulsed by the Polish defenders. Nonetheless the siege was progressing; Smolensk's fortifications were being eroded and the Polish defenders were suffering heavy casualties and running out of supplies. By June 1633, some soldiers started to desert and others talked of surrender. By the summer of 1633, the relief force, led personally by the new king, Wladyslaw IV, arrived near Smolensk. On 28 September 1633, the Polish forces took the main Russian supply points and by 4 October the siege had broken. Shein's army retreated to its main camp, which was in turn surrounded by the Polish forces in mid-October.