CATHERINE I, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA
Robert Nisbet Bain
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. 1910
Vol. 5 pgs. 525-526
CATHERINE 1. (1683-1727), empress of Russia. The true character and
origin of this enigmatical woman were, until quite recently, among the most
obscure problems of Russian history. It now appears that she came of a
Lithuanian stock, and was one of the four children of a small Catholic yeoman,
Samuel Skovronsky; but her father died of the plague while she was still a
babe, the family scattered, and little Martha was adopted by Pastor Gluck, the
Protestant superintendent of the Marienburg. district. Frau Gluck finally rid
herself of the girl by marrying her to a Swedish dragoon called Johan. A few
months later, the Swedes were compelled by the Russians to evacuate Marienburg,
and Martha became one of the prisoners of war of Marshal Sheremetev, who sold
her to Prince Menshikov, at whose house, in the German suburb of Moscow, Peter
the Great first beheld and made love to her in his own peculiar fashion. After
the birth of their first daughter Catherine, Peter made no secret of their
relations. He had found, at last, the woman he wanted, and she soon became so
indispensable to him that it was a torment to be without her. The situation was
regulated by the reception. of Martha into the Orthodox Church, when she was
rechristened under the name of Catherine Alekseyevna, the tsarevich Alexius
being her godfather, by the bestowal upon her of the title Gosudaruinya
or sovereign (1710 and, finally (1711), by her public marriage to the tsar,
who divorced the tsaritsa Eudoxia to make room for her. Henceforth the new
tsaritsa was her husband's inseparable companion. She was with him during the
campaign of the Pruth, and Peter always attributed the successful issue of that
disastrous war to the courage and sang-froid of his consort. She was with him,
too, during his earlier Caspian campaigns, and was obliged on this occasion to
shear off her beautiful hair and wear a close-fitting lur cap to protect her
from the rays of the sun.
By the ukaz of 1722 Catherine was proclaimed Peter's successor, to
the exclusion of the grand-duke Peter, the only son of the tsarevich Alexius,
and on the 7th of May 1724 was solemnly crowned empress-consort in the Uspensky
cathedral at Moscow, on which occasion she wore a crown studded with no fewer
than 2564 precious stones, surmounted by a ruby, as large as a pigeon's egg,
supporting a cross of brilliants. Within a few months of this culminating
triumph, she was threatened with utter ruin by the discovery of a supposed
liaison with her gentleman of the bedchamber, William Mons, a handsome
and unscrupulous upstart, and the brother of a former mistress of Peter. A
dangerously famillar but perfectly innocent flirtation is, however, the worst
that can fairly be alleged against Catherine on this occasion. So Peter also
seemed to have thought, for though Mons was decapitated and his severed head,
preserved in spirits, was placed in the apartments of the empress, she did not
lose Peter's favour, attended him during his last illness, and closed his eyes
when he expired (January 28, 1725). She was at once raised to the throne by the
party of progress, as represented by Prince Menshikov and Count Tolstoy, whose
interests and perils were identical with those of the empress, before the
reactionary party had time to organize opposition, her great popularity with
the army powerfully contributing to her success. The arch-prelates of the
Russian church, Theodosius, archbishop of Novgorod, and Theophanes, archbishop
of Pskov, were also on her side for very much the same reason, both of them
being unpopular innovators who felt that, at this crisis, they must stand or
fall with Tolstoy and Menshikov.
The great administrative innovation of Catherine's reign was the
establishment of the Verkhovny Tainy Sovyet, or supreme privy council,
by way of strengthening the executive, by concentrating affairs in the hands of
a few persons, mainly of the party of Reform (Ukaz of February 26,
1726). As to the foreign policy of Catherine I. (principally directed by the
astute Andrei Osterman), if purely pacific and extremely cautious, it was,
nevertheless, dignified, consistent and independent. Russia, by the mere force
of circumstances, now found herself opposed to England, chiefly because
Catherine protected Charles Frederick, duke of Holstein, and George I. found
that the Schleswig-Holstein question might be reopened to the detriment of his
Hanoverian possessions. Things came to such a pass that, in the spring of 1726,
an English squadron was sent to the Baltic and cast anchor before Reval. The
empress vigorously protested, and the fleet was withdrawn, but on the 6th of
August Catherine acceded to the anti-English Austro-Spanish league. Catherine
died on the 16th of May 1727. Though quite illiterate, she was an uncommonly
shrewd and sensible woman, and her imperturbable good nature under
exceptionally difficult circumstances, testifies equally to the soundness of
her head and the goodness of her heart.
See Robert Nisbet Bain, The Pupils of Peter the Great, chs.
ii.-iii. (London, 1897); The First Romanovs, ch. xiv. (London, 1905).
(R. N. B.)