128 RUSSIA IN EUROPE. 



most violent convulsions, from which it was with great difficulty tha€ 

 he regained a little interval of sense, during which he desired hi3 

 father would come to see him ; when he asked his pardon and soon 

 after died. According to other accounts, he was secretly executed 

 in prison, and marshal Weyde was the person who beheaded him. 

 After this event, in 1724, Peter ordei'ed his wife Catharine to be 

 crowned, with the same magnificent ceremonies as if she had been a 

 Greek empress, and to be recognised as his successor; which she 

 accordingly was, and mounted the Russian throne upon the decease 

 of her husband. She died, after a glorious reign, in 1727, and was 

 succeeded by Peter II, a minor, son to the czarovvitz. Many domestic 

 revolutions happened in Russia during the short reign of this prince ; 

 but none more remarkable than the disgrace and exile of prince Men- 

 zikoff, the favourite general in the two late reigns, and esteemed the 

 richest subject in Europe. Peter II, died of the small pox, in 1730. 



Notwithstanding the despotism of Peter and his wife, the Russian 

 senate and nobility, upon the death of Peter II, ventured to set aside 

 the order of succession which they had established. The male issue 

 of Peter was now extinguished ; and the duke of Holstein, son to the 

 eldest daugther, was, by the destination of the late empress, entitled 

 to the crown ; but the Russians, for political reasons, filled their 

 throne with Anne, duchess of Courland, second daughter to Ivan, Pe- 

 ter's eldest brother, though her eldest sister, the dutchess of Meck- 

 lenburg, was alive. Her reign was extremely prosperous ; and 

 though she accepted the throne under limitations that some thought 

 derogatory to her dignity, yet she broke them all, and asserted the 

 prerogative of her ancestors. Upon her death in 1740, John, the son 

 of her niece the princess of Mecklenburg, by Anthony Ulric of Bruns- 

 wick Wolfenbuttle, was by her will entided to the succession ; but 

 being no more than two years old, Biron, who had been her favourite, 

 and raised by her to the dutchy of Courland, was appointed to be ad- 

 ministrator of the empire during his nonage. This destination was 

 disagreeable to the princess of Mecklenburg and her husband, and 

 unpopular among the Russians. Count Munich was employed by the 

 princess of Mecklenburg to arrest Biron, who was tried, and con- 

 demned to die, but was sent into exile to Siberia. The administra- 

 tion of the princess Anne of Mecklenburg and her husband was on 

 many accounts, but particularly that of her German connexions, dis- 

 agreeable, not only to'the Russians, but to other powers of Europe ; 

 and notwithstanding a prosperous war they carried on with the Swedes, 

 the princess Elizabeth, daughter, by Catharine, to Peter the Great, 

 formed such a party, that in one night's time she was declared and 

 proclaimed emptess of the Russias ; and the princess of Mecklen- 

 burg, her husband, _and son, were made prisoners. 



The reign of Elizabeth may be said to have been more glorious 

 than that of any of her predecessors, her father excepted. She abolish- 

 ed capital punishments, and introduced into all civil and military pro- 

 ceedings a moderation, till her time unknown in Russia ; but at the 

 same time she punished counts Munich and Osterman, who had the 

 chief management of affairs during the late administration, with exile. 

 She made peace with Sweden, and settled, as we have already seen, the 

 succession to that crown, as well as to her own dominions, upon the 

 most equitable foundation. Having gloriously finished a war with 

 Sweden, she restored the natural order of succession in her own family, 

 by declaring the duke of Holstein Gottorp, who was descended from 



