by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2020

Peter III, Emperor of All Russia died at the age of 34 on July 17, 1762, at Ropsha Palace, a country estate outside of St. Petersburg, Russia. He was probably murdered but the circumstances of his death remain unclear.

Peter III, Emperor of All Russia

Peter III, Emperor of All Russia was born Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp on February 21, 1728, at Kiel Castle in Kiel, then in the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp, now in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. His father was Karl Friedrich, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. His mother was Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia, the elder of the two surviving daughters of Peter I (the Great), Emperor of All Russia and his second wife, born Marta Helena Skowrońska, the daughter of an ethnic Polish peasant, renamed Catherine (Ekaterina) Alexeievna, and later the successor to her husband Peter the Great as Catherine I, Empress of All Russia. Peter was his parents’ only child. His mother died at the age of 20, three months after his birth.

Peter was left in the care of the Holstein household guards who put sergeant’s stripes on Peter’s sleeve and let him drill with them. Peter lacked a serious education and any training in governing. Knowing nothing else but what the guards taught him, Peter became passionate about military drilling. In 1739, Peter’s father died, and at the age of eleven, he became Duke of Holstein-Gottorp.

In 1742, Peter’s life dramatically changed when his unmarried maternal aunt, his mother’s younger sister, Elizabeth, Empress of All Russia, declared him her heir and brought him to St. Petersburg, Russia. Peter converted from Lutheranism to Russian Orthodoxy, was given the name Peter Feodorovich, the title Grand Duke and was officially named the heir to the Russian throne.

It was important to Empress Elizabeth that Peter marry so that the Romanov dynasty would be continued. Elizabeth arranged for Peter to marry his second cousin, Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst (later Catherine II the Great), daughter of Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst and Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. Sophie converted to Russian Orthodoxy, took the name Ekaterina (Catherine) Alexeievna, and married Peter on August 21, 1745. Peter and Catherine’s marriage was not happy, but Catherine gave birth to one son, the future Emperor Paul, and one daughter Anna Petrovna, who died in early childhood. Both children were taken by Empress Elizabeth to her apartments immediately after their births to be raised by her. Both Peter and Catherine had affairs. Catherine later claimed that her son Paul was not Peter’s son and they had never consummated their marriage.

Peter never attempted to gain more knowledge about Russia, its people, and its history. He neglected Russian customs, behaved inappropriately during church services, and did not observe fasts and other rites. He spoke Russian poorly and infrequently. Empress Elizabeth did not allow Peter to participate in government affairs. On January 5, 1762, Elizabeth, Empress of All Russia died at the age of 52 after a massive stroke and her nephew became Peter III, Emperor of All Russia. Peter was unpopular and few were looking forward to his reign.

Roots of a Conspiracy

After he became Emperor of All Russia, Peter did little to win the support of Empress Elizabeth’s friends and courtiers. His foreign policy also did little to win supporters. The last straw for Peter may have been how he treated the Russian army. Peter abolished “the guard within the guard”, a group within the Preobrazhensky Regiment, created by Empress Elizabeth as her personal guard in remembrance of their support in the coup which brought her to the throne. He replaced “the guard within the guard” with his own Holstein guard and often spoke about their superiority over the Russian army.

Meanwhile, Catherine’s position deteriorated along with the position of three groups – the clergy, senior statesmen and the Imperial Guard, the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Peter began to think about divorcing Catherine and marrying his mistress. Wisely, Catherine quietly aligned herself with the three groups. She remained calm and dignified even when Peter grossly insulted her in public. The devotion of the Preobrazhensky Regiment to Catherine was never in doubt because her favorite Grigory Orlov and his four brothers were all members of the Guard.

A Conspiracy to Overthrow Peter

A conspiracy to overthrow Peter was planned and centered around the five Orlov brothers with Grigory, Catherine’s favorite, and Alexei being the main conspirators.

• Ivan Grigoryevich Orlov (1733–1791)
• Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (1734–1783)
• Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov (1737–1808)
• Fyodor Grigoryevich Orlov (1741–1796)
• Vladimir Grigorievich Orlov (1743–1831)

On July 9, 1762 (June 29 in Old Style, the feast day of St. Peter and Paul), at Peterhof, a celebration of Peter’s name day was planned. It was no coincidence that the conspirators chose this time for their attack. The day before, Peter was to travel from Oranienbaum to Peterhof. The brothers Alexei Orlov and Grigory Orlov made preparations during weeks before the planned celebration. With threats and bribes of vodka and money, the Orlov brothers set up the guards against Peter.

Peter was late leaving Oranienbaum due to a hangover and his daily habit of reviewing his Holstein troops. He was to meet Catherine at Peterhof but she was not there when he arrived. Eventually, Peter and the few advisers he had with him began to suspect what was happening. Peter sent members of his entourage to St. Petersburg to find out what was happening but none returned. Eventually, he learned that Catherine had proclaimed herself Catherine II, Empress of All Russia, and that the senior government officials, the clergy, and all the Guards supported her.

Peter ordered his Holstein guards to take up defensive positions at Peterhof. They did so but were afraid to tell Peter they had no cannonballs to fire. Peter thought about fleeing but was told that there were no horses available because his entourage had all arrived in carriages. Learning that Catherine and the Guards were approaching Peterhof, Peter made a desperate decision to sail Kronstadt, a fortress on an island. Upon arrival, Peter was refused admittance because all those in the fortress had sworn allegiance to Catherine. Peter rejected the advice of his advisors to go to the Prussian army and returned to Oranienbaum.

Peter and his Holstein guards were behind the gates at Oranienbaum when Alexei Orlov and his men surrounded Oranienbaum. Peter sent a message that he would renounce the throne if he, his mistress, and his favorite Russian general were allowed to go to Holstein. Catherine sent Grigori Orlov with a Russian general to Oranienbaum insisting that Peter must write a formal announcement of abdication in his own handwriting. Grigori Orlov was to deal with the abdication and the general was to lure Peter out of Oranienbaum and back to Peterhof to prevent any bloodshed. Grigori Orlov rode back to Peterhof with the signed abdication announcement and the general convinced Peter to go to Peterhof and beg Catherine for mercy. Upon arrival at Peterhof, Peter was arrested and taken by Alexei Orlov to Ropsha Palace, a country estate outside of St. Petersburg.

Catherine had to deal with the same dilemma that Empress Elizabeth had to deal with regarding Ivan VI who she had deposed – keeping a former emperor around was a threat to her throne. Catherine intended to send Peter to Shlisselburg Fortress where Ivan VI, who had been deposed in 1741 as an infant, was still imprisoned. However, Catherine did not have to deal with a living deposed emperor for long.

Peter’s Death

One thing was certain – Peter was dead. He died at the age of 34 on July 17, 1762, at Ropsha Palace. What is uncertain is how he died. In the early afternoon of July 17, 1762, Peter was invited to dine with Alexei Orlov and Prince Feodor Baryatinsky, one of the officers of his guards. At 6:00 PM, a rider from Ropsha Palace reached St. Petersburg with a letter from Alexei Orlov for Catherine. Orlov wrote: “At dinner he [Peter] started quarreling and struggling with Prince Baryatinsky at the table. Before we could separate them, he was dead. We ourselves know not what we did. But we are equally guilty and deserve to die.”

Whether Peter’s death was planned or the result of an accidental drunken altercation is unknown. Catherine certainly benefitted from Peter’s death which happened in the presence of one of her key allies and his men. The Orlov brothers and the officers guarding Peter hated him. They would have known that they were doing the new empress a favor. The official cause of Peter’s death was “a severe attack of hemorrhoidal colic.”

Aftermath

Catherine was advised to have Peter’s body displayed so that it would be known he was dead and not hidden away like Ivan VI still was. Peter lay in state at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St. Petersburg in the blue uniform Holstein cavalry officer, drawing to his foreign birth. He wore a large tricornered hat covering his forehead and the part of his face that was visible was black and swollen. Around his neck and up to his chin was a wide cravat. It is common for those of the Russian Orthodox faith to be buried holding a cross in their bare hands but Peter was wearing leather riding gloves. It seems likely that Peter was dressed to hide the results of strangulation – the cravat to cover a bruised throat and gloves to hide injuries from trying to fight for his life. Despite the attempt to hide Peter’s injuries, there were rumors among the thousands of people who filed past his coffin that Peter had been poisoned and/or strangled.

Peter was denied a burial place at the Cathedral of Peter and Paul at the Peter and Paul Fortress that his grandfather Peter I “the Great” had built. Instead, Peter was buried without honors in the Annunciation Church at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St. Petersburg.

Never destined at birth to be a monarch or even married to a monarch, Catherine II, Empress of All Russia, born Princess Sophie Auguste Friederike of Anhalt-Zerbst, reigned for thirty-four years. During Catherine’s reign, Russia grew larger and stronger and was recognized as one of the great powers of Europe. Five years after she came to the throne, the Legislative Assembly voted to name her Catherine the Great but she refused. Later in her reign, when she was again called Catherine the Great, she replied, “I beg you no longer to call me Catherine the Great because my name is Catherine II.” After her death, Russians began speaking of her as Catherine the Great and she is still called that today.

When Catherine II died in 1796, her son and successor Paul I, Emperor of All Russia sought to seek revenge for the deposed and disgraced Peter III and for the coup of his mother Catherine II. Paul ordered the remains of Peter III, Emperor of All Russia to first be transferred to the church in the Winter Palace and then to be moved to the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, the burial site of the Romanovs. 60-year-old Alexei Orlov, who had played a role in deposing Peter III, was made to walk in the funeral cortege, holding the Imperial Crown as he walked in front of the coffin. Peter III was reburied in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg at the same time as the burial of his wife Catherine II. Peter III had never been crowned so at the time of his reburial, Paul I personally performed the ritual of coronation of his Peter’s remains. Ironically, Paul I, Emperor of All Russia suffered a fate similar to Peter III. Paul’s reign lasted five years, ending with his assassination by conspirators.

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