Free Terrible Tsarinas: Five Russian Women in Power by Henri Troyat Page A

chosen bride Catherine, little Katya, without delay. But this claim struck Prince Vasily Vladimirovich as exorbitant, and he protested in the name of all the family.
    “Neither I nor any of mine will wish to be her subjects! She is not married!”
    “She is promised in marriage!” retorted Alexis.
    “That’s not the same at all!”
    A heated debate erupted. Prince Sergei Dolgoruky suggested raising the Guard to support the cause of the tsar’s fiancée. Turning toward General Vasily Vladimirovich Dolgoruky, he exclaimed: “You and Ivan control the Preobrazhensky regiment. Together, the two of you can make your men do whatever you want!”
    “We would be massacred!” retorted the General; and he walked out of the meeting.
    After he left, another Dolgoruky, Prince Vasily Lukich, a member of the Supreme Privy Council, sat down by the fireplace where an enormous wood fire as burning and, on his own authority, drafted a will for the tsar to sign - while he still had the strength to read and sign an official document. The other members of the family flocked around him and suggested a sentence here, a word there to refine the text. When he was done, someone in the group spoke up, voicing the fear that their adversaries would dispute the authenticity of the document. A third Dolgoruky, Ivan, Peter’s little friend and the fiancé of Natalya Sheremetiev, came to the rescue. Did they need the tsar’s signature? Aha! He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to his relatives.
    “Here is the tsar’s handwriting,” he said, cheerfully. “And here is mine. You yourselves would not be able to tell them apart. And I know how to sign his name as well; I often did so as a joke!”
    The onlookers were flabbergasted - but not indignant. Dipping a quill into the inkwell, Ivan signed Peter’s name at the bottom of the page. They all leaned over his shoulder and murmured with wonder.
    “That is exactly the hand of the tsar!”13 they exclaimed.
    Then the conspirators exchanged half-reassured glances and prayed God that they would be spared the necessity of actually using this forgery.
    From time to time, they sent emissaries to the palace for an update on the tsar’s condition. The news was grimmer and grimmer. Peter died at one o’clock in the morning, Monday, January 19, 1730, at the age of 14 years and three months. His reign had lasted just over two and a half years. January 19, 1730, the day of his death, is the date he had set a few weeks before for his marriage with Catherine Dolgoruky.

    Footnotes

    1. Cf. Brian-Chaninov: Histoire de Russie .
    2. A traditional term designating the daughter of the tsar.
    3. Cf. Daria Olivier, Op. Cit.
    4. Cf. Waliszewski, L’Héritage de Pierre le Grand .
    5. Cf. Daria Olivier, Op. Cit.
    6. Details provided by Essipov: “L’Exil du prince Menshikov,” Annales de la Patrie , 1861, and cited by Waliszewski, Op. Cit.
    7. Almost 2500 lbs.
    8. Waliszewski, Op. Cit.
    9. Menshikov’s two other children, his son Alexander and his daughter Alexandra, were recalled from exile only under the following reign.
    10. The future Peter III, who would marry Catherine the Great.
    11. Cited by Soloviov: Histoire de Russie , quoted by K Waliszewski, Op. Cit.
    12. Ibid .
    13. Details found in the State Archives (Moscow) file on the Dolgoruky scan dal, and quoted by Kostomarov in his Monograph and by K. Waliszewski, Op. Cit.

IV: THE SURPRISE ACCESSION OF ANNA IVANOVNA
    The same uncertainty that had embarrassed the members of the Supreme Privy Council upon the death of Peter the Great gripped them again in the hours following the demise of Peter II. In the absence of a male heir and an authentic will, who could replace the late ruler without sparking a revolution among the aristocracy?
    The usual notables were gathered at Lefortovo Palace in Moscow, with the Golitsyns, Golovkins and Dolgorukys at the center. But nobody had the nerve, at first, to voice an opinion - as if all the titled