Peter III.

Peter III. (FEODOROVICH) of Russia, grandson of Peter the Great (being the son of his eldest daughter Anna Petrowna, wife of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp), was born at Kiel, 29th January 1728, and in 1742 was declared by the Czarina Elizabeth (q.v.) her successor on the throne of Russia. From the time of his being publicly proclaimed heir he lived at the Russian court; and in obedience to the wishes of the czarina he married Sophia Augusta, a princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, who on entering the Greek Church assumed the name of Catharina Alexieevna. Peter succeeded Elizabeth on her death in 1762; and his first act of authority was to restore East Prussia to Frederick the Great (whom he admired extravagantly), and to send to his aid a force of 15,000 men. He also recalled many of the political exiles from Siberia. When arranging in 1762 a campaign to take Sleswick from Denmark a formidable conspiracy, headed by his wife, and supported by the principal nobles, broke out against him—a conspiracy which originated in the general discontent at the czar's liberal innovations, the preference he showed for Germans, his indifference to the national religion, and his servility to Frederick the Great. The czar was declared to have forfeited his crown; his wife Catharine was proclaimed as Catharine II. (q.v.); and Peter, who supinely abdicated, was strangled by Orloff and some of the conspirators on the 17th July 1762.