October 7, 2025 • 29 mins
When Peter the Great's son and heir was on trial for treason, the emperor instructed the jury to treat him as they would any other man. If he were to be convicted, the sentence would be death.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener Discretion advised. The year
is seventeen eighteen, and the Russian jurists are about to
hand down their verdict. The charge is incredibly serious, treason
(00:21):
against the Tsar Peter the Great, punishable by death. Some
of the members of the jury are sweating, but they're
all pretending not to. They've been instructed that they should
treat the accused in exactly the same way that they
would treat any man who comes before them. They should
not play nice or go gentle on him. They've been
(00:43):
promised that they won't be punished even if they find
him guilty. But the jury has reason to be a
little anxious about the situation because the accused, the man
standing trial for treason against the Tsar of Russia, is
the Tsarevich, the son of the Tsar. And so the
(01:06):
jury handed in their verdict. Tsarevich Alexei, twenty eight years old,
the heir to the Russian throne, the only one of
Peter's many children who had survived to adulthood, was guilty.
Everyone in the courtroom knew what that meant. A sentence
(01:26):
of death.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
The jurors all prayed that the Emperor would not rescind
his promise and decide to kill them after all, but
they also knew that the ultimate fate of Alexei did
not rest with them. Peter the Great would have to
sign off on any punishment himself. If he wanted his
own son and heir killed, then he would have to
(01:51):
approve it with his own hand. Surely, some in the
room believed he would never approve it. Yes, Peter and
Alexey had had their struggles. The boy was weak, the
son of Peter's unloved first wife. Alexei was an endless
chooser of flight over fight, too eager to voluntarily abdegate
(02:15):
his place in the succession. But Peter had also given
him chance after chance before. Alexey was his own flesh
and blood. After all. Surely Peter would not allow that
flesh and blood torn tortuously apart on his watch. But
then again, Peter the Great didn't get that nickname for nothing.
(02:39):
Great and terrible are terribly close words when we speak
of Russian monarchs, and if we've learned one thing over
the course of this podcast, it's that when it comes
to royal families. The royal wins out over the family
with chilling frequently, I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood.
(03:07):
The Emperor, who would later be known as Peter the Great,
came to the throne as Czar Peter the First in
sixteen eighty two, when he was only ten years old.
He was co ruler with his older half brother Ivan
the Fifth, but Ivan was at least partially paralyzed, blind,
(03:27):
and likely cognitively impaired. They were both basically dominated by
Peter's older half sister, Sophia, who was regent. All this
meant that even though Peter was officially Tzar, he didn't
grow up in the palace. He hung out with his mother,
who was more open to Western influence than the Russian monarchs.
(03:50):
In sixteen eighty nine, when Peter was seventeen, his mother
arranged his marriage to a woman named Eudoxia Lopukina. Peter
never seemed to love his wife, but one year later,
on February twenty eighth, sixteen ninety their son and heir,
Alexei Petrovitch was born. Peter set off fireworks in celebration. Then,
(04:14):
in sixteen ninety six, Peter's half brother Ivan died, leaving
Peter as sol Tsar of Russia. Naturally, he had Sophia,
the former regent, banished to a convent, which was the
Russian ruler's common solution for unwanted sisters, wives, and generally
(04:35):
pesky women. Peter was known for a ton of innovations
in Russia that we don't have the time to list
in full. But he established the Empire of Russia, so
he was the first Russian ruler to be not only
czar but also emperor. He developed Russia's military might, and
(04:55):
he was considered a modernizing and westernizing force. He modernized
and even designed the Russian written alphabet, and in seventeen
oh two established the first Russian newspaper. He also founded
the city of Saint Petersburg and moved the capital there
from Moscow. He was a strange man. I can only
(05:20):
give you some of the strangest highlights. Though standing at
an almost unheard of six foot seven, he preferred to
live in little houses with small ceilings called dumiki. His
cabinet of Curiosities was famous for its bizarre and grotesque
collection of human and animal fetuses with birth defects. He
(05:45):
once held a grand event known as the Most Drunken
Snynod of Fools and Jesters. In an effort to force
Russian men to accord with the shaven faced fashion of Europe,
he instituted a beard tax on any Russian who wore
a beard. If you paid it, you received a coin
(06:07):
engraved with an actual image of a beard and mustache
to prove that your style was allowed. A hipster mustache
loving dream. Not only are mustache special, they're also exclusive.
He had two wives. First was Eudoxia, whom he was
never wild about. In sixteen ninety eight, after nearly ten
(06:29):
years of marriage, he had her banished to surprise a convent.
Then Peter officially married his second wife, Catherine the First,
in seventeen o seven. Of course, Peter also had many mistresses,
including the famous British actress of drury Lane, Letitia Cross.
(06:51):
Between his two wives, Peter had fifteen legitimate children, although
only three of them survived to a But even when
you look at that claim with modern eyes, its heartbreakingly
short term. Only one child by Catherine the First, Elizabetta Petrovna,
lived past her twenties. It is hard to imagine the
(07:15):
grief of Catherine, who had twelve babies and watched ten
of them die as infants or as very young children.
And it is hard to imagine what Peter the Great
must have been thinking in autumn of seventeen fifteen, when
he was contemplating his heirs for the Russian throne. He
(07:38):
had only one living son at this point, Tsarevich Alexey,
the daughter of Eudoxia. Four other sons had died as infants.
Alexey and his father had always had a strained relationship.
After setting off fireworks and celebrations for little Alexey's birth,
(07:58):
Peter largely lost interest in the boy. After all, he
was the son of Peter's unloved first wife, Eudoxia. When
Alexey was eight, his father sent his mother off to
a convent, wrenching him away from her. Alexey was a
somewhat sickly boy, cowardly and uninterested in military action, not
(08:21):
qualities that particularly excited Peter about an heir. Alexey was
so afraid of his father that he once shot himself
in the hand to avoid having to see him classic Alexey,
though he missed, burning himself badly, and then he lied
to his father that it was an accident. He wrote
(08:45):
that he quote would rather be a galley slave or
have a burning fever than have to go to see
a Russian ship launched. His mother in law said that
quote it is quite useless for his father to force
him to tend to military matters, as he would rather
have a rosary than a pistol in his hand. In
(09:06):
other words, in his father's eyes, he was just kind
of a bummer. But Peter nonetheless wanted his son to
become a man he could trust as his successor. Starting
when Alexey was twelve, Peter took the boy along with
him on various military sieges as preparation for his future
(09:28):
as a military leader. When Alexey was seventeen, Peter put
him in charge of the defense of Moscow. But Alexey
never took an interest in his father's warring. He was meek.
He accepted Peter's idea that he marry a German princess
Charlotte in seventeen eleven, when he was twenty one and
(09:52):
she seventeen. Alexey doated on their daughter, Natalia, but he
drank so often and so much that he'd largely ignored
his wife Charlotte, leaving her to a bedroom where the
rain came through the roof. In a storm, Peter had
to reprimand his son to take some care of his wife.
(10:15):
So by seventeen fifteen it was clear to Peter that
his son Alexey was a weak candidate to be his
heir to the empire. But in the autumn of seventeen
fifteen there was reason to think that Peter's outlook might change.
Two reasons, in fact, because there were not one, but
(10:38):
two heavily pregnant women in Russian court. On October twenty third,
seventeen fifteen, Alexey's wife Charlotte gave birth to their second child,
a boy. He was named Peter Alexevitch, and one week
after that, on November ninth, seventeen fifteen, Peter the Great
(11:01):
wife Catherine, also gave birth to a son, Peter Petrovitch.
The baby survived his first days, and then weeks and
then months of life. Peter wrote, God has sent me
a new recruit. So by the time at seventeen sixteen dawned,
(11:22):
Peter the Great found himself in a very different position
than he had been at the beginning of seventeen fifteen,
there were now two little Peters in Russia, both legitimate
heirs to his throne, which meant that suddenly, when it
came to the Russian line of succession, Peter the Great
had other options. The story of what happened next between
(11:48):
Peter the Great and his oldest surviving son, Alexei can
be told in a set of fantastic letters that we
still have. Between father and son, the whole story is there.
Alexei's wife, Charlotte, died ten days after giving birth to
Alexei's son. On her funeral day, Peter the Great gave
(12:11):
his son a letter, a declaration to my son. It read, you,
my son, reject all means of making yourself capable of
governing well after me. I say your incapacity is voluntary,
because you cannot excuse yourself with want of natural parts
and strength of body, as if God had not given
(12:34):
you sufficient share of either. And though your constitution is
none the strongest, yet it cannot be said that it
is altogether weak. Peter articulated a philosophy of governing and
his personal disappointment in his son. He articulated his sadness
that his son didn't care about war, and described his
(12:56):
belief that the Russian people would follow a leader like
Alexi say into forgetting about the importance of war. Peter
said that physical sickness has nothing to do with a
sovereign's inclination toward or interest in war, and gave the
example of his even sicker brother Ivan the Fifth, who
was nonetheless interested in war, unlike Alexey. The letter ends quote,
(13:21):
I am a man, and consequently I must die. Peter
wonders if Alexey is up to the succession and expresses
that he is not, and offers him a bit more
time to see if he can rise to the occasion.
If he doesn't, Peter says, then quote, I will deprive
you of the succession, as one may cut off a
(13:44):
useless member. Harsh words, especially to get on the day
of your wife's funeral. But to me, the most important
and interesting part in the letter comes after, also the
most faithful and tragic. Do not fancy that I only
(14:04):
write this, Peter said, to terrify you. To me, it's
clear that Peter's great disappointment with his son is all
about desire. He just wants his son to want the throne.
Don't want to be disinherited. Peter is saying, if you
(14:25):
want to rule, if you want to be interested in war,
that is enough. And the tragedy is that Peter the
Great and his son Alexey really were in this ships
passing in the night. It's like they simply could not
hear each other. If what Peter cared about most was
(14:45):
Alexey wanting the throne, then the last thing Alexey should
have done was except the threat of his removal from
the line of succession. Alexey went running to his advisors,
and on their count he wrote back to his father
saying that if you quote will deprive me of the
succession to the crown of Russia by reason of my incapacity,
(15:10):
your will be done. I even most urgently beg it
of you. It's like these two men just cannot see
each other. It's not an incapacity that Peter hates, and
his son he gives the positive example of his actually
much weaker and more incapacitated brother. It's that very proclivity
(15:32):
to accept meekness and powerlessness, and that was exactly what
the ever disappointing Alexey did. In the meantime, Peter was
getting sick, and Alexey was basically just hoping to outlive
his father and have this whole affair be over. But
de escalation is not a thing in the Russian court,
(15:55):
Peter writes back to Alexey, escalating accept the emperorship, says Peter,
or else become a monk. Peter hopes that threats will
make Alexey finally snap and want power, but he doesn't
see his son, just as his son does not see him.
(16:17):
All threats do is make the boy even meeker. I
will embrace the monastical state and desire your gracious consent
to it, Alexey writes back to Peter. It really is
kind of hard to avoid the conclusion that Alexey really
would have been a kind of weak ruler who didn't
(16:39):
really want to rule. But at this point Peter is
getting really angry at his weak son, and Alexey is
getting pretty afraid of his father. He really doesn't seem
to want the throne. The one thing he actually seems
to want is to be with his mistress, a woman
named Afrosina. So, in consultation with his advisors, Alexey decides
(17:04):
to do something really foolish. He runs away. He dresses
his mistress as a boy page, and they get out
of Dodge. The pair land in Vienna, and Alexey asks
his brother in law and bor Charles the sixth to
conceal him there. It really wasn't the most intelligent move.
(17:29):
He kept on doing exactly the things that would most
disappoint his father, and a disappointed Peter was soon an
enraged one. Of course, the situation couldn't last long, though
Charles the sixth did agree to let Alexey hide at court.
The disguise started failing pretty shortly thereafter. Efrisina was pregnant,
(17:55):
so her disguise as a boy page fell apart. Peter
found out that Vienna was hiding his son, and now
the Russian and the Viennese emperors are both realizing that
this could escalate to an international crisis, so everyone had
to proceed with delicacy. Peter sent an emissary named Tolstoy,
(18:18):
not the famous writer, to get Alexey back by any means,
including outright duplicity if necessary. Naturally, Peter continued to threaten
Alexey via letter, not that his strategy of threats ever worked.
He wrote quote, if you return, I will love you
better than ever. But if you refuse, then I declare
(18:42):
you traitor, and I assure you I will find the
means to use you as such. Again, threats never worked
with Alexey. But the key was the girl, the Mistress,
that he loved. Because Alexey did truly love her, all
he wants. Alexey told tolstoy Is to get to marry
(19:04):
Efrisina and go live in a country cottage together with her.
Would his father agree to that? It's a nice dream,
But Alexey had noble blood running through his veins. As
any listener of this podcast might already know, retiring to
acute cabin with a wife that you love is not
(19:27):
really a likely option for an heir to a throne.
Peter the Great promised that Alexey could marry the Mistress.
Alexey was not smart enough not to believe him. In
an earlier letter to his son, Peter had quoted the Bible,
King David said, all men are liars. This kid did
(19:50):
not have the strategic mind he would have needed to
find a way out of his predicament. He could not
outstrategize his father, and so Alexey agreed to go back
to Russia. The historian Robert K. Massey, one of the
most helpful sources for this episode, quotes the response to
(20:11):
Alexey's choice quote, he will have a coffin instead of
a wedding. In February seventeen eighteen, the Kremlin was full
as Alexey publicly confessed to running away to Europe and
he renounced his claim to the throne. Peter accepted pardoning
(20:31):
his son on condition that Alexeys share all of his co conspirators.
It was the beginning of a brutal, bloody retribution that
Peter enacted on seemingly everyone except Alexey. At first, Peter
found his ex wife, Eudoxia, who was living in a
(20:51):
monastery but not as a nun. Her lover was tortured,
her brother was killed, along with four others condemned to
death for having helped Alexey flee to Europe, and Alexey
seemingly didn't care as the people who helped him were investigated, tortured,
(21:12):
or killed. All he seemed to want to do was
Mary Afrisina, who, by the way, he wasn't physically with
due to her pregnancy. He did not bring her back
to Russia. With him upon his return from Europe. But
he wrote her loving, longing letters, desperate for her in
(21:33):
their separation, while she kind of isn't writing that sort
of letter back. Secretaries write her letters back to him
once she adds and asks for caviar. But the worst
for Alexey is yet to come. Peter the Great did,
for once unlock the keys to his son. He found Efrisina,
(21:57):
and without subjecting her to any torture at all, she
betrayed her lover. Yes, she said Alexey wanted Peter dead.
He spoke of it often. She repeated the claims to
Alexei's face. It's hard to imagine how much this must
have pained him. The one thing he seemed to genuinely
(22:20):
love in this life, the one thing he seemed to
actually fight for. Who knows what he felt when he
saw his beloved Africina again and had to watch her
sell him out. His dreams of a country cottage shimmered
before him, and then they were wiped out in an instant.
(22:42):
Maybe whatever will he had left to live left him
at that moment. After Aforsina's confessions, there was nothing else
for it. Alexey went on trial Peter called both an
ecclesiastical court and a secual court. Do not be moved,
(23:02):
he told them by the fact that you are to
judge the son of your sovereign, for we swear to
you that you have absolutely nothing to fear. Of course,
Peter had also promised Alexey that he could marry Africina
and go live a cottage core life with her. But
nonetheless Peter's orders to the jury were clear. Anyone else
(23:24):
on trial would have been tortured to extract a confession,
and so was Alexey. He was struck twenty five times
with a not a kind of whipping torture on June nineteenth.
Five days later he received fifteen more blows. His back
was bleeding. The whipping torture had killed stronger men than alexe.
(23:49):
He confessed to having wished for his father's death, and
on June twenty fourth, the jury did what it had
to do after such a confession, found Alexey guilty of
rebellion against the emperor. So Tsarevich Alexey, heir to the
Russian throne, was condemned to death, but it was up
(24:11):
to Peter the Great to decide whether to allow the
sentence to be carried out. In a tragic or perhaps
gracious twist of fate, Peter never had to make a decision.
Alexey fell ill, he requested his father see him, and
Peter did, reportedly crying alongside his dying son. Alexei died
(24:36):
on June twenty sixth, seventeen eighteen, at the age of
twenty eight. No one official acknowledged it explicitly, but it's
likely he simply did not survive the blows with the
no Alexey was stronger than he'd always thought, but weaker
(24:56):
than his father had always wished. Had not signed off
on condemning his own son to the death penalty, but
he did allow the torture that almost certainly killed him.
After Alexey's death, he was mourned like a tsarvich rather
(25:17):
than a criminal, interred in state. Peter the Great died
on February eighth, seventeen twenty five, at the age of
fifty two. He did not name a successor, and after
he died, the succession was confusing. Of the two baby
Peters who had given him such hope, his own little
(25:40):
son had died in seventeen nineteen at age three. His wife,
Catherine ruled as empress for two years until her own
death in seventeen twenty seven, and then, maybe in small
revenge for Alexey, it was his own son Peter, who
took the throne for not quite three years before he
(26:03):
died at age fourteen. Peter the Great is not the
only Russian monarch to have killed his son. Nearly one
hundred and fifty years earlier, in fifteen eighty one, the
first Czar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible, had flown into
a rage and killed his own son and only competent heir,
(26:25):
when the boy was twenty seven, almost exactly the same
age as Alexei was when he died. But Peter was
not raging like Ivan was when he coolly instructed the
court to treat Alexey as they would any other accused criminal.
So far as I know, said the historian Jonathan Day,
(26:48):
there were no other European monarchs who oversaw the torture
of their own children. What would Peter have done if
his son had not died. Would he have sent Tint
his own son to the death penalty? We can't know.
History can only be left to wonder. But at Alexei's funeral,
(27:09):
the preacher quoted from the Old Testament, Oh absalom, my son,
my son. That's the story of Russian Emperor Peter the
Great killing his son, albeit indirectly. But stick around after
a brief sponsor break to hear about the women in
(27:32):
the story. You may be wondering a little bit about
the women in the story. As for Afrisina, Alexey's beloved mistress,
intended wife, and ultimate betrayer, her child disappeared from history.
(27:52):
No one knows whether Alexey and Afrisina's child lived or died,
or where the child was born. Afrosina got married herself
and lived another thirty years in Saint Petersburg. As for Eudoxia,
Peter the Great, unloved first wife and Alexey's mother, who
had been banished to a convent. Her lover had been
(28:15):
brutally tortured and her brother was killed over the Alexey affair,
but she wound up with the last laugh. It was
her grandson, Peter Alexevitch, who wound up on the throne
after Catherine the second Wife's death, and when he got there,
Eudoxia left the convent at last, despite her husband having
(28:39):
banished her Eudoxia, Wound Up Dying at Court. Noble Blood
is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from
Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me Danash Schwartz,
(29:01):
with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender,
Amy Hit and Julia Melaney. The show is edited and
produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima il Kaali and
executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(29:26):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener Discretion advised. The year
is seventeen eighteen, and the Russian jurists are about to
hand down their verdict. The charge is incredibly serious, treason
(00:21):
against the Tsar Peter the Great, punishable by death. Some
of the members of the jury are sweating, but they're
all pretending not to. They've been instructed that they should
treat the accused in exactly the same way that they
would treat any man who comes before them. They should
not play nice or go gentle on him. They've been
(00:43):
promised that they won't be punished even if they find
him guilty. But the jury has reason to be a
little anxious about the situation because the accused, the man
standing trial for treason against the Tsar of Russia, is
the Tsarevich, the son of the Tsar. And so the
(01:06):
jury handed in their verdict. Tsarevich Alexei, twenty eight years old,
the heir to the Russian throne, the only one of
Peter's many children who had survived to adulthood, was guilty.
Everyone in the courtroom knew what that meant. A sentence
(01:26):
of death.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
The jurors all prayed that the Emperor would not rescind
his promise and decide to kill them after all, but
they also knew that the ultimate fate of Alexei did
not rest with them. Peter the Great would have to
sign off on any punishment himself. If he wanted his
own son and heir killed, then he would have to
(01:51):
approve it with his own hand. Surely, some in the
room believed he would never approve it. Yes, Peter and
Alexey had had their struggles. The boy was weak, the
son of Peter's unloved first wife. Alexei was an endless
chooser of flight over fight, too eager to voluntarily abdegate
(02:15):
his place in the succession. But Peter had also given
him chance after chance before. Alexey was his own flesh
and blood. After all. Surely Peter would not allow that
flesh and blood torn tortuously apart on his watch. But
then again, Peter the Great didn't get that nickname for nothing.
(02:39):
Great and terrible are terribly close words when we speak
of Russian monarchs, and if we've learned one thing over
the course of this podcast, it's that when it comes
to royal families. The royal wins out over the family
with chilling frequently, I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood.
(03:07):
The Emperor, who would later be known as Peter the Great,
came to the throne as Czar Peter the First in
sixteen eighty two, when he was only ten years old.
He was co ruler with his older half brother Ivan
the Fifth, but Ivan was at least partially paralyzed, blind,
(03:27):
and likely cognitively impaired. They were both basically dominated by
Peter's older half sister, Sophia, who was regent. All this
meant that even though Peter was officially Tzar, he didn't
grow up in the palace. He hung out with his mother,
who was more open to Western influence than the Russian monarchs.
(03:50):
In sixteen eighty nine, when Peter was seventeen, his mother
arranged his marriage to a woman named Eudoxia Lopukina. Peter
never seemed to love his wife, but one year later,
on February twenty eighth, sixteen ninety their son and heir,
Alexei Petrovitch was born. Peter set off fireworks in celebration. Then,
(04:14):
in sixteen ninety six, Peter's half brother Ivan died, leaving
Peter as sol Tsar of Russia. Naturally, he had Sophia,
the former regent, banished to a convent, which was the
Russian ruler's common solution for unwanted sisters, wives, and generally
(04:35):
pesky women. Peter was known for a ton of innovations
in Russia that we don't have the time to list
in full. But he established the Empire of Russia, so
he was the first Russian ruler to be not only
czar but also emperor. He developed Russia's military might, and
(04:55):
he was considered a modernizing and westernizing force. He modernized
and even designed the Russian written alphabet, and in seventeen
oh two established the first Russian newspaper. He also founded
the city of Saint Petersburg and moved the capital there
from Moscow. He was a strange man. I can only
(05:20):
give you some of the strangest highlights. Though standing at
an almost unheard of six foot seven, he preferred to
live in little houses with small ceilings called dumiki. His
cabinet of Curiosities was famous for its bizarre and grotesque
collection of human and animal fetuses with birth defects. He
(05:45):
once held a grand event known as the Most Drunken
Snynod of Fools and Jesters. In an effort to force
Russian men to accord with the shaven faced fashion of Europe,
he instituted a beard tax on any Russian who wore
a beard. If you paid it, you received a coin
(06:07):
engraved with an actual image of a beard and mustache
to prove that your style was allowed. A hipster mustache
loving dream. Not only are mustache special, they're also exclusive.
He had two wives. First was Eudoxia, whom he was
never wild about. In sixteen ninety eight, after nearly ten
(06:29):
years of marriage, he had her banished to surprise a convent.
Then Peter officially married his second wife, Catherine the First,
in seventeen o seven. Of course, Peter also had many mistresses,
including the famous British actress of drury Lane, Letitia Cross.
(06:51):
Between his two wives, Peter had fifteen legitimate children, although
only three of them survived to a But even when
you look at that claim with modern eyes, its heartbreakingly
short term. Only one child by Catherine the First, Elizabetta Petrovna,
lived past her twenties. It is hard to imagine the
(07:15):
grief of Catherine, who had twelve babies and watched ten
of them die as infants or as very young children.
And it is hard to imagine what Peter the Great
must have been thinking in autumn of seventeen fifteen, when
he was contemplating his heirs for the Russian throne. He
(07:38):
had only one living son at this point, Tsarevich Alexey,
the daughter of Eudoxia. Four other sons had died as infants.
Alexey and his father had always had a strained relationship.
After setting off fireworks and celebrations for little Alexey's birth,
(07:58):
Peter largely lost interest in the boy. After all, he
was the son of Peter's unloved first wife, Eudoxia. When
Alexey was eight, his father sent his mother off to
a convent, wrenching him away from her. Alexey was a
somewhat sickly boy, cowardly and uninterested in military action, not
(08:21):
qualities that particularly excited Peter about an heir. Alexey was
so afraid of his father that he once shot himself
in the hand to avoid having to see him classic Alexey,
though he missed, burning himself badly, and then he lied
to his father that it was an accident. He wrote
(08:45):
that he quote would rather be a galley slave or
have a burning fever than have to go to see
a Russian ship launched. His mother in law said that
quote it is quite useless for his father to force
him to tend to military matters, as he would rather
have a rosary than a pistol in his hand. In
(09:06):
other words, in his father's eyes, he was just kind
of a bummer. But Peter nonetheless wanted his son to
become a man he could trust as his successor. Starting
when Alexey was twelve, Peter took the boy along with
him on various military sieges as preparation for his future
(09:28):
as a military leader. When Alexey was seventeen, Peter put
him in charge of the defense of Moscow. But Alexey
never took an interest in his father's warring. He was meek.
He accepted Peter's idea that he marry a German princess
Charlotte in seventeen eleven, when he was twenty one and
(09:52):
she seventeen. Alexey doated on their daughter, Natalia, but he
drank so often and so much that he'd largely ignored
his wife Charlotte, leaving her to a bedroom where the
rain came through the roof. In a storm, Peter had
to reprimand his son to take some care of his wife.
(10:15):
So by seventeen fifteen it was clear to Peter that
his son Alexey was a weak candidate to be his
heir to the empire. But in the autumn of seventeen
fifteen there was reason to think that Peter's outlook might change.
Two reasons, in fact, because there were not one, but
(10:38):
two heavily pregnant women in Russian court. On October twenty third,
seventeen fifteen, Alexey's wife Charlotte gave birth to their second child,
a boy. He was named Peter Alexevitch, and one week
after that, on November ninth, seventeen fifteen, Peter the Great
(11:01):
wife Catherine, also gave birth to a son, Peter Petrovitch.
The baby survived his first days, and then weeks and
then months of life. Peter wrote, God has sent me
a new recruit. So by the time at seventeen sixteen dawned,
(11:22):
Peter the Great found himself in a very different position
than he had been at the beginning of seventeen fifteen,
there were now two little Peters in Russia, both legitimate
heirs to his throne, which meant that suddenly, when it
came to the Russian line of succession, Peter the Great
had other options. The story of what happened next between
(11:48):
Peter the Great and his oldest surviving son, Alexei can
be told in a set of fantastic letters that we
still have. Between father and son, the whole story is there.
Alexei's wife, Charlotte, died ten days after giving birth to
Alexei's son. On her funeral day, Peter the Great gave
(12:11):
his son a letter, a declaration to my son. It read, you,
my son, reject all means of making yourself capable of
governing well after me. I say your incapacity is voluntary,
because you cannot excuse yourself with want of natural parts
and strength of body, as if God had not given
(12:34):
you sufficient share of either. And though your constitution is
none the strongest, yet it cannot be said that it
is altogether weak. Peter articulated a philosophy of governing and
his personal disappointment in his son. He articulated his sadness
that his son didn't care about war, and described his
(12:56):
belief that the Russian people would follow a leader like
Alexi say into forgetting about the importance of war. Peter
said that physical sickness has nothing to do with a
sovereign's inclination toward or interest in war, and gave the
example of his even sicker brother Ivan the Fifth, who
was nonetheless interested in war, unlike Alexey. The letter ends quote,
(13:21):
I am a man, and consequently I must die. Peter
wonders if Alexey is up to the succession and expresses
that he is not, and offers him a bit more
time to see if he can rise to the occasion.
If he doesn't, Peter says, then quote, I will deprive
you of the succession, as one may cut off a
(13:44):
useless member. Harsh words, especially to get on the day
of your wife's funeral. But to me, the most important
and interesting part in the letter comes after, also the
most faithful and tragic. Do not fancy that I only
(14:04):
write this, Peter said, to terrify you. To me, it's
clear that Peter's great disappointment with his son is all
about desire. He just wants his son to want the throne.
Don't want to be disinherited. Peter is saying, if you
(14:25):
want to rule, if you want to be interested in war,
that is enough. And the tragedy is that Peter the
Great and his son Alexey really were in this ships
passing in the night. It's like they simply could not
hear each other. If what Peter cared about most was
(14:45):
Alexey wanting the throne, then the last thing Alexey should
have done was except the threat of his removal from
the line of succession. Alexey went running to his advisors,
and on their count he wrote back to his father
saying that if you quote will deprive me of the
succession to the crown of Russia by reason of my incapacity,
(15:10):
your will be done. I even most urgently beg it
of you. It's like these two men just cannot see
each other. It's not an incapacity that Peter hates, and
his son he gives the positive example of his actually
much weaker and more incapacitated brother. It's that very proclivity
(15:32):
to accept meekness and powerlessness, and that was exactly what
the ever disappointing Alexey did. In the meantime, Peter was
getting sick, and Alexey was basically just hoping to outlive
his father and have this whole affair be over. But
de escalation is not a thing in the Russian court,
(15:55):
Peter writes back to Alexey, escalating accept the emperorship, says Peter,
or else become a monk. Peter hopes that threats will
make Alexey finally snap and want power, but he doesn't
see his son, just as his son does not see him.
(16:17):
All threats do is make the boy even meeker. I
will embrace the monastical state and desire your gracious consent
to it, Alexey writes back to Peter. It really is
kind of hard to avoid the conclusion that Alexey really
would have been a kind of weak ruler who didn't
(16:39):
really want to rule. But at this point Peter is
getting really angry at his weak son, and Alexey is
getting pretty afraid of his father. He really doesn't seem
to want the throne. The one thing he actually seems
to want is to be with his mistress, a woman
named Afrosina. So, in consultation with his advisors, Alexey decides
(17:04):
to do something really foolish. He runs away. He dresses
his mistress as a boy page, and they get out
of Dodge. The pair land in Vienna, and Alexey asks
his brother in law and bor Charles the sixth to
conceal him there. It really wasn't the most intelligent move.
(17:29):
He kept on doing exactly the things that would most
disappoint his father, and a disappointed Peter was soon an
enraged one. Of course, the situation couldn't last long, though
Charles the sixth did agree to let Alexey hide at court.
The disguise started failing pretty shortly thereafter. Efrisina was pregnant,
(17:55):
so her disguise as a boy page fell apart. Peter
found out that Vienna was hiding his son, and now
the Russian and the Viennese emperors are both realizing that
this could escalate to an international crisis, so everyone had
to proceed with delicacy. Peter sent an emissary named Tolstoy,
(18:18):
not the famous writer, to get Alexey back by any means,
including outright duplicity if necessary. Naturally, Peter continued to threaten
Alexey via letter, not that his strategy of threats ever worked.
He wrote quote, if you return, I will love you
better than ever. But if you refuse, then I declare
(18:42):
you traitor, and I assure you I will find the
means to use you as such. Again, threats never worked
with Alexey. But the key was the girl, the Mistress,
that he loved. Because Alexey did truly love her, all
he wants. Alexey told tolstoy Is to get to marry
(19:04):
Efrisina and go live in a country cottage together with her.
Would his father agree to that? It's a nice dream,
But Alexey had noble blood running through his veins. As
any listener of this podcast might already know, retiring to
acute cabin with a wife that you love is not
(19:27):
really a likely option for an heir to a throne.
Peter the Great promised that Alexey could marry the Mistress.
Alexey was not smart enough not to believe him. In
an earlier letter to his son, Peter had quoted the Bible,
King David said, all men are liars. This kid did
(19:50):
not have the strategic mind he would have needed to
find a way out of his predicament. He could not
outstrategize his father, and so Alexey agreed to go back
to Russia. The historian Robert K. Massey, one of the
most helpful sources for this episode, quotes the response to
(20:11):
Alexey's choice quote, he will have a coffin instead of
a wedding. In February seventeen eighteen, the Kremlin was full
as Alexey publicly confessed to running away to Europe and
he renounced his claim to the throne. Peter accepted pardoning
(20:31):
his son on condition that Alexeys share all of his co conspirators.
It was the beginning of a brutal, bloody retribution that
Peter enacted on seemingly everyone except Alexey. At first, Peter
found his ex wife, Eudoxia, who was living in a
(20:51):
monastery but not as a nun. Her lover was tortured,
her brother was killed, along with four others condemned to
death for having helped Alexey flee to Europe, and Alexey
seemingly didn't care as the people who helped him were investigated, tortured,
(21:12):
or killed. All he seemed to want to do was
Mary Afrisina, who, by the way, he wasn't physically with
due to her pregnancy. He did not bring her back
to Russia. With him upon his return from Europe. But
he wrote her loving, longing letters, desperate for her in
(21:33):
their separation, while she kind of isn't writing that sort
of letter back. Secretaries write her letters back to him
once she adds and asks for caviar. But the worst
for Alexey is yet to come. Peter the Great did,
for once unlock the keys to his son. He found Efrisina,
(21:57):
and without subjecting her to any torture at all, she
betrayed her lover. Yes, she said Alexey wanted Peter dead.
He spoke of it often. She repeated the claims to
Alexei's face. It's hard to imagine how much this must
have pained him. The one thing he seemed to genuinely
(22:20):
love in this life, the one thing he seemed to
actually fight for. Who knows what he felt when he
saw his beloved Africina again and had to watch her
sell him out. His dreams of a country cottage shimmered
before him, and then they were wiped out in an instant.
(22:42):
Maybe whatever will he had left to live left him
at that moment. After Aforsina's confessions, there was nothing else
for it. Alexey went on trial Peter called both an
ecclesiastical court and a secual court. Do not be moved,
(23:02):
he told them by the fact that you are to
judge the son of your sovereign, for we swear to
you that you have absolutely nothing to fear. Of course,
Peter had also promised Alexey that he could marry Africina
and go live a cottage core life with her. But
nonetheless Peter's orders to the jury were clear. Anyone else
(23:24):
on trial would have been tortured to extract a confession,
and so was Alexey. He was struck twenty five times
with a not a kind of whipping torture on June nineteenth.
Five days later he received fifteen more blows. His back
was bleeding. The whipping torture had killed stronger men than alexe.
(23:49):
He confessed to having wished for his father's death, and
on June twenty fourth, the jury did what it had
to do after such a confession, found Alexey guilty of
rebellion against the emperor. So Tsarevich Alexey, heir to the
Russian throne, was condemned to death, but it was up
(24:11):
to Peter the Great to decide whether to allow the
sentence to be carried out. In a tragic or perhaps
gracious twist of fate, Peter never had to make a decision.
Alexey fell ill, he requested his father see him, and
Peter did, reportedly crying alongside his dying son. Alexei died
(24:36):
on June twenty sixth, seventeen eighteen, at the age of
twenty eight. No one official acknowledged it explicitly, but it's
likely he simply did not survive the blows with the
no Alexey was stronger than he'd always thought, but weaker
(24:56):
than his father had always wished. Had not signed off
on condemning his own son to the death penalty, but
he did allow the torture that almost certainly killed him.
After Alexey's death, he was mourned like a tsarvich rather
(25:17):
than a criminal, interred in state. Peter the Great died
on February eighth, seventeen twenty five, at the age of
fifty two. He did not name a successor, and after
he died, the succession was confusing. Of the two baby
Peters who had given him such hope, his own little
(25:40):
son had died in seventeen nineteen at age three. His wife,
Catherine ruled as empress for two years until her own
death in seventeen twenty seven, and then, maybe in small
revenge for Alexey, it was his own son Peter, who
took the throne for not quite three years before he
(26:03):
died at age fourteen. Peter the Great is not the
only Russian monarch to have killed his son. Nearly one
hundred and fifty years earlier, in fifteen eighty one, the
first Czar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible, had flown into
a rage and killed his own son and only competent heir,
(26:25):
when the boy was twenty seven, almost exactly the same
age as Alexei was when he died. But Peter was
not raging like Ivan was when he coolly instructed the
court to treat Alexey as they would any other accused criminal.
So far as I know, said the historian Jonathan Day,
(26:48):
there were no other European monarchs who oversaw the torture
of their own children. What would Peter have done if
his son had not died. Would he have sent Tint
his own son to the death penalty? We can't know.
History can only be left to wonder. But at Alexei's funeral,
(27:09):
the preacher quoted from the Old Testament, Oh absalom, my son,
my son. That's the story of Russian Emperor Peter the
Great killing his son, albeit indirectly. But stick around after
a brief sponsor break to hear about the women in
(27:32):
the story. You may be wondering a little bit about
the women in the story. As for Afrisina, Alexey's beloved mistress,
intended wife, and ultimate betrayer, her child disappeared from history.
(27:52):
No one knows whether Alexey and Afrisina's child lived or died,
or where the child was born. Afrosina got married herself
and lived another thirty years in Saint Petersburg. As for Eudoxia,
Peter the Great, unloved first wife and Alexey's mother, who
had been banished to a convent. Her lover had been
(28:15):
brutally tortured and her brother was killed over the Alexey affair,
but she wound up with the last laugh. It was
her grandson, Peter Alexevitch, who wound up on the throne
after Catherine the second Wife's death, and when he got there,
Eudoxia left the convent at last, despite her husband having
(28:39):
banished her Eudoxia, Wound Up Dying at Court. Noble Blood
is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from
Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me Danash Schwartz,
(29:01):
with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender,
Amy Hit and Julia Melaney. The show is edited and
produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima il Kaali and
executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(29:26):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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