Sentencing His Son to Death

would treat any man who comes before them. They should not play nice or go gentle on him. They've been 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

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 of death.

son of Peter's unloved first wife. Alexei was an endless chooser of flight over fight, too eager to voluntarily abdegate 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.

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. 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, 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. 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, 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

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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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

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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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,

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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. 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 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

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. 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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, 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 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, 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 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. 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, 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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

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 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, 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, 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, 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 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. 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 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

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, 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, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.