In 1644, the Manchu people swept into China from their homeland in the northeast, wrested power from the Ming Dynasty, and proceeded to rule the empire as the Qing Dynasty. The Manchus had a talent for expanding the empire and went on to rule China for more than 200 years. The arrival of Western nations, however, would disrupt and weaken Qing rule. These events are recorded on the Bible Timeline Poster with World History during that time.
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In AD 1234, the Mongols overran China and drove the Jurchens of the Jin Dynasty back to their homeland in the region that is now Jilin and Heilongjiang. Their descendants later paid tribute to the Ming rulers, but they did not remain in obscurity for long. In 1599, they emerged from obscurity after they were organized into a colored banner system. This system was headed by the Jianzhou chieftain named Nurhaci (1559-1626). Over the next few years, the ambitious Nurhaci cemented alliances with neighboring Mongol tribes and Han Chinese. He incorporated them into the banner system through a mixture of subjugation and marriages.
The Jurchens watched closely as Ming rule collapsed in China. They soon took advantage of the empire’s disarray and started raiding its northern frontiers in early 17th century. These raids, however, stopped when Ming soldiers started using Portuguese cannons to drive them back. Nurhaci died in 1626 and was succeeded by his son Abahai (Hong Taiji). He continued his father’s conquests and soon turned the Koreans into tributaries and the Mongolians into allies.
It was during his reign that the Jurchens transformed themselves from a confederacy into a cohesive state. As descendants of the Jin Dynasty, Abahai believed that China was his people’s inheritance and made it his goal to reconquer it. He knew that if he wanted to gain a foothold in China, he and his people would need to assimilate, so he used the Han people in his court to acquire knowledge on and adopt the Ming system of governance. The greatest skill the Han people taught the Jurchens was how to replicate the Portuguese cannons of the Ming soldiers. Abahai later dropped the “Later Jin Dynasty” used by his father and transformed it to “Qing” (“clear” or “pure”). In 1635, he changed his people’s name from “Jurchen” to “Manchu.” Abahai died in 1643 and was succeeded by his young son (the later Shunzhi emperor) with his brothers Dorgon and Jirgalang as regents.
The Manchus’ Road to China
By the early 17th century, China was seething with rebellions and the Ming rule was disintegrating. In 1643, the popular rebel leader Li Zicheng from Henan declared the Chongzhen emperor deposed and crowned himself as China’s new ruler. He announced the creation of a new dynasty and proceeded to take Beijing. On April 24, 1644, Li Zicheng and his troops stormed Beijing and took it from the Ming. The desperate Chongzhen emperor hanged himself from a tree on the same night.
The Ming Dynasty faded, but the fight for supremacy was not yet over. Eager to crush Li Zicheng, the Ming general Wu Sangui asked the Manchus for help in retaking Beijing. The idea of asking a foreign power for help in quelling a rebellion became a fatal mistake as the Manchus, under the leadership of Dorgon, took advantage of the situation and took over China as soon as they defeated the rebels in 1645. The people rebelled against their new Manchu overlords, but any resistance was always ruthlessly crushed (such as the case of the ten-day massacre in the city of Yangzhou). The new rulers then ordered all males to adopt the Manchu queue as a sign of their submission. Men who refused to wear the queue were sentenced to death.
Ming holdouts fled to southern China, but they were also pursued and tracked down by the Manchus. Guangdong held out until 1649, but the Ming loyalist-pirate Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) continued his fight against the Manchus in Xiamen. He attacked Nanjing in 1659 but failed to take the city. Zheng Chenggong died in Taiwan in 1662 after seizing the island from Dutch colonists.
The Qing Dynasty
The Kangxi Emperor ruled for 61 years, the longest reign in Chinese history.
Dorgon appointed Han Chinese to government posts but ensured that only Manchus would occupy the plum positions. One exception was the collaborationist Wu Sangui who was granted the title of “prince” and rewarded with a large fief in the province of Yunnan. The distrustful Manchus had a policy of removing landowners and farmers from their lands and replacing them with Manchu bannermen or other loyal vassals. Kangxi Emperor then ordered Wu Sangui (and three other feudal lords) to abandon their lands in the south and move to Manchuria. Incensed at this decision, Wu Sangui immediately launched a rebellion in 1673. This revolt, however, garnered few sympathies from the Han people as they considered the general a traitor. Wu Sangui’s doomed Revolt of the Three Feudatories continued even after his death in 1678 and lasted until 1681. The fall of Taiwan into Manchu hands soon followed in 1683.
Kangxi Emperor was one of the most remarkable and longest-serving rulers of Qing Dynasty. In 1689, he and a Jesuit advisor were able to negotiate a common border with Russia in Siberia in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. This treaty also gave China the possession of the Amur river. After securing peace with Russia, he campaigned against and successfully subdued the Dzungars.
The emperor cautiously welcomed European Jesuit friars in his realm. He retained the missionaries in his court where they worked as astronomers, diplomats, mathematicians, and architects. The Jesuits received his respect when they helped the emperor recover from malaria with the introduction of quinine. He allowed them to evangelize freely in China, but they soon fell from grace when the pope and the emperor could not agree on the issue of ancestral worship. The Jesuits were forbidden to proselytize some time after Kangxi Emperor’s death in 1722, and Christianity was officially banned in 1724.
Kangxi Emperor’s fourth son Yongzheng succeeded his father. His accession to the throne, however, was tainted with scandal as he was named emperor while his father was on his deathbed. Rumors also spread that he gained the throne after poisoning Kangxi Emperor which made him nothing but a usurper.
With this reputation, Yongzheng Emperor knew that his hold on the throne was shaky and that his brothers were only waiting for the perfect time to strike. Upon his accession, he curbed the power of his brothers by placing the Eight Banners under his direct control. He replaced most of the 24 personnel with his own trusted men and took away most of the bannermen’s privileges. He also decreased the number of troops under the bannermen’s supervision to prevent them from launching a rebellion.
The emperor also decreed that he himself would choose his successor. He departed from the Chinese custom which favored the eldest son of an empress, as well as the Manchu way which was rooted in merit and influence. The name of emperor’s chosen successor would be written in a document which would be then hidden away. The document would only be taken out after the emperor’s death.
The treasury that Yongzheng Emperor inherited from his father was drained, so he was hard-pressed to carry out tax reforms. The system used by Kangxi Emperor was the head tax. However, it was vulnerable to tax evasion as cunning landlords schemed with yamen clerks to help them conceal their assets and incomes from the central government. The emperor realized that the head tax put most of the burden to the peasants who did not have the knowledge nor means to evade taxes. To ease the peasants’ plight, the emperor decided to merge the head tax into the land tax.
Another reform Yongzheng Emperor implemented to combat corruption was the legalization of the “meltage fees.” Qing farmers and landowners usually used silver taels to pay their taxes. Before the revenues could be transported to the central treasury, the local officials needed to have the taels melted into ingots. The meltage fee was shouldered by the taxpayers, and to the government officials’ delight, this surcharge would often reach as high as 50 percent of the tax collected.
The benevolent Kangxi Emperor then made this surcharge illegal. Local officials, however, continued to keep a portion of the meltage fees for themselves to cover some of their expenses. Although he had his misgivings, Yongzheng Emperor knew that the “meltage fee” was a practical way to increase revenue. He legalized the surcharge and allowed the local administrators to keep a part of it. He believed that the money would serve as a motivation for local officials to be honest. But corruption was deeply rooted in the system, and exploitation continued during and even beyond his reign.
China under Yongzheng Emperor was stable and prosperous. He died in 1735, and he was succeeded by his fourth son, the Qianlong Emperor. During his reign, China was able to solidify its presence in Tibet and the empire’s northwestern frontiers. He launched a genocidal campaign against the Dzungars of Central Asia and was able to wipe them out from their homeland. He then resettled the area with Han, Manchu, Hui, and Uighur peoples. The Joseon Dynasty of Korea, meanwhile, continued to be a tributary and Qing ally.
China reached the zenith of prosperity and stability under Qianlong Emperor’s reign. He inherited his ancestors’ distrust of foreign influences, so he issued an order for his administrators to monitor the sea trade closely. In 1760, he ordered the closure of all ports to foreign ships and limited foreign merchants only within the port at Guangzhou. The British East India Company, meanwhile, was the empire’s main trading partner after supplanting the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch traders during his reign.
A patron of the arts and a poet himself, Qianlong Emperor commissioned scholars to curate and compile thousands of Chinese literary works. However, this task was actually censorship as he ordered the scholars to destroy any work critical of the Manchus.
The Beginning of the End
Discontent was also growing among China’s disenfranchised. Qianlong Emperor’s reign saw the resurgence of the mystical White Lotus Society, the harbinger of doom of the previous dynasty. In 1774, Wang Lun, the sect’s leader in Shandong, led an uprising in the city. It was promptly quashed, but the uprisings continued to flare during the emperor’s reign.
The people’s discontent finally boiled over when the White Lotus sect launched a widespread rebellion starting in 1796. Henshen, the Manchu bannerman who was Qianlong’s personal favorite, led the campaigns against the rebels. Upon Qianlong Emperor’s death in 1799, the Jiaqing Emperor had Heshen arrested after discovering that he had diverted the army’s funds to his own pockets. The emperor allowed him to commit suicide after he was arrested.
References:
Pictures by: Anonymous Qing Dynasty Court Painter – Royal Academy of Arts, part of the The Three Emperors, 1662 – 1795 exhibition which ran from 12 November 2005 – 17 April 2006 in London. Website might be taken down at some point in future., Public Domain, Link
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Fairbank, John King. China: A New History. Cambridge (Mass.): The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994.
Peterson, Willard J., ed. The Cambridge History of China. The Ch’ing Dynasty to 1800. Vol. 9. The Cambridge History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Roberts, J.A.G. A Concise History of China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
The Ming Dynasty ruled China starting in 1368 after Hongwu Emperor defeated the Yuan Dynasty and drove the Mongols back into the steppes. China, during the reign of early Ming emperors, was at the zenith of its wealth and power. It was during the Ming era that China exacted tribute from countries along the coast of the Indian Ocean through an expedition fleet. However, the empire became increasingly isolated the middle of the 15th century. Rebellions and the arrival of the Manchus from the north in 1644 removed the last Ming emperor from power. These events are recorded on the Bible Timeline Online with World History during that time.
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In China, crises always preceded the fall of one Chinese dynasty and the rise of another, and the Mongol Yuan Dynasty was no exception. During the Mongols’ reign, the bubonic plague swept through Asia and Europe and killed millions of Han Chinese and Central Asians. Devastating droughts replaced the epidemic and soon added to the body count.
In 1344, the Yellow River flooded and soon changed its course, making the silted Grand Canal impassable. Unable to transport grain from southern China to the capital Dadu via the Grand Canal, the merchants had no choice but to transport their goods on ships that plied the coastal waters. This route, however, was infested with pirates who often seized the ships and their valuable cargoes. Since the north was already devastated by droughts, the seizure of the grain was a death blow to many of its inhabitants.
Burdened by droughts and famine, China’s starving peasants took comfort in their faith in Amitabha (Pure Land) Buddhism that was led by a monk called Cizhao (Mao Zhiyuan). Its members joined the White Lotus Society, a millenarian sect with roots which went all the back to the Northern Song period (AD 960–1127). The members of the sect hoped that bodhisattva Maitreya would soon appear and deliver them from their hopeless situation.
In his palace in Dadu, the Yuan emperor Toghon Temur was also feeling the pinch. He commissioned the minister and historian Toghto to head his major desilting project of the Yellow River outlet. Toghto enlisted the peasants and forced them to render corvée labor in this project. The work itself was hard, but what made it harder was that the peasants were unable to feed their own families as their fields also went unattended.
Rebellions and the Rise of the Ming Dynasty
The Hongwu Emperor was the first ruler of the Ming Dynasty.
Tired of the hard labor, a White Lotus member and self-proclaimed messiah named Han Shantong rallied disaffected workers behind him. They wore red turbans to show their unity and started an uprising against the Yuan authorities. The Red Turban Rebellion, however, was immediately quashed by the authorities. Han Shantong died in the process, but more Red Turban rebellions flared out all over the empire. Toghto was able to suppress the rebellion, but the Yuan defense fell apart when Toghon Temur removed him from his post. He was replaced by generals who spent most of their time quarreling among themselves than suppressing the rebellion.
The Red Turbans were divided into two factions: the northern faction led by the former Buddhist monk Zhu Yuanzhang and the southern group led by the government official Chen Youliang. Between 1361 and 1363, the two factions battled for supremacy. This conflict ended when Zhu Yuanzhang defeated Chen Youliang’s army at Poyang Lake in 1363.
After the defeat of his rival, Zhu Yuanzhang set his eyes on overthrowing the Mongol rulers in Dadu. He and his followers stormed Dadu in November 1367 and drove out Toghon Temur and the rest of the Mongol rulers. In the city of Nanjing in 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself the first emperor of a new dynasty which he called the “Ming.” He then took the era name Hongwu by which he is now commonly known. He threw out the Mongol codes used by the Yuan Dynasty and readopted the long-forgotten Tang Dynasty laws. He brought back the civil service examinations and appointed talented men as government officials. The emperor forbade eunuchs from meddling in administration early in his reign. However, he made a fatal mistake when he himself appointed some talented eunuchs as envoys and auditors.
The emperor came to the throne as a result of the rebellion, so he had a lingering suspicion that he would be deposed by one too. After more than a decade of rule, he ordered a purge of thousands of government officials. He also created a secret police called the Embroidered Uniform Guard which spied on and arrested suspected rebels. Afraid that the nobles would rise up against him, he resettled them far from their lands and made them dependent on him by giving them allowances every month. Despite these cruelties, the Hongwu Emperor never forgot his Buddhist background. He curbed his own spending and ensured that China would remain at peace.
During his reign, the Ming army was able to decimate the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty. They forced the Mongols out from Shangdu and drove them deeper into the steppes. Humiliated and scattered, the remaining Mongol tribes soon formed the Oirat confederation which harassed the Chinese in the northern frontier. The Hongwu Emperor became fearful of a renewed Mongol invasion, so he ordered several garrisons to be built to keep the “barbarians” out of China.
Yongle Emperor’s Wars and Zheng He’s Voyages
Hongwu Emperor appointed his grandson (his eldest son had died before him) as his heir before his death in 1398. His fourth son, Zhu Di, opposed this decision and started a civil war that would last for three years. He had his nephew murdered in 1402, and soon took the throne as Yongle Emperor. He also purged real or perceived enemies, including his nephew’s remaining supporters.
Yongle Emperor was desperate to legitimize his rule since he knew that the people considered him a usurper. In 1405, he launched an expedition across the Indian Ocean to exact tributes from foreign kings and boost his legitimacy. The emperor appointed an influential eunuch named Zheng He as admiral of the voyage. He then had Zheng He outfitted with a fleet made up of 317 ships manned by more or less 27,000 personnel. Zheng He and this magnificent flotilla visited the ports of India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Hormuz, and even ventured as far as the eastern coast of Africa between 1405 and 1433. These diplomatic missions and geographic explorations brought back not just information, but also exotic goods and animals which included a giraffe and some zebras.
In China, however, Yongle Emperor’s rule was anything but peaceful. While fighting the Oirat confederation, he also embarked on a quest to depose a fellow usurper in the southern kingdom of Đại Việt. The kingdom was ruled by the Hồ dynasty that had wrested the throne from the Trần dynasty between 1399 and 1400. Yongle then led his army to Đại Việt and deposed king Hồ Hán Thương. Instead of letting the Trần heir regain his position upon the removal of the Hồ ruler in 1407, the emperor turned the kingdom into a vassal state and sent a Chinese administrator to govern in his place.
The emperor had the Great Wall repaired during his reign, and pushed the Ming’s northern border past the Jurchen heartland and into the Amur river. He left Nanjing and lived in the city of Dadu. He then proclaimed it as the Ming capital and renamed it Beijing. Unlike his father, however, Yongle Emperor spent lavishly during his reign. He built a magnificent palace complex for himself and his family in Beijing which he called Forbidden City.
The naval expeditions and the palace complexes he built had been expensive, but the long war against Đại Việt guerillas drained his treasury. This conflict cost him not only money but also thousands of Ming soldiers who were sent south to counter the rebels led by a Trần nobleman named Lê Lợi and General Nguyễn Trãi. The war in Đại Việt against the Ming overlord was still ongoing when Yongle Emperor died in 1424.
The Isolated Empire
Hongxi Emperor acceded throne when his father died. His reign was cut short in the following year, and he was succeeded by his son, Xuande Emperor. Ming treasury was drained by the time of Xuande’s succession, so he was forced to withdraw his troops from the troublesome and costly conflict in Đại Việt. He also called off Zheng He’s naval expeditions in 1433, but the admiral was unable to return to China as he died at sea. Xuande, with some prodding from Confucian scholars who disliked foreign contact, then ordered the destruction of the entire naval fleet and forbade any more expensive expeditions. What little trade that came through in China was considered by Ming rulers as tributes. The restrictions on trade, however, backfired when it gave rise to Japanese (wokou) and Chinese piracy.
Xuande Emperor died in 1435 and was succeeded by his young son Zhengtong. Regents initially ruled on his behalf, but the timid emperor took the reins of power upon his coming of age. He was captured by the Oirat leader Esen Tayisi during a botched military campaign in the north but was set free when the Ming refused to ransom him. Upon Zhengtong’s return to Beijing, he found, to his dismay, that he had been deposed in favor of his brother, the Jingtai Emperor. Although he had a quick interlude as emperor once again, he remained under house arrest for the rest of his life.
The Ming emperors that follow Zhengtong were either unremarkable, incompetent, or indifferent. China remained isolated, protected from foreign incursions by the sea ban and its Great Wall. Gone were the days of voyages, tributes, and expansion plans. As years went by, administration steadily broke down as the imperial court became bogged down by squabbling eunuchs and scholar-officials.
China would not remain in its self-imposed isolation for long as the arrival of the Jurchen people and the Europeans—for better or for worse—would open it to the world during the 16th century.
The Treaty of Nanking fell apart despite the significant concessions China gave to Western nations during the aftermath of the First Opium War. The disagreements escalated into the Second Opium War which lasted from 1856-1860. By 1861, China had suffered another loss and was once again forced to grant concessions to Western powers. These events are recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History during that time.
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China gave major concessions to Britain after its loss in the First Opium War (1839-1842) in the Treaty of Nanking. However, the unpopular and unequal treaty collapsed as the years passed, and war once again seemed inevitable. The British blamed the Qing officials for their lack of cooperation in enforcing the terms of the treaty. The charging of transit duties on goods was another bone of contention between the two parties. They also disagreed on when the Qing officials would finally allow British citizens the freedom to live and trade inside the walls of Guangzhou.
By 1847, the patience of the Hong Kong administrator and British ambassador John Francis Davis was already wearing thin. He ordered an expedition to Guangzhou and seized several forts in Foshan. Unable to muster an adequate defense, the Viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces Keying was forced to promise that the authorities would let the British merchants and officials enter Guangzhou in 1849. This concession became unpopular with the inhabitants of Guangzhou, and news of it eventually reached the emperor. Keying was then replaced as governor-general by Xu Guangjin. In 1852, a Chinese official named Ye Mingchen replaced Xu Guangjin as governor of Guangdong.
The British merchants and officials fully expected that Guangzhou would be an open city in two years time. To their disappointment, Xu Guangjin shrugged off Keying’s promise and postponed it again in 1849. The governor of Hong Kong agreed to the postponement which only angered his compatriots.
While British troops were besieging southern China, the rest of the country was racked by civil war with the onset of the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864). It was followed by the Red Turban Rebellion in 1854 which would last for another two years. Besieged at every point, Qing officials were able to breathe a sigh of relief (though just barely) when Britain became embroiled in the Crimean War in 1854. This respite, however, would not last.
On October 8, 1856, Qing coast guards seized the lorcha named Arrow off Guangzhou on suspicions of piracy. The boat, which sailed under the British flag, was owned by a Chinese settler in Hong Kong who had registered it with the authorities in the colony. Most of the Arrow’s Chinese crew were arrested, but its captain, Thomas Kennedy, managed to secure the freedom of a couple of seamen who served as his skeleton crew. Kennedy and his men immediately returned to Hong Kong and informed the colony’s governor John Bowring of the incident.
The seizure of the Arrow compelled Bowring to authorize a siege on Guangzhou. British ships bombarded the walled city, while Governor Ye Mingchen responded by ordering the destruction of all British factories in the territory. Foreign trade was suspended, while all Englishmen in his jurisdiction were considered fair game.
The murder of missionary Auguste Chapdelaine was the official reason for France’s involvement in the Second Opium War.
When news of the conflict reached Lord Palmerston (now Prime Minister), he immediately ordered an expeditionary force to be sent to besiege China. The fleet was escorted by French forces who had come to seek vengeance for the execution of Auguste Chapdelaine, a French missionary in China. After serving as reinforcements against a rebellion in India, the fleet then proceeded to the waters off Guangdong in 1857.
The Earl of Elgin and British Consul Harry Parkes led this expeditionary force and the bombardment of Guangzhou. When the city finally fell, British soldiers arrested Governor Ye Mingchen and exiled him to India where he died in 1859. Parkes was left behind in Guangzhou as one of its temporary administrators while the British fleet continued north.
Lord Elgin led the bombardment of Taku Forts in 1858. When they came to the city of Tianjin itself, Xianfeng emperor finally sent a representative to negotiate. On June 18, 1858, both parties signed the Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin) which forced China to:
Open ten additional ports to European trade, especially those that lead to China’s interior
Legalize opium trade
Allow the establishment of a British embassy in Beijing
Allow foreign merchants and missionaries to travel unhindered in the country
France and the United States also forced China to sign similar treaties. Russia then entered the fray and forced China to give up the land north of the Amur River in the Treaty of Taigun. It also compelled China to allow a joint administration of the land between the Ussuri River and the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
Allied forces came back to Bohai Bay in June 1859 to ratify the Treaty of Tianjin. Little did they know that while they were away, Xianfeng Emperor had ordered the fortification of Taku Forts and the improvement of its artillery. Fierce bombardment met them, and they were forced to turn back. Elated at their victory, the emperor’s ministers advised him to rescind the treaty and continue the fight against the allied troops.
The fight, however, was not yet over. A bigger allied fleet returned and easily captured Taku Forts. Allied troops soon entered Beijing where they encountered fierce resentment and resistance. Some of Beijing inhabitants captured and harassed the British and French delegation (including the vindictive Harry Parkes). Lord Elgin, in turn, ordered the splendid Summer Palace to be burned to the ground.
For Xianfeng Emperor and the Chinese people, the concessions and humiliations seemed never-ending. He was forced to allow the foreigners to use Tianjin as a treaty port and cede Kowloon (Jiulong) to the British. To top it all off, China also had to pay war indemnities to allies. Russia took advantage of the moment to nullify its earlier agreement with China and took over the land east of the Ussuri River.
The 30-year old Xianfeng Emperor died a tired and broken man in 1861. He was succeeded by his six-year-old son Zaichun (the future Tongzhi emperor) who would be guided by his father’s appointed regents.
Bury, J. P. T., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History. Vol. 10. The New Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960.
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Fairbank, John King. China: A New History. Cambridge (Mass.): The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994.
Fairbank, John K., ed. The Cambridge History of China. Late Ch’ing 1800–1911. Vol. 10. The Cambridge History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Roberts, J.A.G. A Concise History of China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
The First Opium War began in 1839 after China cracked down on the illegal drug trade headed by British merchants in Guangzhou. Its loss in the First Opium War forced China to open its ports to Britain (as well as other European countries) in 1842 via the Treaty of Nanking. These events are recorded on the Bible Timeline with World History during that time.
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The First Opium War (1839-1842): The Drug Trade and the Clash of Cultures
The British East India Company first established contact with Chinese traders in the early 1600s. British merchants bought tea and silk from Chinese traders and shipped these products back to Europe. Demand for Chinese products in Britain spiked, but the British could not find anything of their own with which to interest Chinese buyers. One exception, however, was opium, the highly addictive substance extracted from opium poppy seed pods. Grown and harvested in India, British merchants shipped the drug from their colony and offloaded the shipment at the port of Guangzhou starting in the mid-1700s.
A great number of ordinary Chinese soon became addicted to the substance which they paid for with taels of silver. Alarmed at the rise of addiction and the outward flow of their silver reserves, the Qing officials tried in vain to stop British merchants from selling the drug. The Qing government’s futile attempt to stop the opium trade lit the fuse of China’s conflict with Britain that would last for than half a century.
The British government’s lack of knowledge about the Qing Dynasty’s culture (particularly the tribute system) worsened the conflict. In 1792, Britain sent Lord Macartney as an envoy to China to negotiate a trade treaty with the emperor. Foreign ships were confined to the waters off of Guangzhou, so the British government wanted the emperor to open several ports for them. The British government also wanted the emperor to grant its nation’s merchants access to areas where tea and silk were commonly produced. Lord Macartney was tasked to request the emperor’s permission in allowing a British minister to stay at the imperial court and oversee British interests in China.
As was the custom, Macartney brought lavish gifts for the emperor. The embassy failed when the British envoy refused to perform the kowtow when they met. This breach in court etiquette offended Qianlong Emperor who later remarked disdainfully that China was self-sufficient and had no need for Britain’s products. Macartney’s requests were denied by the emperor, and he was forced to leave China soon after.
After breaking East India Company’s monopoly in Asia in 1834, the British government sent Lord Napier to China as Superintendent of Trade in Guangzhou. He broke protocol when he bypassed the hong merchants who served as brokers and requested a meeting with Qing officials upon his arrival. For the Qing officials, this was unacceptable as any nation which requested trade with China was essentially nothing more a than tributary and was not treated as a coequal. They refused to meet with Lord Napier who was also humiliated by the rejection.
In Beijing, scholars of the Spring Purification circle and government officials were debating the best course to combat the flow of opium into the Chinese market. Officials suggested the legalization of the substance so it could be taxed by the government. The scholars, however, opposed this suggestion for moral reasons. In 1838, Daoguang Emperor appointed Lin Zexu as a special commissioner to combat the drug problem. The commissioner traveled to Guangzhou in the same year and targeted consumers and dealers alike. He enlisted the help of the local hong merchants whom he tasked to compel the foreign merchants to give up their stocks of opium.
The foreign merchants naturally refused, but Lin Zexu decided to strongarm them by having their factories barricaded and the merchants detained. The British superintendent Charles Elliott had no choice but to advise them to hand their stocks over to the Chinese authorities. They finally acquiesced when Elliott promised them compensation for the loss of their stocks. After the confiscation, Lin Zexu forced them to sign an agreement to get them to stop trading opium. Merchants who refused to comply would be sentenced to death.
Charles Elliott then sent a letter to the Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston to inform him of the situation. After lifting the detention order, the Qing authorities allowed the freed British merchants to transfer to Macau. The situation only worsened when British sailors killed a local farmer. Back in 1784, a gunner of the British ship Lady Hughes was tasked to fire a gun salute while in Guangzhou. He, however, shot two Chinese officials who died from their injuries. Chinese authorities demanded British officials to hand the gunner over to them, but the latter refused. After a long dispute, the emperor sentenced the gunner to death by strangulation. British officials had no choice but to hand him over to Chinese authorities who immediately had him strangled.
Charles Elliott did not want a repeat of the Lady Hughes incident, so he refused to hand the sailors over to the authorities. Lin Zexu enlisted the help of the Portuguese authorities in Macau and asked them to boot the English out of the colony. They had no choice but to leave Macau and set up a temporary shelter at Hong Kong (Xianggang).
Meanwhile, the opium trader Dr. William Jardine had traveled to London to inform Lord Palmerston of the merchants’ situation. Jardine encouraged the foreign secretary to send a naval fleet to evacuate the merchants, as well as to reassert Britain’s “right” to trade opium in China. He was able to convince the minister to support three main goals which included:
The disbandment of the Cohong (guild of hong merchant-brokers) that would allow the British to deal directly with Qing officials
Forcing China to compensate the British merchants for the opium stocks they lost during Lin Zexu’s crackdown
Compelling China to hand over one of its islands that the British could use as a base in East Asia
The fleet arrived off the coast of China in 1839, and immediately rescued the superintendent Charles Elliott and his companions in Hong Kong. During the greater part of 1840, Charles and his cousin Admiral George Elliott led the devastating naval attacks on China. British ships easily blockaded Guangzhou before sailing north to take Zhoushan Island off the coast of Ningbo.
Chinese soldiers pictured with gingals (a type of gun) during the First Opium War.
This was too close for comfort to the capital. Daoguang Emperor sacked Lin Zexu in frustration, and replaced him with the Viceroy of Zhili, Qishan, as chief negotiator. In January 1841, the two parties came to an agreement in the Convention of Chuanpi. Superintendent Charles Elliott represented the British side, while Qishan negotiated for the Qing. But to the emperor’s dismay, Qishan gave significant concessions to the British including the cession of Hong Kong. Despite receiving the island, the British were still unhappy with the deal. Chief negotiator and superintendent Charles Elliott was replaced with Sir Henry Pottinger when the negotiations finally broke down. Elliott’s troops, meanwhile, landed in Guangzhou and started to harass the people living in the city.
Pottinger himself was able to capture the ports of Ningbo, Zhoushan, Xiamen, and Zhapu between 1841 and 1842 in spite of the fierce resistance of the Manchu defenders. When Shanghai fell to the British navy in 1842, the emperor was forced to summon another parley. The result was the Treaty of Nanking which was signed by both parties on August 29, 1842, aboard the HMS Cornwallis. The terms of the treaty included:
The opening of the ports of Shanghai, Ningbo, Fuzhou, Xiamen, and Guangzhou to British trade
The cession of the island of Hong Kong
The establishment of fixed tariffs (set at 5 percent during the Treaty of Bogue)
The condition that Britain would no longer be a Qing tributary, but a co-equal state
The abolishment of the Cohong guild of merchants
This was later supplemented by the Treaty of the Bogue in 1843. Bullied into submission, China gave Britain the most favored nation status and allowed British citizens to enjoy the benefits of extraterritoriality. Eager to take advantage of the lucrative Chinese market, France, and the United States soon entered into similar treaties in 1844. China also granted an edict of toleration to Roman Catholicism after entering into a treaty with France.
Bury, J. P. T., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History. Vol. 10. The New Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960.
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Fairbank, John King. China: A New History. Cambridge (Mass.): The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994.
Fairbank, John K., ed. The Cambridge History of China. Late Ch’ing 1800–1911. Vol. 10. The Cambridge History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Roberts, J.A.G. A Concise History of China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
In 1911, the Italian government tried to bolster its expansionist ambitions by demanding that the Ottomans leave Libya and “return” the territory to Rome. The Ottomans rejected the Italians’ ultimatum, so Rome had no choice but to declare a war against the Turks. After several months of naval and land battles, Tripoli finally fell and became a colony of Italy in 1912. These events are recorded on the Bible Timeline with World History during that time.
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The Decline of Ottoman Power and the Scramble for Africa
The death of Sultan Suleiman I in 1566 was the beginning of the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Starting in the 1600s, the Empire was plagued with wars on almost all fronts. Eastern European warlords and princes, meanwhile, had also started to demand their independence. The Ottoman government was saddled with weak and corrupt leaders, so it was not long before the Empire started to burst at the seams.
Greece was among the first of the Ottoman colonies to declare itself independent from the Ottomans in 1829. Other Balkan and Mediterranean colonies also started their own struggle for independence. While the overburdened Ottomans were busy stemming the bleeding of its Empire, their European neighbors were scrambling to wrest huge chunks of it for themselves.
By the late 19th century, most of the Balkan states had declared independence or autonomy. Bosnia and Herzegovina were not as lucky as they were taken from the Ottoman Empire by Austria-Hungary. England, France, Germany, and Italy made a mad dash to take the Empire’s African territories. France (to Germany’s dismay) took Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. Egypt, meanwhile, was firmly in the hands of Britain.
Italo-Turkish War and Italian Tripolitania
Historic map of Tripoli
Italy was not a major colonial power during the 19th and 20th centuries. It was unified during the mid-19th century, but largely remained poor and most of its people were unemployed. Italy watched enviously as powerful France and Britain took large chunks of North Africa for themselves. To compensate, Rome then turned its gaze across the Mediterranean and decided to expand its territory by seizing two of the Roman Empire’s former territories: Tripoli and Cyrene in Ottoman Libya.
On September 28, 1911, Italy declared its intention to expand in Libya and then sent an ultimatum to the Ottoman administrators for them to “return” the territory. The Ottomans replied with a rejection the following day. This rejection only gave the Italians the perfect excuse to invade Tripoli. Italy declared a war against the Ottomans and started with a naval blockade. More than 40,000 Italian troops were dispatched to take part in this war of expansion in Libya which began on October 1, 1911. The Italians first softened Tripoli’s defenses with bombardment. This left the Ottomans with no choice but to leave the city and retreat further into the desert.
Four days later, victorious Italian troops occupied Tripoli while Ottoman volunteers and Libyan tribesmen were forced to retaliate with guerilla warfare. It was during this Italo-Turkish War that Young Turks leaders Enver Pasha and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk saw action as Ottoman volunteers. Turkish troops, however, were recalled later on as the beleaguered Ottomans prepared for the Balkan War.
The Italians also introduced some of the “firsts” of modern warfare. These included the first use of aircraft in bombardment and reconnaissance, as well as the first widespread use of machine guns and armored cars. By early November 1911, Italian troops had overcome resistance in Tripoli and soon declared its sovereignty over the colony. Despite the Italian victory, Libyan resistance continued into the latter part of 1911 and into mid-1912. As the war raged on, Italy managed to overpower the Ottoman navy in the eastern Mediterranean. Italian troops then occupied the island of Rhodes and some parts of the Dodecanese group.
By October 1912, the beleaguered Ottoman Empire was facing another war in the Balkans and it could not afford to be distracted. Ottoman representatives were forced to accept the setback and decided to sue for peace. They signed the Treaty of Lausanne (Treaty of Ouchy) on October 18, 1912, along with their Italian counterparts.
One of the terms of the Treaty was for the Italians to evacuate Rhodes and the Dodecanese. However, they failed to honor the agreement and continued to occupy the island. The Ottomans also evacuated most of their troops from Libya, but a few remained in the territory and continued to fight the enemy. Conflict flared every now and then between the Ottomans (plus their Libyan tribesmen allies) and Italian troops, but Tripoli, from then on, was firmly in the hands of the Italians.
Bury, J.P.T. The New Cambridge Modern History, Volume XII: The Shifting Balance of World Forces,1898-1945. Edited by Charles Loch Mowat. Cambridge: University Press, 1968.
Estes, Kenneth W. International Encyclopedia of Military History. Edited by James C. Bradford. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Simon, Rachel: Italo-Turkish War 1911-1912 , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the
First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan
Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universit盲t Berlin, Berlin 2016-08-23. DOI:
10.15463/ie1418.10949.
Stephenson, Charles. A Box of Sand: The Italo-Ottoman War 1911-1912: The First Land, Sea and Air War. Ticehurst, East Sussex, England: Tattered Flag Press, 2014.
Fears of a Russian incursion in the Pacific in the mid-1700s finally forced Spain to secure its hold on Alta California. After finding few volunteers, the Spanish government decided to send Franciscan missionaries to Alta California. In 1769, the first Franciscan friars arrived in California and founded the Mission San Diego de Alcala. These events are recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History during that time.
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The Kumeyaay people were the first inhabitants of the land on which the modern city of San Diego now stands. During the Age of Discovery, the Spaniard Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo became the first European to explore the San Diego Bay area. He later named it “San Miguel” in honor of the saint whose feast day was fast approaching when he explored the region. Cabrillo and his crew continued north, but the exploration was cut short when he died of gangrene.
More than half a century would pass before the Spaniards visited the area again. In 1602, Sebastian Vizcaino and his fleet sailed from Acapulco to Alta California to explore the region. His main task was to find safe harbors for Manila-Acapulco galleons and claim the land for Spain. Vizcaino’s fleet arrived in the San Diego Bay on November 12, 1602, and proceeded to map the area for Spain. He named this territory San Diego de Alcala after the 15th-century Spanish saint and Franciscan friar Didacus of Alcala.
However, the plans to establish harbors and Spanish settlements failed to become a reality. The Age of Explorers also ended, and the adventurers were replaced by Jesuit missionaries. In 1700, the Jesuit friar Eusebio Kino was one of the first Spaniards to enter Arizona and established a mission near present-day Tucson. This adventurous and intelligent missionary also contradicted past explorers by claiming that neighboring California was not an island. Although the Mexican authorities did not believe him, Father Kino still continued his mission in Arizona. The Jesuits fell from grace as the years went by, and they were soon replaced by Franciscan friars.
The Foundation of Mission San Diego de Alcala
The Mission San Diego de Alcala was founded in 1769.
In the mid-1700s, the Danish explorer Vitus Bering and his Russian crew reached and explored some of the islands of Alaska. Although he died during the expedition, Russia was able to stake its claim on this new-found yet distant territory. Fears of a Russian incursion in the Pacific finally pushed King Carlos III of Spain to instruct Gaspar de Portolá, governor of Baja California, to secure Alta California. Spanish colonists, however, did not find Alta California attractive. They had made their fortunes in Mexico and there was no incentive for them to seek wealth in an inhospitable land.
With no volunteers in sight, the governor then turned to the priests of the Franciscan Order and commissioned them to establish a mission in Alta California. The Franciscan friars led by Father Junipero Serra and Gaspar de Portolá were escorted by Spanish soldiers as they made their way to Alta California.
Two Spanish ships sailed from Baja California to the San Diego Bay in January and February 1769. This fleet arrived in April of the same year. A separate party, meanwhile, left Baja California by land in March. Scurvy, the scourge of early explorers, easily halved the members of this expedition.
Father Serra, meanwhile, traveled with the second expedition and arrived in San Diego on the 1st of June, 1769. He was in his 50s by then and a leg infection made the journey north more difficult for him. Despite his age and condition, he was able to establish the Mission San Diego de la Alcala more than one month after the group’s arrival.
The site on which the Spaniards established the first mission, however, could not sustain them for long. The Spaniards moved to a more suitable place near the San Diego River and close to where the Kumeyaay people lived. In addition to successfully securing the area, the Franciscans also managed to gain more Kumeyaay converts.
Fehrenbacher, Don E. A Basic History of California. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1964.
“History.” Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá. Accessed September 18, 2017. http://www.missionsandiego.org/visit/history/.
Jackson, Robert Howard, and Edward D. Castillo. Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish Colonization: The Impact of the Mission System on California Indians. Albuquerque, NM: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2005.
On July 28, 1762, Catherine, the Empress of Russia, deposed her husband through a coup d’etat. With the support of the military and ordinary Russians, she then took over as sovereign of Russia. This event is recorded on the Bible Timeline Poster with World History during that time.
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Princess Sophie Augusta Fredericka was born in the city of Szczecin in Pomerania on August 21, 1729. She was the eldest child of Prussian Prince Christian August of Anhalt-Zerbst by Princess Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. Her parents nicknamed her Figchen, and her birth was followed by the family’s heir William. Johanna favored her son more than her daughter, while her middle-aged father doted on her.
Sophie’s family was not entirely wealthy, but her parents hired the best tutors for her to make her more enticing to any prince on the lookout for a wife. It was just as well as their bargaining chip was intelligent and soaked up every word of her tutors like a sponge. Her favorite tutor was the Huguenot governess Mademoiselle Elizabeth Cardel from whom she learned to speak French fluently. She also received lessons from teachers of the German language, religion, and music. But it was Cardel whom she spoke fondly of for the rest of her life.
Sophie first met her future spouse, Grand Duke Peter Ulrich of Holstein, in 1739 when she and her family visited Kiel. He was the son of Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp by Anna Petrovich, daughter of Peter the Great. The boy’s father died in 1739, so the orphan was left behind to live in a military barracks. A Prussian military official raised him, but he would often beat and verbally abuse the child left in his care.
With the encouragement of her mother, Sophie dreamed that she would be chosen as Peter’s wife. She did not mind that he was ugly, sickly, and more interested in military drills than in learning. Figchen and her mother overlooked these flaws and started to think about the possibility of a marriage with this possible heir to the Russian throne.
The events of late 1741 brought mother and daughter several steps closer to their dream. On December 6, Tsarevna Elizabeth, Peter the Great’s younger daughter, became Empress of Russia. She then summoned her nephew Peter to St. Petersburg and declared him her heir. Sophie’s ambitious mother was delighted. She commissioned the painter Antoine Pesne to paint a portrait of her daughter and sent a copy to St. Petersburg. There it joined the portraits of other European princesses from whom Elizabeth could then choose a spouse for her nephew.
The Bride
To their delight, the family received a letter from Elizabeth’s minister on January 1, 1744. The empress had summoned Johanna and Sophie to appear before her in St. Petersburg. Sophie’s father was at first hesitant to send his daughter because of the volatility of the Russian court. Russian courtiers could easily rise to dizzying heights, but one mistake could also easily lead them to prison, exile, or death.
The ambitious Johanna, however, was adamant. She wanted the privilege and honor of becoming the future Emperor’s mother-in-law—nevermind that her daughter would be subjected to court intrigues and that her life would always be in danger. She told her husband that the marriage would finally bring peace between Prussia and Russia—something that King Frederick of Prussia and his allies so desired. Johanna’s nagging proved too much for her husband, so he finally relented several days after they received the Empress’s letter.
Sophie and her parents made a brief stop in Berlin on January 10, 1744, to inform the Prussian king of their decision and to attend a celebration in her honor. After the festivities, Sophie, her mother, and some servants left the city and traveled east to St. Petersburg. Sophie tearfully said goodbye to her father and promised him that she would not abandon the Lutheran faith in which she was raised. It was the last time she saw her father.
The journey east to St. Petersburg was difficult and cloaked in secrecy to protect them from Elizabeth’s anti-Prussian ministers. After making a quick stop in Riga, they continued to St. Petersburg and finally arrived at the Winter Palace on February 3, 1744. The Empress had left for Moscow, but the princesses were welcomed warmly by Russian courtiers and ministers who stayed behind.
Johanna soon befriended Marquis de la Chetardie and the French physician Jean Armand de Lestocq. They advised her to make a good impression and follow the Empress and the Grand Duke to Moscow in time for the latter’s birthday. The excited Johanna forced herself and her daughter to travel to Moscow in the dead of winter. After a mishap, they arrived in Moscow on February 9 just in time for Peter’s birthday.
The Grand Duke soon arrived and welcomed them warmly in the German language. Sophie knew that the prince was far from handsome, but he had become uglier since the last time they had seen each other. The Prussian princesses then paid their respects to Empress Elizabeth when she arrived. The formidable Empress interviewed Sophie and was pleased to find that she made the right decision in choosing the intelligent girl as a bride for Peter. But not everyone was happy with her arrival. Count Alexei Bestuzhev, diplomat, and leader of the pro-Austria faction, cast angry glances on Sophie for ruining his plans.
As the months wore on, the deeply perceptive Sophie got to know her fiance. She discovered that he was childish and crass. He still played with toy soldiers and wasted his time holding mock drills instead of studying. His first language had been German and he was not interested in learning Russian at all. He rejected the Orthodox instructions his aunt’s priests gave him and clung tightly to Lutheranism. Sophie, on the other hand, desperately sought the acceptance the Russians by becoming one of them. She soon overtook Peter in her fluency of the Russian language. She also discarded Lutheranism and started studying the Orthodox faith.
Sophie fell ill with pneumonia and nearly died several months after her arrival in Russia. She recovered from illness but to her dismay, her fiance was as childish and simple-minded as before. She also found that her mother had been busy scheming in court and had grown unpopular. Johanna loved intrigue, but she did not have the talent for discretion or stealth. Count Bestuzhev had intercepted Chetardie’s letter to Johanna wherein they plotted to have him removed from power. He handed these letters over to Elizabeth who then had Chetardie expelled from Russia. Johanna received a dressing down but was allowed to stay by her daughter’s side thanks to Elizabeth’s fondness for the young princess.
Sophie was baptized into the Orthodoxy on the 28th of June, 1744, and had to cast off her old name in favor of one that suited her new identity. Naturally, she chose “Sophia”—the Russified version of her own name. But memories of her Aunt Sophia led the empress to choose the name of her own mother: Catherine. Elizabeth discarded the name of Sophie’s father and gave the princess the Slavic patronymic Alexeyevna.
The baptism was followed by an elaborate betrothal ceremony and her elevation as “Grand Duchess of Russia.” The empress showered Catherine with lavish gifts. For the first time in her life, she also received her own allowance. Her mother, on the other hand, was on her own downward spiral. Idle and jealous of her daughter’s success, she embarked on a risky affair with the handsome and younger Count Betsky. Her indiscretion embarrassed Catherine and scandalized the Empress and her court.
Grand Duke Peter’s his relationship with his equally snappish future mother-in-law did not improve. He then came down with measles and recovered, but it was not long before he contracted the deadlier smallpox. The Empress rushed to his side and cared for him while he was in quarantine. Catherine and her mother, meanwhile, stayed in Moscow so they would not contract the disease.
Mother and daughter worried about his health as their fates depended on Peter’s recovery or death. The Grand Duke survived his illness, but he had grown thinner and his face bore the marks of illness. He had not been handsome, but the scars so disfigured his face that Catherine fled and fainted.
Despite Catherine’s misgivings and Peter’s altered appearance, the couple was married on August 21, 1745, in the Kazan Cathedral. The wedding was grand, but the honeymoon was dismal. Peter spent more time drinking with his valets than with her and soon fell beside her on the bed in a drunken stupor. His indifference in the days after their wedding took its toll on her self-esteem. The isolation she felt became complete when her disgraced mother finally returned to Prussia. She was well and truly alone in Elizabeth’s court.
It would be a long time before an heir to the Russian throne could be conceived. Peter was busy flirting with other women, while Catherine—though stung—pretended that she did not care. The Empress’s attitude to Catherine and Peter also changed. Fearful of plots against her, she dismissed the couple’s loyal servants and replaced them with her lackeys. Nine months after the wedding, Elizabeth summoned Catherine and asked her why the expected heir failed to materialize. She blamed Catherine for this failure and began to verbally abuse her. The Empress then accused the younger woman of being loyal to Prussia and of plotting to bring her down.
Peter and Catherine were nothing more than prisoners of Elizabeth’s iron will for during the early years of their marriage. The Empress gave the couple staff who spied on the couple’s behavior. With the encouragement of Bestuzhev, Elizabeth sent Catherine a new companion, her cousin and noblewoman Maria Semenovna Choglokova. The older lady not only served as a companion to Catherine but also as a spy who was eager to report any misbehavior—even trivial ones. The Empress forbade her to write her own letters to her family, and she had to sign cold and impersonal letters written by Elizabeth’s officers on her behalf.
During the early of her marriage, Catherine took a crash course in the realities of Russian life. It was true that the nobility had adopted Western European culture and dressed in French fashion, but their minds were still stuck in the 15th century. Few of Elizabeth’s grandees knew how to read. The superficial and equally illiterate ladies of her court spent the hours of the day gossiping each other. Catherine saw Russian serfs as Elizabeth’s court traveled from one palace to another, and she was struck by how miserable their lives were.
It seemed life in Russia was not as she had expected. After mourning for her father who died in 1747, she went back to the balls and ceremonies which she found boring. Court life no longer charmed her, and the monotony would only be broken by Elizabeth’s petty or cruel whimsies. Peter was hardly a source of comfort and his immaturity only heightened the loneliness she felt. He continued to play with his toys and was increasingly cruel to his servants and his dogs.
She became an accomplished equestrian and read voraciously during her free time. She read anything she could get her hands on—from novels to history to philosophy. But her most important lesson was how to behave and safeguard herself in Elizabeth’s volatile court.
Catherine was still young, lonely, and unloved, and these which made her easy pickings for any womanizer at court. In 1752, she finally gave in and started an affair with the chamberlain Sergei Saltykov. Peter and the adulterous Madame Choglokova pretended not to notice the affair conducted under their noses. Desperate times call for desperate measures so the Empress tolerated—even encouraged—the affair if only to beget an heir for Russia.
She suffered two miscarriages but was able to carry a child full term on her third pregnancy. Paul, son of Catherine, was born on September 20, 1754. Whether Paul was the son of Peter or Saltykov only Catherine knew. For the Empress, however, it would do. Elizabeth took the baby right after birth, and it would be a long time before his own mother would see him.
The supposed father, meanwhile, was drunk by the time his wife had given birth. Catherine, for her part, was compensated for her efforts with money, but Elizabeth took the amount back from her to pay Peter for “doing his part.” Her sadness deepened when the empress sent her lover, Saltykov, as an envoy to Sweden. It was just as well as the womanizer had lost his affection for her.
Despite the rejection and humiliation she suffered, Catherine dusted herself off and busied herself with festivities at court. She read the works of Montesquieu and Voltaire while Peter was busy drinking with his servants and pining for Prussia. He was growing more unpopular among Russians, while Catherine was starting gain more influence and power.
She refused to pine after the fickle Saltykov and plunged into an affair with the winsome Count Stanisław Poniatowski. The 23-year old Polish count was introduced by the English diplomat Charles Hanbury-Williams (with whom she later ran into debt) to the 25-year old Grand Duchess during a ball. She found him pleasing to the eye, but she also found a kindred spirit when it came to intellect. She did not, however, made the same mistake as she did with Saltykov and kept the upper the upper hand with Poniatowski. The equally unfaithful Peter tolerated this affair. Strangely, he often joined them with his own mistress in tow.
Catherine learned the art of survival in the Russian court. In 1756, the Seven Years’ War between Prussia (allied with England) and France (allied with Austria) flared out. Bestuzhev—by then one of Catherine’s allies—decided to make an alliance with France and Austria. Despite her Prussian heritage and her debts to Charles Hanbury-Williams, she found it prudent to follow Bestuzhev’s lead for her survival. This show of loyalty was not wasted on Bestuzhev who promised Catherine that he would support Peter’s accession to the throne once Elizabeth died. He also supported her role as co-ruler, and while she was flattered, she did not dare act on her ambition—yet. She, however, sent a letter of encouragement to Field Marshal Apraksin to attack Prussia with Bestuzhev’s encouragement.
This meddling in politics and war, of course, did not endear her to the dying and increasingly paranoid Elizabeth. The Russian troops’ initial victories were replaced with a humiliating defeat in Prussia and it put Catherine in hot water. However, she found herself pregnant for the second time so she was saved from Elizabeth’s wrath. She gave birth to a girl which the empress named after her sister Anna. Just like her brother, the Empress immediately whisked the child to her apartments. Bestuzhev and his allies, meanwhile, were arrested and tried in court for treason. Catherine quickly burned letters and any other documents which might be used against her.
As the war raged on in 1759, Catherine’s relationship with Peter and Elizabeth worsened. Elizabeth’s health had also deteriorated and her paranoia became stifling. Soon she was summoned by the Empress to explain some of her letters to Apraksin that was discovered by her agents. The terrified Catherine had the presence of mind and successfully defended herself. Bestuzhev and his allies, however, were sent to exile in Siberia, while Poniatowski was sent back to Poland.
She received another blow in the same year when both her daughter and her mother died. She grieved for their deaths, but her mind was soon occupied by the possibility of wresting the throne from Peter upon the death of Elizabeth. Peter, meanwhile, was making himself as repulsive as possible during the war. He never forgot his beloved Prussia, and rumors of him leaking information to King Frederick II via the English ambassador made him very unpopular.
Catherine knew that the Empress would die soon, so she started consolidating allies in and out of court. One of the most important allies was Count Nikita Panin, Elizabeth’s former favorite and little Paul’s tutor. The minister Ivan Shuvalov and Princess Catherine Dashkova also became her supporters. None was more important than her lover, the dashing army officer and her of the Battle of Zorndorf, Grigory Orlov. His four brothers were also military officers and they promised to support Catherine’s accession to the throne. Elizabeth died on January 5, 1762, and the crown naturally passed on to her nephew. Disappointed but not surprised, Catherine bided her time.
Peter III
Immature and churlish, Peter took great pains to show the Russians that he was Prussian to the core as his aunt’s body lay in state. He held balls in his palace and wore regular clothes. Catherine, on the other hand, wore black as was customary. She stayed at the foot of Elizabeth’s catafalque and shed tears as the crowd paid their respects to the former Empress of Russia. Whether she was a good actress or her grief was sincere no one knew, but it was certain that she had won the hearts and minds of the people.
Drunk with wine and power, Peter first acts as emperor of Russia sealed his fate. On September 24, 1762, he ordered the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the territories the Empire gained from his beloved Prussia. He restored these territories to his homeland and betrayed Russia’s ally Austria by switching alliances to Prussia. He then forced the army to wear the Prussian uniform and replaced high-ranking Russian officers with German ones.
A Lutheran to the core, the new Emperor launched a campaign to get rid of images of saints and forced the priests to wear Lutheran garb. He also outraged Russians by ordering his henchmen to confiscate church properties. He then summoned the officials exiled by Elizabeth back to St. Petersburg and Moscow. Russia’s coffers were already dry, but this did not stop him from declaring war against Denmark to regain Schleswig. Prussia’s King Frederick II discouraged this foolish plan, but to no avail.
Peter was unaware that his wife was once again pregnant. He had spent more time with his mistress, the crude Elizaveta Vorontzova, and had planned to marry her as soon as possible. Catherine knew that one complaint would send her packing so she bore this threat quietly. She gave birth to another son which a trusted servant soon bundled up and whisked away to safety for fear of Peter’s discovery.
In Peter’s eyes, Catherine was no longer his wife nor the Empress of Russia. Once he humiliated her in front of 400 dinner guests and then planned to have her imprisoned. One of his uncles dissuaded him from his plan, but the news had already reached Catherine. She now had no choice. She could either go to prison or wrest power away from her husband. She chose the latter.
Catherine II as Sovereign of Russia
The period of Catherine the Great’s rule, is often referred to as the Golden Age of the Russian Empire.
Her supporters were also working in secret to have her installed on the throne. Orlov had been appointed paymaster of the army, and he was not above to diverting state funds to bribe soldiers. His brothers were also busy convincing soldiers who were still on the fence to join their cause. She befriended the French ambassador Baron de Breteuil who then facilitated her request for a loan to King Louis XV. The loan, however, was denied and Catherine was forced to borrow money from England. It was approved.
On June 12, 1762, the defiant Peter III traveled west to Oranienbaum to prepare for the war against Denmark. He summoned Catherine, but she dared not join him for fear that he would have her imprisoned or killed. She stayed in Monplaisir in nearby Peterhof where she waited for the right time to strike.
She did not have to wait long. On June 27, 1762, Catherine’s ally Count Passek insulted the Emperor publicly. He was soon arrested and tortured, so Feodor Orlov, Grigory’s brother, decided to carry out a preemptive strike. He hurried to St. Petersburg and ordered Catherine’s supporter Commander Cyril Razumovsky to print the announcement of Peter III’s abdication and Catherine’s succession. Alexis Orlov then galloped to Monplaisir on the morning of June 28, 1762, and took Catherine with him to St. Petersburg to carry out their plans.
They met Grigory along the way and headed to the barracks of the Ismailovsky regiment led by Commander Razumovsky. The soldiers of regiment greeted her with enthusiasm and acclaimed Catherine the Empress and sovereign of Russia. The Semyonovsky regiment also joined them, but they encountered some resistance when they arrived in the barracks of the Preobrazhensky regiment led by Simon Vorontzhov (Elizaveta Vorontzova’s brother). After a standoff, the Preobrazhensky regiment was soon convinced to join their ranks.
Ordinary people soon joined this lively procession. Escorted by soldiers and ordinary Russians, Catherine and her supporters entered the Cathedral of Kazan where the Archbishop of Novgorod blessed her and acclaimed her the sovereign of Russia. She then went back to the Winter Palace where she was greeted by a cheering crowd. There she received the Russian grandees, members of the clergy, government officials, and merchants who bowed in front of her. Her propagandists, meanwhile, were working double time outside by distributing her manifesto to the people.
Catherine’s supporters tried to prevent the news of the coup from reaching Peter, but it was no use. The Emperor and his entourage traveled to Monplaisir to see her, but no one greeted them as they dismounted from their horses and carriages. A secret messenger then arrived and delivered the news that he was no longer sovereign of Russia. He listened to the news of Catherine’s coup with mounting panic and since he did not know how to respond to a setback, he immediately resorted to drinking alcohol. One of his advisers, General Munnich, convinced him to go to the fortress on the island of Kronshtadt to seek refuge and think about their next step. Like a child, Peter allowed himself to be escorted to a ship bound for the island.
Little did he know that Catherine’s supporters had already infiltrated the ranks of the soldiers stationed at Kronshtadt. When they arrived near the island, the admiral immediately warned Peter’s party not to disembark from the ship or they would be met with artillery. General Munnich tried to convince the Emperor to show himself and order the admiral to submit. The Emperor only fled in fright and wept with the ladies who accompanied them. Munnich had no choice but to take his pitiful charge and their companions back to Oranienbaum.
Meanwhile, the Empress had left St. Petersburg to trace her route back to Peterhof. She wore the uniform of the Semyonovsky regiment as she and her loyal troops traveled on horseback to Monplaisir. They stopped by Krasny Kabak (“Wonderful Tavern”) and soon Peter’s chancellor Vorontzhov appeared to insist on the emperor’s rights. He, however, switched to her side after the Empress confidently laughed to mock his proposal. Other negotiators sent by Peter also followed suit.
The entourage led by Catherine traveled to Monplaisir where she dictated the document of abdication that she hoped Peter would soon sign. Her envoys Orlov and Ismailov handed the document to the desolate Peter in Oranienbaum. He signed the act of abdication and was then led to Peterhof by Catherine’s soldiers. There he received the news that he was to be imprisoned at the Ropsha estate and that his mistress would be sent to Moscow. He was then stripped of his sword, uniform, and privileges as Emperor of Russia. Alexis Orlov escorted Peter to Ropsha later that night.
On June 30, 1762, Catherine and her supporters returned to St. Petersburg where she was greeted with cheers and sounds of artillery. Despite her victory, she still worried that Peter would launch a coup d’etat to depose her. Several days later she received news of Peter’s death through a letter from Alexis Orlov. In this letter, Orlov detailed how Peter died after a drunken brawl erupted between him and Prince Feodor Bariatinsky.
The news horrified her. It was true that she feared Peter and wanted him dead, but his death would surely be viewed as an assassination. Orlov and Bariatinsky’s clumsy though well-meaning move would surely be pinned on her. She announced Peter’s death on July 7, 1762, with great calm despite the anxiety that she felt inside.
To her relief, the people quickly shrugged off their former ruler’s death. She knew that she would not reach the throne without the support of her men, so she readily forgave Alexis Orlov and others who were involved in Peter’s suspicious death. The deceased emperor was buried hastily in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St. Petersburg. No one was surprised when she did not attend his funeral.
In 1700, Peter the Great and his allies declared war against the King Charles XII of the Swedish Empire. Although young and inexperienced, Charles was able to successfully lead the Swedish resistance and attacks during the beginning of the war. Peter, however, gained the upper hand as the Great Northern War progressed. In 1709, Peter finally scored a brilliant victory against the Swedes when the Russian army was able to defeat them at the Battle of Poltava. These events are recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History during that time.
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Unlike his brothers, Tsar Peter was healthy and towered above everyone else at a height of 6’8”. He witnessed the Moscow Uprising of 1682 first hand and often suffered from seizures after this event. These experiences, however, did not stop him from living to the fullest.
The curious and intelligent Tsar was taught by the best tutors, including Count Nikita Zotov and the Scottish refugee-turned-mercenary Patrick Gordon. Both men would play a large role in their charge’s court and military later on. The Tsar also had the gift of attracting talented commoners whom he later used in his court and on the battlefield.
Peter had long been interested in the military, and he even tagged along the guards to serve as a lowly bombardier. He turned Preobrazhenskoye into his own military camp and held mock battles with his troops as practice. He experienced his first taste of war in the Azov campaigns against the Ottoman Empire in 1695. The Tsar’s experience and artillery, however, were inadequate, so he was forced to retreat to Moscow in early 1696.
It was fortuitous for Peter that he returned home at that time, as his sickly and senile half-brother (and co-ruler) Ivan V died on February 8, 1696. With his half-siblings Sophia and Ivan out of the way, he was now free to rule Russia as its sole Tsar. He and his troops went back to Azov in spring of the same year and successfully captured the area from the Ottomans. He established Taganrog as Russia’s first naval base and promoted his advisers Gordon and Franz Lefort as generals. After fortifying the area, Peter and his troops went home to Moscow as victors.
The Great Northern War
Ever curious, Peter went on a European tour between 1697 and 1698. He briefly stayed in the Netherlands where he trained (in disguise) as a shipwright. He learned whatever he could in Western Europe, and used these ideas to modernize the Russian government and military when he came back. It was also during his European tour that the idea of breaking the dominance of the Swedish Empire (and exact revenge for the Troubles) first took root.
Russia, together with its allies Poland and Denmark, launched their first attack against Sweden on August 19, 1700. The 18-year old Swedish king Charles XII was inexperienced, but he was able to defeat the Polish and Danish armies. Charles then led his army to Narva which was also besieged by Russian troops.
Despite being outnumbered and less experienced, Charles was able to relieve Narva and destroy the Russian camp stationed there. The Swedish king also captured Peter’s French commander and 145 Russian cannons as booty. The Tsar did not consider this a major defeat, but he learned from his mistakes and decided to lead some of his troops himself. He also appointed Boris Sheremetev as commander-in-chief of the Russian army.
After whipping the Russian army at Narva, Charles marched his troops to Poland to depose King Augustus II. He then elevated a puppet to the Polish throne but experienced a setback when the Swedish troops stationed in the Baltic were defeated by the Russians in December 1701. One by one, Swedish strongholds in Livonia soon fell to the Russians. By late 1702, Swedish Nöteborg was firmly in Russian hands. Peter renamed it Shlisselburg and fortified it as a crucial entrance to Lake Ladoga.
The Foundation of St. Petersburg and the Battle of Lesnaya
Peter, with the help of General Alexander Menshikov, then captured the fortress of Nyenskans from the Swedes on May 1, 1703. The Russians started the construction of the Peter and Paul fortress on Zayachy (Hare) Island more than two weeks later to secure the entrance of the Neva River. The Tsar stayed in the area for some time and oversaw the building of a shipyard and the expansion of the Russian navy himself. The area was later renamed St. Petersburg.
The Tsar led his troops back to Swedish-occupied Narva and captured it on August 9, 1704. Charles XII and around 44,000 Swedish troops took Peter by surprise when they matched through the northwestern Russia in January 1708. But Peter’s troops (under the leadership of Menshikov, Sheremetev, and the Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa) were able to harass the Swedish army as they marched south.
The Russian army scored a crucial victory against the Swedes at the Battle of Lesnaya in September 1708. In this battle, the Russians were able to halve General Lewenhaupt’s troops who were supposed to bring supplies to Charles’s army. This victory was overshadowed when Peter received news that Ivan Mazepa had abandoned him and sided with Charles instead. The hetman had feared the Tsar’s interference and he had a feeling that his territory would be given away to Peter’s favorite, Alexander Menshikov. The enraged Tsar quickly dispatched Menshikov to Mazepa’s capital of Baturyn and had around 10,000 to 20,000 of its inhabitants massacred in retaliation.
The Battle of Poltava
Peter I of Russia, pictured here in the Battle of Poltova.
In spring of 1709, Charles and the ill-equipped and reduced Swedish troops attacked the town of Poltava. Peter, who was expanding his navy in Azov, saw this as a provocation and immediately sent Sheremetev, Menshikov, and the Russian troops to Poltava. He and his wife, the Tsarina Catherine, joined them on June 4, 1709.
Peter, by then, had the upper hand. His troops were well-supplied and well-equipped, while Charles’s troops had been halved and were low on provisions and equipment. The Russians had set up camp near Poltava and fortified it with redoubts and ramparts. A wounded Charles, meanwhile, watched the Russians build fortifications from the Swedish camp. He summoned a war council, and despite the disadvantages, Charles’s generals decided to launch a stealth attack on the Russian camp.
The Swedish troops launched an attack on the Russian camp during the early morning hours of June 27, 1709. The Swedish troops were divided between General Lewenhaupt and Field MarshalRehnskiöld, whose planned to hem in and trap the Russian troops inside the camp. Their troops would later rendezvous with Charles’s who, despite being unable to walk because of his wounded foot, insisted on supervising the army on the battlefield.
It was supposed to be a stealth attack, but it did not turn out as Charles expected. The Russians prepared for the attack, and they quickly decimated a great number of Swedish troops when they tried to storm the redoubts. Some Swedish soldiers got lost along the way and did not even arrive as their comrades were being slaughtered.
As the day wore on, Peter decided to open the gates and face the Swedish troops head on. He and the trusty Sheremetev led the soldiers into battle. The Russians outnumbered the enemy, so the Swedes were easily decimated. Charles himself suffered another wound and had to flee on horseback south to the Ottoman Empire for safety.
Nearly 7,000 Swedish troops were slaughtered that day, while the remaining 2,700 were taken as prisoners. Rehnskiöld, Lewenhaupt, and Charles’s minister Carl Piper were among the prisoners of war who were taken to Moscow. Fresh from his victory at Poltava, Peter then traveled to Poland and restored his ally, Augustus II, to the throne.
The sickly Ivan V was nothing more than a puppet for his siblings during his reign as Tsar. His health continued to decline during the regency of his sister Sophia, and it only worsened when Peter (the Great) finally seized power in 1689. Peter allowed Ivan to continue to co-rule with him even though his half-brother, by then, had become senile and partially blind. Peter finally became the sole Tsar when Ivan V finally died in 1696. These events are recorded on the Biblical Timeline Chart with World History during that time.
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Ivan V (born September 6, 1666) was the third son and second youngest of Tsar Alexei’s thirteen children by Maria Miloslavskaya. Ivan was not expected to rule, but the death of his older brothers Alexei (1670) and Feodor (1682) thrust him to spotlight. He suffered from scurvy, blindness, and mental illness, but his conditions did not stop his sister Sophia from declaring him co-ruler with their healthy and intelligent half-brother Peter.
The two boys started to co-rule in 1682, but it was Tsarevna Sophia herself who wielded greater power. Ivan’s condition worsened, but Peter grew to be a healthy, intelligent, and rambunctious boy under his half-sister’s alarmed gaze. To ensure that the Miloslavskys would always remain powerful, Sophia married Ivan off to a noblewoman named Praskovia Saltykova in 1684. The couple’s (and Sophia’s) priority was to beget an heir, but no one was surprised when an heir failed to materialize during the early years of his marriage.
The Naryshkins were also busy marrying Peter off to secure an heir. In 1689, his mother Natalya organized a bride-show and chose a noblewoman named Eudoxia Lopukhina as Peter’s wife. Despite Peter’s disinterest, he and Eudoxia were married in January of the same year. To everyone’s amazement, Ivan’s wife Praskovia gave birth to a daughter three months later.
Praskovia gave birth to four more daughters, but rumors spread that another man had fathered the girls instead of the feeble-minded Ivan. Power had been slipping from Sophia’s grasp and it made her more anxious to get rid of Peter. In late 1689, she accused Peter of trying to murder Ivan and the whole royal family so that he alone could rule. She secretly sent her henchman, Feodor Shaklovity, to murder Peter, but the Tsar got wind of her plans. Peter and his family were forced to flee to a monastery for their safety.
Peter as the Sole Ruler of Russia and the Death of Ivan V
Peter I became the sole Tsar of Russia after his half brother Ivan’s death in 1696.
She then tried to turn the Streltsy against her half-brother by telling them that he tried to murder Ivan. The plot failed this time. Peter demanded that she give up Shaklovity, but was forced to give him up to the Tsar after her initial refusal. Shaklovity endured torture before finally admitting that Sophia planned to have her half-brother murdered so she could rule alone. Shaklovity was beheaded after his confession, while Sophia was imprisoned at the Novodevichy Convent for the rest of her life.
Ivan V and Peter continued to be on good terms and co-ruled as Tsars after this episode. Peter soon sealed his hold on the throne with the birth of his heir, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, on February 18, 1690. He spent most of his time with his troops and left Ivan V as a titular ruler in Moscow. Peter’s close associates or “new men” assisted him as administrators.
Ivan’s condition worsened until he became partially blind and paralyzed. He also suffered from dementia and required constant care from his wife Praskovia. He finally died on February 8, 1696, leaving Peter as the sole Russian ruler.
In 1682, brothers Ivan V and Peter (later called “the Great”) became co-rulers of Russia. The sickly Ivan was not expected to live long, but his sister, the Tsarevna Sophia, managed to manipulate the Moscow guardsmen (Streltsy) so he would be elevated to the position. The brothers, however, were nothing more than puppets during this period, and power was firmly in the hands of the cunning Tsarevna Sophia. These events are recorded on the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History during that time.
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The Miloslavskys and the Naryshkins: The Struggle for Power
Alexis, the second Tsar from the House of Romanov, died on January 22, 1676. He was succeeded by Feodor, the eldest of the two living sons left behind by his first wife. The boy suffered from scurvy and required constant care from his aunts and sisters. Old resentments between the Miloslavskys (the family of Alexei’s first wife) and Naryshkins (the family of his second wife) resurfaced. The Miloslavskys had the upper hand so they immediately started to purge their enemies. The family soon sent Natalya Naryshkina, her son Peter, and Natalya’s former guardian Artamon Matveyev into exile.
The Miloslavsky family’s reign of terror ended when the Tsar’s cousin Ivan fell from grace. The Tsar himself sent the ringleader of the purge to exile and reinstated the Naryshkins. Matveyev, the Naryshkins’ trusty ally, was also recalled to serve in the Kremlin. Feodor had been suffering for a long time, and he knew that he would not live much longer. He married twice to beget an heir, but the much-desired children failed to materialize. He finally died on May 7, 1682 at the age of twenty-one.
The Moscow Uprising
Due to his mental and physical ailments, Ivan V was made co-ruler with his younger half brother Peter.
The grandees soon met to discuss which of the dead Tsar’s brothers would accede the throne. Feodor’s younger brother Ivan was their natural choice, but he, too, was sickly and mentally ill. His ten-year old half-brother Peter, on the other hand, was healthy. The grandees, as a result, agreed to bypass Ivan and elect Peter instead.
Ivan’s older sister, Tsarevna Sophia, promptly protested this slight. She appeared during Feodor’s funeral and insinuated that her dead brother had been poisoned by the Naryshkins. Trouble had been brewing for some time now among the ranks of Streltsy (musketeers) when their salaries went unpaid. The Tsarevna—ever cunning—decided to use the Streltsy’s discontent for her own gain. With the help of her henchmen, she spread the rumor among the disgruntled Streltsy that her brother lay dying in the palace and that he needed to be rescued from the hands of the Naryshkins.
The Streltsy responded by storming the royal palace and demanding to see Tsarevich Ivan. To prove that the prince was alive and well, Natalya Naryshkina brought out the fifteen-year old Ivan as well as her own son Peter for them to examine. The crowd fell silent but soon demanded that Ivan be elevated tsar instead of Peter. However, Artamon Matveyev faced them and admonished the musketeers for disturbing the peace. He then went back inside the palace with the Tsarina and the boys not knowing that something terrible was about to happen.
The Streltsy were once again whipped into anger when General Yuri Dolgoruky’s son Mikhail admonished them as traitors and called for their deaths. They promptly attacked the general’s son and killed him by tossing him off from a balcony. They then stormed the palace and seized Artamon Matveyev in front of Natalya and the princes. Just like the general’s son, the Streltsy tossed Matveyev off a balcony, which killed him when he landed on raised pikes. Natalya and the princes were rushed off to the safety of the palace while the Streltsy continued to rampage.
The musketeers dispersed throughout the Kremlin and looked for Naryshkin relatives so they could vent their anger. They killed one of Natalya’s brother in the same grisly way that they killed Matveyev when they found him. They then went to General Dolgoruky’s house to apologize for killing his son but were angered when the general insinuated that he would eventually seek vengeance. They killed the tactless general on the spot.
The terrified royal family had no choice but to hide in the safety of the palace. The Streltsy stayed in the Red Square and continued to demand the head of Ivan Naryshkin, the Tsarina’s brother. Natalya, Sophia, and Martha (one of the tsarevnas) dared face the crowd and pleaded for the Streltsy to spare Ivan Naryshkin. But the Streltsy did not want to be pacified, and they continued to demand Ivan’s surrender.
With Sophia’s prodding, Natalya finally had no choice but to surrender her brother to the musketeers. He was tortured and killed in prison, but he never admitted (for there was nothing to admit) to poisoning Tsarevich Ivan. More executions of perceived enemies followed, but the violence was finally stopped by the ambitious Tsarevna Sophia. She ordered Ivan Andreyevich Khovansky, her own henchman, and leader of the Streltsy, to publicly implore her to declare the two remaining princes as Tsars. She agreed to his “suggestion,” and promptly declared her brother Ivan and her half-brother Peter as co-rulers of Russia on May 26, 1682.
The Co-Rulers
This arrangement was a first in Russia’s history. Ivan and Peter were crowned Tsars on June 25, 1682, but there was no doubt that Sophia herself held the reins of power. One month after the coronation, the Streltsy leader and ardent Old Believer Khovansky convinced her to undo her father’s religious reforms. She refused, so the musketeers once again threatened to rebel.
Far from cowed, the Tsarevna had the rebels executed to demonstrate her power and resolve. She also brought the Old Believers’ leader Avvakum out of prison and had him burned at the stake. Thousands of ordinary Old Believers also suffered the same fate during her reign. Realizing that she did not need him any longer, she had Khovansky framed for treason and executed.
References:
Picture by: anonymous – scan from book, Public Domain, Link
Lieven, Dominic, ed. The Cambridge History of Russia: Imperial Russia, 1689-1917. Vol. II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Montefiore, Simon Sebag. The Romanovs: 1613-1918. New York, Vintage Books, 2017.
Oliva, L. Jay. Peter the Great. Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970.
