The fall of the Brunswick family
The arrest of the Brunswick family. German engraving from 1759
В previous article it was told about Anna Leopoldovna - the niece of Anna Ioannovna, the granddaughter of Ivan V. Today we will talk about the palace coup in favor of Elizabeth Petrovna and talk about the sad fate of the Braunschweig family.
Conspiracy
S. M. Solovyov stated:
Anna Leopoldovna in the portrait of H. Wortman after the original by Caravaque
The historian I. V. Kurukin, mentioned in the first article, wrote:
However, for the Russian ruler Anna, the situation was extremely alarming, and the cause of tension was her aunt, Elizaveta Petrovna, an extremely frivolous and narrow-minded person, and therefore, as it seemed, incapable of independent intrigue. The problem was that Elizabeth did not play a special role in the conspiracy: the enemies of Russia simply used her as a ram directed against the state.
In Sweden, which suffered a defeat in the Northern War, revanchist sentiments were growing at that time. Two parties fought for influence in the royal court. Supporters of the war were called "battle hats". They contemptuously called their opponents "nightcaps". In the end, the victory was won by the party of the war, which in 1742 dragged Sweden into the so-called "Russian war of hats" (hattarnas ryska krig), which took place on the territory of Finland and ended with the victory of Russia in 1743.
Entering this war, the Swedes demanded a revision of the terms of the Nystadt peace and the return of the Baltic lands. At the same time, they announced with a special manifesto that their state is defending the rights to the Russian throne of the daughter of Peter the Great - Elizabeth. And they accused the government of Anna Leopoldovna of "foreign oppression and inhuman tyranny ... of the Russian nation."
Directly in St. Petersburg at that time, the Swedish envoy Nolken and his allied French ambassador de Chétardie tried to conspire to enthrone Elizabeth, who had fallen into huge debts to them. Funding went through Chétardie, whose goal was the destruction of the Russian-Austrian alliance. The court physician of Elizabeth and the adventurer Lestok acted as a messenger.
On August 23, 1741, the Russian troops of Field Marshal Peter Lassi defeated the army of the Swedish General Wrangel, capturing him, 1 soldiers and 200 cannons, and also occupied the Wilmanstrandt fortress. M. V. Lomonosov responded to this victory with an ode addressed to Anna Leopoldovna:
It was much more difficult to deal with the fifth column in St. Petersburg. Due to the resignation of the popular Field Marshal Munnich, one of the levers of influence on the guard was lost. However, even without that there were people who informed the ruler about the ripening conspiracy. And the incoming information was quite enough to eliminate the threat, without even giving the conspirators the opportunity to speak.
However, the inexperienced and naive Anna did not believe the reports of Elizabeth's deceit, which came to her one after another. She did not even believe her beloved man, Moritz Linar, who strongly advised sending Elizabeth to a monastery and expelling Shetardie from the country. Nor did she listen to Osterman's advice. Ignored the desperate warnings of the Austrian envoy Marquis de Botta:
Finally, she forbade her husband, the Generalissimo, even to set up pickets in the streets, saying that she did not see any threat. On the eve of the coup, Chief Marshal Reinhold Gustav Löwenwolde, loyal to her, handed over a note with a warning. After reading it, she coldly said:
Anna nevertheless spoke with Elizabeth, but in such a way that it only aggravated the situation and provoked the conspirators into immediate action.
On November 23, 1741, the ruler showed Elizabeth a letter from a Russian agent in Silesia with a detailed account of the conspiracy surrounded by Elizabeth and the role that Lestok played in it.
G.K. Groot. Portrait of Johann Hermann Lestock
Elizabeth managed to convince Anna of her innocence, but now it became clear to both the princess and Lestocq, who actually controlled her, that the conspiracy had actually been discovered, and the danger to them was extremely great.
And then, fortunately for them, right the next day (November 24, 1741), the guards regiments of St. Petersburg received an order to prepare for a speech in Finland. These were no longer those veterans of Peter I who fought at Poltava. Since the time of Catherine I, the Life Guards has rapidly degraded and decomposed, being engaged in the capital mainly in revelry and debauchery.
Not only officers, but also ordinary soldiers rarely came to the service sober, and instead of military exercises they played cards. The guardsmen did not want to fight and were not going to leave the cozy metropolitan brothels and cheerful taverns of St. Petersburg. And the entire first company of the Preobrazhensky Regiment had long been fed by Elizabeth with Swedish and French money. It was these soldiers and officers who would later become notorious in St. Petersburg as eternally drunk, constantly and everywhere making scandals, but remaining unpunished life-companies.
Officer of the Life Company in cavalry attire. Engraving. 1742–1762
Only Peter III will save the capital from their excesses, by order of which these dissolute Praetorians will be sent to the villages presented to them by Elizabeth.
It didn’t take long to persuade the future life-companies: only 308 Preobrazhensky decided the fate of Russia, capturing the young legitimate emperor and arresting his parents.
You probably remember that the enemies reproached Empress Anna Ioannovna for being overweight. In November 1741, 32-year-old Elizabeth was so fat that she could not walk quickly, and the Preobrazhenians had to carry her in their arms.
Elizabeth in a portrait by an unknown artist
In front of the arrested ruler and her husband, she took the baby emperor in her arms and pompously said:
Interesting in what? The fact that they didn’t send her to a fortress or a distant monastery in time?
With the 4-month-old sister of the emperor Catherine, the drunken soldiers managed even worse, simply by throwing her to the floor. Having hit her head, the girl permanently lost her hearing and spoke with difficulty.
This is how the “merry Elizabeth” came to power and, expressing the general opinion, the Saxon envoy Petzold said:
Way of the Cross of the Brunswick family
Anna Leopoldovna in the portrait of I. Vishnyakov. By order of Elizabeth, the artist "dressed" her in a home dress and painted over the image of the baby Ivan Antonovich
Having seized power, Elizabeth began to think about what to do with her captives. At first, she decided to send this family abroad. They even reached Riga, where Anton Ulrich met his former adjutant, Baron Karl Hieronymus von Munchausen (the same one), who was now the captain of the first company of the Brunswick Cuirassier Regiment.
However, later, Elizabeth, apparently, was explained that she was just a usurper of the throne with a living and absolutely legitimate baby emperor, who, under certain circumstances, could still triumphantly return to the throne.
Extraordinary measures were taken to destroy any mention of the unfortunate emperor in historical documents, seized and destroyed books, texts of decrees and manifestos, where his name was mentioned, even one of Lomonosov's odes was banned. Coins with the image of Ivan Antonovich were initially required by the authorities to be handed over for exchange at face value, and since 1745 their possession was considered a crime.
Silver ruble of John VI, 1741
The period of the reign of John Antonovich was now ordered to be called "the reign of the former Duke of Courland and Princess Anna of Brunswick-Luneburg."
Until 1744, the Brunschweig family lived in the Dinamunde fortress.
Dinamind fort in the atlas of Russian fortresses, 1830
After the discovery of the Lopukhins' conspiracy (by the way, the main action of the series "Midshipmen, Forward" begins from this episode), the deposed ruler and members of her family were sent away from the border - to the city of Oranienburg, Ryazan province (now Chaplygin, Lipetsk region). And from there it was completely turned to the north - to Kholmogory. The captives were taken to the former bishop's house, surrounded by a high fence, around which watchmen were posted in order to prevent contact of the Brunswickers with the outside world.
Kholmogory prison (possibly a drawing of Princess Ekaterina Antonovna, whom the drunken guards of Elizabeth threw to the floor when her parents were arrested)
By order of Elizabeth, Anna Leopoldovna took the oath not only for herself, but for all her children:
The terrible fate of Ivan Antonovich
The eldest son of Anna Leopoldovna and Anton Ulrich, Emperor John, faced the terrible fate of an unknown prisoner, forever locked in a stone cell.
Initially, the young emperor was kept in the same house as his parents, but they did not even know about it.
John spent the last 8 years of his life (from 1756 to 1764) in solitary confinement at the Shlisselburg Fortress, where Peter III and Catherine II visited him incognito.
The meeting of the two emperors took place on March 22, 1762.
F. Burov. “Prisoner of Shlisselburg” (“Emperor Peter III visits Ivan Antonovich in the Shlisselburg fortress incognito”). 1885
Peter III saw a quite neat, tall and strong young man who, contrary to the strictest orders, learned to read and write, and knew about his origin. He even remembered the name of the officer who accompanied his family from Oranienburg to Kholmogory - Korf (who, by the way, being the chief police chief of St. Petersburg, was present at this conversation. And who became one of the participants in the conspiracy against Peter III). The British envoy later, referring to information from witnesses of the conversation between the two emperors, reported to London that the prisoner said:
The Ambassador of Austria also received information about this conversation, in his interpretation of the words of John Antonovich are as follows:
In addition, John allegedly stated that if he returned to the throne, he would order the execution of Elizabeth (whose death he did not know about), and he would send the grand ducal couple out of the country (according to another version, he would also execute him).
Peter III was dissatisfied with the answers of the prisoner, but ordered to equip a more comfortable room in the Shlisselburg fortress - and this order greatly frightened Catherine, who decided that the new cell was being prepared just for her.
After seizing power, Catherine also visited John VI. After meeting with him, she ordered that the conditions of his detention be tightened and that the prisoner should be killed if anyone tried to free him. And on July 5, 1764, Emperor John VI was killed by his jailers during an attempt to free him, which was undertaken by Lieutenant V. Ya. Mirovich.
I. Tvorozhnikov. Mirovich at the body of Ivan Antonovich
Some believe that Mirovich was skillfully provoked by Catherine II and her entourage, who dreamed of getting rid of the legitimate emperor, but did not dare to give an official order to punish him.
The sad fate of Anna Leopoldovna, Anton Ulrich and their children
Meanwhile, in Kholmogory, Anna Leopoldovna gave birth to three more children - a daughter, Elizabeth (1743), and two sons, Peter (1745) and Alexei (1746). From the last birth, she never recovered, and died of "fire" (puerperal fever) at the 28th year of her life - March 7, 1746.
Fearing the appearance of impostors (False Ann), Elizabeth ordered that the body of the former ruler be brought to St. Petersburg and solemnly buried in the Annunciation Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Her husband, Anton Ulrich, became blind in exile and died in Kholmogory in 1774. Only in 1780, already under Catherine II, after 36 years spent in exile, the surviving children of this couple were sent to Denmark.
It is curious that they themselves no longer wanted to leave, since they were Orthodox and did not know foreign languages. All were survived by the deaf Princess Catherine, who died only in 1807.
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