CATHERINE I., Empress of Russia, was the natural daughter of a country girl, and was born at Ringen, a small village upon the Lake Virtcherve, near Dorpt, in Livonia. The year of her birth is uncertain; but according to her own account she came into the world on the 5th of April 1687. Her original name was Martha, which she changed for Catherine when she embraced the Greek religion. Count Rosen, a lieutenant-colonel in the Swedish service, who owned the village of Ringen, supported, according to the custom of the country, both the mother and the child, and was for that reason supposed by many persons to have been her father. She lost her mother when she was only three years old; and as Count Rosen died about the same time, she was left in so destitute a situation that the parish-clerk of the village received her into his house. Soon afterwards Gluck, Lutheran minister of Marienburg, happening, in a journey through those parts, to see the foundling, took her under his protection, brought her up in his family, and employed her in attending his children. In 1701, or about the fourteenth year of her age, she espoused a dragoon of the Swedish garrison of Marienburg. Many different accounts are given of this transaction. One author affirms that the bride and bridegroom remained together eight days after their marriage; while another asserts, that on the morning of the nuptials, her husband being sent with a detachment for Riga, the marriage
was never consummated. This much is certain, that the Catharine dragoon was absent when Marienburg surrendered to the Russians, and Catherine, who was reserved for a higher destiny, never saw him more.
Upon the taking of Marienburg, General Bauer saw Catherine among the prisoners; and being smitten with her youth and beauty, took her to his house, where she superintended his domestic affairs, and was supposed to be his mistress. Soon afterwards she was received into the family of Prince Menzikof, who was no less struck with the attractions of the fair captive. With him she lived until 1704; when, in the seventeenth year of her age, she became the mistress of Peter the Great, and won so much upon his affections, that he espoused her on the 29th of May 1711. The ceremony was secretly performed at Jawerof, in Poland, in the presence of General Bruce; and on the 20th of February 1712 it was publicly solemnized with great pomp at Petersburg.
Peter expired on the morning of the 28th of January 1725. This event being made known, the senate, the generals, the principal nobility and clergy, hastened to the palace to proclaim the new sovereign. It was previously settled by Menzikof and his party that Catherine should be empress; and the guards, who surrounded the palace with drums beating and colours flying, effectually vanquished all opposition. The only circumstance, therefore, which remained, was to give a just colour to her title, by persuading the assembly that Peter intended to have named her his successor. For this purpose Menzikof demanded of that emperor's secretary whether his late master had left any written declaration of his intentions. The secretary replied, that a little before his last journey to Moscow he had destroyed a will; that he had frequently expressed his design of making another, but had always been prevented by the reflection, that if he thought his people, whom he had raised from a state of barbarism to a considerable degree of power and glory, could be ungrateful, he would not expose his final inclinations to the insult of a refusal; and that if they recollected what they owed to his labours, they would regulate their conduct by his intentions, which he had disclosed with more solemnity than could be manifested by any writing. An altercation now began in the assembly, and some of the nobles having the courage to oppose the accession of Catherine, Theophanes, archbishop of Plescoff, called to their recollection the oath which they had all taken in 1722 to acknowledge the successor appointed by Peter; and added, that the sentiments of that emperor delivered by the secretary were in effect an appointment of Catherine. The opposite party, however, denied that those sentiments were so clear as the secretary chose to insinuate; and insisted, that as their late monarch had failed to nominate his heir, the election of the new sovereign should revert to the state. Upon this the archbishop further testified, that the evening before the coronation of the empress at Moscow, Peter had declared, in the house of an English merchant, that he should place the crown upon her head with no other view than to leave her mistress of the empire after his decease. This attestation being confirmed by many persons present, Menzikof cried out, "What need have we of any testament? A refusal to conform to the inclination of our great sovereign, thus authenticated, would be both unjust and criminal. Long live the Empress Catherine!" These words being instantaneously repeated by the greater part of those who were present, Menzikof, saluting Catherine by the title of empress, paid his first obeisance by kissing her hand; and his example was followed by the whole assembly. She next presented herself at the window to the guards and to the people, who shouted acclamations of "Long live
Catherine!" whilst Menzikof scattered among them handfuls of money. Thus, says a contemporary, the empress was raised to the throne by the guards, in the same manner as the Roman emperors were by the praetorian cohorts, without either the appointment of the people or of the legions.
The reign of Catherine may be considered as the reign of Menzikof; for that empress having neither inclination nor abilities to direct the helm of government, placed the most implicit confidence in a man who had been the original author of her good fortune, and the sole instrument of her elevation to the throne. During her short reign her life was exceedingly irregular; she was extremely averse to business; would frequently, when the weather was fine, pass whole nights in the open air; and was particularly intemperate in the use of tokay. These irregularities, joined to a cancer and a dropsy, hastened her end; and she expired on the 17th of May 1727, a little more than two years after her accession to the throne, and in about the fortieth year of her age.