Having kissed the severed head, the king threw it to the ground and crossed himself.
Everyone knows the story of Emma Hamilton, the mistress of the famous British admiral Horatio Nelson. But not everyone knows the history of our - domestic - Lady Hamilton. True, Maria Danilovna Hamilton, the mistress of Peter the Great, has never been called "lady", and in the materials of the investigation she is simply called "the girl Marya Gamontova."
From king to batman
Maria's ancestor Hamilton came to Russia under Ivan the Terrible, so by the time of Peter I the Hamiltons had become completely Russified. It is still not clear when and under what circumstances Mary fell into the retinue of Catherine Skavronskaya, the king's wife. But it is known that she was very young and very beautiful.
Peter, naturally, drew attention to her. The tsar did not have a strict disposition at all. For example, in 1717 he takes water in the Spa and writes to his wife: "They are forbidden to use the doctors while drinking the waters of domestic fun, for the sake of his matrasa he let go to you, because he could not keep it if he was with me." Catherine turned a blind eye to her husband's "domestic fun". And even with humor. She replies to Peter: “I think more that you have deigned to let go of this because of her illness, in which she is now and she has deigned to go to Gaga for treatment, I would not wish (from which God forbid!) That the Galan (lover) Matresishka is as healthy as she is.”
So Maria Hamilton got into matresses, that is, into the king's mistress. Now she has acquired her own staff of servants. For example, she was presented with the girl Kramer, the captured daughter of a merchant and a member of the Narva magistrate. By the way, this Kramer will also fall into the category of matras for some time.
The romance between Hamilton and Peter did not last long - the tsar did not differ in constancy. And there was no violent passion, which is sometimes written about in women's magazines. It's just that he could not "hold back", and she did not dare to refuse. And Maria Hamilton was inflamed with passion for the Tsar's orderly Ivan Orlov.
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A thief because of love
Peter recruited strong and tall fellows as orderlies, so Maria had every reason to fall in love with her Orlov. He treated his mistress without due respect: "he scolded her, and called b … y, and beat her." But love, as they say, is evil. Hamilton loved the orderly and gave him gifts - things and gold coins. And she stole gifts from her mistress - Catherine.
Catherine had a lot of things. And there were enough coins. Maybe no one would have noticed the theft. It is much more difficult with pregnancy. Twice Maria poisoned the fetus with some kind of medicine. And the third time I decided to give birth. Hamilton hid her pregnancy. Even from Orlov. He wondered if she was pregnant. No, said Hamilton. And "my belly is tight from constipation." Apparently, the orderly Orlov was not seven inches in the forehead, if he believed. After all, Maria was in the last weeks, so the excuse about constipation did not look too convincing.
Anyway, Hamilton gave birth. She drowned the child, and her servants threw out the body. It would seem that the ends are in the water. But the truth was revealed. Although not immediately. There are two versions of how it opened.
One is presented by admiral and diplomat Ivan Neplyuev. One evening, in the evening, the orderly Orlov scribbled a denunciation and gave it to the Tsar. And he himself went to drink. Peter put the paper in his pocket, and it fell under the lining. The next morning, the tsar did not find a denunciation and decided that Orlov had changed his mind and stole him.
Peter was furious. The orderly was found and taken to him. With a hangover, Orlov did not figure out what he was accused of, and confessed to having a love affair with the girl Hamilton. In the meantime, the paper was found, but Peter became interested in a spicy love story. Asked if Hamilton had given birth. Orlov replied that she was giving birth, but dead. And then the king remembered that shortly before that, the corpse of a baby had been found in a pit with sewage. The investigation began.
Historian Mikhail Semevsky, who lived in the 19th century, studied the materials of the trial. His version looks different. Hamilton was jealous of Orlov for Avdotya Chernysheva. And she started gossip, as if Orlov and Chernysheva were discussing that Queen Catherine eats wax, so she has acne on her face. Orlov found out about these rumors and was seriously frightened. Slandering Her Majesty is a crime of national importance.
Orlov ran to the queen and began to prove that he had not said anything like that. It turned out that Catherine had never heard anything like that. But, after finding out who was spreading the rumors, she called Maria Hamilton to her place and began to beat her. "And on the beatings," says the investigative case, "Gamontova obeyed: I started it, out of anger at Orlov, in vain."
Anatomy lecture
In short, both Hamilton and Orlov were sent to prison. Whichever version you adhere to, one thing is clear: the dunce Orlov blabbed out something that he could well not say.
An investigation has begun. Mary Hamilton's maid testified that her mistress killed the child. Maria was tortured. She confessed to everything. But her lover - Orlova - did not betray: he, they say, did not know anything. The lover behaved far from being so courageous - he blamed everyone around and shielded himself. As a result, after holding a year in prison, he was released and even appointed an officer in the Guards regiment.
And Maria was accused of infanticide. The laws on this matter were then very strange. The Code of 1649 says: "And if the father or mother, the son or daughter will kill to death, and for that they will be imprisoned for a year." But this only applies to legitimate children. "But there will be a wife who takes into account the life of fornication and wickedness, and in fornication will live with whom children", and then destroy them, then "execute death without any mercy." Contemporaries describe what it means without any mercy: “they bury the living in the ground, tit by tit, with their hands together, and bury them with their feet, and that's why they die the same day or the next”.
Why is there such a difference between killing legitimate and illegitimate? And because of the struggle for morality: "so that, in spite of that, others do not do such a lawless and bad deed, and leave fornication." And a legitimate child is another matter: practically the property of the parents.
In general, Mary Hamilton was sentenced to beheading, which - if desired - can be considered a humane sentence.
Hamilton, chained in iron, awaited execution for four months. Catherine asked for her. The request was made by Tsarina Praskovya Fyodorovna, the widow of Tsar Ivan, whom Peter loved. But the king remained adamant. It is possible that he suspected that Mary had killed not the batman's son, but his own.
On March 14, 1719, Mary Hamilton was brought to Troitskaya Square. She hoped for a pardon. To pity the king, she put on a white dress with black ribbons. I asked the king for mercy. Peter had mercy: he ordered the executioner not to touch her with his hands. The executioner cut off his head without touching the criminal.
Foreigners describe that Peter raised his severed head and kissed it. Then he gave a short lecture on anatomy, showing the structure of the human head. And then he kissed the head again, threw it on the ground, crossed himself and left.
Scary, to be honest, the scene.
And the head of Mary Hamilton in alcohol was kept for a long time in the Kunstkamera together with the head of William Mons, whom the tsar executed, suspecting of an affair with Catherine.
As you can see, being the mistress of the Russian ruler is not always beneficial. It's probably better to be the mistress of the English admiral after all. Horatio Nelson turned out to be a more gallant gentleman than Peter I.
Sentenced to death, Maria Hamilton waited four months for the execution of the sentence. On the day of execution, counting on the royal pardon - after all, the emperor himself was once her lover, she put on a beautiful white dress. PAVEL SWEDOMSKY.
Author: Gleb STASHKOV
Long before emancipation
Russian laws (and traditions) in matters of adultery were much harsher on women than on men. Currently, such inequality persists in the countries of orthodox Islam.
Witch-hunt
In enlightened Europe, the powerlessness of women in court was not much different from that in Russia. Only there the most popular accusation was witchcraft. In Prussia and Austria, laws only in the 18th century limited the arbitrariness of the courts that sent "witches" to death. In England, criminal punishment for fortune-telling was abolished only in 1736.
In 1782, Anna Geldi, accused of witchcraft and connection with the devil, was mercilessly beheaded in quiet Switzerland. And in 1836, in Polish Sopot, the widow Kristina Seinova was drowned for a similar reason.
In Western Europe, women condemned to death were preferred to be burned alive.