We also had our own Lady Hamilton in Russia. Like the famous Emma Hamilton, the beloved of Admiral Nelson, she was a rare beauty, she was also surrounded by men who can be safely called the makers of history, and, finally, the Russian Lady Hamilton, like the Englishwoman, was very unlucky in life. But that's where the analogies end.
Maid of honor of Her Majesty
Maria Hamilton lived a century earlier than her English namesake. She came from a Russianized Scottish family that had settled in Russia during the time of Ivan the Terrible. Her father was Willem Hamilton, who was related to Artamon Matveyev, the educator of Natalia Naryshkina, mother of Peter the Great. However, officials wrote the Scottish surname "Hamilton" in the Russian manner of "Gamontov", "Gamements". Therefore, according to the documents, our heroine passes as Maria Danilovna Gamentova.
From a good family, a relative of the emperor's mother's close associates, and even a rare beauty - it is not surprising that at the age of 15 or 16, Maria was at court as the maid of honor of "Her Imperial Majesty Catherine Alekseevna."
And it is not at all surprising that the beautiful, dexterous, cheerful Mary was soon noticed by the autocrat himself.
In the "bed registry" of the emperor
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Peter I was a great female hunter. According to the testimony of his contemporaries, he even kept a certain "bed register", where he included his "official" metress. His wife Ekaterina Alekseevna looked at her husband's pranks through her fingers. She perfectly understood that her position as empress was rather precarious. A Livonian peasant woman, "portomoya", but what is there, a transport girl who soared to the pinnacle of power in the Russian Empire at the whim of her crowned husband, by the same whim could at any moment be where she came from. And therefore she did not suit her husband with scenes of jealousy, and even welcomed the "metresoks", giving them gifts and court positions. So Maria Hamilton became the first chambermaid.
Tsar's batman
However, the emperor's hobbies did not last long. After all his amorous adventures, he invariably returned to "dear friend Katenka". So it happened with Maria. However, she did not remain alone for long, and soon struck up a stormy romance with the tsar's orderly Ivan Orlov.
The imperial couple went abroad in 1716, Maria Hamilton and Ivan Orlov were among the retinue. As they say, during this trip Orlov lost interest in Mary. To return the feelings of her beloved, Maria began … to steal money and valuables from the Empress for him. But this did not help either: the lovers often quarreled, Orlov even beat Maria.
But stealing from the royal chambers was not Mary's worst crime. She became pregnant three times and got rid of the children three times. Twice she poisoned the fetus with some kind of potion, and gave birth to a third child and strangled with her own hands. However, all this was kept secret for the time being.
From old memory, the tsar, as they said at the court, sometimes walked to his "metresque" of Scottish origin, but this hardly made Mary very happy. Further events will show that she really loved her Ivan in earnest.
Search
Everything was revealed, as it happens, quite by accident. Peter lost some document, in anger he summoned the orderly. He did not understand what, in fact, was the matter, fell to his knees, and laid out everything he knew about the tricks of his mistress.
Maria was immediately taken into custody, and the search began, that is, in modern terms, "investigative actions".
The search in those days was never carried out without torture. Even if a person voluntarily confessed everything, he was still tortured, since it was believed that without a rack and a whip, the truth could not be achieved. They also tortured Mary. She confessed to theft and infanticide, but firmly stood on the fact that Orlov had nothing to do with it, that she had stolen from the queen and got rid of the children without his knowledge.
Execution
The Tsar sentenced "Marya, the girl Gamentova" to be executed by beheading. Both queens asked for her, and the wife of the emperor, and the dowager queen Praskovya (wife of John V, brother and co-ruler of Peter I), however, Peter was adamant. Historians believe that the reason for this severity is the fact that not long before that the sovereign issued a decree according to which "shameful children" (that is, those born out of wedlock) were not infringed on their rights, as was the case until now. On the contrary, hospitals were organized where unlucky girls could give birth in complete secrecy under the supervision of experienced midwives and leave the child in an orphanage. Thus, Peter took care of new recruits, new employees, as they would say today, about the demographic situation. But there is another version: one of the children destroyed by Mary could well have been from Peter himself.
Whatever it was, but on March 14, 1719, Maria was executed on Trinity Square in Moscow.
She appeared in a white dress decorated with black ribbons, and was so graceful and touching that Peter came out to meet her, gave her his hand and helped her ascend the scaffold. According to the recollections of contemporaries, the crowd froze in the hope of royal favor. Peter said something quietly to Mary, even, as they say, hugged her, and then … pushed her towards the executioner.
When the execution took place, Peter took Mary's head, kissed her on the mouth, and then began to tell the people nearby about the anatomical addition of the human neck, while demonstrating the artery and vertebrae of the unfortunate Hamilton. Having finished his eerie lecture, Peter once again kissed the dead lips, threw his head to the ground and left.
It is said that Maria Hamilton's head was preserved in alcohol and was kept in the Kunstkamera for a long time. But this, apparently, is nothing more than a legend.