History of Russia (1721–96) drills on the Russian army, and depriving Russia of a military victory by establishing his sudden alliance with Prussia. Making use of the discontent and fearing for her own position, Peter III's wife, Catherine, deposed her husband in a coup, and her lover's brother, Aleksey Orlov, subsequently murdered him, so in June 1762 Catherine became Catherine II, empress of Russia. Peter the Great had two wives, Yevdokiya Lopukhina (the daughter of a minor noble) and Marfa Skavronskaya (a Lithuanian peasant, renamed Catherine after her conversion to Orthodoxy). Catherine I's rise through Peter I's Table of Ranks from a simple peasant
Michael of Russia Michael of Russia Michael I of Russia (Russian: Михаи́л Фёдорович Рома́нов, "Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov") () became the first Russian Tsar of the House of Romanov after the zemskiy sobor of 1613 elected him to rule the Tsardom of Russia. He was the son of Feodor Nikitich Romanov (later known as Patriarch Filaret) and of Xenia (later known as "the "great nun"" Martha). He was also a nephew of Feodor I (the last Rurikid Tsar) through his great-aunt Anastasia Romanovna (his paternal grandfather's sister) and through marriage with Tsar Ivan IV of Russia. His accession marked the end of the Time