Peter II of Russia Peter II of Russia Peter II Alexeyevich (Russian: Пётр II Алексеевич, "Pyotr II Alekseyevich") ( – ) reigned as Emperor of Russia from 1727 until his death. He was the only son of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich (son of Peter the Great by his first wife, Eudoxia Lopukhina) and of Charlotte Christine of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Peter was born in Saint Petersburg on 23 (O.S. 12) October 1715. His mother died when he was only ten days old. His father, Prince Alexis, accused of treason by his own father, Peter the Great, died in prison in 1718. So three-year-old Peter and his four-year-old
Catherine I of Russia Mons had had an affair, but there is no evidence for this. Peter died (28 January 1725 Old Style) without naming a successor. Catherine represented the interests of the "new men", commoners who had been brought to positions of great power by Peter based on competence. A change of government was likely to favor the entrenched aristocrats. For that reason during a meeting of a council to decide on a successor, a coup was arranged by Menshikov and others in which the guards regiments with whom Catherine was very popular proclaimed her the ruler of Russia, giving her the title