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
Imperial Crown of Russia Imperial Crown of Russia The Imperial Crown of Russia, also known as the Great Imperial Crown, was used by the monarchs of Russia from 1762 until the monarchy's abolition in 1917. The Great Imperial Crown was first used in a coronation by Catherine II, and it was last used at the coronation of Nicholas II. It survived the subsequent revolution and is currently on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury's State Diamond Fund. By 1613, when Michael Romanov, the first Tsar of the Romanov Dynasty was crowned, the Russian regalia included a pectoral cross, a golden chain, a barmas (wide