Njegoš's will named Danilo Petrović, the son of Njegoš's cousin, Stanko Stijepov, as his successor. Danilo had been sent to acquire a basic education in Russia the year before the "vladika"'s death, and was not in Montenegro at the time. When Njegoš died, Đorđije disregarded the will and appeared before the Governing Senate asking that the senators proclaim Pero the new "vladika". Danilo returned from Russia in 1852, bringing with him a letter authored by the Russian czar which made it clear that Saint Petersburg endorsed Danilo's accession, not Pero's. In the ensuing power struggle, Đorđije and Pero lost the support of most of the tribal chiefs, and they and their families were forced into exile. Pero sought refuge in Kotor, where his wife gave birth to a boy. In the hope of preserving his brother's memory, Pero named the newborn Rade, but the child died after only two months. Pero himself died in 1854 without having produced any male offspring, thus extinguishing the male line of Njegoš's parents. Njegoš's mother died in 1858, and his father lived into his late nineties, having outlived all three of his sons.