The Coinage Of Catherine I, 1725–1727
PETER THE GREAT, who ruled Russia with an iron hand from 1689 to 1725, cared little for the accident of birth in choosing those who served him. To the Czar, loyalty to the State was far more important than being born to some ancient and noble family. Perhaps nowhere was this seen more clearly than in his choice of an empress to rule by his side. She, who was to be known as Catherine I, had the most lowly of births.
Martha Skavronsky was born in Livonia, on the Baltic Sea, in 1684. Both parents died while she was very young and she went to live with a Lutheran pastor, Ernest Gluck, and his wife. Although considered a family member in a loose sense, she was not given an education. In 1702 she married a Swedish dragoon but he disappeared when a Russian army overran the area a few weeks later.
She was carried into captivity and soon found herself in the household of Prince Alexander Menshikov, a close friend and aide to the Czar. In 1703, when Peter’s affair with his mistress Anna Mons was beginning to unravel, he met Martha and formed a close relationship. Their first child was born in 1704, though until the fourth child (Anna), none survived beyond a few years of
