Shortly after this another manifesto appeared, in which Elizabeth grounded her legitimacy on the will of Catherine I. As the statements in this document respecting the right of inheritance are singular in themselves, and as they illustrate in a very remarkable degree the irregularity with which the question of the succession was suffered to be treated, the passage touching upon those points appears to be worthy of preservation. It will be seen, upon reference to previous facts, that these statements are highly coloured to suit the demands of the occasion. After some preliminaries, the manifesto proceeds to observe, that on the demise of Peter II, whom she (Elizabeth) ought to have succeeded, Anna was elected through the machinations of Ostermann; and afterwards, when the sovereign was attacked by a mortal distemper, the same Ostermann appointed as successor the son of Prince Antony Ulrich of Brunswick and the princess of Mecklenburg, a child only two months old, who had not the slightest claim by inheritance to the Russian throne; and, not content with this, he added, to the prejudice of Elizabeth, that after Ivan’s death the princes afterwards born of the said prince of Brunswick and the princess of Mecklenburg should succeed to the Russian throne; whereas even the parents themselves had not the slightest right to that throne. That Ivan was, therefore, by the machinations of Ostermann and Munich, confirmed emperor in October, 1740; and because the several regiments of guards, as well as the marching regiments, were under the command of Munich and the father of Ivan, and consequently the whole force of the empire was in the hands of those two persons, the subjects were compelled to take the oath of allegiance to Ivan. That Antony Ulrich and his spouse had afterwards broken this ordinance, to which they themselves had sworn; had forcibly seized upon the administration of the empire; and Anna had resolved, even in the lifetime of her son Ivan, to place herself upon the throne as empress. That, in order, then, to prevent all dangerous consequences from these proceedings, Elizabeth had ascended the throne, and of her own imperial grace had ordered the princess with her son and daughter to set out for their native country.
Such were the arguments upon which Elizabeth attempted to justify her seizure of the throne. With what sincerity she fulfilled the act of grace towards the regent and her family, expressed in the last sentence, will be seen hereafter.
ELIZABETH PETROVNA (1741-1762 A.D.)
The revolution which elevated Elizabeth to the throne and the circumstances which preceded that elevation were in every respect remarkable. She had no claim to the dignity, either by birth or by the regulation in regard to the succession introduced by the innovating Peter. Elizabeth was the younger daughter of Peter: Anna, who had been married to the duke of Holstein, was the elder; and though this princess was dead, she left a son, the representative of her rights, who, as we shall hereafter perceive, did ultimately reign as Peter III. The right of primogeniture, indeed, had, in the regulation to which we have alluded, been set aside, and the choice, pure and simple, of the reigning potentate substituted; but the infant Peter had the additional claim of being expressly indicated in the will of Catherine I. These claims, however, had been utterly disregarded when Anna, duchess of Courland and daughter of Ivan, brother of Peter I, had been raised by a faction to the throne. On the death of this empress without issue, Peter, as we have seen, was again overlooked, through the ambition rather of an individual than of a faction—the bloodthirsty Biron.
Ivan, the son of Anna, had been preferred to his mother, who had been married to Prince Antony Ulrich of Brunswick; and no doubt could be entertained that the object of Biron, in prevailing on the empress to nominate the child, was to retain the supreme power in his own hands as regent. We have seen by what means his ruin was effected; what circumstances accompanied the regency of the duchess Anna, mother of the youthful emperor; and how, by a similar revolution, Anna herself was replaced by the princess Elizabeth.
That Ivan had no other right to the throne than that conferred by the will of the empress Anna, was one of the pretexts which Elizabeth employed to prove the validity of her own title. That will, in the manifesto published three days after the revolution, was insinuated—probably with great truth—to have been irregularly obtained; but in either case it was of no validity, since the right of Elizabeth was asserted to be superior even to that of the former empress. But the instrument was a tissue of sophistry. Though she had been placed on the throne by about three hundred soldiers, she did not hesitate to affirm that the revolution had been effected at the demand of all her subjects. In ostentatiously displaying her clemency, in proclaiming that she had sent back the parents of Ivan to their own country, with all the honours due to their station, she was equally insincere. Both passed their lives in captivity, and were transferred from one fortress to another, according to her caprice or jealousy. Until his eighth year Ivan was permitted to remain with them; but, apprehensive lest his mind should be taught ambition, he was consigned to solitary confinement first in the fortress of Oranienburg, next in that of Schlüsselburg. In one respect his fate was worse than that of his parents: they died in the course of nature[50]; he, as we shall hereafter perceive, perished by violence.
Elizabeth Petrovna