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EUDOXIA LOPUKHINA (1669-1731)

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Originally appearing in Volume V09, Page 882 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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EUDOXIA LOPUKHINA (1669-1731) , tsaritsa, first See also:

consort of See also:Peter the See also:Great, was the daughter of the boyarin See also:Theodore Lopukhin. Peter, then a youth of seventeen, married her on the 27th of See also:January 1689 at the command of his See also:mother, who hoped to wean him from the wicked ways of the See also:German suburb of See also:Moscow by See also:wedding him betimes to a See also:lady who was as pious as she was beautiful. The See also:marriage was in every way unfortunate. Accustomed from her See also:infancy to the monastic seclusion of the terem, or See also:women's See also:quarter, Eudoxia's See also:mental See also:horizon did not extend much beyond her See also:embroidery-See also:frame or her illuminated service-See also:book. From the first her society bored Peter unspeakably, and after the See also:birth of their second, See also:short-lived son See also:Alexander, he practically deserted her. In 1698 she was unceremoniously sent off to the Pokrovsky monastery at Suzdal for refusing to consent to a See also:divorce, though it was not till See also:June 1699 that she disappeared from the See also:world beneath the See also:hood of See also:sister Elena. In the monastery, however, she was held in high See also:honour by the See also:archimandrite; the nuns persisted in regarding her as the lawful empress; and she was permitted an extraordinary degree of See also:latitude, unknown to Peter, who dragged her from her enforced See also:retreat in 1718 on a See also:charge of See also:adultery. As the See also:evidence was collected by Peter's creatures, it is very doubtful whether Eudoxia was guilty, though she was compelled to make a public See also:confession. She was then divorced and See also:con-signed to the remote monastery of See also:Ladoga. Here she remained for ten years till the See also:accession of her See also:grandson, Peter II., when the reactionaries proposed to appoint her See also:regent. She was escorted with great ceremony to Moscow in 1728 and exhibited to the See also:people attired in the splendid, old-fashioned See also:robes of a tsaritsa; but years of rigid seclusion had dulled her wits, and her best See also:friends soon convinced themselves that a See also:convent was a much more suitable See also:place for her than a See also:throne. An See also:allowance of 6o,000 roubles a See also:year was accordingly assigned to her, and she disappeared again in a monastery at Moscow, where she died in 1731.

See See also:

Robert Nisbet See also:Bain, Pupils of Peter the Great (See also:London, 1895), chaps, ii. and iv.; and The First Romanovs (London, 1905), chaps. viii. and xii. (R. N.

End of Article: EUDOXIA LOPUKHINA (1669-1731)

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