ELIZABETH PETROWNA, daughter of Peter the Great and of Catharine I., was born iu 1709. After the death of her nephew, Peter II., in 1730, she was urged to assert her claims to the crown, but she declined to do eo through indolence or timidity, and her cousin Anna, duchess of Courland, was raised to the throne. After the death of Anna in 1740, Iwan, the iufant eon of the Duke of Brunswick and of Ann, niece to the late empress, was proclaimed emperor under the tutelage of his mother, in conformity to the will of the defunct sovereign. A conspiracy however was soon after hatched by some of Elizabeth's attendants, especially a surgeon of the name of Leatoq, who found great in conquering her irresnlution the of the guards were drawn into the plot, and a military insur e followed in 1741, when Elizabeth was proclaimed empress, and y Ann and her husband, the Duke of Brunswick, cod the child lwan, , were put into confinement. Several noblemen were sent into Siberia. I who had been minister under the Empress Anne., was retained in office and appointed chancellor. Elizabeth took an active part in the war of the Austrian succession, sod sent troops to the r assistance of Maria Theresa, and she afterwards concurred In the peace 1 of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Duriug the Seven Years' War, Elizabeth took part against Frederick of Prussia, it was said, from personal f pique at moms sarcastic reflections of the Prussian king. The Russian
s army Invaded Prussia, woo the hard-fought battle of Kunneradorf, f crossed the Oder, entered Berlin, and reduced Frederick to the verge of ruin and despair. But the illness and death of Elizabeth soon retrieved his fortune!. She died in December 1761, after a reign of twenty years, and was succeeded by the Duke of holstein Gottorp, 2 son of her sister Anna Petrowna, duchess of Holstein, who assumed the title of Peter III.
e The government of Elizabeth was directed in great measure by f favourites, who succeeded one another. The empress herself was e good-natured and even amiable to those who pleased her, but indolent and very sensual, and many acts of oppression and cruelty were per petrated under her reign. She ws averse to the punishment of death, but numerous persons were sentenced to the knout and to exile in Siberia. Several ladies, among others Madame Lapoukin, a handsome and clever woman, who had given offence to Elizabeth, experienced the same fate. Elizabeth exerted herself to forward the compilation of a code of laws for the Russian empire, a task begun under Peter the Great, but which was not completed till the reign of Catharine 11. She was never married, but left several natural children.