Imperial Prisoners: Prison and Execution, Overtaking Princes and Princesses Before Any Revolution

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It seems that the prisoner is the most powerless creature on earth, and the members of the royal and royal families, on the contrary, and there is nothing in common between these two worlds. But history knows many cases when princes and princesses, princes and princesses were imprisoned either in spite of who they were born, or even because of whose children they are.

Carlos of Asturias

Crown Prince of Spain, son of King Philip II and his first wife, Carlos of Asturias from childhood showed arrogance, willfulness and cruelty. He loved to give out slaps and slaps to the courtiers under any pretext, demanded that the servants bring him rabbits and roasted the animals alive, beat and flogged the maids and prostitutes delivered to him. When the king married a second time, Carlos was inflamed with a passion for his stepmother - and it seemed to some that the young woman reciprocated. By the standards of that time, such love was considered incestuous, but the Habsburgs were generally used to incest.

The prince's temper deteriorated when, at the age of seventeen, he fell down the stairs and hit his head hard. The headaches made him very irritable. He mocked those around him even more terribly. In addition, he burned with hatred towards his father - perhaps out of jealousy - and was going to flee to the Netherlands to fight there against Spain.

When Philip learned about his son's plans, his patience finally ran out. Carlos was arrested and sent to prison. There, the possessed prince committed suicide in the only way acceptable to a Catholic - by bringing himself to death with asceticism. He fasted, refusing to swallow anything other than ice, and tore off his clothes. Carlos's health was very weak since childhood, so he did not torment himself for long, dying at the age of twenty-three. The young queen cried so inconsolably that the king had to separately forbid her to grieve so defiantly.

Emperor John and the Brunswick family

Undoubtedly, the most famous royal prisoner in Russia is the juvenile emperor John VI. The boy was the great-grandson of Ivan V, the elder brother of Peter I. His mother was the Grand Duchess Anna Leopoldovna, and his father was Prince Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig. Anna Ioannovna, daughter of Ivan V, did not want the branches of Peter to pass the throne and appointed the newborn nephew Ivan as her heir. And she died.

Soon after the death of Anna Ioannovna, the princess Elizabeth, who staged a coup, seized power. The one and a half year old tsar, together with his mother and father, at first simply wanted to send Anton Ulrich to his homeland, but later Elizabeth was afraid that the boy would be used for a new coup. The family of Ivan VI was settled near Riga. After a conspiracy against Elizabeth - which, however, did not lie on the conscience of Anna Leopoldovna and Anton Ulrich - the family was transported first to Oranienburg, then to Kholmogory, where the four-year-old deposed king was placed separately from his parents and brothers and sisters who appeared.

I must say that at the very beginning, before the appearance of new children, Elizabeth suggested that Anton Ulrich leave the country, but he refused to leave his wife and son in eternal confinement and decided to share any hardships with them. True, if he had not stayed, his wife would have lived much longer - after all, she died of childbirth fever. Meanwhile, Elizabeth withdrew from circulation all the coins with the image of the little king and rewrote all the papers so that his name was not mentioned.

At sixteen, after another conspiracy, to which Ivan had nothing to do, he was transferred to Shlisselburg and settled in even harsher and more ascetic conditions than before. Now it was forbidden for anyone to talk to him at all, the furniture in the cell was extremely scarce, and the prisoner's only entertainment was the Bible. Fortunately, contrary to the instructions, even as a child, one of the servants taught the prisoner to read and write and told who he was.

Ivan constantly read the Bible and dreamed of becoming a monk. The guard, meanwhile, was ordered to kill the prisoner on any attempt at release - even if they were shown a paper signed by the empress. The Braunschweig family - Anton Ulrich with children - did not know anything about Ivan's fate and had almost no news about the outside world. They lived in a small house with a garden, from where they were not allowed out. Ivan's mother died when he was six years old. Of course, nothing was said to the deposed emperor.

According to legend, Catherine II, ascending the throne, thought to strengthen her position by taking Ivan VI as her husband. She visited the prisoner and spoke to him. When asked if he knew who he was, the young man replied that he was Emperor Ivan. But all his other answers were so incoherent that he seemed inadequate to the empress, and she abandoned the idea of a wedding. And after a while, John Antonovich was stabbed to death while trying to free him. Whether Catherine was involved in this is still arguing.

Elizabeth I, Queen of England, and Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots

Two prominent women of the era of queens, contenders for the inheritance and title of the late King Henry VIII, these two women were as opposite as possible. Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed almost simply at the request of her father. Maria's mother, Maria de Guise, was an active political player in Europe. Elizabeth was considered cold-blooded, Maria - cheerful and passionately loving. Elizabeth lived for some time in prison before becoming Queen of England, Mary was imprisoned by Elizabeth after she lost the crown of Scotland.

When Elizabeth's beloved younger brother died, Elizabeth's sister Mary Tudor, an ardent Catholic, ascended the throne. Fearing that the Protestants would negotiate, using Princess Elizabeth as a banner or even calling her a leader, Mary imprisoned her twenty-year-old sister in the Tower, and later, in honor of her wedding, had mercy and sent her into exile. Fortunately, both in prison and in exile, Elizabeth was treated like a princess and she did not know almost anything about oppression - she was only forbidden to correspond with anyone outside.

When Elizabeth nevertheless ascended the throne, Mary Stuart stated that, according to Catholic laws, the daughter of Henry VIII was illegitimate, and, therefore, the Queen of Scots had more rights to the throne of England. Stewart's claims seriously spoiled the relationship between the two women - who, by the way, were each other's aunt and niece, but still it was with Elizabeth that Mary began to seek refuge when she lost the Scottish throne and almost lost her life.

Elizabeth sent Mary into captivity - of course, worthy of a royal person. Stewart was served by a whole staff of maids and cooks, she received new clothes and ate well. Perhaps it was the absence of hardships and the boredom of imprisonment that prompted Mary to continue intrigues after Elizabeth. Stewart spent more than ten years in captivity until her incitement to conspiracy and overthrow of her aunt was revealed. Elizabeth executed the ungrateful captive.

Tsarevich Alexey

For a long time, Alexei was the only son of Peter I and went to the title of heir. But the new, beloved, wife gave birth to Peter's second son, and the tsar began to put pressure on Alexei to become a monk. Alexey formally agreed, but, taking the opportunity, fled to Europe. Peter was just sick, and the prince hoped to sit out with the allies who appeared at once until his death, in order to then calmly ascend the throne. If necessary, he would have entered Russia with the Austrian army.

Peter managed to lure Alexei home by cunning. In Russia, the tsarevich was forced to renounce his claims to the throne in favor of his brother, and for loyalty he was tried as a treason and thrown into prison. Alexey did not stay in captivity for long. After another torture, he died.

In the official notice of Alexei's death, it was stated that the prince died of horror before the impending execution, but on his deathbed he reconciled with his father and repented of what he had done. Popular rumor, however, stubbornly accused Peter of secretly killing his son. Pyotr Petrovich never became a tsar - he died at the age of four. Alexei's son ascended the throne and did everything to rehabilitate his father.

I must say even Soviet motorcycle racer Natalya Androsova - the last of the royal Romanov family in Russia - was the granddaughter of a royal prisoner, whose life, fortunately, did not pass in prison, but in exile.