While Eudoxia was eating her heart out in her convent cell, her husband was finding ample compensation for her absence in Bacchanalian orgies and the company of his galaxies of favourites, from tradesmen’s daughters to servant-maids of buxom charms, such as the Livonian peasant-girl, in whom he found his second Empress.

Of the almost countless women who thus fell under his baneful influence one stands out from the rest by reason of the tragedy which surrounds her memory.  Mary Hamilton was no low-born maid, such as Peter especially chose to honour with his attentions.  She had in her veins the blood of the ducal Hamiltons of Scotland, and of many a noble family of Russia, from which her more immediate ancestors had taken their wives; and it was an ill fate that took her, when little more than a child, to the most debased Court of Europe to play the part of maid-of-honour, and thus to cross the path of the most unprincipled lover in Europe.

Peter’s infatuation for the pretty young “Scotswoman,” however, was but short-lived.  She had none of the vulgar attractions that could win him to any kind of constancy; and he quickly abandoned her for the more agreeable company of his dienshtchiks, leaving her to find consolation in the affection of more courtly, if less exalted, lovers—­notably the young Count Orloff, who proved as faithless as his master.

Such was Mary’s infatuation for the worthless Count that, under his influence, she stooped to various kinds of crime, from stealing the Tsarina’s jewels to fill her lover’s purse, to infanticide.  The climax came when an important document was missing from the Tsar’s cabinet.  Suspicion pointed to Orloff as the thief; he was arrested, and, when brought into Peter’s presence, not only confessed to the thefts and to his share in making away with the undesirable infants, but betrayed the partner of his guilt.

There was short shrift for poor Mary Hamilton when she was put on her trial on these grave charges.  She made full confession of her crimes; but no torture could wring from her the name of the man for love of whom she had committed them, and of whose treachery to her she was ignorant.  She was sentenced to death; and one March day, in the year 1719, she was led to the scaffold “in a white silk gown trimmed with black ribbons.”

Then followed one of the grimmest scenes recorded in history.  Peter, the man who had been the first to betray her, and who had refused her pardon even when her cause was pleaded by his wife, was a keenly interested spectator of her execution.  At the foot of the scaffold he embraced her, and exhorted her to pray, before stepping aside to give place to the headsman.  When the axe had done its deadly work, he again stepped forward, picked up the lifeless and still beautiful head which had rolled into the mud, and calmly proceeded to give a lecture on anatomy to the assembled crowd, “drawing attention to the number and nature of the organs severed by the axe.”  His lecture concluded, he kissed the pale, dead lips, crossed himself, and walked away with a smile of satisfaction on his face.