Involvement in The 1762 Coup
Together with his brother Grigory, Alexei Orlov became involved in the palace coup to overthrow Tsar Peter III and place his wife, Catherine, on the Russian throne. In the coup, carried out in July 1762, Alexei went to meet Catherine at the Peterhof Palace, and finding her in bed, announced 'the time has come for you to reign, Madame.' He then drove her to St Petersburg, where the guards regiments there proclaimed their loyalty to her. The Tsar was arrested and imprisoned at Ropsha, under the guard of Alexei Orlov. There Peter died in mysterious circumstances on 17 July 1762. Orlov is popularly supposed to have murdered him, either on his own initiative or on Catherine's orders. One account has Orlov giving him poisoned wine to drink which caused
... flames through his veins. This aroused suspicion in the overthrown emperor and he refused the next glass. But they used force, and he defended himself. In that horrible struggle, in order to stifle his cries, they threw him on the ground and grabbed his throat. But he defended himself with the strength that comes from final desperation, and they tried to avoid wounding him. They placed a rifle strap on the emperor's neck. Alexei Orlov kneeled with both legs on his chest and blocked his breathing. He passed away in their hands.
Orlov apparently wrote a letter to Catherine after Peter's death, confessing that Peter had been killed in a drunken brawl with one of his jailers, Feodor Bariatynsky, and taking the blame. The authenticity of this letter has been questioned. It was announced that the Tsar had died from an attack of haemorrhoidal colic.
Read more about this topic: Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov
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