With the death of Fyodor the III, Russia had a succession crisis on its hands. Ivan the 5th was mentally and physically handicapped. Peter the Great was ten.

An uprising of Musketeers, some 25,000 men, led to several days of instability and blood shed where many of Peter’s relatives were killed. Sophia emerged from the fray as the broker of two crowned tsars and herself as the “The Great Sovereign Lady” regent.

Sophia executed the leaders of the Musketeers and her political enemies. To consolidate her power, she looked to Ivan for a male heir, and had him married to Praskovia Saltykova. The two would have three daughters who survived to adulthood, one of whom was the future Empress Anna. To counter, at fifteen Peter was married to Eudoxia Lopukhina.

Two of her foreign policy successes were treaties with Poland and China. Her failure was a war on the Ottomans by attacking the Crimean Khan. Sophia hoped to gain territory in Ukraine. This gambit failed, and with no military victories and no male heirs through Ivan to justify her regency further, Sophia was forced to give up power to her brother, Peter. She was arrested and imprisoned for the remainder of her life.


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