How did the Great Northern War, which saw Sweden pitted against Peter the Great’s Russia and her allies, and would transform Europe forever, begin? Who was Charles XII, Sweden’s King, and a worthy antagonist for the formidable Peter? What terrible miscalculation saw Russia’s Danish allies brutally knocked from the war in its early stage? What dreadful havoc did Peter’s Cossacks wreak upon the Eastern Baltic? And, who was the young farm girl who would go on to capture the heart of a Tsar? Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss Peter the Great, the early stages of the tumultuous Great Northern War, and his scandalous marriage to a serving girl? The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: How did the Great Northern War begin?
Yeah, I think absolutely. And nobody incarnates it better than Charles XII. So he was 10 years younger than Peter the Great. He was born in 1682. His father, Charles XI, was very pious. and had trained him from birth, effectively, for war. So when he's four years old, he's riding behind his father at military reviews.
At six years old, he's taken away from his mother and the ladies of the court, and he's given to military and male tutors. At seven, he shoots his first fox.
What is it about foxes?
The kings of Northern Europe are just terrible towards foxes. Yeah, Augustus the Strong, the fox tosser from the last episode. He'll be reappearing in the next couple of episodes. So when he was eight, Charles killed his first deer. When he was 10, he killed a wolf. And when he was 11, he killed his first bear. He loves killing bears.
There is a lot of bear murder in this episode, isn't there?
He's a very terse, serious, stoical man, a young man. He's obsessed with honor. He's obsessed with his own integrity. He's very bright. He reads Latin. He reads Moliere and Racine in the original. Every morning, he spends an hour discussing the Bible with a bishop.
And he carries a biography of Alexander the Great with him wherever he goes, which is rather like, didn't Alexander the Great have a special box? Then he traveled with the Iliad. So this is effectively, you know, he models himself in Alexander. And you can actually see his mad campaigns do have that sort of Alexandrian spirit to them, don't they?
Well, that's what Samuel Johnson's poem is doing because it's echoing a satire by Juvenal, the Roman poet. And so he's casting him very much as a kind of classical hero. Yes, like a Hannibal. Like a Hannibal, very explicitly like a Hannibal, yeah.
So when he's 15, Charles, he succeeds the throne because his father dies young. And originally they say, well, they'll have a regency council because he's so young. Within months, he scraps that and says, no, I want to run everything myself.
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Chapter 2: Who was Charles XII of Sweden?
France Lefort. Exactly. He has become his great drinking partner, his buddy, his carousing partner and he's very greedy and ambitious Menshikov. He becomes an important commander for Peter but he's kind of always festooning himself with kind of, he loves bling, he loves titles, all of that. A bit kind of goering. Yeah, I suppose. But only not as fat. Yes, and not as evil, I think it's fair to say.
But acquisitive. Yeah, very acquisitive. Anyway, Martha becomes his maidservant and probably his mistress. And while she is living with Menshikov, she converted to Orthodoxy and she took the name Ekaterina Catherine. And then he took her to Moscow and she met Peter. And Peter says, oh, what a tremendous woman, young girl. I'd like her as my mistress. and takes her up as his mistress.
What it was about Catherine that appealed to Peter is, I guess, slightly unclear. His biographer, Robert K. Massey, calls her a sturdy, healthy, appealing girl in the full bloom of youth.
That's very much the way he likes to describe women, isn't it? Exactly.
A sturdy, handsome girl.
Yeah.
A buxom wench. There's a lot of that. I think he does use the word buxom quite a lot. He does. So she's not like tremendously glamorous or good looking, but there's something about her. Her sort of, dare I say, her kind of rustic simplicity. I don't know. Well, doesn't he call her mother? Yes.
A bit like John Lennon with Yoko. So maybe there's a kind of mature, you know, he's missing mum. Possibly.
Possibly. She's many years his junior, but she does kind of mother him. They become very close very quickly. She bears two sons, Peter and Paul, in 1704 and 1705. They both die in infancy. And then in 1707, an extraordinary thing. Peter and Marta, or Catherine as she now calls herself, are married in secret. They're married privately. And when you think that she is not even Russian...
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