← Back to the front page

The Sibling Rivalry That Wrecked an Empire, and Other Self-Destructive Royal Family Episodes

Khalid Elhassan January 5, 2020 33 min

Wars of the Roses - Battle of Bosworth Field — The Wars of the Roses, during which the Plantagenet Dynasty destroyed itself. Encyclopedia Britannica

Crown Prince Alexius Petrovich, by J.G. Tannauer. The Russian Museum

19. Crown Prince Alexius Tries to Defy His Father

Alexius Petrovich’s mother had been pious and conservative, so Peter the Great forced her into a convent when Alexius was eight. Understandably, that scarred Alexius. In contrast to his modernizing father, Alexius became conservative and religious and attracted admirers from amongst the traditionalists pining for the old days. Unfortunately for Alexius, the kinds of kids who get away with that are the kinds of kids who don’t have Peter the Great for a father.

The reformist Emperor, determined to protect his legacy from the threat of repeal by a successor down the road, sought to force his son into seeing things his way. The father-son relationship cracked for good in 1715, when Peter threatened to deprive Alexius of the succession. To his astonishment, the Crown Prince agreed to relinquish his claim to the throne, and volunteered to enter a monastery. At the last moment, however, Alexius had a change of heart and fled to Vienna, where he secured asylum from the Habsburgs.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.