This woman not only came from the humblest walks of life, but was even an illegitimate daughter of a peasant from the shores of the Baltic, and yet she wore the crown of Russia, and, although her end was as ignoble and humiliating to the history of her sex as her beginning, yet for the most part her career compels the conclusion that she was no common person.
Her entrance into the political life of Russia was purely accidental. In one of Peter's campaigns against Charles XII, among the prisoners of war was a Livonian peasant girl, seventeen years old. She came to one of his generals weeping for the loss of her husband, to whom she had been married only the day before. It is said that the general fancied her and took her for a mistress, but Peter, seeing her, also liked her looks and claimed her for himself.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, he first privately married her and afterwards publicly acknowledged her as his wife, causing her to be baptized into the Greek Church, when her name was changed from Marpha to Catherine, and as such she is known in history.
This young woman, if we may believe the testimony of people who knew her, and which has come down to us in abundance, was no beauty, but the claim that she had no talent cannot be well founded.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
