After his father's death he was placed in the care of 'governors' who had beaten and tormented him, sometimes being made to kneel for hours on sacks of peas until his legs were red and bruised. As a result his nervous system was permanently damaged. At the age of thirteen his aunt, the Russian Empress Elizabeth, made him come to Russia and the pale and thin creature, with ugly grimaces and a lolling tongue but talking in a high voice of piercing intensity, was proclaimed heir of the Russian throne. The Empress engaged kind tutors to educate him, but they soon came to the conclusion that he had a retarded mind. He played the violin a little, but preferred drilling his hundreds of lead-and-wood soldiers. When he was sixteen, Empress Elizabeth decided to find him a wife and, on advice of Frederick the Great of Prussia, she sent for Sophie Augusta Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst. She arrived with her mother and, upon embracing the Orthodox faith, changed her name to Catherine. A year-and-a-half after her arrival they were married. However, he preferred playing soldiers or relieving the Court's tedium by boring holes in the floor of his appartment, enabling him to watch Empress Elizabeth making love. Nine years after their marriage, and after two miscarriages, Catherine gave birth to a son, Paul. Later Catherine claimed that he was fathered by Serge Saltykov, but this is probably not true as Paul had the same mental instability as Peter and it seems unlikely that the ugly, snub-nosed man was the offspring of a good-looking woman and the exceptionally handsome Saltykov. Whatever the truth, Catherine cared little for the baby who was brought up by the Empress Elizabeth. Peter did not care for Paul either and took a mistress, Elizabeth Vorontsova who, though ugly and stupid, was warm-hearted and played soldiers with him. In 1756 Prussia was at war with Austria, Sweden, France, Poland, Saxony and Russia. However, while Peter admired Frederick the Great as a fellow-German and soldier, the Empress Elizabeth took great interest in the war as she wanted to punish Frederick the Great whose bawdy jokes about her and her lovers were repeated all over Europe. After several years Prussia was almost defeated; but then, in January 1762, Empress Elizabeth died. As a result, Peter, now Emperor Peter III, immediately announced the termination of Russia's involvement with the war and eventually returned those territories taken from Prussia. Peter III abolished the Secret Chancellery, removed the shipyards from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt, and introduced a new system of police patrols and street-lighting in the capital. However, his subjects were alarmed by both his strange behaviour and cavorting at the Empress Elizabeth's funeral. Although he outlawed the brutal 'knout', a kind of whip, he also upset a great many when he wanted to Prussianize the army. Every innovation he made seemed to cause resentment. On 15 April 1762 he moved into his new Winter Palace accompanied by his wife, his son and his mistress. However, one of the most dangerous things he did was the dismissal of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. This combined with the indication that he preferred the Lutheran above the Orthodox religion spelled disaster for him. When he drunkenly threatened to send Catherine to a convent, conspirators acted. Catherine was proclaimed Sovereign-Autocrat while Peter III was drilling his soldiers. When he learned what had happened, he sent a letter to Catherine begging for his life, offering to abdicate as long as he could retire with his mistress. Made to sign an abdication document, he was then taken to Ropsha, his country house. However, while alive he would be a rallying point for an opposition; and if he were allowed to leave for Holstein, he would ally himself with Frederick the Great and conspire against Russia. Alexis Orlov provided the answer but it is not known exactly what happened. After Peter III was murdered, his face was black and his body badly bruised. Catherine pardoned the assassins and proclaimed that the ex-Emperor had died of a violent fit of colic. 

Source: Leo van de Pas