CATHARINE II. 380 CATHARINE OF ARAGON Zerbst. In 1745 she was married to Peter, nephew and successor of the Rus- sian Empress Elizabeth. In danger of being supplanted by his mistress, the Countess Woronzoff, Catharine, with the assistance of her lover, Gregory Orloff, and others, won over the guards and was proclaimed monarch (July, 1762). Peter attempted no resistance, abdicated almost immediately, and was strangled in prison a few days later, apparently without Catharine's knowledge. By bribes and threats she readily secured her position, and at once entered upon CATHARINE II. OF RUSSIA the administration with great and far- seeing activity. On the death of Au- gustus III. of Poland she caused her old lover, Poniatowski, to be placed on the throne with a view to the extension of her influence in Poland, by which she profited in the partition of that country in the successive dismemberments of 1772, 1793, and 1795. By the war with the Turks, which occupied a consider- able part of her reign, she conquered the Crimea and opened the Black Sea to the Russian navy. Her dream, however, of driving the Turks from Europe and re- storing the Byzantine Empire was not to be fulfilled. Her relations with Po- land and with other European powers induced her to make peace with Tur- key in 1792 and accept Dniester as the boundary line between the two countries. She succeeded, at least partially, in im- proving the administration of justice, ameliorated the condition of the serfs, constructed canals, founded the Russian Academy, and in a variety of ways con- tributed to the enlightenment and pros- perity of the country. Her enthusiasm for reform, however, was summarily checked by the events of the French rev- olution; and the dissipation and extrava- gance of her court were such that there was even a danger of its exhausting the empire. Of her many lovers Potemkin was longest in favor, retaining his influ- ence from 1775 till his death in 1791, directing Russian politics throughout that period in all essential matters. She died in 1796. CATHARINE DE' MEDICI (da-med' e-che), wife of Henry II., King of France, born at Florence in 1519, the only daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urbino, and the niece of Pope Clement VII. She was married to the Duke of Orleans, afterward Henry II., in 1533, but had little or no influence at the French court either during the reign of her husband, who was under the influ- ence of his mistress Diana de Poitiers, or during the reign of her eldest son, Francis II., who, in consequence of his marriage with Mary Stuart, was de- voted to the party of the Guises. The death of Francis placed the reins of government during the minority of her son, Charles IX., in her hands. Waver- ing between the Guises on one side, who had put themselves at the head of the Catholics, and Cond^ and Coligny on the other, who had become very powerful by the aid of the Protestants, she played off one faction against the other in the hope of increasing her own power; and the 30 years of civil war which followed were mainly due to her. Her influence with Charles IX. was throughout of the worst kind, and the massacre of St. Bar- tholomew's Day was largely her work. After the death of Charles IX., in 1574, her third son succeeded as Henry III., and her mischievous influence continued. She died in 1589, shortly before the as- sassination of Henry III. Of her two daughters, Elizabeth married Philip II. of Spain, and Margaret of Valois mar- ried Henry of Navarre, afterward Henry IV. CATHARINE HOWARD, Queen of England. See Howard. CATHARINE OF ARAGON, Queen of England, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, born in 1485. In 1501 she was married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VII, Her husband djring about five months after, the king, unwilling to return her dowry, caused her to be mar-
