people, and was himself a savage; he taught them the art of war of which he was himself ignorant; from the sight of a small boat on the river Moskwa, he erected a powerful fleet; made himself an expert shipwright, sailor, pilot, and commander; he changed the manners, customs, and laws of the Russians, and lives in their memory as the father of his country."—J. T.
PETER II. (Alexevich), Emperor of Russia, grandson of the preceding by his son Alexis, was born in 1714, and succeeded to the throne at the age of thirteen, on the death of the Empress Catherine in 1727. The Prince Menschikoff, her favourite minister, had induced her to make a will appointing Peter her successor, and recommending that the young czar should marry one of Menschikoff's daughters, and that his son should marry Peter's sister; but the czar had taken a strong liking to a young noble named Dolgorouki, while he disliked his proposed consort. The vast influence wielded by the favourite minister of Peter the Great and Catharine, had excited the envy of the other ministers and courtiers. A plot was formed for his destruction. The mind of the young czar was influenced against him, and in the end his immense possessions were confiscated, and he was banished to Siberia, where he died in poverty in 1729. Peter was now left completely under the domination of Dolgorouki and his friends, who encouraged him in low and degrading indulgences for the purpose of making him more completely their tool. The dissipation in which he indulged weakened his constitution, which was naturally not robust, and he died of small-pox on the 29th of January, 1730, and was succeeded by Anna Ivanovna.—J. T.
PETER III. (Feodorovich), Emperor of Russia, was the son of the duke of Holstein Gottorp by Anne, daughter of Peter the Great, and was born in 1726. In 1742 he was nominated heir to the throne, and proclaimed grand-duke of Russia by the Empress Elizabeth. He accordingly went to Russia, became a member of the Greek church, and was baptized on the 18th of November, when he laid aside his original name of Charles Frederick Ulric, and received the designation of Peter Feodorovich. His aunt found him a wife in the person of the Princess Sophia of Anhalt Zerbst, to whom he was married in 1745. Oranienbaum was assigned him as a residence, but he was not permitted to take any part in public affairs. On the death of Elizabeth on the 5th of January, 1762, Peter ascended the throne, but soon showed that he was quite unfit to discharge the duties of his office. He was good-natured, but stupid; a sot, a simpleton, and sickly. He had an enthusiastic admiration of Frederick the Great of Prussia, with whom he immediately made peace at a most critical juncture of that monarch's affairs, and afterwards joined him against Austria—a step which excited discontent among the Russian officers. He disgusted the common soldiers as well as the officers by ridiculing their exercise and evolutions, and hastily compelling them to adopt the Prussian discipline. His reduction of the revenues of the church provoked the hostility of the ecclesiastics, while his foolish intermeddling with the dress and customs of the people gave offence to all classes of the community. He was drunken and licentious in his habits, was passionately fond of training dogs and arranging puppet-shows, and would sit for hours together listening with delight to a merry-andrew singing vulgar and ribald songs. He had long been alienated from his wife, to whom, indeed, almost from the outset of their married life he had been an object of contempt. Her intrigues were at length suspected by him; he began to talk of repudiating and confining her for life, and then marrying a lady of the noble family of Vorontzoff. The empress had long been carefully cultivating popularity with the people, and had formed a powerful party in her favour. She was soon made aware of the intentions of her weak and debauched husband, and instantly resolved to anticipate them. Her plans were speedily organized, and in three days the revolution was accomplished. Peter, while living in fancied security, was suddenly dethroned and arrested on the 14th July, 1762, and conveyed to the castle of Ropscha, about thirty miles from St. Petersburg, where an attempt to take him off by poison having failed, he was strangled by Alexis Orloff, one of his wife's favourites. At the time of his assassination Peter was in the thirty-fourth year of his age, and had enjoyed the imperial dignity for only six months.—J. T.
PETER. See Pedro.
PETER the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon, was born in 1334, and succeeded his father, Alonzo XI., in 1350. At the very commencement of his reign he manifested that cruelty and bloodthirstiness which were the most prominent features of his character. His first step was to put to death Leonora de Guzman, the mistress of his father, and the mother of a numerous family; and soon after he murdered the adelantado of Castile, because the people of Burgos refused to pay a certain tax without the sanction of the cortes. By the advice of his uncle, Alonzo IV., king of Portugal, he professed his willingness to adopt a conciliatory policy towards his half brothers, the sons of Doña Leonora, and even invited the eldest of them, Don Enrique, to his court. But they could not trust him, and after an unsuccessful rebellion against his authority they took refuge in Arragon. In 1353 Peter married Blanche, daughter of the duke de Bourbon, whom he treated unkindly, and soon confined in the fortress of Arevalo. He then married Doña Juana de Castro, a lady of a noble Galician family, but speedily abandoned her also in consequence of his passion for his mistress, Maria de Padilla. Ferdinando Perez de Castro, a powerful noble, brother of Doña Juana, incensed at the bad treatment of his sister, raised the standard of revolt, and a fierce civil war ensued which lasted for several years, and terminated in the triumph of Peter, who put to death many of the leaders of the league against him, including his natural brother Fadrique, whom he ordered his guard to kill in his own presence. He next entered into an agreement with his cousin and namesake, the king of Portugal, for the mutual surrender of their respective subjects who had fled from their authority. This covenant of blood was carried into effect in 1360, and the unfortunate refugees on both sides were at once put to death. In the following year Blanche, the imprisoned queen, died of poison administered by order of her husband; and in 1362 he murdered with his own hand Abu Saïd, the Moorish king (who had come to Seville for the purpose of doing homage to Peter for his kingdom) apparently from no higher motive than the desire of obtaining possession of the valuable property which Abu Saïd had brought with him. The kings of Arragon and Navarre, assisted by a number of distinguished French knights who resented the cruel treatment of Blanche, invaded Castile in 1366 and proclaimed Enrique, Pedro's eldest brother, as king. Pedro fled into Portugal, but having received the assistance of the Black Prince, son of Edward III. of England, he defeated the invaders and their friends at Najera, 3d April, 1367; and after the departure of the English, to whom he had behaved faithlessly, he inflicted, as usual, savage cruelties on his prisoners. But in 1369 he fell into the hands of his enemies, and was stabbed in a scuffle by his brother, who succeeded him under the title of Enrique II.—J. T.
PETER (Saint) of Alexandria, studied at Alexandria under Theonas, and was beheaded during the persecution under Maximin, 311. He was archbishop of Alexandria, and opposed Meletius of Lycopolis. He wrote various works, of which one, "Repentance, or an epistle concerning those who fell in persecution," is extant; the others exist only in fragments in Greek and Syriac—B. H. C.
PETER of Blois or PETRUS BLESENSIS, an ecclesiastic of the twelfth century, was the son of respectable parents in Bretagne, known for their wealth and almsgiving. He studied at Paris poetry, law, and oratory, and added to his accomplishments by a sojourn at Bologna. On his way from the latter place to Rome, in 1163, he was taken prisoner by the partisans of the anti-pope, Victor IV. In 1167 he went to Sicily, and became preceptor to the young prince, afterwards William III., through the favour of Stephen, archbishop of Palermo, and chancellor of the kingdom. On the fall of the latter Peter returned to France, and passed some time at the Norman court of King Henry II. of England, by whom he was employed on various missions to Paris and Rome. Richard, archbishop of Canterbury, made him chancellor of that see. He also received the archdeaconry of Bath. On the death of King Henry, Peter remained in the employment of Queen Eleanor. He received no further ecclesiastical preferment, save the archdeaconry of London, granted to him after he had been deprived of that of Bath. This neglect of so learned a man may have been due to Peter's friendship for the bishop of Ely, who fell under the displeasure of the court during the absence of King Richard I. Peter died in England between 1198 and 1200. His letters and other writings, which were collected together during his lifetime by order of King Henry II., are interesting from the incidental notices they contain of contemporaneous events and manners. The first printed edition of the works of this writer appeared
