The Ambassador, the Grand Duke, his Wife and her Lover

As British Ambassador to Russia I am naturally interested in the doings of my predecessors. From the presentation of credentials to Ivan the Terrible by the first ever English Ambassador, Anthony Jenkinson, in 1566, diplomatic relations between our two nations have passed through the hands of a remarkable series of men (my successor will be the first woman). For the most part, as with all proper diplomacy, their doings are now discreetly interred in the official archives. But an occasional incident casts a vivid light on that relationship.

One colourful and significant encounter dates to 1756. The Empress Elizabeth Petrovna had been on the Russian throne for fifteen years. The daughter of Peter the Great, she had inherited her father's gargantuan appetite for life, if not his political will and decisiveness. She was now paying the price for a life of excess. Her beauty had faded. She was monstrously fat. And, crucially, her health was visibly failing. In 1749 she had something approaching a stroke, with several subsequent recurrences. In the absolute autocracy which was Russia, all politics, all favours, who rose and who fell, depended on her and those to whom she listened. So her faction-ridden court was increasingly obsessed by what would happen when the Empress died. There was an official heir - her nephew Grand Duke Peter - but he was unlovely, uncouth and unintelligent. Other potential candidates were Peter's two-year-old son, Paul, and the unfortunate sixteen-year-old who had briefly become Tsar Ivan VI in 1740 only to be deposed by Elizabeth in the following year and who was incarcerated in the Schusselberg fortress. The history of recent transitions of power was not encouraging. Of the six which had taken place over the preceding thirty years, all had involved manoeuvring among the main court factions to place their puppet on the throne - and most had required the intervention at the crucial moment of the Guards regiments stationed in the capital. Most had also been followed by hitherto prosperous and powerful courtiers finding themselves shipped off to Siberia. So there was absolutely no reason to be confident that this next succession would go as scripted.

In addition to the tensions and uncertainties caused by the Empress' fading health, there were also sharp political divisions within the court. The tectonic plates of European politics were shifting in the run up to the Seven Years War. The Grand Chancellor Bestuzhev-Riumin (who was in the pay of the British Ambassador) and the fanatically pro-Prussian Grand Duke Peter were keen that Russia should support the emerging British/Prussian axis. But the Vice Chancellor Vorontsov (who wanted Bestuzhev's job) and the sinister Shuvalov trio (the leading general and courtier, Peter; his brother, head of the ' secret chancery' (i.e. police), Alexander; and their cousin, the Empress's current lover, Ivan) were all pushing Elizabeth towards alliance with France. Those who backed the right side could expect promotion and favour; those who backed the wrong side were headed for disgrace and exile. The normal game of court politics was being played for very high stakes.

In this shark pit, two characters in particular stand out. The first is Catherine, Grand Duke Peter's wife and the mother of his heir Paul better known to history as the future Catherine the Great. Born an obscure German princess and brought to Russia eleven years earlier as a bride for Peter, in 1756 she was twenty-seven years old. A highly intelligent and ambitious woman, then by all accounts at the peak of her beauty, she had displayed a striking will to succeed in the Kafkaesque world of the Russian court. She had ingratiated herself with the Empress, mastered the Russian language, converted to Orthodoxy and taken the measure of her husband (gaining his grudging intellectual submission even while his affections strayed elsewhere). Finally (and probably with the help of a lover), she had delivered the heir that in the view of those around her was the chief purpose of her existence. Now, left largely to her own devices, she was beginning the course of reading which in time would turn her into one of the most formidably learned figures in Europe. She was also in the market for, on the one hand, youthful pleasure and, on the other, the sort of political advice and support which would bolster her (and her husband's) position in the coming struggle for power.

My second leading character is the British Ambassador in St Petersburg - Sir Charles Hanbury Williams'. This was an unusual and talented man. Born in 1708 into eighteenth-century Britain's compact and gossipy ruling élite (his father made money in iron, married more, became an MP and was one of the the Duke of Marlborough's executors), he had the normal upbringing for someone of his class (Eton, the Grand Tour) before becoming close to leading figures of the Whig party and himself being elected an MP in 1735. In parliament he was noted not so much for his eloquence as for 'the sprightliness and subtlety of his conversation, his caustic replies and the great elegance of his manner', according to the first editor of these letters. He led the normal dissipated London life of the time (including writing a lot of poetry, some of it still readable), as a result of which his marriage broke up in 1742. He was left with two daughters to whom in later life he wrote some delightful letters of advice. After various minor government jobs in London he drifted into diplomacy. He served initially in Saxony, then briefly in Berlin (where his dry wit seems to have upset Frederick the Great) and then back in Saxony. He was appointed Ambassador to St Petersburg in 1755. In his own writings and in biographical writing about him one meets an urbane and cultured man of the world, possessed of all the social airs and graces, but with a sharp eye for the hypocrisies of politicians and the frailties of human nature and with a particular talent for, and interest in, guiding and educating the young.

Hanbury Williams arrived in St Petersburg with one aim and one, slightly unexpected, asset. His aim was to hold Russia to the British side in the swirling European political currents of the moment. Sadly for him, his initial success in negotiating an Anglo-Russian Treaty in early 1756 (a treaty which the Russians saw as being principally directed against Prussia) was entirely undone when King George II more or less simultaneously (and entirely unknown to Hanbury Williams) signed an alliance with Prussia. This both immensely damaged his credibility with the Empress and was probably the beginning of the fall of his principal ally in the court - Chancellor Bestuzhev. The political history of the rest of his mission is of his unavailing battle to halt the slide of Russia into the French camp. His failure was made definitive by Russia's accession to an alliance with France in December 1756. He left St Petersburg a few months later.

The asset that he brought with him was his private secretary, a Pole whom he had met in Berlin. Count Stanislas Poniatowski was twenty-three years old and (according to Catherine) 'with eyes of unparalleled beauty'. Catherine first met Hanbury Williams and Poniatowski at a ball in June 1755. She instantly recognized Hanbury Williams's quality 'as he had great wit and knowledge and was familiar with all of Europe'. Over the next few months she seems to have fallen in love with Poniatowski, starting a passionate affair in December that year.

This was a dangerous business - even in a court with morals as lax as that of Elizabeth Petrovna. Catherine was married to the heir to the throne. The pair and their immediate circle were already known as the 'Young Court' the focus of the hopes and fears of the entire Russian political class as they contemplated life after Elizabeth. Alternative heirs were available. The Grand Duke Peter's attachment to Catherine was already shaky. A well placed piece of malicious gossip, any sort of scandal, could swiftly end Catherine's hope of becoming Empress - and could have much worse consequences for Poniatowski himself.

Hanbury Williams, along with others, had already identified Catherine as potentially the key figure in Russia when Elizabeth died. Her character and intelligence placed her streets ahead of the formal heir, her husband. It was thus Hanbury Williams's job as a diplomat to get close to her and to try to influence her. The Poniatowski relationship could plainly be of immense assistance in that respect. Certainly Hanbury Williams used the first few months of 1756 to build his links with Catherine and the Grand Duke Peter - not least because they were crucial allies in stemming French influence in the court. This reached the stage that in July of that year Catherine began to ask for, and receive, significant financial support from Hanbury Williams. Indeed, it has even been suggested that Hanbury Williams knowingly pushed her and Poniatowski together. But it is hard to credit him with such cynicism. These were two young people of whom, as all his papers attest, he was extremely fond. He regularly refers to Poniatowski as his 'adopted son' and, as regularly, affirms his deep devotion to Catherine. He was simply not the sort of man to place two people about whom he felt so strongly in deep danger to further his professional ends.

However that may be, as the danger to Poniatowski of his besottedness over Catherine (and hers over him) became clear, the ambassador took steps to protect his private secretary. In August 1756 Poniatowski was sent off to Poland with a view to returning swiftly as the representative of Saxony and thus with diplomatic immunity from the rougher attentions of Alexander Shuvalov's secret chancery. But, following Prussia's invasion of Saxony at the end of August, Poniatowksi found himself stuck outside Russia and in need of diplomatic pressure and help to get him back in. It is at this point that the most fascinating and fruitful period of the relationship between Catherine and Hanbury Williams began. They started secretly writing to each other.

The main part of the correspondence dates from August to December 1756. We are lucky that it has been preserved. Each party demanded the immediate return of his or her letters once they had been read. Catherine seems wisely to have destroyed hers. But Hanbury Williams took and kept copies. The whole comprises some seventy letters from Catherine and ninety from Hanbury Williams - so several a week. The letters have the life and fascination of an epistolary novel. Both Catherine and Hanbury Williams had their own motivations. She, above all, wanted his help in getting Poniatowski back and in getting messages to him meanwhile. She also wanted money and other occasional diplomatic favours (such as help against the threats by the Danes in cahoots with Frederick the Great to take over her husband's dukedom of Holstein). For his part, he wanted court gossip and intelligence most particularly on the state of health of the Empress and on the influence of the pro-French party on Russian foreign policy. He also, in the eternal way of diplomats, offers her a steady stream of arguments in favour of the British point of view and the case for Russia remaining aligned with Britain.

But behind the evident (and mutually understood) aims of the two correspondents, a deeper and much more interesting relationship emerges. She takes the lead in the correspondence - sometimes as the demanding Grand Duchess (as when she presses for her subsidy to be paid in the currency of her choice) but increasingly as the intelligent ingénue in court politics looking for counsel as she manoeuvres her way through the plots and stratagems that surround her. In a world where there are very few people she can trust, she is hungry for advice (at one particularly complicated moment in the plotting and counterplotting she almost entreats - 'my head reels - for God's sake give me your advice'). Occasionally, she betrays doubt as to her own abilities ('the nearer I see the time approaching, the more I am afraid my spirit will play me false and that it will prove nothing but tinsel and counterfeit coin'). But in general her determination (with her husband faintly also present) to rule Russia after Elizabeth is clear, as is her confidence that, rightly guided, she will get there.

As for Hanbury Williams, it is clear that he (like many others before and since) is smitten with her. This is not a conventional romantic sentiment (he is, after all, helping her to get back together with Poniatowski). He is, rather, a man dragged helplessly into the orbit of her beauty, brains and drive (and with the private justification that to help her also serves the purposes of his own Government). He makes clear his devotion and support in phrases of (for modern taste) vastly exaggerated sentiment and responds with alacrity to her occasionally unreasonable demands (such as that he should cut off the British subsidy to Bestuzhev unless the Grand Chancellor becomes more helpful in getting Poniatowski back to Russia). But his key role is as the deferential, but clear sighted, adviser guiding her through a world whose pattern of behaviour he understands and she does not.

In a court where the dominant modes of interaction are pretence and betrayal, the level of trust between the two of them is astonishing. Both are in need of allies as their respective situations become increasingly precarious. In effect, they throw themselves on each other's mercy through a correspondence which, used against them by their enemies, could easily be represented as Catherine plotting a coup d'etat supported by English money. The two of them trade confidential news and share secret documents. She reports (in terms which, if they had leaked, would probably have destroyed her) on such unmentionable topics as the health of the Empress and on her own carefully worked out plans to ensure (with the help of officers of the guard) that she and her husband will succeed when Elizabeth dies. He is clear and cold in his assessment of the personalities around her and of how she should manage them, again in terms which if published would have led to his instant withdrawal. Thus he observes that, in the looking-glass way of court politics, Bestuzhev (who knows his position is weakening as the French camp gains ground in St Petersburg) is a man whose influence increasingly depends on Catherine's perceived favour for him. Show coolness and he will come to heel. As for the Shuvalovs, his first stratagem is to try to split Ivan from his cousins. When that plainly fails, he suggests that the Shuvalovs, too, need to be reminded that they face the disfavour of a future Empress. Finally, she is advised to 'fawn on the Shuvalovs until you reign - then do what you like with them'. (It is something of a surprise that early in the correspondence it is she, not he, who quotes from Machiavelli.) Never for one moment does Hanbury Williams doubt that Catherine will rule (with only token acknowledgement that it is her husband who will actually be Emperor). His whole approach, both political and (one suspects) emotional, lies in the letter where he expresses the fervent wish to return to Russia as British Ambassador when she is on the throne.

Few stories in diplomacy end neatly. This is an exception. The main part of this wonderful correspondence comes to an end in January 1757, as its two chief plot lines reach definitive denouements. Poniatowski had finally returned to Russia. (One of Hanbury Williams last letters is a plea to Catherine to be very careful in pursuing her relationship with him.) Russia had signed its treaty with France - so Hanbury Williams's diplomatic mission in St Petersburg was at an end. Over the next few months there were a few more (quite functional and formal) letters between the two - as if they could not entirely abandon the habit of writing to one another. But the original spirit only flairs up one more time - in Catherine's very last letter to Hanbury Williams before he leaves Russia - 'You have no equal ... I personally shall remain in your debt for ever'.

A few months later Restuzhev finally fell and was arraigned and exiled in February 1758. Catherine, in the single most dangerous moment on her passage to the throne, found herself facing charges of disloyalty, and worse, from the Empress. The self-possession and craft she displayed in fending off this crisis, and thus clearing the route to become Empress when Elizabeth eventually did die in 1762, were very much her own, but also, I like to think, owed something to Hanbury Williams's tutorship. His formal diplomatic mission may have failed, but he helped the political education, and probably the very survival, of the woman who was to become one of Russia's greatest rulers.

Sir Tony Brenton has been British Ambassador to Russia since 2004.