17. Peter the Great Had His Own Son Flogged to Death
The embarrassment of his own son seeking asylum at a foreign court enraged Peter the Great, who sent agents to track down the Tsarevich Alexei. In 1717, Count Peter Tolstoi, the most unscrupulous and subtle of Peter’s agents (and ancestor of the famous nineteenth-century writer Peter Tolstoy) tracked Alexei to a castle in Naples. He handed the Tsarevich a letter in which Peter berated Alexei, but promised not to punish him if he returned to Russia. Ignoring warnings that it was a trick, the Tsarevich returned to Russia in 1718.
Upon his arrival, Alexei was made to beg his father’s forgiveness during a public spectacle in which he was disinherited. The Tsar forced him to name those who had aided his flight, which resulted in the torture and execution of dozens of Alexei’s associates. That done, Peter ordered his son jailed. On June 19th, 1718, the Tsar had Alexei flogged for days, until he confessed to conspiring to murder his father. The flogging was so severe that Peter’s son died of his wounds within a week.