This document was then taken to the cathedral, where all the higher ecclesiastics had been assembled, and was read to them.  Nothing was omitted which could invest the act with solemnity, There is every evidence that the heart of the father was rent with acutest anguish in all these proceedings.  Nothing could have been more desirable to him than to transmit the empire his energies had rendered so illustrious, to his own son to carry on the enterprises his father had commenced.  But to place eighteen millions of people in the hands of one who had proved himself so totally unworthy, would have been the greatest cruelty.  The exclusion of Alexis from the succession was the noblest act of Peter’s life.

But new facts were soon developed which rendered it impossible for the unhappy father to stop even here.  Evidence came to light that Alexis had been plotting a conspiracy for the dethronement of his father, and for the seizure of the crown by violence.  His mother, whom the tzar had repudiated, and his energetic aunt, Mary, both of whom were in a convent, were involved in the plot.  He had applied to his brother-in-law, the Emperor of Germany, for foreign troops to aid him.  There were many restless spirits in the empire, turbulent and depraved, the boon companions of Alexis, who were ready for any deeds of desperation which might place Alexis on the throne.  The second son of the emperor, the child of Catharine, was an infant of but a few months old.  The health of Peter was infirm and his life doubtful.  It was manifest that immediately upon the death of the tzar, Alexis would rally his accomplices around him, raise the banner of revolt against the infant king, and that thus the empire would be plunged into all the horrors of a long and bloody civil war.

Peter having commenced the work of self-sacrifice for the salvation of Russia, was not disposed to leave that work half accomplished.  All knew that the infamous Alexis would shrink from no crime, and there was ample evidence of his treasonable plots.  The father now deliberately resolved to arraign his son for high treason, a crime which doomed him to death.  Aware of the awful solemnity of such a moment, and of the severity with which his measures and his motives would be sifted by posterity, he proceeded with the greatest, circumspection.  A high court of justice was organized for the trial, consisting of two chambers, the one ecclesiastical, the other secular.  On the 13th of June, 1718, the court was assembled, and the tzar presented to them the documentary evidence, which had been carefully obtained, of his son’s treasonable designs, and thus addressed them: