Anna Mons

Anna Mons (Russian: Анна Ивановна Монс; 1 January 1672 – 15 August 1714) was a royal mistress of Peter the Great.

Her younger brother was Willem Mons (1688–1724), destined to be the Imperial Chamberlain to Catherine I and Matrena her sister[1] who married Fedor Balk, Major General and Governor of Riga.

As Peter's relations with the tsarina Eudoxia Lopukhina gradually worsened, Anna Mons took the place as his permanent and semi-official royal mistress.

Keyserling proposed marriage, provoking Peter to have Anna expelled from her estate and placed under house arrest along with her mother, sister and thirty friends.

[5] In 1707, Peter I married again, to Marta Helena Skowrońska, later to become Catherine I of Russia, who dyed her hair black so she would not resemble flaxen hair-ed Anna Mons.