Maria Rumyantseva

Countess Maria Andreyevna Rumyantseva née Matveyeva (1699–1788) was a Russian lady in waiting and alleged royal mistress of Tsar Peter the Great.

She received a European education, living the first years of her life in Vienna and The Hague, where her father served as ambassador until 1710.

In 1725 her husband was in Constantinople and then to the Persian frontier to the disengagement, but Mary remained in Moscow and gave birth to a fourth child, a son, baptized in honor of Tsar Peter Alexandrovich.

Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich reported that the boy's father was not her spouse, but Tsar Peter himself.

In 1735 her husband had been restored to the rank of lieutenant general and made of Astrakhan, and then the Kazan governor, and appointed commander of the troops sent against the rebellious Bashkir.