Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov

After Dmitry Karakozov's unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Alexander II in April 1866, Shuvalov was made Chief of Gendarmes and Executive Head of the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery, a ministerial position at the time.

Politically, he was simultaneously opposed to the Slavophiles and the so-called Russian Party as well as to the more liberal reformers like Minister of War Dmitry Milyutin and Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich.

Shuvalov was also supposed to reassure the British government that Alexander II had no plans to conquer the Central Asian Khanate of Khiva.

Although the commission was charged only with reviewing a single previously prepared bill on hiring agricultural laborers, the very notion was apparently deemed so radical that in November 1874, Shuvalov was sent into honorary exile as ambassador to London.

However, other more mundane explanations for his downfall, boasting about his influence on the tsar [5] or making an incautious remark about his mistress Catherine Dolgorukov,[6] have also been suggested.

Shuvalov played an important role in the negotiations between Russia and Great Britain during and after the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878 and was instrumental in avoiding conflict between the two powers after the Treaty of San Stefano.