Mary Hamilton, Criminal, Mistress, and Seducer

Mary Hamilton awaiting execution by
Pavel Svedomskiy

Mary was a beautiful young woman, who became the mistress of Peter the Great. She took much pride in Peter, an emperor's attention. Except when Peter turned his love to someone else, she wanted for somebody to replace it. She seduced his servant, Ivan Orlov. She became pregnant by him and went on to drown the boy soon after his birth. Maybe love made her crazy, but in that case it also made her commit infanticide.

Ivan took a different mistress. Mary gave him some expensive jewels to win him back...which Mary stole from the empress.
It was soon found out that she had stolen from the empress and killed her child, and she wouldn't get away easy.

Mary was sentenced to death.

Emperor Peter

Her execution was like a play, in that the emperor was a conductor. Peter told her to wear a white gown there he embraced Mary before she walked up the steps of the scaffold and when she was to be beheaded he had told her to pray.
When she had died, Peter lifted her decapitated head and kissed it.  He preceded tell the audience about the head's anatomy, even pointing out the veins and muscles. He couldn't be any calmer.

Sources:
Red Pages of Tsardom by Edgar Wallace: http://freeread.com.au/@RGLibrary/EdgarWallace/NonFiction/RedPagesFromTsardom.html; it is a very interesting source.
Murder Pedia; Mary Hamiliton: http://murderpedia.org/female.H/h/hamilton-mary.htm; they also have other murderers on there. 

Check out 

Peter the Great: His Life and World

and don't murder anyone because that would be bad and clicking on this link wouldn't be.