The succession to the throne was now so open that Moscow teemed with melodramatic conspiracies. The young bloods of the Dolgoruki party are said to have forged a will in which Peter left the crown to his betrothed, but the older men ridiculed the proposal, and the document does not seem to have been produced. On the other hand, the physician of the Tsarevna Elizabeth, a born conspirator, roused that young lady from her sleep and urged her to seize the throne. Elizabeth fluttered over the romantic proposal, then turned over in bed and deferred it to the morrow. On the morrow it was too late, for the Privy Council had held an all-night sitting and come to a singular decision. Prince Demetrius Golitzuin, one of the older nobles who had never enjoyed what he regarded as his full share of wealth and power, felt that it was his turn to make a monarch and enjoy the reward. He decked his plan with a plausible air of reform. This recent concentration of power in the hands of an autocrat was the root of all evil, since one monarch usually meant one favourite. Let them choose a ruler who would promise in advance--promise on paper--to resign the power to the Privy Council. He drew up a scheme in which the future sovereign pledged himself or herself to take no important action--to declare war, or levy taxes, or punish a noble, or marry, and so on--without their consent. What candidate would be likely to sign and respect such a promise? Elizabeth could not be relied upon; in fact, Golitzuin, a proud and arrogant noble of the old school, detested Peter the Great and regarded his marriage as void and his daughters as illegitimate. But Peter’s elder brother, the weak-minded Ivan V, had left three daughters, and the second of these, Anne, Duchess of Courland, would, it was thought, agree to almost any conditions if she were offered the crown.