A more curious rival of the favourite--a rival even, according to some, in the affection of the dissipated Empress--was Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein, nephew of Charles XII of Sweden. He was an amiable, mediocre youth who had lost his duchy in the European scramble for fragments of the broken Swedish kingdom, and he had come to the Russian court with a pretension to the Swedish throne itself. Catherine’s protection of him gave great offence in England and embarrassed her ministers. George I had no wish to see the question of the old Swedish possessions reopened, and in all the courts of Europe his representatives fought, and defeated, those of Russia. Indeed in the spring of 1706 he sent a fleet to Russia, and the admiral insolently announced that he had come to compel the Russian fleet to keep to its harbours. The English had heard that Catherine was collecting troops for some enterprise in the interest of her favourite. She--or her able minister Ostermann--made a bold reply, and joined the Spanish-Austrian League which confronted England and her allies. Fortunately, the struggle did not reach the strain of war, or the loose and shifty administration of Russia might have suffered. Charles Frederick remained for the present at the Russian court and was assiduous in attendance upon the Empress. He was made a member of the Privy Council of six which took affairs out of the hands of the listless Catherine, and on May 21st, 1725, he married the Princess Anne. Neither Anne nor Peter had welcomed his offer, but Catherine now urged the match. The other leading members of the Privy Council, or the oligarchy, were Count Tolstoi and the foreign minister Ostermann. Tolstoi was one of the envoys of Peter who had enticed Alexis from Naples: a polished and supple courtier, an astute diplomatist, and an unscrupulous adventurer, who watched Menshikoff as one sharper watches another. Ostermann was one of the ablest, and certainly the most conscientious of the group; while a fourth of Peter’s men, Yaguzhinsky, a man of poor origin who had attracted the late Tsar’s esteem by his vivacity and his extraordinary capacity for liquor, was the most bitter and outspoken critic of Menshikoff. Before Peter had been buried many days they quarrelled violently, and Yaguzhinsky, who was drunk, went to the tomb of his late master, during service, and dug with nails and teeth into the lid of the coffin. He was not admitted to the Privy Council, which led to a fresh outburst; and he may have felt some justification when it was known that Menshikoff had invited his fellow-Councillors to a banquet before their first sitting, and all had got so drunk that business was impossible.