In 1741, following the death of Anne and the removal of the baby Emperor, Ivan VI, Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, seized the throne after a palace revolution. It might have been presumed that she would continue her father’s policy, but she had a personal reason for changing it. Elizabeth had been kept in retirement for many years and during this period she had met and fallen in love with a Ukrainian singer, Alexis Rozumovsky. The two were morganatically married and while Rozumovsky played no open role in Ukrainian affairs, he quietly influenced Elizabeth to look upon Ukraine with more sympathy and favor. She went with him on a trip through Ukraine in 1744 and at that time came into contact with the Officers’ Council. They assured her of their loyalty and petitioned for the election of a new hetman. She asked their leaders to Petersburg on the occasion of the marriage of her nephew, Peter of Holstein, to Catherine and then informed them that the new hetman would be Cyril Rozumovsky, the brother of Alexis, but that he was still being educated abroad and could not be considered for two years, when he would return to the country. She kept her word slowly. In 1747 the Senate was ordered to provide for the election of a new hetman, and in 1749, after Rozumovsky, who had been showered with various honors including the Presidency of the Academy of Sciences, had met the Kozak delegates and had visited Ukraine, the delegates were informed that an Imperial Minister was travelling to Ukraine to arrange for the election. The election took place on February 22, 1750 and of course Rozumovsky was unanimously elected amid general rejoicing. Elizabeth, following this, officially invested him with the insignia of office, turned back the control of Ukrainian affairs to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and officially restored the Kozak rights as they had been in 1722 before Peter commenced his changes almost simultaneously with the death of Skoropadsky. Rozumovsky was made a Russian Field Marshal. It might have seemed as if conditions of the past were back. But it was only an archaeological revival. Cyril Rozumovsky had the nominal and perhaps the real power of the preceding hetmans but Ukraine had greatly changed. In the past the hetmans, even if they had been elected under imperial orders, had been chosen from among the outstanding colonels of the Host. Rozumovsky was a young man, fond of pleasure, little skilled in administration and he owed his power entirely to the whim of Elizabeth, his more or less open sister-in-law. He had no desire to stay in Hlukhiv but spent most of his time in St. Petersburg where he frequented the court circles.