BY SIR JOHN STEELL RSA (1804-1891), 1842

Alexander I ruled Russia from 1801 until 1825, during a period of fracture and fighting on the European continent. Alexander shifted between liberal and absolutist policies which confused his contemporaries, although Thomas Jefferson praised him for giving the Russian people 'a sense of their natural rights'. He went into alliance with Napoleon, but this later collapsed and his greatest triumph came in Russia's defeat of Napoleon's enormous army in the Patriotic War of 1812. This was to prove the decisive turning point in the Napoleonic Wars, and Alexander subsequently became a very popular figure in England.