it has been said that "he was a hero of the Scandinavian Edda set down in the wrong century," and again that he was the last of the Vikings, and of the Varangian Princes.

But Mazeppa said of him, when dying in exile: "How could I have been seduced in my old age by a military vagabond!" Ivan, Peter's infirm brother and associate upon the throne, had died in 1696.

Another oppressive tie had also been severed.

He had married at seventeen Eudoxia, belonging to a proud conservative Russian family.
He had never loved her, and when she scornfully opposed his policy of reform, she became an object of intense aversion.

After his triumph at Azof, he sent orders that the Tsaritsa must not be at the palace upon his return, and soon thereafter she was separated from her child Alexis, placed in a monastery, and finally divorced.