Ivan Ivanovich Betskoy

Ivan Betskoy was the illegitimate son of Prince Ivan Trubetskoy and his Swedish mistress, Baroness von Wrede, conceived Commandant Troubetskoy was held as a prisoner of war in Sweden following the Russian surrender at the Battle of Narva during the Azov Campaigns His surname is the abbreviated form of his father's "Troubetskoy" "Betskoy"(also written as Betsky, and Betski)

He was born in Stockholm, where Prince Trubetskoy was held captive throughout the Great Northern War until his return to Russia after a prisoner exchange in 1718. Ivan Betskoy was sent to Copenhagen for a military education and then joined an elite cavalry regiment. It was in the Danish service that he sustained a fall from a horse which forced him to retire from the service. Field Marshal Trubetskoy, having no other sons but Betskoy, summoned him to Russia in 1729. At first he served as his father's aide-de-camp but later would be sent on diplomatic missions to various capitals of Europe. Ivan Betskoy was actively involved in a coup d'etat that brought Elizaveta Petrovna to the Russian throne. The grateful empress promoted him to General Major and asked him to attend Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp, whose daughter Catherine was selected as a bride for the Empress' nephew and heir, Grand Duke Peter. In truth, Betskoy had been on friendly terms with Johanna Elisabeth for two decades previous, their intimacy giving rise to rumours that Catherine was his biological daughter.

• Википедия