When Augustus was forced to give up his claim, Peter searched for his own replacement as King of Poland—not a puppet but a stong, independent ruler who could both govern and command armies in the field. His first choice was Prince Eugene of Savoy, then at the peak of his reputation as one of the great commanders of the age. Eugene thanked the Tsar for the honor done him, but said that his acceptance would depend on the will of his master, the Emperor; he then wrote to the Emperor Joseph saying that, in accordance with the allegiance he had given his sovereign for twenty years, he left the decision strictly in the Emperor's hands. Joseph was torn: He could see the advantages of having so loyal and effective a subordinate on the Polish throne, but he dared not offend Charles, and he knew that Eugene's appointment would lead to war between Eugene and Stanislaus, with Charles supporting Stanislaus. Thus, he postponed a decision, writing to Peter that, as Eugene was about to embark on a new campaign, nothing could be decided until the following winter.
Peter could not wait. With Charles' army in Saxony preparing to march, if he was to have a new pro-Russian King of Poland, he needed him immediately. He approached James Sobieski, the son of the formed King Jan Sobieski, who quickly declined the prickly honor. Peter negotiated with Francis Rakoczy, the Hungarian patriot who had led Hungary into revolt against the imperial crown, and Rakoczy agreed to accept the crown if Peter could persuade the Polish Diet to offer it to him. But before anything further could take place, the project was forgotten. Charles had marched out of Saxony and was advancing on Russia.
Augustus' abdication removed the second of Peter's three original allies. Now, as Peter said later, "this war lay only on us." Left alone to face the Swedes, Peter intensified his efforts to offer Charles a peace settlement or, if this was impossible, to find allies who could help him avert what most of Europe regarded as his inevitable defeat.
In seeking a mediator or an ally, Peter approached both sides in the great war which had divided Europe. In 1706, Andrei Matveev proposed to the States General that if the maritime powers could persuade Sweden to accept peace with Russia, the Tsar would supply them with 30,000 of his best troops for use against France. When the Dutch did not reply, Peter approached two neutral powers, Prussia and Denmark, for help as mediators. These attempts also failed. Finally, in March 1707,'Peter sent proposals to Louis XIV, promising that if the Sun King would mediate successfully between Russia and Sweden, Peter would supply him with Russian troops to use against England, Holland and Austria. The terms which Peter offered Sweden were that he would cede Dorpat outright and pay a large sum of money to be allowed to keep Narva. He insisted only on keeping St. Petersburg and the Neva River. Louis promised to try.
Peter also approached England. As early as 1705, when Queen Anne's new ambassador, Charles Whitworth, arrived in Moscow, Peter had hoped that he could persuade his sovereign to act as mediator in the Baltic. Whitworth was favorable to Peter, but his dispatches were unable to elicit from his government any diplomatic intercession on the Tsar's behalf. At the end of 1706, Peter decided to carry the appeal directly to London and instructed Matveev to go himself from The Hague to the English capital and ask the Queen to threaten Sweden with war unless Charles made peace with Russia. Peter left the peace terms entirely up to the Queen, insisting only that he must be allowed to keep Russia's hereditary possessions on the Baltic—that is, Ingria and the course of the Neva River. Should formal negotiations fail, Matveev was to try to influence Marlborough and Sydney Godolphin, the leading English ministers, under the table. Peter was realistic about this, saying, "I do not think that Marlborough can be bought because he is so enormously rich. However, you can promise him 200,000 or more."
Before leaving Holland for England, Matveev saw Marlborough in The Hague. After the interview, the Duke wrote to Godolphin in London:
The Ambassador of Muscovy has been with me and made many expressions of the great esteem his master has for Her Majesty . . . and as a mark of it, he has resolved to send his only son into England [to be educated] ... I hope Her Majesty will . . . [permit] it; for it is certain you will not be able to gratify him in any part of his negotiation.
Matveev's mission, thus, had little chance of success even before it began, for Marlborough's voice was authoritative. Nevertheless, the essence of diplomacy is letting each player act out his role and Marlborough not only did not dissuade Matveev from going to London but even lent the Ambassador his own yacht, Peregrine, to make the Channel crossing.
Matveev arrived in the English capital in May 1707, and was greeted amiably, but it was not long before he understood that nothing would happen quickly. Writing to Golovkin, who by this time had succeeded Golovin as Chancellor, he warned that progress would be slow: "Here there is no autocratic power"; the Queen could do nothing without the approval of Parliament. Finally, in September, Queen Anne gave the Russian Ambassador an audience. She was prepared, she said, to ally England with Russia by including Russia in the Grand Alliance, but first she had to have the acquiescence of her current allies, Holland and the Hapsburg empire. During this period of further delay, Matveev's hopes were kept alive by Marlborough, who wrote from Holland that he was using all his influence to persuade the States General to agree to the Russian alliance.
The game was slipping away—Charles had marched from Saxony in August to begin his long-dreaded invasion of Russia— and Matveev's exasperation grew. "The Ministry here is more subtle than the French even in finesse and intrigue," he wrote to Moscow. "Their smooth and profitless speeches bring us nothing but loss of time." In November, Marlborough himself arrived in London. Matveev visited him the evening after his arrival and asked the Duke to say plainly, as an honest man without sweet promises, whether the Tsar could hope for anything from England. Once again, Marlborough refused to give a definite reply.
Through another source—Huyssen, who was acting as a Russian diplomatic agent on the continent—a different approach to Marlborough was under construction. According to Huyssen, the Duke had said that he would be willing to arrange English help for Russia in return for a substantial Russian gift of money and land to him personally. When Golovkin reported this to Peter, the Tsar declared, "Tell Huyssen that if Marlborough wishes a Russian principality, he can promise him one of three, whichever he wishes, Kiev, Vladimir or Siberia. And he can promise him also that if he persuades the Queen to make a good peace for us with the Swedes, he shall receive as revenues of his principality 50,000 ducats for every year of his life, in addition to the Order of St. Andrew, and a ruby as large as any in Europe."
Neither Matveev's nor Huyssen's approach went further. As late as February 1708, with Charles XII already across the Vistula on his march to Moscow, Matveev issued a final appeal for an English alliance. The appeal was left unanswered. In April, Peter wrote to Golovkin: "Concerning Andrei Matveev, long ago we said it was time for him to depart, for all there [i.e., in London] is tales and shame."
Charles adamantly refused to consider any negotiations for peace with Russia. He rejected the French offer of mediation, saying that he did not trust the Tsar's word; the fact that Peter had already given the title of Prince of Ingria to Menshikov was evidence that the Tsar had no intention of returning the province and therefore could not be interested in negotiating a peace. When it was suggested that Peter might compensate Sweden in order to keep a small slice of the conquered territory on the Baltic, Charles replied that he would not sell his Baltic subjects for Russian money. When Peter offered to return all of Livonia, Estonia and Ingria except St. Petersburg and Schlusselburg-Noteborg and the Neva River which connected them, Charles declared indignantly, "I will sacrifice the last Swedish soldier rather .than cede Noteborg."