Catherine the Great on horseback
Catherine II of Russia , politically skilled enough to be remembered as “the Great” , She died suddenly at the age of 67 while, in her own rooms, she was intent on changing clothes, almost certainly suffering from stroke.
The news of the death of the Empress did not take long to spread in the European courts, giving rise to gossip of such obscenity, it borders on the unlikely.
The most malicious rumor of all, undoubtedly, was that the Tsarina, insatiable nymphomaniac, she was dead crushed by a horse in an attempt to have sexual intercourse with him, a hypothesis as unlikely as it is not very edifying.
But what did such gossip come from, decidedly disrespectful of a figure of such high rank?
Undoubtedly a fundamental role was played by the real sexually fiery nature of the sovereign, who in life had granted herself without too much trouble to an infinity of lovers (https://www.pilloledistoria.it/10599/storia-moderna/caterina-ii-di-russia-malata-di-sesso), but to this was added the desire to discredit a woman of indisputable diplomatic skills in a world still, substantially, entirely male, little inclined to recognize the merits that would have been due to the fair sex, even when, as in the case of Caterina, widely demonstrated in the field.
Hence the intention to throw mud on her uncomfortable personalities, revealing their perversions or presumed to be so.