Ivan VI's brothers and sisters were born in prison, held at Kholmogory for 36 years, and sent to Denmark in 1780 on a Russian pension

When Elizabeth seized the throne in December 1741, she arrested the infant emperor Ivan VI with his parents, the regent Anna Leopoldovna and Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick, and their baby daughter Ekaterina. The family was held at Riga, Dünamünde and Ranenburg, and reached Kholmogory near Arkhangelsk on 9 November 1744. Elizaveta was born in captivity at Dünamünde in 1743, Pyotr at Kholmogory in 1745 and Aleksei in 1746. Anna Leopoldovna died on 28 February 1746 of fever after Aleksei's birth. Her body was taken to Saint Petersburg and buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Ivan was kept apart from them and killed at Shlisselburg in 1764. Catherine II offered Anton Ulrich his freedom if he left the children behind, and he refused. He went blind, died at Kholmogory on 4 May 1774 and was buried in secret; his grave is unknown. In 1780 his sister, Queen Juliane Marie of Denmark, asked for the children. Catherine agreed. They sailed from Novodvinsk on the frigate Polar Star on the night of 30 July 1780 and were settled at Horsens in Jutland on a pension of 8,000 rubles each a year^†. Elizaveta died in 1782, Aleksei in 1787 and Pyotr in 1798. Ekaterina, the only one born before the coup, died last, on 9 April 1807. They are buried in the abbey church at Horsens under a Latin inscription crediting the goodness of Catherine II for their quiet life.