POLAND 



271 



would gain more by a foreign alliance. Sigismund, 

 however, carried his point, and his wife was crowned 

 in 1550, but died soon after, not without suspicions 

 of having been poisoned by her mother-in-law, 

 Bona, who in this reign left Poland for her native 

 country, carrying with her a vast amount of trea- 

 sure. The quarrels between Protestants and Rom- 

 anists now raged fiercely, and the Reformed faith 

 spread rapidly in Poland. We hear of persons 

 being burned to death for their adhesion to it. 

 Si<ri>iiiiind showed great indecision in the matter. 

 In 1569, by the diet of Lublin, Lithuania was 

 finally joined indissolubly to Poland, and from this 

 time there was to be but one diet for the united 

 realm, and Warsaw, for greater convenience, be- 

 came the capital. Poland also gained Livonia. In 

 151-2 the king died. In the diet held the year after 

 at Warsaw it was enacted that there should be 

 toleration for all religious opinions, but the nobles 

 were still to have power over their serfs in spiritual 

 matters. 



The population almost doubled itself, but the 

 nobles became every year more impatient of re- 

 straint, and the crown was now virtually elective. 

 The members of the diet, consisting of the pala- 

 tines and the potty, or deputies of the lesser 

 nobility, together with the higher nobility, sat in 

 one chamber. The king had the right of sum- 

 moning the diet, which only lasted for six weeks, 

 ami it* decisions were fequired at a later stage, as 

 we shall see, to be unanimous. This idea of 

 unanimity in voting is thoroughly Slavonic, and is 

 to be found in the old Russian folk-motes. The 

 right of forbidding the passing of any measure was 

 called in Poland the liberuin veto (in Polish, nie 

 pozwalam), and brought all legislation to a stand- 

 still. It was employed by many of the corrupt 

 Polish nobles to avoid the detection of their mal- 



Cctices or to gratify their private malice, and 

 tened the ruin of the country. 

 The diet of 1573 elected Henry of Valois (III. 

 of France, q.v.), a worthless man, who fled in the 

 most ludicrous fashion from the country after a 

 reign of about five months, and was succeeded by 

 Stephen Batory (1575-86), voivode of Transyl- 

 vania, one of Poland's best kings, who carried on 

 war successfully against the Russians, and com- 

 pelled Ivan IV. to sue for peace ; he also organised 

 the Cossacks of the Ukraine into regiments of 

 frontier soldiers. Batory, who had no heirs, was 

 succeeded by Sigismund III. (1586-1632), the son 

 of Catharine, sister of Sigismund II., who had 

 married John Vasa, king of Sweden. He signed 

 the pacta conventa, as the agreement between the 

 Poles and their king was named, and an alliance 

 offensive and defensive was made between Poland 

 and Sweden. Constant disputes took place be- 

 tween the king and the diet, and he was a great 

 persecutor of the Dissidents, as the Protestants 

 were called. Sigismund assisted the claims of the 

 false Demetrius, who was assassinated at Moscow 

 in 1606, and we find the Poles afterwards taking 

 that city and causing Ladislaus, the son of Sigis- 

 mund, to be crowned czar ; but he was soon 

 obliged to resign, and ultimately the family of 

 tlio Romanovs ascended the throne in the person 

 <>f Michael. Nor was Sigismund successful in his 

 attempts to get the crown of Sweden. He died in 

 1W2. and was followed by bis sons Ladislaus IV. 

 ( \m-2 48) and John Casimir (1648-68). During 

 the reign of this dynasty Wallachia and Moldavia 

 were taken by the Turks from the Polish pro- 

 tectorate, Livonia was conquered ( 1605-21 ) by 

 Sweden, and Brandenburg established itself in 

 complete Independence (1657). In 1652 Sicinski, 

 the deputy for Upita, first put an end to the diet 

 by the libtrtim m,to. The Cossacks had been 

 goaded into rrhi-llinn by oppression and religious 



persecution, as they were members of the Greek 

 Church, and finally went over to Russia in 1654. 

 This occurred in the unfortunate days of John 

 Casimir ; and during the same reign Poland was 

 attacked simultaneously by Russia, Sweden, 

 Brandenburg, and the Cossacks ; the country was 

 entirely overrun, Warsaw, Wilno, and Lemberg 

 taken, and the king compelled to flee into Silesia. 

 Many of the Polish nobles behaved with great 

 treachery, but the invaders were finally driven 

 out. In 1660 Livonia was ceded to Sweden. In 

 1667, by the treaty of Andruszowo, the territory 

 beyond the Dnieper was ceded to Russia. John 

 Casimir abdicated in 1668, and retired to France, 

 where he died in 1672. 



Michael W T isniowiecki (1668-74), son of a 

 famous general, but a weak and very insignificant 

 man, was elected king it is said almost against 

 his own will. He was a mere puppet in the Lands 

 of his subjects. A war with Turkey was concluded 

 by the ignominious peace of Buczacz in 1672, by 

 which the town of Kamieniec remained in the 

 hands of the Ottomans. But the senate rejected 

 the treaty ; the Polish army was reinforced, and 

 the command given to the celebrated John Sobieski, 

 who routed the Turks at Choczim the following 

 year. Michael died suddenly in 1674. After 

 some dissensions concerning the election of a 

 successor, John Sobieski (q.v., 1674-96) was 

 chosen, but his reign, although adorned by the 

 splendid triumph at Vienna ( 1685), was productive 

 of little good to his country, chiefly through the 

 continual dissensions of the nobles. As Sobieski's 

 successor the Prince of Conti was legally elected 

 and proclaimed king; but Augustus II. of Saxony, 

 whose cause was supported by the House of Austria, 

 entered Poland at the head of a Saxon army, 

 and succeeded in obtaining the throne. Augustus 

 showed little sympathy with his Polish subjects ; 

 he promised to reconquer for Poland her lost 

 provinces, but this promise was chiefly made as 

 an excuse for keeping his Saxon army in the 

 country, in violation of the pacta conventa. His 

 war with the Turks restored to Poland part of the 

 Ukraine and the fortress of Kamieniec; but that 

 with Charles XII. brought nothing but misfortune. 

 Cracow was taken in 1702 ; Augustus was deposed, 

 and Stanislaus Leszczynski, palatine of Posen, 

 elected in his place. All the courts of Europe 

 acknowledged Stanislaus, except that of Peter the 

 Great ; and, when the latter defeated Charles at 

 the battle of Pultowa in 1709, Leszczynski was 

 compelled to leave the country, and Augustus 

 returned. In this reign Poland lost Courlaml, one 

 of its fiefs, which was given by the Empress Anna 

 to Biron, her favourite. Religious fanaticism was 

 also rampant. The Dissidents were very much 

 persecuted, and a riot having taken place in 1724 

 at Thorn, several of the leading citizens, including 

 the burgomaster, were put to death. In 1733 a 

 law was passed excluding them from all public 

 offices. This same year the contemptible Augustus 

 died. At the instigation of some of his supporters, 

 Stanislaus Leszczynski, who was then residing in 

 Lorraine, was induced to return to Poland and 

 was elected king ; but his election was opposed by 

 Austria and Russia, and in his place was chosen 

 Augustus III. (son of the last sovereign), a weak 

 and incapable man. The condition of the country 

 was now deplorable. Towards the end of his reign 

 the more enlightened Poles, seeing the radical 

 defects of the constitution, the want of a strong 

 government, and the dangers of the libentm veto, 

 entered into a league for the establishment of a 

 well-organised hereditary monarchy. The con- 

 servative party, however, was strong, and relied 

 on Russian influence, while the reformers sup 

 ported the Jesuits in their exclusion of dissenter* 



