One of the best of the Kings of Poland was SIGISMUND THE GREAT, who reigned forty-two years, A. D. 1506-1548, and who was a son of Casimir IV., as were his two immediate predecessors. He was a wise and able sovereign; and Poland enjoyed more prosperity during his long reign than it had ever experienced before, as he patronized learning and industry, and preferred the blessings of peace to the glories of war. After vainly endeavoring to check the progress of the Reformation in Poland, Sigismund the Great wisely abandoned the attempt, and contented himself with excluding Protestants from all public offices. During this period there were at least fifty printing-presses in Cracow alone, and books were printed in more than eight towns in the kingdom. Poland was then the only European country which permitted freedom of the press. Copernicus, the great astronomer, flourished during the reign of Sigismund the Great, and was a native of Thorn, then in Poland, but now in Prussia. King Sigismund the Great labored for the welfare of his subjects, who loved him. He was forced into war with Russia, in which he lost Smolensk; but he was partly compensated for this loss by obtaining the lordship over Moldavia. Sigis mund the Great, A. D. 1506– 1548. His Great Reign. Sigismund Augus 1548 1572. Perma nent tion of Lithu Sigismund the Great's son and his successor as King of Poland was SIGISMUND AUGUSTUS, who reigned twenty-four years, A. D. 15481572, and was also a great monarch. During his reign many abuses tus, A. D. were rectified, and the extraordinary privileges of the higher nobles were curtailed or abolished. Under Sigismund Augustus, Lithuania was permanently united with Poland, the united realm thenceforth having but one Diet; but each country retaining its own army, titles, Annexatreasury and laws; Lithuania being also reduced in size by the annexation of Podlachia, Volhynia and the Ukraine to Poland. Poland conquered Livonia from the Knights of the Sword, and seemed destined to become the most wealthy and powerful nation of Eastern Europe. During the reign of Sigismund Augustus the Dukedom of Prussia Livonia became a feudal dependency of Poland, and with his death ended the dynasty of the Jagellos and the greatness of Poland, whose population almost doubled itself during the brilliant reigns of the two illustrious Sigismunds. At this time Poland's dominions embraced Great Poland and Little Poland, comprising Galicia, Podolia, the Ukraine and other provinces ; along with Livonia and Lithuania, including Samogitia, Black Russia, White Russia, Polesia and Tchernigov; also Pomerelia, Ermeland, Courland, Prussia, Bukowina, Moldavia, Wallachia and Bessarabia; all of which were either integral parts of Poland or subject to it. Poland had been partially an elective kingdom for almost two centuries, but during that entire period the Polish sovereign had been chosen from the family of the Jagellos. Upon the death of Sigis ania. and Prussia. Poland's Extensive Domin ions. End of the Jagellos. Henry of 1573- mund Augustus, in 1572, the Polish crown became entirely elective, without regard to hereditary descent. After an interregnum of some months, HENRY OF VALOIS was chosen King of Poland by the Polish Diet in 1573; but he accepted that dignity with great reluctance; and upon the death of his brother, King Charles IX. of France, the next year, 1574, he abdicated the throne of Poland, and returned to Paris and became King Henry III. of Abdica- France. When he left the Polish capital he carried the Polish crown Flight. jewels with him, and was pursued on horseback for many miles by many of the Polish nobles, who vainly endeavored to persuade him His tion and Stephen A. D. 15751586. Sigismund to return. After another short interregnum, the Polish Diet chose STEPHEN Bathori, BATHORI, the voiwode of Transylvania, to the vacant Polish throne in 1575. He defeated the Russians in the attempt to sieze Livonia, drove them into their own country and forced them to make peace. He also subdued the semi-independent Cossacks of the Ukraine and partially civilized them. He died in 1586; and in 1587, after another brief III., A.D. interregnum, the Diet of Poland elected SIGISMUND III., who also became King of Sweden by inheritance upon the death of his father, John III. of Sweden, in 1592. Sigismund III. lost the Swedish crown in 1599, but reigned over Poland forty-five years, dying in 1632. His War with deposition in Sweden led to a war between Sweden and Poland, which lasted for some years, and which will be noticed in the history of the seventeenth century. 15871632. Sweden. Poland's The elective kingdom of Poland-or the Republic of Poland, as Decline. the Poles themselves called it was gradually declining during the seventeenth century. Every election of king by the Polish Diet was a scene of violent contention; and the unfortunate country was conCivil and stantly torn by domestic dissensions and civil wars, and involved in wars Foreign with the Swedes, the Russians, the Cossacks, the Turks and the Tartars, by which Poland was successively deprived of large portions of her territories. Wars. Polish The constitution and state of society in Poland was not such as Society. tended to develop civilization and political freedom and to promote peace and prosperity. Poland had no middle class, the only palladium of liberty in a monarchical country. The only liberty which existed in Poland was the power of the nobles to quarrel with each other, to tyrannize over the serfs upon their estates and to vote for a puppet king. Poland had only nobles and serfs-the former full of false pride and buried in selfishness and luxury, and the latter in abject slavery and ignorance without any legal existence. This state of society was the cause of the political evils from which Poland was suffering. The two Chambers of the Polish Diet were the Senate and Nobles and Serfs. POLISH COSTUMES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES Upper Section: Costumes of the Middle Class and Workmen 1, 3. Officers of the King's Guards 2. Commander-in-chief 4-8. Officers and Soldiers of the Regiment of Janizaries of Polish Kings. the Chamber of Nuncios, the former composed of the chief nobles, and the latter consisting of representatives of the inferior nobles. An election of King of Poland was a matter of the greatest excite- Elections ment. All the palatines and the chief nobility from every part of Poland repaired to Warsaw, which had now become the Polish capital; each one coming armed and on horseback, and attended by a numerous retinue of vassals, consisting of all the gentlemen in his palatinate. Warsaw and its environs presented an animated scene, and occasionally swords were drawn in support of the various candidates, who were not permitted to be present themselves. The Pacta Conventa-Poland's Magna Charta-for the new king's signature, was drawn up in a temporary structure on the plain of Wola, near Warsaw; and additions were made to its conditions at every election, until the king was shorn of almost every prerogative. Pacta Conventa. of Election. Troops of horsemen assembled on the day of election on the plain of Ceremony Wola, which was scarcely large enough, though twelve miles in circumference. The Senators and the Nuncios took their seats, and the nobles of each palatine were ranged in separate bodies under their respective banners. The names of the various candidates for the honors of royalty were then declared by the Archbishop of Warsaw, who, kneeling, repeated a prayer, and afterward went round on horseback to collect the votes, which were counted in the Senate; and the candidate for whom the most votes had been cast was immediately proclaimed King of Poland. Wars of mund III. with Russia and Turkey. SIGISMUND III., who was elected King of Poland in 1587, as already noticed, had been deposed in Sweden in 1599. He refused to relinquish the Swedish crown, and waged war against his uncle, King Charles IX. of Sweden, and with the latter's son and successor, the great Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, from 1620 to 1629. The Swedes conquered Livonia with Riga from 1605 to 1621, and part of Prussia in 1629; while Brandenburg won its complete independence of Polish rule during this period. Sigismund III. also prosecuted hostilities against Russia, and in 1611 the Poles took and burned Moscow. From 1620 to 1622 war raged between Poland and Turkey, and the Turks subdued Moldavia and Wallachia. The Turks defeated the Poles with great loss at Jassy, in Moldavia, in September, 1620; but in 1621 the Turks were defeated with the loss of eighty thousand men. King LADISLAS VII., who was elected to the Polish throne upon the death of his father, Sigismund III., in 1632, defeated the Russians at Smolensk, and by the Peace of Wiasma in 1634 he wrested Smolensk, Tchernigov and Novgorod from Russia; but near the end of his reign the Cossacks of the Ukraine transferred their allegiance to the Czar of Russia. The Cossacks, who served Poland under a hetman, or com Ladislas VII., A. D. 1632 1648. |