UNIVERSITY OF CAKLFOR 
 
 GJ-IFT OF 
 
 HENRY DOUGLASS BACON. 
 
 N 
 
 1877. 
 
 
 Accessions No. __/_ / x * / Shelf No. 
 
:->> 
 
THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 QKME :.!;< >u - 
 LOB OEHEB ' 
 1831 . 
 

PREFACE. 
 
 XN submitting the following compendium to his 
 readers, the author hopes, in justice both to them 
 and himself, that he may not be charged with 
 presumption for saying that it is no compilation. 
 Its parts have been carefully derived from about 
 sixty original sources Polish, Bohemian, Hun- 
 garian, German, French, &c., of which some are 
 very scarce in this country. His honesty in this 
 respect must be apparent to any one who will be 
 at the trouble of verifying his references. 
 
 A consideration no less important is, whether 
 he has shown the same honesty in relating facts 
 as in ascending to their sources : in other words, 
 is he impartial ? 
 
 To that numerous, to that all indeed but uni- 
 versal, class of politicians, who at present praise 
 every thing that is Polish, and decry every 
 thing that is Muscovite, who with one voice 
 predict the inevitable if not speedy triumph of 
 the Poles, his wish to do justice to the Rus- 
 sians may be construed into approbation of their 
 cause. He protests against such an interpretation 
 of his feelings. If he has a prejudice for either 
 A 3 
 
Vi PREFACE. 
 
 party it is for the weaker. While he expresses 
 his impression that, unless some extraordinary 
 circumstance intervene, the Poles, almost super- 
 human as is their valour, must eventually fall, 
 he deeply and sincerely laments the probability 
 of that catastrophe. He cannot, however, shut 
 his eyes to the force of facts : he cannot be made 
 to believe that the contest is to be conducted on 
 equal terms : he cannot but see that great phy- 
 sical superiority and immense resources are on 
 the side of Russia : he cannot therefore join in 
 the general anticipation as to the result. Popular 
 opinion is as contagious as it is veering : though 
 inconstant as the wind, its empire is not the less 
 secure. Whoever recollects how its current 
 ran during the late war between Russia and 
 Turkey, now in favour of the former, now as 
 strongly directed towards the latter, and how it 
 reverted to its original channel, will pardon 
 those who hesitate to sail with it. 
 
 But, whether victors or vanquished, the Poles 
 must have the respect of humanity. During the 
 present struggle they have exhibited, not only a 
 heroism far surpassing any thing to be found in 
 modern history, but a forbearance and a liber- 
 ality even, towards their prisoners, which covers 
 them with a glory immeasurably above it. Though 
 their cause has been sullied by some excesses, 
 they have, at length, abandoned their ferocious 
 
PREFACE. Vil 
 
 habit of refusing quarter ; and towards " dis- 
 anned guests," now so numerous, in Warsaw 
 especially, they use, not only all the courtesy of 
 the most polished, but all the generosity of the 
 most warm-hearted nation. Not less to be ad- 
 mired is their unbending constancy in resisting 
 their giant antagonist, a constancy worthy the 
 best age of Rome. In this there is something 
 infinitely more valuable than the brute courage 
 which defies, or the mechanical discipline which 
 coolly faces, danger : there is all the moral ele- 
 vation of a great and holy purpose, acting alike 
 on the understandings and hearts of the most 
 high-minded people in Europe. The present 
 struggle, indeed, exhibits throughout a moral 
 picture of greatness and interest, perhaps un- 
 paralleled in the historical annals of Europe. 
 
 Nor, while advocating the Polish cause the 
 cause of justice, of humanity, and of policy 
 must the author withhold the meed of praise to 
 some acts of the Russian emperor, who in the 
 strictest manner enjoined his troops, " not merely 
 to refrain from the slightest wanton ravage, but 
 to show themselves the protectors, the friends, 
 of the peasantry." 
 
 There is no evidence to prove that these orders 
 have been in the main disobeyed, whatever 
 isolated instances of their infraction possibly 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 exaggerated by a partial press have been ad- 
 duced. However strange the assertion may sound 
 in most English ears, nothing is more certain than 
 that Europe does not contain a sovereign more 
 averse to oppression or cruelty than the tsar 
 Nicholas, not one more disposed to better the 
 condition of all his people. Throughout his con- 
 nection with Poland (and the case is equally true 
 of his predecessor) he has omitted no opportunity 
 of confirming the prosperity of the country, 
 often by considerable grants from his treasury 
 both to national and individual objects, nor can 
 he be reproached with having exhibited more 
 favour to his hereditary than to his newly-ac- 
 quired subjects. Of the just complaints brought 
 against his government by the Poles, he has since 
 said, and there is no reason to doubt his sincerity 
 that he was ignorant. Nor will this circum- 
 stance surprise any one acquainted with the ex- 
 treme difficulty of complaints ever meeting the 
 imperial notice. They have to pass through such 
 an army of underlings scattered over so immense 
 a line of communication, all suspicious of their 
 misdeeds being exposed, and consequently vigi- 
 lant to prevent the exposure that their arrival 
 at their destination is little less than miraculous. 
 The Poles, however, had channels enough for 
 bringing their grievances before the tsar. Though 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 memorials or petitions would probably have failed, 
 any Polish noble might have proceeded to St. 
 Petersburgh, and might have obtained an audience 
 of his sovereign. That Nicholas would have re- 
 dressed the wrongs of his people, and that the 
 necessity of appealing to arms would have been 
 averted, is firmly believed by those best ac- 
 quainted with his sentiments and character. 
 Among those who think they have grounds for 
 this opinion, is the writer of the present volume. 
 Conjecture, however, as to what might have 
 been is now vain : the two parties hold each 
 other in the deadly grasp, and neither can draw 
 back with policy. If the emperor were now to 
 recognise the independence of his revolted sub- 
 jects, the step would be attributed, not to mag- 
 nanimity, but to weakness : if the Poles sub- 
 mitted without further struggle, that submission 
 might only invite to renewed oppression. They 
 are fighting for a mighty stake for independence, 
 or for utter, if not helpless, degradation : the alter- 
 native is fearful. But alas ! could even the acqui- 
 sition of independence atone for the horrors sus- 
 tained by the Poles during the present contest 
 for the total exhaustion which those horrors must 
 leave behind ? However valuable liberal institu- 
 tions be, we may reasonably doubt whether 
 they are not too dearly purchased by the sacri- 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 fices sometimes made for them ; whether plenty, 
 under the most absolute of governments, be not 
 preferable to want with the utmost limit of 
 human liberty. The peasant of Spain or of the 
 Tyrol does not appear less happy that he lives 
 under an arbitrary ruler ; neither certainly would 
 exchange conditions with the English labourer. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 TheSlavi --.., 
 
 Page 
 
 
 Origin of the Poles .... 
 
 - 2 
 
 
 Division of the Subject - 
 
 . 3 
 
 560. 
 
 LECH I. 
 
 . 4 
 
 
 Change of Government ... 
 
 . 4 
 
 
 LECH II. . 
 
 . 5 
 
 750. 
 
 W^NDA .... 
 
 . 5 
 
 
 Change of Government ... 
 
 - 6 
 
 
 Fable ... 
 
 - 7 
 
 
 LESKO I. 
 
 - 8 
 
 
 Extraordinary Mode of choosing a Ruler 
 
 . 8 
 
 804, &c. 
 
 LESKO II. . . _ 
 
 - 9 
 
 810, &c. 
 
 LESKO III. 
 
 - 9 
 
 815. 
 
 POPIEL I. 
 
 - 9 
 
 830. 
 
 POPIEL II. . . 
 
 - 9 
 
 
 Fable 
 
 - 10 
 
 
 Civil Strife - 
 
 - 11 
 
 
 Fable .... 
 
 - 11 
 
 842. 
 
 PlAST .... 
 
 - 13 
 
 860. 
 
 ZlEMOWIT - . 
 
 . 13 
 
 892. 
 
 LESKO IV. - ... 
 
 . 14 
 
 921. 
 
 ZEMOMYSL ... 
 
 . 14 
 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 
 962. 
 
 MlECISLAS I. - . . 
 
 - 15 
 
 965. 
 
 His Conversion . 
 
 . 15 
 
 966979. 
 
 That of his Subjects ... 
 
 . 16 
 
 
 Reflections .... 
 
 - 17 
 
 986-991. 
 
 His Wars .... 
 
 - 19 
 
 999. 
 
 Death . . . 
 
 . 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 A. D. Page 
 
 BOLESLAS I. . . 20 
 
 His Character . . - - 20 
 
 1001. Poland made a Kingdom" - - . 20 
 
 10021018. Wars of Boleslas : 1. With Bohemia and the Empire 21 
 
 10081019. 2. With Muscovy - . - ' - 22 
 
 Labours for the Good of his People - - 24 
 
 1025. His Death - . . . .24 
 
 MIECISLAS II. - . . . _ 25 
 
 10261034. His inglorious Wars - - - - 25 
 
 Death - - . - - 27 
 
 10341041. Interregnum - - . _ 28 
 
 1041. CASIMIR I. - . ., - - 32 
 
 His Prudence . . . - 32 
 
 1042, 1043. War with Masos - . . 33 
 
 10431058. Wise Government - - - - 33 
 
 Death - - - 34 
 
 1058. BOLESLAS II. - - - . 34 
 
 1062 1076. Wars with the Bohemians, Hungarians, and Muscovites 35 
 
 1076. His Dissipation at Kiow - - - 38 
 
 Extraordinary Relation - - - 39 
 
 10b7 1079. His Excesses at Home - - - 41 
 
 Murder of St. Stanislas - .- - - 42 
 
 Punishment, Death, and Character of Boleslas - - 43 
 
 1082. ULADISLAS I. - 44 
 
 Not recognised as King - .. - 44 
 
 1083 1086. Birth of Boleslas - . . -45 
 
 1089. Recall and Death of his Nephew - - 45 
 
 10901096. His Wars ... . .45 
 
 His bastard Son rebels - - - 48 
 
 1C98. Conduct of both Sons - - - - 49 
 
 1102. His Death and Character - - - 50 
 
 BOLESLAS III. - . . 51 
 
 1102 1106. Perversity of Sbigniew - - --51 
 
 1107. Intrepidity of Boleslas - - 52 
 
 1109. Siege of Glogaw - - . - 54 
 
 1116. Sbigniew assassinated - - 56 
 
 11161129. Remorse of Boleslas . . - 56 
 
 11351138. Boleslas is defeated - - . - 57 
 
 1139. His Death . . * . . 58 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 1139. Poland divided into Governments . - 59 
 
 1140. ULADISLAS II. ... - 60 
 11411146. Invades the Rights of his Brothers - - 60 
 
 Is resisted and expelled - - - 61 
 
 BOLESLAS IV. - - ... 62 
 
 1149 1163. His Transactions with the Empire - - - 62 
 
 11641173. His Disasters and Death - - 63 
 
CONTENTS. Xiil 
 
 A. D. p ag e 
 
 1174. MIECISLAS III. - . m .64 
 
 1177. His Vices and Expulsion . . 65 
 
 1178. CASIMIR THE JUST . . . - 65 
 1180. Reforms Abuses . . - - 65 
 
 1181 1191. Restlessness of Miecislas - . . . 66 
 
 Wars of Casimir - . . - 67 
 
 1194. His Death and Character . . . . 68 
 
 LESKO THE WHITE . . _ -68 
 1200. Opposed by Miecislas, who obtains the Government - 69 
 
 1202. Death of Miecislas . . ... 69 
 
 ULADISLAS III. . . fc 69 
 
 1205. Resigns. - ... . . 70 
 
 1206. LESKO THE WHITE restored . . . 70 
 
 1227. Is assassinated - . . - 72 
 Corruption of Morals at this Period . . 72 
 
 1228. BOLESLAS V. . . . .72 
 The Teutonic Knights . . _ 73 
 
 1233. Settled in Poland . . . .74 
 
 1233 1240. Disasters of the Duchy . . . 74 
 
 1241. Invasion of the Tatars . . .75 
 
 Unworthy Conduct of Boleslas - . 75 
 
 12471260. New Disasters - . . .76 
 
 1264. The Jadvingi subdued - . . . 76 
 
 1279. Death and Character of Boleslas - .77 
 
 LESKO THE BLACK . . - ' - - 78 
 
 12791289. Internal Troubles . . . .73 
 
 Death of Lesko . . . . 79 
 
 12891295. Horrid Anarchy - . . .79 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 1295. PREZEMISLAS, King of Poland - - . .80 
 His wise Government - . - - 81 
 
 1296. His Murder . . . - 82 
 Troubles - - - ... 82 
 
 1300. WENCESLAS . -82 
 
 Is unpopular, and abandons Poland - . - 83 
 
 1306. ULADISLAS IV. the Short - - - 84 
 
 13071331. His Transactions and Wars with the Teutonic Knights 85 
 
 1322. Loss of Silesia - - - - .88 
 
 1325. Alliance with the Lithuanians - - - 89 
 
 1333. Death and Character - . . - 90 
 
 The Dulcean Heretics ; - . 90 
 
 CASIMIR III. or the Great ... 91 
 
 Makes Peace with the Knights - - ..91 
 
 Reforms Abuses - - 91 
 
 1347. Mends the Laws. Code of Wisliza - ... 92 
 
 Encourages Industry and the Arts . . .95 
 
 Chooses Lewis of Hungary to succeed him - -95 
 
X1T 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 A. D. Page 
 
 1349. His Success in War . . . .96 
 
 1356. His Vices - ... 97 
 
 1370. Death and Character - - . .98 
 
 The Flagellants - - . . . 98 
 
 LEWIS - - - - 99 
 
 Is unpopular . ... 100 
 
 1376. Abandons Poland - 100 
 
 1382. Death and Character - . - - 101 
 Interregnum - ... 102 
 
 1383. Troubles . . . - - 102 
 
 1384. HEDWIG - - - .103 
 
 1385. Her Suitors, and romantic Attachment to William Duke 
 
 of Austria - .... 103 
 
 1386. Consents to marry Jagello . . . 104 
 ULADISLAS V. (Jagello) - . . -105 
 
 1387. Converts the Lithuanians . . . 105 
 1387, &c. His Transactions with them . . -106 
 1404, &c. With the Teutonic Knights . - 108 
 
 His Generosity towards the Emperor Sigismund - - 109 
 
 His Jealousy of his Wives . - - 110 
 
 1430. His Son declared his Successor - . -Ill 
 
 1434. His Death and Character . . - -112 
 
 ULADISLAS VI. . . 112 
 
 1435, &c. Troubles during his Minority - - - 112 
 
 1439. He is called to the Throne of Hungary - - 113 
 
 1445. His Wars with the Turks - - - 114 
 
 1444. Peace made, and shamefully broken by the Christians - 114 
 Indignation of the Sultan Amurath ... 115 
 Defeat and Death of Uladislas - - - - 116 
 
 1445. CASIMIR IV. . - - , 117 
 1447, &c. His Repugnance to take the Oaths - -117 
 1454, &c. His Transactions with the Knights - . - 118 
 1459, &c. With the Lithuanians - - - 119 
 1479, &c. With the Russians and Tatars . . -119 
 1471, &c. With the Bohemians and Hungarians - - 120 
 
 Progress of Aristocracy under Casimir IV. Origin of 
 
 Aristocratical Representation - * , .121 
 
 1492. Death and Character of Casimir - - - 123 
 
 JOHN I. (Albert) - . - - 124 
 
 1495. He penetrates into Wallachia - - - 125 
 
 1498. Invasion of the Turks, &c. ... .125 
 
 1499. Of the Muscovites - - 126 
 
 1500. Perfidy as well as Weakness of John Albert - - 126 
 
 1501. His Death and Character . - - 127 
 Selfishness of the Aristocracy - - -127 
 ALEXANDER - - - 127 
 
 1502, &c. His Baseness to Achmet. Noble Behaviour of that Prince 128 
 
 1506. Defeat of the Tatars - - 129 
 
 Death of Alexander, and Character of his Reign - - 129 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XV 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1506. 
 
 1508, &c. 
 
 1509, &c. 
 
 1510, &c. 
 1525. 
 
 SlGISMUND I. 
 
 His Transactions with Muscovy 
 With the Wallachians 
 With the Knights 
 
 Page 
 
 - 130 
 
 - 130 
 
 - 132 
 
 - 132 
 
 Abolition of the Teutonic Order. Origin of the Greatness 
 
 of the House of Brandenburg - 134 
 
 Moderation (and Embarrassments) of Sigismund - - 135 
 
 Yet he persecutes the Lutherans - - 136 
 
 1548. His Death and Character - . - 136 
 SIGISMUND II. (Augustus) . . 137 
 
 1549. Opposition to his clandestine Marriage - - 138 
 1552. Religious Dissensions. Progress of the Reformation - 139 
 
 Appeal of a married Priest against the Infliction of the 
 
 Ecclesiastical Penance ... - 141 
 
 1553, &c. Strange Policy of the King - - 142 
 
 1556, &c. His Transactions with Livonia and the Russians - 144 
 
 With Lithuania - . - 146 
 
 1572. His Death and Character - - - 146 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 1572. 
 
 157a 
 1574. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 Interregnum - - 
 
 Preliminary Proceedings - 
 
 Opening of the Diet of Election 
 Candidates - - 
 
 Election of Henry de Valois 
 Pacta Conventa, afterwards called 
 
 Articles of Henry 
 
 His Unpopularity - 
 
 Incident - - 
 
 His inglorious Flight 
 
 1575. STEPHEN - - 
 
 1576, Troubles consequent on his Election - 
 1577, &c. His Wars with Muscovy - 
 
 The Cossacks - - 
 
 1585. Judicial Reforms, &c. 
 Licentiousness of the Nobles - 
 
 1586. Death and Character of Batory 
 
 SJGJLSMUND III. - - 
 
 1587. Troubles consequent on his Election - 
 
 1588. He triumphs over his Rival - 
 His Unpopularity 
 
 1593, &c. He loses the Swedish Crown 
 1609, &c. His Wars in Livonia - - 
 
 1605 1618. His Transactions with Muscovy 
 1620 1623* With the Turks. Heroism of the Poles 
 
 - 148 
 148 
 
 - 150 
 
 - 150 
 
 - 151 
 152 
 
 - 154 
 
 - 154 
 
 - 155 
 
 - 156 
 
 - 158 
 
 - 158 
 
 - 160 
 
 - 162 
 
 - 164 
 -165 
 
 - 166 
 167 
 168 
 
 - 163 
 
 - 169 
 
 - 171 
 
 - 171 
 
 - 17 '2 
 
 - 175 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 A. D. Page 
 
 16201629. His Wars with the Swedes . -177 
 
 1632. His Death and Character . . - - 178 
 
 ULADISLAS VII. . . . 179 
 
 1634, &c. His Wars with the Muscovites - . 180 
 
 1635. His Transactions with the Turks . . .181 
 
 His Transactions with Sweden . - -181 
 
 1638. Insurrection of the Cossacks - .. . 182 
 
 1648. Bogdan, their Chief - - - - - 183 
 Death and Character of Uladislas - - .184 
 Interregnum - ... 185 
 Ravages of Bogdan . . 185 
 
 1649. Election of a new King - . . 186 
 JOHN II. (Casimir) - - .187 
 
 16491653. His Wars with the Cossacks, &c. - - 187 
 
 The Veto - - ... 189 
 
 1654. Invasion of the Russians . .190 
 
 1655 1660. Of the Swedes. Subjugation of Poland - -191 
 
 1660. Its Emancipation . . . . 192 
 
 1658. Death and Character of Bogdan - - - 194 
 
 1660 1667. Other Wars of John Casimir - - - 195 
 
 1658. Civil Dissensions . . . .196 
 
 1668. Abdication of the King . . . 197 
 
 Character of his Reign .... 198 
 
 Extraordinary Election of Prince Michael Koributh - 199 
 
 MICHAEL, his Character - . . 200 
 
 1669, &c. His disastrous Reign - . - 200 
 
 16701673. War with the Cossacks and Turks. Triumphs of Sobieski 201 
 
 Death and Character of Michael - . .204 
 
 1673, 1674. Interregnum. Election of Sobieski - . 205 
 
 1676. JOHN III. Wars with the Turks, &c. - - 207 
 
 His splendid Success - _ 208 
 
 1678. His imprudent Truce with Muscovy . - 209 
 
 16781682. Internal Disorders - - - .209 
 
 His Alliance with the Empire - . 210 
 
 1683. Campaign of Vienna - - -211 
 
 16841691. Imprudent Policy of the King - - - - 212 
 
 His Weakness - - . - 213 
 
 1696. His Death and Character - . 215 
 
 16961697. Interregnum - - - -216 
 
 Election of FREDERIC AUGUSTUS I. . 218 
 
 1699. The King recovers Kaminiec . . .219 
 
 17001705. His Alliance with Peter the Great, and his War with 
 
 Sweden - - - - - 219 
 
 He is deposed by Charles XII. - . - 220 
 
 Elevation of Stanislas - - - 221 
 
 1710. Restoration of Frederic Augustus - - - 221 
 
 17101718. Civil Dissensions - - - - 222 
 
 1726. Loss of Courland - - - 222 
 
 1724. Religious Intolerance. Affair of Thorn - - 223 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XVii 
 
 A. D. P^ 
 
 Horrid Cruelty - - - 224 
 
 1733. Death of the King - - - -225 
 
 Troubles of the Interregnum - ; - - 225 
 
 FREDERIC AUGUSTUS II. forced on the Poles - - 227 
 
 1736, &c. His Idleness and Dissipation , 
 
 Influence of Russia - - - - 228 
 Factions - ... 230 
 
 Russian Influence increases - - 230 
 
 1763. Death of the King 
 
 Disasters of his Reign - - - 232 
 
 Interregnum ... . - 232 
 Policy of the Empress Catherine 
 State of Parties. Manoeuvres of Russia and Prussia - 233 
 
 1764. Tumultuous Diet Patriotism of two noble Poles - - 234 
 Illegal Election of STANISLAS AUGUSTUS - - - 237 
 
 1765, &c. His good Intentions frustrated by Russia - - 237 
 
 1768, &c. Violence of that Power - - - 238 
 
 The Poles vainly endeavour to throw off the Yoke - 238 
 
 1772. First Partition of Poland - - - 239 
 Impudent Pretensions of the Three Powers - -239 
 
 1773. Diet of this Year. Intrepidity of Rey ten - - 240 
 1775, &c. Selfish ness of the Polish Nobles - - -242 
 
 17781792. Remarkable Diet. New Constitution - - 242 
 
 Violence of Catherine, and Weakness of Stanislas - 243 
 
 1793. Second Partition - - - - - 244 
 
 The Poles rise* Exploits of Kosciusko . - 244 
 
 They are reduced by Suwarof and the Prussians - - 246 
 
 1795. Third Partition. Annihilation of the Republic - - 245 
 
 Reflections - - - 246 
 
 CHAP. Ill 
 
 1796. Sympathy for the Poles - - - 247 
 
 1797. Polish Nobles enter the French Service . - 248 
 They are deceived by Bonaparte ... 249 
 
 1801. Their Exploits in Italy .... 249 
 
 Condition of their Countrymen at home . - 250 
 
 1806. Bonaparte draws them to his Standard ... 252 
 
 1807. Grand Duchy of Warsaw formed - . - 253 
 Its Constitution - . . - 253 
 
 1809. Its Condition, and its Services to France . .254 
 
 1812. Bonaparte again draws them to his Standard 5 - - 255 
 His insulting Duplicity . . .256 
 
 1813. Fall of the Grand Duchy . . . .257 
 
 1814. Attention of the Allied Sovereigns directed to Poland . 257 
 
 1815. Policy of Alexander - . . . .258 
 Bases of the Treaty of Vienna. Kingdom of Poland 
 
 restored - 259 
 
XV 111 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 A. D. Page 
 
 Articles of the Constitutional Charter . . 260 
 
 1818. Prosperity of Poland. Popularity of her King - - 262 
 Differences begin between the Poles and him. Consider. 
 
 ations on the Causes of the Disagreement - - 264 
 
 Advice of Dombrowski : its Effect . - 265 
 
 1819. Fermentation of the Public Mind. Censorship laid on the 
 
 Press - - - - - 266 
 
 Secret Societies - - - - .266 
 
 1820, &c. Unpopularity of Constantine - - 267 
 
 1824. Grievances of the Poles - - 268 
 
 Examined - . - - - 269 
 
 1825. The National Prosperity improves - - - 269 
 Mistrust and Hatred between Alexander and the Poles - 270 
 
 1830. Influence of the French Insurrection in Poland - - 271 
 
 Other Causes of the Polish Insurrection - - 272 
 Its Explosion and Details .... 273 
 
 Its Success ... . 274 
 
 Administrative Council - - 275 
 
 Considerations on the present Struggle - - 276 
 
 Republic of Cracow : its Constitution . -277 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 Stale of Polish Society in its Infancy - - - 278 
 
 Authority of the Generals - 278 
 
 The National Tribunals - - - - 279 
 Formation of the Senate .... 279 
 
 Convocation of the warlike Nobles - - 280 
 
 The Feudal forsaken for the Teutonic Law - - 281 
 
 State of Polish Legislation - - .281 
 
 Powers of the King . . . .282 
 
 Of the Senate . . - .282 
 
 The Palatines . - . . .283 
 
 The Castellans - - . . .283 
 
 The Starosts . , . . .284 
 
 The Diets . . . . .284 
 
 Various Kinds of Diet - - - .284 
 
 The Veto, and other Abuses of the Diet - - 285 
 
 Confederations - . 286 
 
 Their various Kinds - - 287 
 
 The Dietines - - - - - 288 
 
 Manners of the Poles. The Slavi were democratic - 288 
 
 Testimony of Dlugoss - - - . .289 
 
 Paganism yields to Christianity - 289 
 Progress of Manners ... 2SO 
 
 The Polish Nobles well informed . 291 
 
 Readiness of the Peasants to repair their Disasters - 291 
 
 Imitative Character of the Poles - - .292 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 A. D. Page 
 
 The Jews in Poland .... 292 
 
 Their Condition at various Periods ... 93 
 
 Their unprincipled Dealings - 294 
 
 Their numerical Increase - - . 294 
 
 Their Boldness - - - -295 
 
 Their Disaffection or Loyalty - - 295 
 
 Their internal Dissensions occasioned by false Messias 296 
 
 Frank of Wallachia : Maxim of his Sect - - 296 
 
 Private Condition of the Jews ... 297 
 
 Their Conduct as Spies - . . .297 
 
 Regiments of Jews . . _ 298 
 
 Their Fecundity, and Injury to the Polish Nation - 298 
 
 Their Universal Chief - 298 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Destruction of Popiel . . -299 
 
 Escape of Stan islas Leczynski - - .301 
 
 Statistical View of Poland . . 309 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF 
 
 AMIDST the incessant influx of the Asiatic nations into 
 Europe, during the slow decline of the Roman empire, 
 and the migrations occasioned by their arrival, we should 
 vainly attempt to trace the descent of the Poles. Whether 
 they are derived from the Sarmatians, who, though like- 
 wise of Asiatic origin, were located on both sides of the 
 Vistula long before the irruptions of the kindred bar- 
 barians, or from some horde of the latter, or, a still more 
 probable hypothesis, from an amalgamation of the natives 
 and new comers, must for ever remain doubtful. All 
 that we can know with certainty is, that they formed 
 part of the great Slavonic family which stretched from 
 the Baltic to the Adriatic, and from the Elbe to the 
 mouth of the Borysthenes. As vainly should we en- 
 deavour, from historic testimony alone, to ascertain 
 the origin of this generic term slave, and the universality 
 of its application. Conjecture may tell us, that as some 
 of the more powerful tribes adopted it to denote their 
 success in arms (its signification is glorious), other 
 tribes, conceiving that their bravery entitled them to 
 the same enviable appellation, assumed it likewise. It 
 might thus become the common denomination of the 
 old and new inhabitants, of the victors and the van- 
 quished ; the more readily, as most of the tribes compre-. 
 hended under it well knew that the same cradle had once 
 contained them. Other people, indeed, as the Huns or 
 the Avars, subsequently arrived from more remote re- 
 
2 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 gions of Asia *, and in the places where they forcibly 
 settled, introduced a considerable modification of customs 
 and of language : hence the diversity in both among the 
 Slavonic nations a diversity which has induced some 
 writers to deny the identity of their common origin. 
 But as, in the silence of history., affinity of language will 
 best explain the kindred of nations, and will best assist 
 us to trace their migrations, no fact can be more indis- 
 putable than that most of the tribes included in the 
 generic term slavi were derived from the same common 
 source, however various the respective periods of their 
 arrival, and whatever changes were in consequence pro- 
 duced by struggles with the nations, by intestine wars, 
 and by the irruption of other hordes dissimilar in manners 
 and in speech. Between the Pole and the Russian is 
 this kindred relation striking ; and though it is fainter 
 among the Hungarians from their incorporation with 
 the followers of Attila, and among the Bohemians, from 
 their long intercourse with the Teutonic nations, it is 
 yet easily discernible. t 
 
 Of these Slavonic tribes, those which occupied the 
 country bounded by Prussia and the Carpathian moun- 
 tains, by the Bug and the Oder those especially who 
 were located on both banks of the Vistula were the 
 progenitors of the present Poles. The word Pole is not 
 older than the tenth century, and seems to have been 
 originally applied, not so much to the people as to the 
 region they inhabited; polska in the Slavonic tongue 
 signifying a level field or plain. 
 
 * I have little doubt that the Huns and Avars were one and the same 
 people, or that the latter were of the same descent as the former : " Fue- 
 runt autem Avares Unnorum gens, et exercitus Attila* reliquiae. >Unni 
 vero qui cladi superfuerant (by the Gepida?), Unnorum nomen exosi, ab 
 Avario, qui Zeliorbi successit inregno, sese Avares noncupavere, relictisque 
 Pannoniis in Noricum recesserunt, a quibus ea regio Bavaria dicta est." 
 Boiifinii Rerum Ungaricarum Decades, lib. viii. p. 82. This is more pro- 
 bable than the assertion of Strabo, that Bavaria was named from the Boii, 
 who passed thither from Italy. 
 
 f- The Lithuanians, though their history is so closely connected with that 
 of the Muscovites and Poles, are not originally Slavonic ; a fact sufficiently 
 clear from their language. By some of the learned they have been deemed 
 of Gothic, by others of Alanic, descent. Many Gothic words, indeed, are 
 to be found in their language, but more Latin and Greek : the basis, how- 
 ever, is none of the three, but something perhaps resembling the Finnish. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 The Poles as a nation are not of ancient date. * 
 Prior to the ninth century they were split into a 
 multitude of tribes, independent of each other, and 
 governed by their respective chiefs : no general head was 
 known except in case of invasion, when combination 
 alone could save the country from the yoke. Like all 
 other people, however, they lay claim to an antiquity 
 sufficiently respectable : their old writers assure us that 
 one of the immediate descendants of Noah colonised this 
 part of ancient Sarmatia.t But the absurdity of the claim 
 was too apparent to be long supported, and less extra- 
 vagant historians were satisfied with assigning the period 
 of their incorporation as a people to Lech or Lesko I., who 
 reigned, say they, about the middle of the sixth century . J 
 As the laws of evidence became better understood, even 
 this era was modestly abandoned, and the authentic 
 opening of Polish history was brought down three cen- 
 turies; namely, to the accession of Ziemowit (Semo- 
 vitus), A. D. 86'0. Finally, it was reserved for the 
 Polish writers of our own day to abstract another century 
 from the national existence, and hail Miecislas I. as the 
 true founder of the monarchy. || 
 
 In the present compendium, the history of Poland 
 will be divided into two parts, in regard to the two dis- 
 tinct classes of its rulers : I. The crown hereditary ; 
 II. The crown elective. The first will comprise the 
 dynasty of the Piasts and the Jagellos IT ; the second, 
 
 * " La nation Polonaise est a la fois la plus nouvelte de 1'Europe, si on 
 s'arrete au temps ou elle se constitua, et la plus ancienne, si on remonte 
 jusqu'a son origine." Salvandy, Histoire de Pologne avant et sous le Roi 
 Jean Sobieski, \. 19. What carelessness is this? Both assertions are ut- 
 terly and miserably unfounded. 
 
 t Vincentii Kadlubek Episcopi Cracoviensis Historia Polonica. Bogu- 
 phali Episcopi Posnaniensis Chronicon Polonia?. Stanislai Sarnicii An- 
 nalium Polonorum^lib. viii. 
 
 J Joannis Dlugossi Historia Polonica. Cromeri de Origine et Rebus 
 Gestis Polonorum lib. xxx. Neugebaver, Historia Rerum Polonorum,&c., 
 cum multis aliis. 
 
 $ Bandtkia, Solignac, Narnszewits, Waga, Salvandy, &c. 
 
 || Lelewel, Niemcewitz, Golembiowski, Zielinski, with many others. 
 
 V I am aware that during the reign of the Jagellos the kings were elected, 
 but the election was always confined to one family, which was indisputably 
 hereditary : the eldest son was elected if at a suitable age; if too young, one 
 of the uncles was chosen. The laws of succession seem not very clearly 
 defined in any country during the middle ages. 
 
 What confirms still more strongly the propriety of the above division is 
 
4 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 the reigns of the various princes, natives or foreigners, 
 whom the suffrages of the nobles raised to the dignity. 
 
 But though the severity of historical criticism has re- 
 jected as fabulous, or at least doubtful, the period ante- 
 cedent to Miecislas I., many transactions of that period 
 are admitted as credible. Tradition, indeed, is the only 
 authority for the existence of preceding rulers, but it 
 cannot be wholly disregarded : its first beams are visible 
 through the darkness of time, and enable us to perceive 
 that some of those rulers were, whatever we may think 
 of the events recorded concerning them. For this reason, 
 they may properly occupy a place in the present Intro- 
 duction. 
 
 According to ancient chroniclers, one of the most fa- 
 mous dukes of the Poles was 
 
 LECH I., who lived about the middle of the sixth 
 century. One day as he was clearing away the ground 
 which he had marked out for the site of a residence, he 
 found an eagle's nest : hence he called the place Gnesna, 
 from the Slavonic word gnlazda, a nest : hence, too, the 
 representation of that bird on the banners of the nation. 
 A multitude of huts soon surrounded the ducal abode : a 
 city arose, destined for some centuries to be the capital of 
 the country, and eventually the archiepiscopal see of the 
 primate. From this prince Poland was sometimes called 
 Lechia. 
 
 Of the immediate descendants of Lech nothing is 
 known. We are only told that their sceptre was one of 
 iron ; and that the indignant natives at length abolished 
 the ducal authority, and established that of voivods, or 
 palatiris, whose functions appear to have been chiefly, if 
 not wholly, military. Experience, however, taught that 
 one tyrant was preferable to twelve : they accordingly 
 invested with the supreme power one of the palatins and 
 deposed the rest ; one whose virtues and genius rendered 
 
 the fact, that, previous to the time of Henry deValois, the Polish monarchs 
 styled themselves hceredes regni Poloniae ; and that, from the accession ot 
 the French prince, the nobles in the pacta conventa insisted on the disuse 
 <tf the hereditary title. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 him worthy of the choice. CRACUS repressed the licen- 
 tious, encouraged the peaceable,, established tribunals for 
 the administration of justice, and triumphed over all his 
 enemies, domestic and foreign. He founded Cracow, 
 whither he transferred the seat of his government. 
 
 LECH II. His son, Lech II., ascended the ducal 
 throne by a fratricide : he assassinated his elder brother 
 in a wood ; but he had the address to conceal for a time 
 his share in that dark deed. But divine justice slum- 
 bered not his crime was discovered, and he was de- 
 posed and banished by his indignant subjects. The 
 tender affection, however, which they bore to the me- 
 mory of Cracus induced them to elevate his daughter 
 Wenda to the throne. 
 
 WENDA. [750.] This princess was of surprising 
 beauty, of great talents, and of still greater ambition. 
 Power she deemed too sweet to be divided with another, 
 and she therefore resolutely refused all offers of marriage. 
 Incensed at her haughtiness, or in the hope of accom- 
 plishing by force what persuasion had attempted in vain, 
 Rudiger, one of her lovers, who was a German prince, 
 adopted a novel mode of courtship. At the head of an 
 army he invaded her dominions. She marched against 
 him. When the two armies met, Rudiger again be- 
 sought her to listen to his suit, and thereby spare the 
 effusion of blood. The maiden was inexorable : she 
 declared that no man should ever share her throne ; 
 that she would never become the slave of a husband, 
 since, whoever he might be, he would assuredly love her 
 person much less than her power. Her answer being 
 spread among the officers of Rudiger, produced an effect 
 which he little foresaw. Filled with admiration at the 
 courage of the princess, whom they perceived hurrying 
 from rank to rank in the act of stimulating her followers 
 to the combat, and convinced that all opposition to 
 her will would be worse than useless, they surrounded 
 their chief, and asked him what advantage he hoped to 
 gain from such an expedition. " If thou shouldst de- 
 B 3 
 
HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 feat the princess, will she pardon thee the loss of her 
 troops ? If thou art subdued, will she be more disposed 
 to love thee ? " The passion of Rudiger blinded him to 
 the rational remonstrances of his followers : he per- 
 sisted in his resolution of fighting ; they refused to ad- 
 vance : in utter despair he laid hands on himself, and 
 turned his dying looks towards the camp of the Poles. 
 Wenda, we are told, showed no sign of sympathy at 
 the tragical news, but returned triumphant to Cracow. 
 Her own end was not less violent. Whether, as is as- 
 serted, to escape similar persecution, or, as is equally 
 probable, from remorse at her own cruelty, having one 
 day sacrificed to the gods, she threw herself into the 
 waters of the Vistula and there perished. 
 
 With this princess expired the race of Cracus. Again, 
 it is said, the fickle multitude divided the sovereign 
 power, and subjected themselves to the yoke of twelve 
 palatins. The two periods have evidently been con- 
 founded ; either the power never existed, or an hy- 
 pothesis, however, not very probable as this form 
 of government was common to the Slavonic tribes, 
 it may have been the only one admitted in Poland 
 prior to the domination of the Piasts. Anarchy, we 
 are told, was the immediate effect of this partition 
 of power. The new chiefs were weak, indolent, and 
 wicked ; the tyrants of their subjects, and enemies of 
 each other. In vain did the people groan ; their groans 
 were disregarded, and their efforts to shake, off the 
 bondage they had imposed on themselves were rendered 
 abortive by the power of their rulers, who always ex- 
 hibited considerable energy when their privileges were 
 threatened. The general wretchedness was increased 
 by an invasion of the Hungarians, who had sprung from 
 the same origin as the Poles, and who were inclined to 
 profit by the dissensions between the chiefs and people. 
 The palatins, whose duty it was to defend the country 
 which they oppressed, were too conscious of their own 
 weakness, and still more of their unpopularity, to risk 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 an action with the enemy. Nothing but subjugation 
 and ruin appeared to the dismayed natives, when both 
 were averted by the genius of one man. 
 
 Fable. Though but a simple soldier,, Prezemislas 
 aspired to the glory of liberating his country. One dark 
 night he adopted an expedient which had the merit of 
 novelty at least to recommend it, and which has never 
 since been imitated by any other general. With the 
 branches and barks of trees he formed images of men 
 with lances, swords, and bucklers: these he smeared 
 with certain substances proper to reflect the rays of the 
 sun, and render the illusion more striking. He placed 
 these on a hill on the border of a forest directly opposite 
 to the Hungarian camp. The stratagem succeeded: 
 the following morning some troops of the enemy were 
 despatched to dislodge the audacious few who appeared 
 to confide in the excellence of their position. As the 
 assailants approached the plain, the reflection ceased, 
 and they were surprised to find nothing but fantastic 
 forms of trees. The same appearance, however, of 
 armed soldiers was discovered at a distance ; and it was 
 universally believed that the Poles had fallen back to 
 occupy a more tenable post. The Hungarians pursued 
 until, artfully drawn into an ambuscade, they were en- 
 veloped and massacred. How to ensure the destruction 
 of the rest was now the object of Prezemislas : it was 
 attained by another stratagem scarcely less extraordinary. 
 He clothed some of his followers in the garb and armour 
 of the slain Hungarians, and marched them boldly to- 
 wards the enemy's camp, while another body of Poles, 
 by circuitous paths, hastened towards the same destin- 
 ation. Having thus reached the outposts, the former 
 suddenly fell on the astonished Pannonians ; while the 
 latter, rushing forwards from another direction, added to 
 the bloody horrors of the scene. In vain did the in- 
 vaders attempt a combined defence : before they could 
 be formed into any thing like systematic order they were 
 cut off almost to a man, notwithstanding individual acts 
 
 B 4 
 
8 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 of bravery which called forth the admiration of the 
 assail ants. * 
 
 The victor was rewarded with a sceptre ; the twelve 
 palatins were deposed: and he was thus confirmed in an 
 authority undivided and absolute. Under the name of 
 Lesko I., which he assumed from reverence to the cele- 
 brated founder of Gnesna, he reigned with equal glory 
 and happiness. Unfortunately, however, for the natives, 
 he left no children ; the palatins armed, some to enforce 
 the restitution of their alleged rights, others to seize on 
 the supreme power. But the voice of the country, to 
 which experience had at length taught a good lesson, de-t 
 clared so loudly against a partition of sovereignty, that 
 the chiefs ceased to pursue a common interest ; each 
 laboured for himself. According to ancient usage, the 
 people were assembled to fill the vacant throne by their 
 suffrages. But to choose where the pretensions of the 
 candidates were, to outward appearance, nearly balanced, 
 and yet where the consequences of an improper choice 
 might be for ever fatal to liberty, was difficult. Where 
 the risk was so great, they piously concluded that it was 
 safer to leave the event to the will of the gods than to 
 human foresight. 
 
 A horse-race was decreed, in which the crown was to 
 be the prize of victory. One of the candidates had 
 recourse to artifice : the course, which lay along a vast 
 plain on the banks of the Pradnik, he planted with sharp 
 iron points, and covered them with sand. In the centre, 
 however, he left a space over which he might pass with- 
 out danger ; but lest he should accidentally diverge from 
 it, he caused his horse to be shod with iron plates, 
 against which the points would be harmless. Every 
 thing seemed to promise success to his roguish ingenuity, 
 when the secret was discovered by two young men, as 
 they were one day amusing themselves on the destined 
 course. One of them was silent through fear ; the other 
 through cunning. On the appointed day the candidates 
 
 * Of this expedition no mention is made by the Hungarian writers : it is 
 probably fabulous. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 arrived, the race was opened, and the innumerable 
 spectators waited the result with intense anxiety. The 
 inventor of the stratagem left all the rest far behind him 
 except the youth last mentioned, who kept close to his 
 horse's heels ; and who, just as the victor was about to 
 claim the prize, exposed the unworthy trick to the mul- 
 titude. The former was immediately sacrificed to their 
 fury ; and the latter, as the reward of his courageous 
 conduct, notwithstanding the meanness of his birth, was 
 invested with the ensigns of sovereignty.* 
 
 LESKO II. [804 810.] The new duke waslmmble 
 enough to remember, and rational enough to acknow- 
 ledge, his low extraction. He preserved, with religious 
 care, the garments which he had worn in his lowly for- 
 tunes, and on which he often gazed with greater satis- 
 faction than on his regal vestments. His temperance, 
 his love of justice, his zeal for the good of his people, are 
 favourite themes of the old chroniclers. 
 
 LESKO III. [810 815.] Lesko III. inherited the 
 virtues no less than the name of his father ; for though 
 of his twenty-one sons one only was legitimate, incon- 
 tinency would scarcely be considered a blemish in a pagan 
 and a Slave. After a short but brilliant reign, ennobled 
 by success in war and wisdom in peace, he divided his 
 dominions among his sons, subjecting all, however, to 
 the authority of his lawful successor Popiel I. 
 
 POPIEL I. [815.] Of this prince little is known be- 
 yond his jealousy of his brothers, and his addiction to 
 debauchery. After a base and ignoble life he was suc- 
 ceeded by his son, Popiel II., while yet a child. 
 
 POPIEL II. The fostering care of the uncles, whose 
 fidelity appears to have been as rare as it was honour- 
 able, preserved the throne to the chief of their house. 
 But the prince showed them no gratitude ; he was, in- 
 
 * Kadlubek, Histor. Polon. lib. i. Epist. 12. Dlugoss, Hist. Polon. lib. i. 
 col. 62. Cromer, De Rebus Gestis Pol., lib. i. p. 61. Sarnicki, Anna!. PoL 
 lib. v. c. 1. Though I am inclined to consider the above relation fabulous, 
 I am aware that there was precedent enough for the course adopted. An- 
 tiquity exhibits it to us in the sons of Endymion for Elis, and in Pelops lor 
 Pisa (Diod. Sicul. lib. xv.). Pindar (Pyth. Od. ix.) tells us that Anteas, a 
 Libyan king, promised his daughter to the lover who should triumph in 
 the course. See Solignac, Histoire de Pologne, torn. i. p. 44. 
 
10 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 deed, incapable of such a sentiment : every day exhibited 
 to his anxious guardians some new feature of depravity, 
 which, with a commendable prudence, they endeavoured 
 to conceal from the nation, in the hope that increasing 
 years would bring reformation. Their pious exhortations 
 were in vain : he proceeded from bad to worse ; he as- 
 sociated with none but the dissipated, (f with drunk- 
 ards, spendthrifts, and fornicators," or with mimics 
 and jesters. To correct one of his vices at least, a wife 
 was procured for him : the expedient failed ; it had 
 even a mischievous effect, since his consort was ava- 
 ricious and malignant, and was but too successful in 
 making him the instrument of her designs. On reach- 
 ing his majority, his passions burst forth with fury : no 
 woman was safe from his lust, no man from his revenge. 
 His extortions, his debaucheries, his cruelty, at length 
 exhausted the patience of his people, who resolved to set 
 bounds to his excesses. The formidable confederacy was 
 headed by his uncles, who sacrificed the ties of blood to 
 their patriotism or their ambition. To dissolve it, and 
 at the same time to gratify his revenge, he was stimu- 
 lated alike by his own malignity and by the counsels of his 
 wife. He feigned sickness, sent for his uncles, as if to 
 make his peace with them, and poisoned them in the 
 wine which was produced for their entertainment. He 
 even carried his wickedness so far as to refuse the rites 
 of sepulture to his victims. 
 
 fable. But, say the chroniclers, divine justice 
 prepared a fit punishment for this Sardanapalus and 
 Jezebel. From the unburied corpses sprung a countless 
 multitude of rats, of an enormous size *, which imme- 
 diately filled the palace, and sought out the guilty pair, 
 and their two children. In vain were great numbers 
 destroyed, greater swarms advanced. In vain did the 
 ducal family enclose themselves within a circle of fire ; 
 the boundary was soon passed by the ferocious animals, 
 which, with unrelenting constancy, aimed at them and 
 them alone. They fled to another element, which 
 
 * The larger mures or rats, not mice, as we find in some historian* 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 1 
 
 availed them as little. The rats followed them to a 
 neighbouring lake, plunged into the water, and fixed 
 their teeth in the sides of the vessel, in which they would 
 soon have gnawed holes sufficient to let in the water and 
 sink it, had not Popiel commanded the sailors to land 
 him on an island near at hand. In vain ; his inveterate 
 enemies were on shore as soon as he. His attendants 
 now recognised the finger of Heaven, and left him to his 
 fate. Accompanied by his wife and children, he now 
 fled to a neighbouring tower ; he ascended the highest 
 pinnacle : still they followed ; neither doors nor bars 
 could resist them. His two sons were first devoured, 
 then the duchess, then himself, and so completely that 
 not a bone remained of the four.* 
 
 With Popiel was extinguished the legitimate race of 
 royalty; but the sons of the murdered uncles remained, 
 the eldest of whom, with the aid of his brother, aspired 
 to the throne. Again the palatins stepped forth to vin- 
 dicate the ancient form of government. The two parties 
 disputed, quarrelled, and, lastly, armed their adherents to 
 decide the question by force ; but the more enlightened 
 portion of the nation was not convinced that a problem 
 affecting the happiness or misery of millions ought to be 
 resolved in such a way. Two assemblies were succes- 
 sively consulted at Kruswick, to discuss the respective 
 claims of monarchy and oligarchy : but the forces, if not 
 the arguments, of the two parties were so nearly equal 
 that nothing was decided. Both were preparing to try 
 the efficacy of arms, when Heaven, in pity to the people, 
 again interfered, and miraculously filled the vacant 
 throne. 
 
 Fable. There dwelt in Kruswick a poor but vir- 
 
 * " Ex cadaveribus putrefactis enati mures inusitatas magnitudinis, inv 
 pium parricidam cum scelerata conjuge atque liberis fugientem cum hor- 
 rendis sibilis quoque versus per aquam flammamque persequuntur : nam ter 
 injecto igne propellere eps volebant aulse servi, sed non poterant : nee claus- 
 tra prosunt aut abigentium satellitum praesidia. Ad extremum diffugien- 
 tibus omnibus, absumptis prius filiis, deinde uxore, postremus ipse infelix 
 miserabiliter lenta morte consumitur." Stan. Sarn. Annal. Pol. lib. v. 
 cap. 4. 
 
 Dlugoss (lib. i. col. 76.) has a much more copious and rhetorical account 
 of this prodigy. See Extract B in the Appendix. 
 
12 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 tuous man, named Piast ; so poor indeed that his wants 
 were but scantily supplied by a small piece of ground 
 which he cultivated with his own hands, and so vir- 
 tuous that the blessings of thousands accompanied his 
 steps. He had a wife and a son, both worthy of 
 him. He lived contented in his poverty, which he had 
 no wish to remove, since he had wisdom enough to per- 
 ceive that the state most exempt from artificial wants is 
 the most favourable to virtue, and consequently to hap- 
 piness. When the time arrived that his son should be 
 first shorn of his locks of hair and receive a name, a 
 custom of great antiquity among the pagan Slavi *, he 
 invited, as was usual on such occasions, his neighbours 
 to the ceremony. On the day appointed, two strangers 
 arrived with the rest, and were admitted with the hospi- 
 tality so honourable to the people. Piast laid before his 
 guests all he could furnish for their entertainment : that 
 all, he observed, was little ; but he hoped the spirit with 
 which it was offered would compensate for the lack of 
 good cheer. They fell to the scanty stock of viands and 
 meal, when, lo ! a miracle ! both were multiplied prodi- 
 giously ! the more they ate and drank, the more the 
 tables groaned under the weight of the viands ! The por- 
 tent was spread abroad with rapidity. Numbers daily 
 flocked to the peasant's house to share his hospitality, and 
 to witness the miraculous increase of his provisions. A 
 scarcity of these good things at that time afflicted the 
 place, through the influx of so many thousands who met 
 for the choice of a government. All hastened to Piast, 
 who entertained them with princely liberality during 
 several successive weeks. " Who so fit to rule," was 
 the universal cry, cf as this holy man, this favourite of 
 the gods ! " Prince and palatin desisted from their 
 respective pretensions, and joined their suffrages to that 
 
 * The shaven crowns of the Polish nobles who visited Paris to offer Henry 
 of Anjou the sceptre of Poland, were an extraordinary spectacle to the Pa- 
 risians. " 11s admiraicnt surtout,"says De Thou, " les tetes rashes, n'of- 
 rant qu'une touff'e de chcveux au-dessus." 
 
 The origin of this custom might be connected with religion, hut convo. 
 nience perpetuated it. Long hair, which could be seized by the hands oi 
 an enemy in the heat of battle, often occasioned the destruction of the 
 wearer. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 of the people. Piast was unanimously elected, in the 
 year 842, to the vacant dignity ; but so great was his 
 reluctance to accept the glittering honour, that he would 
 have remained for ever in his then humble condition, had 
 not the two identical strangers, whom he found to be 
 gods, and whom later Christian writers consider two 
 angels, or at least two blessed martyrs, again favoured 
 him with a visit, and prevailed on him to sacrifice his 
 own ease to the good of the nation.* 
 
 PIAST. The reign of Piast was the golden age of 
 Poland. No foreign wars, no domestic commotions, but 
 respect from without, abundance and contentment within, 
 signalised his wise, firm, and paternal administration. 
 The horror with which he regarded the scene of Popiel's 
 guilt and punishment, made him abandon the place of 
 his birth and transfer his court to Gnesna, which thus 
 became a second time the capital of the country. 
 
 ZIEMOWIT. Ziemowit's was no less glorious. He was 
 the first chief who introduced regular discipline into the 
 armies of Poland. Before his time they had fought with- 
 out order or system : their onset had been impetuous, and 
 their retreat as sudden. He marshalled them in due 
 array; taught them to surrender their own will to that of 
 their officers ; to move as one vast machine obedient to 
 the force which rules it; and whenever fortune was ad- 
 verse, to consult their safety, not in flight, but in a closer 
 and more determined union, in a vigorous concentrated 
 resistance. The Hungarians, the Moravians., the Rus- 
 sians, who had insulted the country under the feeble 
 sway of Popiel, and who had despised the inexperience 
 of the son of Piast, were soon taught to fear him and to 
 sue for peace : Ziemowit was satisfied with the terror 
 produced by his arms; he thirsted not after conquest; he 
 loved his subjects too well to waste their blood in grati- 
 fication of a selfish ambition. Their welfare was his 
 only care, their gratitude and affection his only reward. 
 
 * Kadlubek, lib. ii. epist 111. Dlugoss, i. 80. Cromer, ii. 40. The ce- 
 lestial visitants, says the second of these veracious authorities, deigned to 
 cut the boy's hair, and called him Ziemowit (Semovitus}. 
 
14 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 An able captain, an enlightened statesman, an affable 
 patriotic sovereign, his person was adored during life, 
 and his memory long revered after death. 
 
 LESKO IV. [892 921.] His son and successor, 
 LESKO IV., successfully imitated all his virtues but one. 
 This prince refrained from war, making all his glory to 
 consist in promoting the internal happiness of the people. 
 His moderation, his justice, his active zeal, his enlight- 
 ened care, were qualities, however, not very acceptable 
 to a martial and ferocious people, who longed for war, 
 and who placed all greatness in conquest. 
 
 ZEMOMYSL. [921 962.] Of the same pacific dis- 
 position, and of the same estimable virtues, was ZEMOMYSL, 
 the son and successor of Lesko. For the same honour- 
 able reason, the reign of this prince furnishes no materials 
 for history. The tranquil unobtrusive virtues must be 
 satisfied with self-approbation, and a consciousness of 
 the divine favour; the more splendid and mischievous 
 qualities only attain immortality. That men's evil deeds 
 are written in brass, their good ones in water, is more 
 than poetically just.* 
 
 Zemomysl, however, has one claim to remembrance, 
 which posterity has not failed to recognise : he was the 
 father of Miecislas, the first Christian duke of Poland, 
 with whom opens the authentic history of the country. 
 
 goro 
 ancie 
 
 nen ana siouiiui: on tne contrary, mat ineir auminisirauuii was vi- 
 us, active, and beneficial in a very high degree, is confirmed by every 
 ancent chronicler of the country. I am at a loss to account for this per- 
 version of truth, perhaps I might say carelessness, in a writer justly held 
 in esteem. See Kadlubek, lib. ii. epist. 10. Dlugoss, i. 86. Cromer,xi. 43., 
 cum multis aliis. 
 
MIECISLA9 I. 15 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE CROWN HEREDITARY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MONAKCHS OF THE HOUSE OP PIAST, $6% 1139. 
 
 MIECISLAS I. 
 
 962999. 
 
 THIS fifth prince of the house of Piast is entitled to the 
 remembrance of posterity; not merely from his being 
 the first Christian ruler of Poland, but from the success 
 with which he abolished paganism, and eniprced the 
 observance of the new faith throughout his dominions. 
 He who could effect so important a revolution without 
 bloodshed, must have been no common character. 
 
 When the duke assumed the reins of sovereignty, both 
 he and his subjects were strangers to Christianity, even 
 by name. At that time almost all the kingdoms of the 
 North were shrouded in idolatry : a small portion of 
 Saxons, indeed, had just received the light of the Gos- 
 pel, and so had some of the Hungarians ; but its beams 
 were as yet feeble, even in those countries, and were 
 scarcely distinguishable amidst the Egyptian darkness 
 around. Accident, if that term can be applied to an 
 event in which Christian philosophers at least can re- 
 cognise the hand of Heaven, is said to have occasioned 
 his conversion. By the persuasion of his nobles, he 
 demanded the hand of Dombrowka, daughter of Boleslas, 
 king of Hungary. Both father and daughter refused to 
 favour so near a connection with a pagan ; but both de- 
 
16 HISTORY OF POLAND. 9^5. 
 
 clared, that if he would consent to embrace the faith of 
 Christ his proposal would be accepted. After some de- 
 liberation he consented : he procured instructors, and 
 was soon made acquainted with the doctrines which he 
 was required to believe, and the duties he was bound to 
 practise. The royal maiden was accordingly conducted 
 to his capital [9^5]; and the day which witnessed his 
 regeneration by the waters of baptism, also beheld him 
 receive another sacrament, that of marriage.* 
 
 The zeal with which Miecislas laboured for the con- 
 version of his subjects, left no doubt of the sincerity of 
 his own. Having dismissed his seven concubines, he 
 issued an order for the destruction of the idols through- 
 out the country. He appears to have been obeyed with- 
 out much opposition. Some of the nobles, indeed, would 
 have preserved their ancient altars from violation ; but 
 they dreaded the power of their duke, who, in his ad- 
 ministration, exhibited a promptitude and vigour pre- 
 viously unknown, and who held an almost boundless sway 
 over the bulk of the people. His measures seem at first 
 to have been regarded with disapprobation ; but the 
 influence of his personal character secured the submis- 
 sion of the people, especially when they found that their 
 deities were too weak to avenge themselves. The extir- 
 pation, however, of an idolatrous worship was not suf- 
 ficient; the propagation of a pure one was the great 
 task, a task which required the union of moderation 
 with firmness, of patience with zeal. Happily they were 
 found in the royal convert, and still more in his consort. 
 Instructions were obtained from pope John XI II.; seven 
 bishoprics, and two archbishoprics, all well endowed, 
 attested the ardour and liberality of the duke.f He 
 even accompanied the harbingers of the Gospel into se- 
 veral parts of his dominions, aiding them by his authority, 
 
 * Kadlubek, lib. xi. epist. 98. Stanis. Sarn. lib. vi. col. 1043. Dlugoss, 
 lib. xi. col. 91 104. Cromer, Jib. iii. p. 44 47. See also the Chronicle of 
 Dithmar, who was contemporary with Miecislas, lib. xi. (in Scriptor. Rerum 
 Brunsvic. torn i.) 
 
 f Posnania Smogorzow (afterwards transferred to Wratislaw}, Kruswick 
 (transferred to Wladislaw, now Cuyavia), Ploesko, Culm, Lebuff', and Ca- 
 menitz, were the satfragan sees ; Gnesna and Cracow the metropolitan. 
 
979' MIECJSLAS I. 1? 
 
 and inspiriting them by his example. By condescending 
 to the use of persuasion, reasoning, remonstrance, the 
 royal missionary effected more with his barbarous sub- 
 jects than priest or prelate, though neither showed any 
 lack of zeal, or paused in the good work. The duchess 
 imitated his example ; her sweetness of manner, her 
 affability, her patience of contradiction, prevailed where 
 an imperious behaviour would have failed. 
 
 The nobles, being the fewest in number, and the most 
 easily swayed, were the first gained over. To prove 
 their sincerity, when present at public worship, and just 
 before the priest commenced reading the Gospel for, the 
 day, at the intonation by the choir of the Gloria tibi, 
 Domine I they half drew their sabres, thereby showing 
 that they were ready to defend their new creed with 
 their blood.* Their example, the preaching of the 
 missionaries, and, above all, the entire co-operation of 
 their duke, at length prepared the minds of the people 
 for the universal reception of Christianity; so that 
 when he issued his edict in 980, that every Pole, who 
 had not already submitted to the rite, should immediately 
 repair to the waters of baptism, he was obeyed without 
 murmuring. They were subsequently confirmed in the 
 faith by the preaching of St. Adalbert, whose labours in 
 Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, and Prussia, and whose 
 martyrdom in the last-named country, then covered with 
 the darkest paganism, have procured him a veneration 
 in the north little less than apostolic.t 
 
 When we consider the difficulties with which the new 
 faith had to contend, among a people so deeply plunged 
 in the vices inherent in their ancient superstitions, we 
 shall not be surprised that fourteen years of assiduous 
 exertions were required for so great a change ; we shall 
 rather be at a loss to account, on human grounds at 
 least, for the comparative facility with which it was ef~ 
 
 * This whimsical custom was perpetuated in Poland full seven cepturies. 
 
 f Kadlubek, Dlugoss, Cromer, Sarnicki, Dithmar, ubi supra. See also 
 Pontanus, Bohemia Pia, Cosma? Pragensis Chroniea Bohemorum, and the 
 Vita Sancti Adalbert! (all three in Rerum Bohemicarum Antiqui Scrip- 
 tores) Bonfinius, Historia Pannonica, decad. ii. lib. i. p. 115. 
 
18 HISTORY OF POLAND. 979. 
 
 fected. Drunkenness, sensuality, rapes, plunder, blood- 
 shed even at their entertainments, were things to which 
 they had been addicted from time immemorial ; and to 
 be compelled to relinquish such enjoyments as these 
 they naturally considered as a tyrannical interference 
 with their liberties. The severe morality of the Gospel, 
 and the still severer laws which the new prelates, or 
 rather the duke, decreed to enforce it, must have been 
 peculiarly obnoxious to men of strong passions, rendered 
 stronger by long indulgence, and fiercely swayed by that 
 impatience which is so characteristic of the Slavonic 
 nations. If Miecislas was persuaded to dismiss his con- 
 cubines, and thereby overcome his strongest propensity 
 at the mere call of duty, more powerful motives were 
 necessary with his subjects, if any faith is to be had in 
 the statement of a contemporary writer.* And, after 
 all, the reformation in manners was very imperfect. It 
 was probably on account of their vices that pope Bene- 
 dict refused to erect Poland into a kingdom, though the 
 honour was eagerly sought by the duke, and though it 
 was granted at the same time to the Hungarians.t There 
 are not wanting writers to assert that the royal convert 
 himself forfeited the grace of his baptism, and relapsed 
 into his old enormities ; but there appears little found- 
 ation for the statement. J 
 
 * Si quis in hoc (regno) alienis abuti uxoribus, vel fornicari, przesumit, 
 hanc vindictae subsequentis poenam protinus sensit. In pontem mercati is 
 ductu?, per follem testiculi clavo affigitur, et novacula prope posita, his mo- 
 riendi, sive de his absolvendi, dura electio sibi datur. " Ditkmar. This is 
 bad enough, but the punishment of the women was still worse; it is too 
 indelicate to be transcribed. The same author adds, that the teeth of those 
 who eat flesh meat in Lent were drawn. " II n'estpresquepas concevable," 
 says Solignac, with much simplicity (Histoire de Pologne, torn. i. liv. i. 
 p. 76.), " que des payens ayent eu le courage de se convercir a ce prix.'" 
 
 f " The pope," says Dlugoss, " did intend to honour in this way the zeal 
 of the duke, but he was deterred from his purpose by a curious vision^ in 
 which an angel informed him that the Poles were not yet worthy of having 
 a king; that they were " magis sanguini, ccedi, et venationibus, quam de- 
 votioni et misericordias operibus ; magis oppression! subditorum et rapinis, 
 magis mendacio et dolis quam veritati, deditos esse ; majorem illos agere 
 belluarum et canum quam hominum curam, in effusionemque sanguinis 
 humani proclives," &c. (lib. ii. col. 122.) This is candid from a native. 
 
 $ Baronius (as quoted by Solignac) charges the duke with marrying a 
 nun after the death of Dombrowka, and that he had three children by her. 
 Dithmar affirms that her name was Oda, daughter of the marquis Thiedric; 
 and that her zeal for religion, her works of mercy, silenced the clergy, 
 though the marriage greatly displeased them. But when he afterwards 
 
991- MIECISLAS I. 19 
 
 While Miecislas was thus occupied in forwarding the 
 conversion of the nation, he was not unfrequently called 
 to defend it against the ambition or the jealousy of his 
 neighbours. In 968 he was victorious over the Saxons, 
 but desisted from hostilities at the imperial command of 
 Otho I., whose feudatory he acknowledged himself. 
 Against the son of that emperor, Otho II., he leagued 
 himself with other princes who espoused the interests of 
 Henry of Bavaria ; but, like them, he was compelled to 
 submit, and own not only the title but the supremacy 
 of Otho, in 973. He encountered a more formidable 
 competitor in the Russian grand duke, Uladimir the 
 Great, who, after triumphing over the Greeks, invaded 
 Poland in 986, and reduced several towns. The Bug 
 now bounded the western conquests of the descendants 
 of Ruric, whose object henceforth was to push them to 
 the very confines of Germany. But Miecislas arrested, 
 though he could not destroy, the torrent of invasion : if 
 he procured no advantage over the Russian, he opposed 
 a barrier which induced Uladimir to turn aside to enter- 
 prises which promised greater facility of success. His 
 last expedition (989 991) was against Boleslas, duke 
 of Bohemia. In this contest he was assisted with aux- 
 iliaries furnished by the emperor Otho III., whose fa- 
 vour he had won, and by other princes of the empire. 
 After a short but destructive war, the Bohemian, unable 
 to oppose the genius of Miecislas, sued for peace ; but 
 this triumph was fatal to the peace of the two countries. 
 Hence the origin of lasting strife between two nations, 
 whose descent, manners, and language were the same, 
 and between whom, consequently, less animosity might 
 have been expected.* 
 
 But contiguity of situation is seldom, perhaps never, 
 favourable to the harmony of nations. Silesia, which 
 
 mentions another daughter of that nobleman, also a nun, and married to 
 a Slavonian, it is impossible not to suspect that he has mistaken one for the 
 other. 
 
 * Dlugoss, ii. col. 126. Cromer, iii. 51, c. Stanis. Sarn. lib. vi. Dith- 
 mar, iv. 340, c. ^Eneas Sylvius, Historia Bohernica, cap. xvii. This last 
 writer is very severe on Miecislas, whom he accuses of perfidy and cruelty. 
 So also Dubravius, Historia Bohernica, lib. vi. p. 44. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 HISTORY OF POLAND. 999. 
 
 was the frontier province of Poland, was thenceforth 
 exposed to the incursions of the Bohemians,, and doomed 
 to experience the curse of its limitrophic position. 
 
 Miecislas died in 999> universally regretted by his 
 subjects. 
 
 u 
 
 BOLESLAS I. 
 
 9991025. 
 
 BOLESLAS I., surnamed Chrobri, or the Lion-hearted, 
 son of Miecislas and Dombrowka, ascended the ducal 
 throne A.D. 999j> in his thirty-second year, amidst the 
 acclamations of his people. 
 
 From his infancy this prince had exhibited qualities 
 of a high order, great capacity of mind, undaunted 
 courage, and an ardent zeal for his country's glory. 
 Humane, affable, generous, he was early the favourite 
 of the Poles, whose affection he still further gained by 
 innumerable acts of kindness to individuals. Unfortu- 
 nately, however, his most splendid qualities were neu- 
 tralised by his immoderate ambition, which, in the 
 pursuit of its own gratification, too often disregarded 
 the miseries it occasioned. 
 
 The fame of Boleslas having reached the ears of 
 Otho III., that emperor, who was then in Italy, resolved, 
 on his return to Germany, to take a route somewhat 
 circuitous, and pay the prince a visit. He had before 
 vowed a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Adalbert, whose 
 hallowed remains had just been transported from Prus- 
 sia to Gnesna. He was received by Boleslas with a 
 magnificence which surprised him, and a respect which 
 won his esteem. No sooner were his devotions per- 
 formed, than he testified his gratitude, or perhaps con- 
 sulted his policy, by elevating the duchy into a kingdom, 
 which he doubtless intended should for ever remain a 
 fief of the empire. Boleslas was solemnly anointed by 
 the archbishop of Gnesna; but the royal crown, it is 
 said, was placed on his head by imperial hands. To 
 
1018. BOLESLAS I. 21 
 
 bind still closer the alliance between the two princes, 
 Rixa, a niece of Otho, was affianced to the son of the 
 new king. The emperor returned home with an arm 
 of St. Adalbert, which he probably considered as cheaply 
 procured in exchange for a woman and a title.* 
 
 The king was not long allowed to wear his new ho- 
 nours unmolested : he soon proved that they could not 
 have been placed on a worthier brow. His first and 
 most inveterate enemies were the Bohemians, who longed 
 to grasp Silesia. Two easy triumphs disconcerted the 
 duke of that country, who began to look around him for 
 allies. The same disgrace still attended his arms ; his 
 fields were laid waste ; his towns pillaged ; his capital 
 taken, with himself and his eldest son ; the loss of sove- 
 reignty, of liberty, and soon of his eyes, convinced him, 
 when too late, how terrific an enemy he had provoked. 
 For a time his country remained the prey of the victor; 
 but the generosity or policy of Boleslas at length restored 
 the ducal throne to Ulric, the second son of the fallen 
 chief. All Germany was alarmed at the progress of the 
 Polish arms. Even the emperor, Henry of Bavaria, 
 joined the confederacy now formed to humble the pride 
 of Boleslas. Superior numbers chased him from Bohe- 
 mia, dethroned Ulric,, and elevated the elder brother, the 
 lawful heir, to the vacant dignity. The king returned 
 to espouse the interests of Ulric ; but, though he was 
 often successful, he was as often, not indeed defeated, 
 but constrained to elude the combined force of the em- 
 pire. Ulric did at length obtain the throne, not through 
 Boleslas but through Henry, whose cause he strengthened 
 by his adhesion. Peace was frequently made during 
 these obscure contests, and the king was thereby enabled 
 
 * Kadlubek, lib. ii. epist. xi. Dlugoss, lib. ii. col. 129. Cromer, lib. iii. 
 p. 53. Sarnicki, lib. vi. cap. 5. Dithmar (in Script. Rerum Brunsvicarum, 
 torn. i.). The old Polish writers dwell with much complacency on the 
 splendid reception of the emperor by the duke : the gold and precious stories 
 displayed on the occasion exceed all belief. Then the seven miles which 
 Otho traversed on foot, before arriving at the shrine of St. Adalbert, were 
 carpeted, as we are gravely assured, with cloths of various colours. " Omne 
 iter a Posnania usque Gnesnam, variorum pannorum coloribus, per quod 
 imperator Otho transiturus erat, consterni disposuit ; ut, in gradiendo, im- 
 perator cum multibus nullibi terram contingeret." Dtegou,iM supra, 
 
 c 3 
 
22 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1008. 
 
 to repress the incursions of his enemies on other parts of 
 his frontier; but none could be of long continuance,, 
 where, on both sides, the love of war was a passion 
 scarcely equalled in intensity even by ambition. In one 
 of his expeditions, Boleslas penetrated as far as Holstein, 
 reducing the towns and fortresses in his way, and filling 
 all Germany with the deepest consternation. His con- 
 quests, however, were but transiently held ; if he found 
 it easy to make them, to retain them in opposition to the 
 united efforts of the princes of the empire required far 
 more numerous armies than he could raise. He fell 
 back on Silesia to repair the disasters sustained by the 
 arms of his son Miecislas, whose talents were inadequate 
 to the command of a separate force. 
 
 To recount the endless alternations of victory and 
 failure during these obscure contests would exhibit a dry 
 record dry as the most lifeless chronicle of the times. 
 It must be sufficient to observe, that what little advan- 
 tage was gained fell to the lot of Boleslas, until the peace 
 of Bautzen, in 1018, restored peace to the lacerated 
 empire.* 
 
 But the most famous of the wars of Boleslas were 
 with the dukes of Russia. After the death of Uladimir 
 the Great, who had imprudently divided his estates 
 among his sons, the eldest, Swiatopelk, prince of Twer, 
 endeavouring to unite the other principalities under his 
 sceptre, was expelled the country by the combined forces 
 of his enraged brothers. He took refuge in Poland, and 
 implored the assistance of the king. Boleslas imme- 
 diately armed, not so much to avenge the cause of Swia- 
 topelk as to regain possession of the provinces which 
 Uladimir had wrested from Miecislas. He marched 
 against Yaroslaf, who had seized on the dominions of 
 the fugitive brother, and whom he encountered on the 
 
 * Kadlubek, lib. ii. epist. 11. Cronica Polonorum, and Cronica Principum 
 Polonise (in Script. Rerum Siles. torn, i ). Dlugoss, ii. 137 163. Cromer,iii. 
 160. Sarnicki, vi. cap. 6. Dithmar (in Script. Rerum Brunsvic. torn. i. 
 p. 376 416.). ^Eneas Sylvius, Historia Bohemica, cap. xviii. Dubravius, 
 Hist. Bohem. lib. vi. vii. Between the Polish and Bohemian authorities 
 national animosity is to be found in all its perfection : it is difficult to re- 
 concile their conflicting accounts. 
 
1019- BOLESLAS I. 23 
 
 banks of the Bug. For some time he hesitated to pass 
 the river in the face of a powerful enemy ; but a Russian 
 soldier from the opposite bank one day deriding his cor- 
 pulency, he plunged into the water with the most intrepid 
 of his followers, and the action commenced. It was 
 obstinately contested, but victory in the end declared 
 for the king. He pursued the fugitives to the walls 
 of Kiow, which he immediately invested and took. 
 Swiatopelk was restored, but he made an unworthy 
 return to his benefactor ; he secretly instigated the Kio- 
 vians to massacre the Poles, whose superiority he envied, 
 and whose presence annihilated his authority. His trea- 
 chery was discovered, and his capital nearly destroyed, 
 by his incensed allies, who returned home laden with im- 
 mense plunder. The Russians pursued in a formidable 
 body, and the Bug was again destined to behold the strife 
 of the two armies : again did victory shine on the ban- 
 ners of Boleslas, who, on this occasion, almost annihil- 
 ated the assailants. Thus ended this first expedition : 
 the second was not less decisive. Yaroslaf had reduced 
 the Polish garrison left by the king in Kiow, had seized 
 on that important city, and penetrated into the Polish 
 provinces, which submitted at his approach. A third 
 time was the same river to witness the same sanguinary 
 scenes. As usual, after a sharp contest, the Russians 
 yielded the honour of the day to .their able and brave 
 antagonist, who hurried forward in the career of con- 
 quest : but his name now rendered further victories un- 
 necessary ; it struck terror in the hearts of the Russians, 
 who hastened to acknowledge his supremacy. On this 
 occasion he appears to have conducted himself with a 
 moderation which does the highest honour to his heart : 
 he restored the prisoners he had taken, and after leaving 
 garrisons in the more important places, returned to his 
 capital to end his days in peace.* 
 
 Towards the close of life, Boleslas is said to have 
 looked back on his ambitious undertakings with sorrow : 
 
 * To the Polish authorities before quoted, add Karamsin, Histoire de 
 Russie, torn. iii. et iv. 
 
 c 4 
 
24 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1019- 
 
 they had added nothing to his prosperity, but had 
 exhausted his people. He now began to regret that 
 he had not devoted his time, and talents, and means, 
 to objects which would have secured for them hap- 
 piness for himself, a glory far more substantial than 
 his brilliant deeds could bestow. Perhaps, too, he 
 began to be apprehensive of the account which a greater 
 potentate than himself might exact from him. Cer- 
 tain it is, that the last six years of his reign were 
 passed in the most laborious efforts to repair the evils he 
 had occasioned, to improve alike the temporal and 
 moral condition of his people. He administered justice 
 with impartiality. Delinquents he punished with in- 
 flexible severity ; the meritorious he honoured and en- 
 riched. Knowing the infirmity of his own judgments, 
 he associated with him twelve of his wisest nobles. With 
 their aid he redressed the wrongs of his subjects, not 
 only in his capital but in various parts of his kingdom, 
 which he traversed from time to time to enquire into the 
 way justice was administered by the local magistrates. 
 Nothing escaped his activity ; it destroyed oppression, 
 and ensured triumph to innocence. Perhaps the seve- 
 rity of his labours, which allowed of no intermission by 
 day, and which were often continued during the silence 
 of night, hastened his end. Having convoked an as- 
 sembly at Gnesna, in which his son was nominated his 
 successor, he prepared for the approaching change. With 
 his dying breath he exhorted that prince to favour the 
 deserving, by conferring on them the distinction of wealth 
 and honours ; to love his God ; to reverence the minis- 
 ters of religion; to cherish virtue; to flee from pleasure; 
 to reign by justice, and to inspire his subjects with love 
 rather than fear. He died shortly afterwards, in 1025, 
 leaving behind him the reputation of the greatest sove- 
 reign of his age ; and, what is far more estimable, the 
 universal lamentations of his subjects proved that he had 
 nobly deserved their affectionate appellation of Father. 
 Poland had never seen such a king as the last six years 
 
1026. MIECISLAS II. 25 
 
 of his life exhibited : he was the true founder of his 
 country's greatness.* 
 
 MIECISLAS II. 
 
 10251034 
 
 MIECISLAS II. ascended the throne of his father, in 
 1025,, in his thirty-fifth year; an age when the judg- 
 ment is reasonably expected to be ripened, and the cha- 
 racter formed. But this prince had neither; and he 
 soon showed how incapable he was of governing so tur- 
 bulent a people as the Poles, or of repressing his ambitious 
 neighbours. Absorbed in sloth, or in pleasures still 
 more shameful, he scarcely deigned to waste a glance on 
 the serious duties of royalty ; and it was soon discovered 
 that his temperament fitted him rather for the luxurious 
 courts of southern Asia than for the iron region of Sar- 
 matia. 
 
 Yaroslaf, the restless duke of Kiow, was the first to 
 prove to the world how Poland had suffered by a change 
 of rulers. He rapidly reduced some fortresses, desolated 
 the eastern provinces, and would doubtless have carried 
 his ferocious arms to the capital, had not the Poles 
 without a signal from their king, who quietly watched 
 the progress of the invasion, flocked to the national 
 standard, and compelled this second Sardanapalus to 
 march against the enemy. The duke, however, had no 
 wish to run the risk of an action : with immense spoil, 
 and a multitude of* prisoners, he returned to his domi- 
 nions in the consciousness of perfect impunity. Miecislas, 
 thinking that by his appearance in the field he had done 
 enough for glory, led back his murmuring troops to his 
 capital ; nor did the sacrifice of his father's conquests 
 
 * Kadlubek, Dlugoss, Cromer, Sarnicki. The second of these writers is 
 most lavish in his praises of Boleslas the Great. He is evidently fond of 
 any object which will afford him an opportunity of declamation, though 
 even declamation cannot do much more than justice to the virtues of this 
 monarch's last years. His cruelty, however, to the Bohemians (see ^Eneas 
 Sylvius, Dubravius, ubi supra, and Pontanus, Bohemia Pia, lib. ii.) is a 
 dark stain on his memory. 
 
26 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1026. 
 
 draw one sigh, not even one serious thought, from the 
 Confirmed voluptuary, who esteemed every moment 
 abstracted from his sensual enjoyments as a lamentable 
 Joss of time and life ; a loss, however, that he was re- 
 solved to repair by more than usual devotion to the only 
 deities he worshipped. For the mead of Odin, the purple 
 juice of Bacchus, and the delights of the Cytherean 
 goddess, he deemed no praise too exalted, no incense too 
 precious. From this dream of sensuality he was at length 
 rudely awakened, not by the revolt of the Bohemians, 
 or that of the Moravians, whose countries his father had 
 rendered, for a short time, tributary to Poland ; not by 
 the reduction of his strongest fortresses, nor even by the 
 escape of whole provinces from his feeble grasp, but by 
 the menaces of his people, who displayed their martial 
 lines in front of his palace, and insisted on his accom 
 panying them to crush the wide-spread spirit of insur- 
 rection. He reluctantly marched, not to subdue, but to 
 make an idle display of force which he knew not how 
 to wield. The Bohemians were too formidable to be 
 assailed; the Moravians easily escaped his unwilling 
 pursuit, and suffered him to wreak his vengeance if, 
 indeed, he was capable of such a sentiment on a few 
 miserable villages, or on such straggling parties of their 
 body as accident threw in his way. As the enemy no 
 longer appeared openly, he naturally wished it to be 
 believed that none existed ; and his discontented troops 
 were again led back from the inglorious scene. He now 
 hoped to pass his days in unmolested enjoyment; but 
 vexation on vexation ! the Pomeranians revolted. His 
 first impulse was to treat with his rebellious subjects, 
 and grant them a part at least of their demands, as 
 the price of the ease he courted; but this disgraceful 
 expedient was furiously rejected by his nobles, who a 
 third time forced him to the field. In this expedition 
 he was accompanied by three Hungarian princes, who 
 had sought a refuge in his dominions from the violence 
 of an ambitious kinsman. Through their ability, and 
 the valour of the Poles, victory declared for him. With 
 
1034. MIECISLAS II. 27 
 
 ail his faults he was not, it appears, incapable of grati- 
 tude, since he conferred both the hand of his daughter 
 and the government of Pomerania on Bela, the most 
 valiant of the three princes. Now, he had surely done 
 enough to satisfy the pugnacious clamours of his people. 
 The Bohemians, the Moravians, and the Saxons, whom 
 Boleslas the Great had subjugated, were, indeed, in open 
 and successful revolt ; but he could safely ask the most 
 martial of his nobles what chance did there exist of 
 again reducing those fierce rebels ? And though his 
 cowardice might be apparent enough, no wise man would 
 blame the prudence which declined to enter on a contest 
 where success could scarcely be considered possible. 
 But Miecislas was indifferent to popular opinion : to 
 avoid the grim visages of his nobles, which he hated no 
 less than he feared, he retreated wholly from society, 
 and, surrounded by a few companions in debauchery, 
 abandoned himself without restraint to his favourite ex- 
 cesses. The consequences were such as might be ex- 
 pected. He at length experienced the fatal truth, that 
 whatever sullies the heart also saddens it; that, how- 
 ever closely connected vice and pleasure may appear at 
 a distance, the near observer finds " a gulf between 
 them which cannot be passed." He fell into a languor 
 : the inevitable effect of his incontinency which ex- 
 cluded enjoyment, and which rendered him insensible 
 to every thing but the touch of pain. Already enfeebled 
 in the prime of life, this wretched voluptuary found his 
 body incapable of sustaining the maladies produced by 
 continued intemperance, his exhausted mind still less 
 able to bear the heavy load of remorse which oppressed 
 it. Madness ensued, which soon terminated in death.* 
 
 * Kadlubek, lib. ii. epist. 15. Dlugoss, lib. ii. coL 180188. Cromer, 
 lib. iii. p. 66 69. Sarnicki, however, speaks only of the weakness, entirely 
 omitting all mention of the vices, of this prince. They are reprobated suc- 
 cinctly by the first of these authorities, more rhetorically by the second, 
 and most rationally by the third. See also JEneas Sylvius, Dubravius, ubi 
 supra, Bonfinius, Historia Pannonica, dec. ii. lib. i. p. 134, and Karamsin, 
 t. iv. Bonfinius ascribes the subjugation of Pomerania to the valour of 
 Bela, the Hungarian prince, who, in a single combat, overcame the bar- 
 barian general: " Dicto celerius Bela hostem equo deturbat, mox gladio 
 confossum prostravit humi." Miecislas shou'd have met the barbarian ; but 
 it is needless to say that he had little relish for steel, and that he joyfully 
 accepted the proposal of Bela to enter the lists for him. 
 
28 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1034. 
 
 Fortunately for humanity, there are few evils without 
 some intermixture of good. If Miecislas the Idle was 
 cowardly, dissipated, and despicable, there were moments 
 when he appeared sensible of the duties obligatory on 
 his station. To him Poland was indebted for the dis- 
 tribution of the country into palatinates, each presided 
 over by a local judge, and consequently for the more 
 speedy and effectual administration of justice. He is 
 also said to have founded a new bishopric. 
 
 INTERREGNUM. 
 
 10341041. 
 
 POLAND was now doomed to experience the fatal truth, 
 that any permanent government, no matter how tyran- 
 nical, weak, or contemptible, is beyond all measure su- 
 perior to anarchy. Miecislas the Idle left a son of an 
 age too tender to be intrusted with the reins of the 
 monarchy; and his widow Rixa was accordingly declared 
 regent of the kingdom, and guardian of the prince. 
 But that queen was unable to control the haughtiness 
 of chiefs who despised the sway of a woman, and who 
 detested her as a German ; of all Germans, too, the most 
 hated, as belonging to the archducal house of Austria. 
 She added to their discontent by the evident partiality 
 she showed towards her own countrymen, of whom it 
 is said numbers flocked to share in the spoils of Poland. 
 Complaints followed on the one side, without redress on 
 the other ; these were succeeded by remonstrances, then 
 by menaces, until a confederacy was formed by the dis- 
 contented nobles, whose ostensible object was to procure 
 the dismissal of foreigners, but whose real one was to 
 seize on the supreme authority. They succeeded in 
 both : all foreigners were expelled the kingdom, and 
 with them the regent. Whether Casimir, her son, 
 shared her flight, or immediately followed her, is un- 
 certain ; but Europe soon beheld both in Saxony, 
 
1036. INTERREGNUM. 29 
 
 claiming the protection of their kinsman, the emperor 
 Conrad II. 
 
 The picture, drawn even by native historians, of the 
 miseries sustained by the country after the expulsion of 
 the queen and prince, is in the highest degree revolting. 
 There was, say they, no authority, no law, and conse- 
 quently no obedience. Innumerable parties contended 
 for the supreme power; and the strongest naturally 
 triumphed, but not until numbers were exterminated. 
 As there was no tribunal to which the disputants could 
 appeal, no chief, no council, no house of legislature, the 
 sword only could decide their pretensions. The triumph 
 was brief : a combination still more powerful arose to hurl 
 the successful party from its blood-stained pre-eminence; 
 and this latter, in turn, became the victim of a new 
 association, as guilty and as short-lived as itself. Then 
 the palatins or governors of provinces asserted their in- 
 dependence of the self-constituted authority at Gnesna. 
 The whole country, indeed, was cursed by the lawless 
 rule of petty local sovereigns, who made an exterminating 
 war on each other, and ravaged each other's territories 
 with as much impunity as greater potentates. One Ma- 
 sos, who had been cup-bearer to the late king, seized by 
 force on the country between the Vistula, the Narew, 
 and the Bug, which he governed despotically, and which 
 to this day is named from him, Masovia. 
 
 But a still greater evil was the general rising of the 
 peasants, whose first object was to revenge themselves 
 of the petty tyrants that oppressed them, but who, 
 through the very success of the attempt, were, as must 
 in all times and in all places be the case, only the more 
 incited to greater undertakings. However beautiful the 
 gradation of ranks which law and custom have established 
 in society, the lowest class will not admire it, but will 
 assuredly endeavour to rise higher in the scale, whenever 
 opportunity holds out a prospect of success. Hence the 
 necessity of laws backed by competent authority to curb 
 this everlasting tendency of the multitude : let the bar- 
 rier which separates the mob from the more favoured 
 
30 HISTORY OF POLAND. W36. 
 
 orders be once weakened, and it will soon be thrown 
 down to make way for the most tremendous of inunda- 
 tions, one that will sweep away the landmarks of society, 
 level all that is noble or valuable, and leave nothing but 
 a vast waste, where the evil passions of men may find a 
 fit theatre for further conflict. Such, we are told, was 
 the state of Poland during the universal reign of anarchy. 
 The peasants, from ministers of righteous justice, became 
 plunderers and murderers, and were infected with all 
 the vices of human nature. Armed bands scoured the 
 country, seizing on all that was valuable, consuming all 
 that could not be carried away, violating the women, 
 massacring old and young ; priests and bishops were 
 slain at the altar; nuns ravished in the depths of the 
 cloisters. To add to horrors which had never before, 
 perhaps, been paralleled among Christian nations, came 
 the scourge of foreign invasion, and that too in the most 
 revolting forms. On one side Predislas duke of Bohe- 
 mia sacked Breslaw, Posnania, and Gnesna, consuming 
 every thing with fire and sword * ; on another advanced 
 the savage Yaroslaf, who made a desert as he passed 
 along. Had not the former been recalled by prepara- 
 tions of war against his own dominions, and had not the 
 latter thought proper to return home when he had amassed 
 as much plunder as could be carried away, and made as 
 many captives (to be sold as slaves) as his followers 
 could guard, Poland had no longer been a nation. Even 
 now she was little better than a desert. Instead of the 
 cheerful hum of men, her cities exhibited smoking ruins, 
 and her fields nothing but the furrows left by " the 
 plough of desolation." Countless thousands had been 
 massacred ; thousands more had fled from the destroy- 
 ing scene. Those who remained had little hope that 
 the present calm would continue ; the evil power wa& 
 
 * This prince, with all his atrocities, made great pretences to devotion. 
 Though he plundered the churches, and afterwards consumed them, he 
 wished to remove the relics of St. Adalbert to his capital, and to make that 
 martyr the protector of his own dominions. He was afterwards cited to 
 Rome to answer for his conduct, and, on failing to appear, was excommu- 
 nicated. He is very tenderly treated by ./Eneas Sylvius, Dubravius, Pon- 
 tanus, and other writers of Bohemian history j and savagely, perhaps also 
 a little unjustly, by those of Poland. 
 
1040. INTERREGNUM. 31 
 
 rather exhausted than spent. But the terrific lesson had 
 not been lost on them ; they now looked forward to the 
 restoration of the monarchy as the only means of avert- 
 ing foreign invasion, and the heavier curse of anarchy. 
 An assembly was convoked by the archbishop at Gnesna. 
 All,, except a few lawless chiefs who hoped to perpetuate 
 a state of things where force only was recognised, voted 
 for a king ; and, after some deliberation, an overwhelm- 
 ing majority decreed the recal of prince Casimir. 
 
 But where was the prince to be found ! No one knew 
 the place of his retreat. A deputation waited on queen 
 Rixa, who was at length persuaded to reveal it. But 
 here, too, an unexpected difficulty intervened : Casimir 
 had actually taken the cowl in the abbey of Clugni. The 
 deputies were not dismayed ; they proceeded to his 
 cloister, threw themselves at his feet, and besought him 
 with tears to have pity on his country. " We come 
 unto thee, dearest prince, in the name of all the bishops, 
 barons, and nobles of the Polish kingdom, since thou 
 alone canst restore our country and thy rightful heritage." 
 They prayed him to return them good for evil, and drew 
 so pathetic a picture of the woes of his native land, that 
 he acceded to their wishes. He allowed an application 
 to be made to Benedict IX. to disengage him from his 
 monastic engagements, who, after exacting some conces- 
 sions from the Polish nobles and clergy, absolved him 
 from his vows. He accordingly bade adieu to his cell, 
 and set out to gratify the expectations of his subjects, 
 by whom he was received with the most enthusiastic 
 demonstrations of joy, and justly hailed as their saviour.* 
 
 * For the groundwork of this melancholy picture of Polish anarchy 
 (which I suspect to be somewhat overcharged), I am indebted to the autho- 
 rities last quoted, and also to Albert Crantz Vandal, lib. ii. cap. 37., to So. 
 lignac, Histoire Generate de Pologne, tom.i. p. 157 18L, and to Zielinski, 
 Histoire de Pologne, torn. i. p. 66 71. It is a pity the last-named writer is 
 so meagre; he is particularly useful as a faithful, though not always ju- 
 dicious, condenser of the modern Polish historians, whose works, however, 
 would not bear translation. A history of Poland, on a plan at once com- 
 prehensive and critical, I expect not to see. Even such a one would be dry 
 dry at least to English readers in these days. 
 
 
32 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1041. 
 
 CASIMIR I. 
 
 10411058. 
 
 CASIMIR, surnamed the Restorer, proved himself 
 worthy of the confidence reposed in him by his people ; 
 no higher praise can be given him than that he was 
 equal to the difficulties of his situation. His first care 
 was to repair the evils which had so long afflicted the 
 country. The great he reduced to obedience, some 
 by persuasion, others by firm but mild acts of authority ; 
 and, what was more difficult, he reconciled them to each 
 othej;. The affection borne towards his person, and the 
 need which all had of him, rendered his task not indeed 
 easy, but certainly practicable. The submission of the 
 nobles occasioned that of the people, whose interests 
 were no less involved in the restoration of tranquillity 
 and happiness. Where there was so good a disposition 
 for a basis, the superstructure could not fail to corre- 
 spond. The towns were rebuilt and repeopled ; industry 
 began to flourish ; the laws to resume their empire over 
 brute force ; and hope to animate those whom despair 
 had driven to recklessness. 
 
 Nor was this politic prince less successful in his fo- 
 reign relations. To conciliate the power of Yaroslaf, 
 the fiercest and most formidable of his enemies, he pro- 
 posed an alliance to be still more closely cemented by 
 his marriage with a sister of the duke.* His offer was 
 accepted, and he was also promised a considerable body 
 of Prussian auxiliaries to assist him in reconquering Si- 
 lesia, Pomerania, and the province of Masovia, which 
 still recognised the rebel Masos. 
 
 This adventurer gave him more trouble than would 
 have been anticipated. Though signally defeated by the 
 
 * This princess, whose mother was the daughter of a Greek emperor, had 
 no scruple to abjure the Greek religion, and embrace that of the Latin 
 church. Her original name was Maria, but on her re-baptism she received 
 that of Dobrogneva. 
 
1045. CASIMIR i. S3 
 
 king, he had yet address enough to assemble another 
 army, chiefly of pagan Prussians, much more numerous 
 than any he had previously commanded. Casimir was 
 for a moment discouraged ; his forces had been weakened 
 even by his successes ; and he apprehended that, even 
 should victory again declare for him, he would be left 
 without troops to make head against his other enemies. 
 At this time he is said to have looked back with sincere 
 regret to the peaceful cloister he had abandoned.* But 
 this weakness soon gave way to thoughts more worthy 
 of him : he met the enemy on the banks of the Vistula, 
 when a sanguinary contest afforded him an occasion of 
 displaying his valour no less than his ability. He fought 
 like the meanest soldier, was severely wounded, and was 
 saved from destruction by the devotion of a follower. 
 But in the end his arms were victorious ; 15,000 of the 
 rebels lay on the field ; Masos was glad to take refuge 
 in Prussia, by the fierce inhabitants of which he was 
 publicly executed, as the author of their calamities. 
 
 The rest of the reign of Casimir exhibits little to 
 strike the attention. Bohemia was restrained from dis- 
 quieting him, rather through the interference of his ally 
 the emperor Henry III., than his own valour. Silesia 
 was surrendered to him ; Prussia acknowledged his su- 
 periority, and paid him tribute ; Pomerania was tran^ 
 quillised, and Hungary sought his alliance. But signal as 
 were these advantages, they were inferior to those which 
 his personal character and influence procured for his 
 country. Convinced that no state can be happy, how- 
 ever wise the laws that govern it, where morality is not 
 still more powerful, he laboured indefatigably to purify 
 
 * He is said by Dlugoss (lib. iii. col. 225.) to have actually resolved on 
 leaving his wife, his crown, and the world, again to seek the tranquillity of 
 his monastery. By a vision, however, his courage was renewed. Having 
 raised that of his followers by the prospect of victory, he led them eagerly 
 to the field, where an angel clothed in white, and mounted on a white horse, 
 animated them by his exhortations. " Visus enim est tune a Polonis signa 
 infesta in hostes inferentibus et praelium capessentibus, vir quidam niveo 
 amictus vestitu, alboque equo insidens, vexillum quoque candidum gestans, 
 in aere cons'stere et continua adhortatione Polonos, usque certamen du- 
 rabat, ad dimicandum animare." It is strange that the legend of the old 
 Castilians should have found its way into Poland. The Spaniards would 
 not be well pleased to hear that Santiago had favoured other people besides 
 themselves. 
 
S4? HISTORY OF POLAND. 1045 
 
 the manners of his people, by teaching them their duties, 
 by a more extended religious education, and by his 
 own example, as well as that of his friends and coun- 
 sellors. For the twelve monks whom he persuaded to 
 leave their retirements at Clugni, to assist him in the 
 moral reformation of his subjects, he founded two mon- 
 asteries, one near Cracow, the other on the Oder, in 
 Silesia. Both establishments zealously promoted his 
 views; instruction was more widely diffused; and the de- 
 cent splendour of the public worship made on the minds 
 of the rude inhabitants, not yet fully reclaimed from 
 paganism, an impression which could never have been 
 produced by mere preaching. 
 
 Before his death this excellent prince could congratu- 
 late himself that he had saved millions, and injured no 
 one individual ; that he had laid the foundation of a 
 purer system of manners ; that he was the regenerator 
 no less than the restorer of his country. His memory 
 is still dear to the Poles.* 
 
 BOLESLAS II. 
 
 10581081. 
 
 BOLESLAS II., surnamed the Bold, was only sixteen 
 when he assumed the reins of government. But long 
 before that period he had exhibited proofs of extraor- 
 dinary capacity, and of that generosity of sentiment in- 
 separable from elevation of mind. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever, he wanted the more useful qualities of his deceased 
 father : those which he possessed were splendid indeed, 
 out among them the sparks of an insatiable ambition lay 
 concealed, which required only the breath of opportunity 
 to burst forth in flames. 
 
 * The reign of Casimir is extracted from Kadlubek, lib. ii. epist. 16. ; from 
 Dlugoss, lib. iii. col. 201 -247. ; from Sarnicki, lib. vi. cap. 8. ; from Cromer, 
 lib. iii. p. 74 79. ; from Krantz, Vandal., lib. ii. cap. 37. ; and from Narus- 
 zewitz (as condensed by Zielinski), ii. 216, &c. See also the Bohemian autho- 
 rities before quoted, and the two chronicles in the collection of the Sile- 
 sian historians. 
 
10?2. BOLESLAfe II. 35 
 
 That opportunity was not long wanting. A few years 
 after his accession, three fugitive princes arrived at his 
 court,, to implore his aid in recovering their lost honours. 
 None indeed of the three had any well grounded claim 
 to sympathy, since all had forfeited the privileges of 
 their birth by misconduct of their own ; but the pro- 
 tector of unfortunate princes was a title which he most 
 coveted, and all were favourably received. 
 
 The first of these, Jaromir, brother of Wratislas duke 
 of Bohemia, had early entered the church, allured by 
 the prospect of the episcopal throne of Prague : but he 
 soon became disgusted with a profession which set a 
 restraint on his worst passions ; and ambitious of tern- 
 poral distinctions he left his cloister, plunged into the 
 dissipations of the world, but was soon compelled by his 
 brother to return to it. He escaped a second time, and 
 endeavoured to gain supporters in his wild attempts to 
 subvert the authority of Wratislas ; but rinding his free- 
 dom, if not his existence, perilled in Bohemia, he threw 
 himself into the arms of Boleslas. The result was a 
 war between the two countries, which was disastrous to 
 the Bohemians, but to which an end was at length 
 brought by the interference of the Germanic princes. 
 Jaromir was persuaded to resume his former vocation, 
 and to bound his ambition within the limits of a mitre ; 
 the marriage of Wratislas with the sister of the Polish 
 king secured for a time the blessings of peace to these 
 martial people.* 
 
 The second expedition in favour of Bela, prince of 
 Hungary, who aspired to the throne of his brother An- 
 drew, was no less successful. Andrew was defeated, 
 and slain in a wood, probably by his own domestics, and 
 Bela was crowned by the conquering Boleslas. This 
 was not all. Seven years afterwards he again invaded 
 Hungary, to espouse the interests of Geysa the son of 
 Bela, who had been killed in a hut which the violence of 
 
 * Dubravius, lib. viii. p. 618. Fontanus, lib. ii. (in Scriptor. Rerum Bo- 
 hemicarum, collected by Freher) Cosma of Prague, Chronica, lib. i. et ii. 
 (in oadem collections ) 
 
 D 2 
 
36 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1072 
 
 a storm had tumbled on the royal guest. Salomon the 
 son of Andrew had been crowned by the influence of 
 the emperor Henry III. Again was he joined by nu- 
 merous partisans of the exiled prince. Salomon fled 
 into Lower Hungary ; but he there occupied a position 
 so strong by nature as to defy the force of his enemies. 
 In consternation at the evils which impended over the 
 kingdom, some prelates undertook the appropriate task 
 of effecting an accommodation between the contending 
 princes. Through their influence an assembly was 
 held at Mofo, which was attended by the rival claim- 
 ants ; and it was at length agreed that Salomon should 
 retain the title of king ; that Geysa and his brothers 
 should be put into possession of one third of the country, 
 to be governed as a duchy ; and that the Polish mon- 
 arch should be indemnified by both for the expenses 
 he had incurred in the expedition. The reigning king 
 was to be crowned anew, and to receive the ensigns of 
 his dignity from the hands of Geysa.* 
 
 But the most splendid of the warlike undertakings of 
 Boleslas was his expeditions into Russia. His ostensible 
 object was to espouse the cause of Isislaf. (e I am 
 obliged to succour that prince," said he, " by the blood 
 which unites us, and by the pity so justly due to his 
 misfortunes. Unfortunate princes are more to be com- 
 miserated than ordinary mortals. If calamities must 
 necessarily exist on earth, they should not be allowed to 
 affect such as are exalted for the happiness of others." 
 This show of generosity, however, though it had its due 
 weight with him, was not the only cause of his arming. 
 The recovery of the possessions which his predecessors 
 had held in Russia, and of the domains which he con- 
 ceived he had a right to inherit through his mother and 
 his queen (like his father he had married a Russian 
 princess), was the aim he avowed to his followers. He 
 accordingly marched against Ucheslaf, who had expelled 
 
 * Bonfinius (dec. ii. lib. ii. et iii.) is unwilling to allow Boleslas much honour 
 m the Hungarian war; he scarcely, indeed, condescends to mention him:' 
 I suspect that the Poles have here exaggerated the exploits and influence 
 of their monarch. 
 
10? 6. BOLESLAS II. 37 
 
 Isislaf from Kiovia : both were sons of Yaroslaf, who 
 had committed the fatal, but in that period common, 
 error of dividing his dominions, among his children, and 
 thereby opening the door to the most unnatural of 
 contests. 
 
 The two armies met within a few leagues of Kiow. 
 The martial appearance and undaunted mien of the Poles 
 struck terror into Ucheslaf, who secretly fled from his 
 tent. He had not gone far before his pusillanimity made 
 him despicable even in his own eyes ; he blushed and 
 returned. Again was he seized with the same panic 
 fear; he fled with all haste towards Polotsk, and his 
 army, deprived of its natural head, disbanded. Kiow 
 was invested ; it surrendered to the authority of Isislaf; 
 Polotsk followed the example, but Ucheslaf first con- 
 trived to escape. Boleslas remained some time at Kiow, 
 plunged in the dissipation to which his temperament 
 and the loose morals of the inhabitants alike inclined 
 him. He was not, however, wholly unmindful of his 
 military fame, since he forsook the luxurious vices of 
 that city for the subjugation of Prezemysl, an ancient 
 dependency of Poland. Probably he would at the same 
 time have amplified his territories by other conquests, 
 had he not been summoned into Hungary to succour, as 
 before related, the son of the deceased Bela. 
 
 On the pacification of that kingdom he returned to 
 Russia, to inflict vengeance on the brothers of Isislaf, 
 whom they had again expelled from Kiow. Though he 
 was resolved to restore that prince, he was no less so to 
 make him tributary to Poland. He speedily subjugated 
 the whole of Volhynia, with the design of having a re- 
 treat in case fortune proved inconstant. Such precau- 
 tions, however, were useless : in a decisive battle fought 
 in the duchy of Kiovia, he almost annihilated the forces 
 of the reigning duke Usevolod. Kiow was again invested; 
 but as it was well supplied with provisions, and still 
 better defended by the inhabitants, it long set his power 
 at defiance. Perhaps Boleslas, who was impetuous in 
 every thing, and with whom patience was an unknown 
 D 3 
 
38 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1076'. 
 
 word, would soon have raised the siege,, and proceeded 
 to less tedious conquests, had not a contagious fever sud- 
 denly broke out among the besieged,, and driven the 
 greater portion of them from the city. Those who re- 
 mained were too few to dream of defending it any longer; 
 they capitulated, and admitted the victor just as the fury 
 of the plague had exhausted itself. Isislaf was restored, 
 and the other provinces of the dukes given to his chil- 
 dren. Boleslas might have held them by the right of 
 conquest, but he preferred leaving friends rather than 
 enemies behind him ; he preferred having these terri- 
 tories tributary to him, and dependent on him as so- 
 vereign paramount, rather than incorporating them at 
 once with his dominions, and thereby subjecting himself 
 and successors to the necessity of perpetually flying to 
 their protection against the inevitable struggles of the 
 Russians for freedom. Even this advantage he must 
 either have perceived would be transient, or he must 
 have had little sagacity. Ambition, however, seldom 
 reasons ; and Boleslas, from his great success, might 
 almost be justified in believing that for him was reserved 
 a fortune peculiar to himself. 
 
 The generosity with which he behaved to the Kio- 
 vians, the affability of his manner, and a mien truly 
 royal, soon rendered him a favourite with them. He 
 plunged into dissipation with even more than his former 
 ardour : his days and nights were passed in feasting, 
 drinking, and the company of the frail beauties of the 
 place. Ere long his officers, then his meanest followers, 
 so successfully imitated his example, that, according to 
 the statements of both Russian and Polish historians, all 
 serious business seemed suspended, and pleasure was the 
 only object of old and young, of Pole and Muscovite. 
 Isislaf, from gratitude no less than policy, endeavoured 
 to make the residence of his benefactor as agreeable as 
 he could. On one occasion, when desirous of a visit 
 from Boleslas, he offered to the king as many marks of 
 gold as the royal horse should take steps from the palace 
 of the king to that of the duke ; a distance, we are told, 
 
1076. BOLESLAS II. 39 
 
 considerable enough to enrich the monarch. Sunk in 
 such unworthy sensuality, both Boleslas and his followers 
 forgot their country, when both were reminded of it by 
 a circumstance too extraordinary to be related, were it 
 not unanimously attested by ancient, and received as 
 indubitable by all modern, authors. 
 
 Boleslas and his followers, say they, had now been 
 seven years absent from home (in Hungary and Russia), 
 and during the whole of that period had never seen their 
 wives and children. Of these ladies many, doubtless, 
 were widows, but none could be sure of the fact ; many 
 more wished to be considered such : year after year had 
 passed away, and in all weakened, in many destroyed, 
 their attachments to their absent lords. Weary at 
 length of their cheerless condition in this worse than 
 widowhood, they sought, or submitted to, the embraces 
 of their slaves, whether as mistresses, or actually mar- 
 ried to their gallants, is doubtful. This prostitution, or 
 bigamy, is said to have been all but universal, since one 
 lady only is mentioned who had the virtue to resist the 
 torrent. Her name (which histories have been careftil 
 to preserve^ as if the observance of a common duty were 
 a species of prodigy,) was Margaret, the wife of count 
 Nicholas de Zernbosin. Whether through distrust of 
 her own resolution, or from apprehension of violence, 
 she shut herself up, some say in the dungeon of a for- 
 tress, others in the steeple of a neighbouring church, 
 where she remained in secrecy until the return of her 
 husband. No sooner did the news of this unexpected 
 depravity reach the husbands, than in a transport of 
 shame and fury they begged permission to return. For 
 a time Boleslas, who had perhaps more confidence in 
 his queen, or more pleasure in the arms of his new con- 
 nections, amused them with the prospect of departure ; 
 but as he made no preparations for it, numbers of them 
 at length lost all patience, and returned without his per- 
 mission. On their arrival they found their slaves com- 
 fortably presiding at their boards, and in possession of 
 all their privileges. What followed is related as vari- 
 D 4 
 
40 ' HISTORY OF POLAND. 1076. 
 
 ously as any other point of this strange history. That 
 the culprit paramours were punished is natural to be 
 believed ; but, if any faith is to be had in one historian, 
 the injured husbands had great difficulty in dispossessing 
 them of the places they had usurped. By some of the 
 ladies they are said to have been preferred to their law- 
 ful partners, whom they even encouraged their paramours 
 to resist to the last extremity. Despair of pardon might, 
 indeed, unite great numbers of both ; but it is more pro- 
 bable that the far greater portion consulted their safety 
 by flight. A few of the women were sacrificed by their 
 enraged lords ; the rest contrived to elude chastisement, 
 by what means we are left to guess : many, no doubt, 
 would vociferously attest their innocence, which might 
 be difficult to disprove in cases where the positive guilt 
 had not been witnessed by the injured party himself.* 
 However this be, all seems to have become tranquil on 
 the arrival of Boleslas, who was soon compelled to fol- 
 low them, breathing vengeance against them for deserting 
 him. And vengeance, it is said, he inflicted, both on 
 his disobedient soldiers and their guilty wives. t 
 
 Much of this is fabulous; yet, from the concurrent 
 testimony of tradition and history, it is impossible not 
 to believe that the foundation of the story is true. If 
 one hundred women only, and surely that number 
 would be found in any country, and at any time, under 
 similar circumstances, were really guilty of such in- 
 fidelity, fame would multiply them at least tenfold. 
 Though the dishonour of the reputed thousand would 
 not be the dishonour of every married man, yet every 
 one might think it his own. Hence the anxiety of each 
 
 . , , . 
 
 loses sight of the raillery for which his countrymen are so unrivalled. 
 
 t The men, we are told, were put to death ; but a singular punishment 
 awaited the women. " Mulieribus, quibus mariti pepercerant, foetu quern 
 ex servis suo ceperant, abjecto, catulos ad mamillas in ultionem admis- 
 sorum stuproruvn, applicari mandat, indignas agens eas prolem humanam, 
 sed caninam, idoneas lactare, qua? humanitatis oblitae, viris militam agen- 
 tibus, toro violate, servis se miscuerant, denique exterminium, et queelibet 
 probra, non vitam, promeruisse." Dlugoss, iii. 282. The gravity with which 
 such things are related is edifying. 
 
10?9. BOLESLAS II. 41 
 
 husband to return home to ascertain whether he was one 
 of the injured: hence, too, we may account for the 
 general desertion of Boleslas. 
 
 The cruelty of the king is said to have sunk deep into 
 the hearts of his subjects. There is more reason for 
 believing that the excesses to which he abandoned him- 
 self after his return produced that effect. His character 
 outwardly at least had changed : his industry, his 
 love of justice, his regal qualities, had fled, and he was 
 become the veriest debauchee in his dominions. No 
 man was safe from his anger, no woman from his lust : 
 his virtuous counsellors were dismissed, and none were 
 retained near his person but such as consented to share 
 his orgies. To increase the general discontent, impo- 
 sitions, equally arbitrary and enormous, were laid on an 
 already burdened people. 
 
 Had conduct such as this been practised by almost 
 any other sovereign of Poland, the popular indignation 
 would have been appeased only by his deposition. But 
 the son of Casimir, independently of his former merit, 
 and of his splendid deeds in war, required to be treated 
 with greater indulgence. His reformation, not his ruin, 
 was the prayer of his subjects. Such was the impetu- 
 osity of his disposition, and such the cruelties he had 
 practised since his fatal residence at Kiow, that Stanislas, 
 bishop of Cracow, was the only man whom history 
 mentions courageous enough to expostulate with him 
 on his excesses, and to urge the necessity of amendment. 
 Mild, and even affectionate, as was the manner of this 
 excellent prelate, the only effect which it had was to 
 draw on him the persecution of the king. But perse- 
 cution could not influence a man so conscious of his good 
 purposes, and so strong in his sense of duty. He re- 
 turned to his exhortations; but finding that leniency had 
 no good result, he excommunicated the royal delinquent. 
 Rage took possession of the soul of Boleslas ; but instead 
 of " turning from the evil of his ways," he became the 
 more shameless in his iniquities. Stanislas had now 
 recourse to one of the last bolts which the church held 
 
42 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1079. 
 
 in the storehouse of her thunders : he placed an inter- 
 dict on all the churches of Cracow ; a measure at all 
 times more violent than just, and in the present case not 
 likely to have any other effect than to harden impeni- 
 tence. Now no longer master of his fury, the king 
 swore the destruction of the prelate, whose steps he 
 caused to be watched by his creatures. Hearing one 
 day that Stanislas was to celebrate mass in a chapel 
 situated on a hill beyond the Vistula, he took with him 
 a few determined followers, and on reaching the exten- 
 sive plain in the centre of which the hill lay, he per- 
 ceived from afar his destined victim ascending to the 
 chapel. He was at the doors of the sacred edifice before 
 the conclusion of the office ; but eager as was his thirst 
 for instant vengeance, he forbore to interrupt the solemn 
 act of worship in which Stanislas and the attendant 
 clergy were engaged. When all was over, he ordered 
 some of his guards to enter and assassinate the prelate. 
 They were restrained, say the chroniclers, by the hand 
 of heaven ; for in endeavouring to strike him with their 
 swords, as he calmly stood before the altar, they were 
 miraculously thrown backwards on the ground. They 
 retreated from the place, but were again forced to return 
 by Boleslas. A second and a third time, we are told, 
 was the miracle repeated, until the king, losing all pa- 
 tience, and fearless alike of divine and human punish- 
 ment, entered the chapel himself; and, with one blow of 
 his ponderous weapon, dashed out the brains of the 
 churchman. If the miracle be fabulous, the tragedy at 
 least was true. 
 
 Neither Boleslas of Poland nor Henry of England 
 could murder an ecclesiastic with impunity ; and enemies 
 as we must all be to the extravagant pretensions of the 
 church in these ages, we can scarcely censure the power 
 which was formidable enough to avenge so dark a deed, 
 Gregory VII., who then filled the chair of St. Peter, 
 hurled his anathemas against the murderer, whom he 
 deposed from the royal dignity, absolving his subjects 
 from their oaths of allegiance, and at the same time 
 
1081. BOLESLAS II. 43 
 
 placing an interdict on the whole kingdom. The proud 
 soul of Boleslas disdained submission to the church : he 
 endeavoured to resist the execution of its mandates ; 
 but he speedily found, that in an age when the haugh- 
 tiest and most powerful monarchs were made to bend 
 before the spiritual throne, such resistance could only 
 seal the fate denounced against him. He was now re- 
 garded with horror by clergy and people. In daily fear, 
 of assassination by his own people, who universally 
 avoided him, he fled into Hungary, accompanied by his 
 son Miecislas, in the hope of interesting in his behalf 
 the reigning king of that country. But Uladislas, the 
 brother of Geysa, who had succeeded Salomon, though 
 he pitied the fugitive, had no wish to bring down on 
 his own head the thunders of Gregory ; and Boleslas, 
 after a short stay, was compelled to seek another asylum. 
 His end is wrapt in great obscurity. One account says 
 that he retired to a monastery in Carinthia, to expiate 
 his crime by penance ; another, that his senses forsook 
 him, and that in one of his deranged fits he destroyed 
 himself; a third, that he was torn to pieces by his own 
 dogs when hunting ; and a fourth, that being compelled 
 to occupy a mean situation, he preserved his incognito 
 until the hour of death, when he astonished his confessor 
 by the disclosure of his birth and crimes. Of these 
 versions of the story it need scarcely be added, that the 
 first is the only one probable.* 
 
 Had Boleslas known how to conquer his own passions 
 with as much ease as he conquered his enemies t, he 
 would have been one of the greatest princes that ever filled 
 a throne. His character differed at different periods. 
 Before his expedition to Russia he was the model of 
 sovereigns ; active, vigilant, just, prudent, liberal, the 
 father of his subjects, the protector of the unfortunate, 
 the conqueror and bestower of kingdoms. Afterwards 
 
 * None of the old Hungarian writers as far at least as I can gather 
 mention this flight of Boleslas into their country. Their silence, how- 
 ever, does not invalidate the fact 
 
 f In the intervals between the expeditions into Bohemia and Hungary, 
 he reduced the Prussians who had revolted. 
 
44 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1081. 
 
 his elevation of mind gave way to meanness, his valour 
 to cowardice, his justice to tyranny, his boundless gene- 
 rosity to a pitiful selfishness, which valued no person or 
 thing except in so much as its own gratification was 
 concerned. At one time he was the pride, at another 
 the disgrace, of human nature.^ 
 
 ULADISLAS I. 
 
 SUBNAMED THE CARELESS. 
 
 10821102. 
 
 AFTER the disappearance of Boleslas and his son, the 
 state remained without a head almost a year : perhaps 
 it would have remained so much longer but for the in- 
 cursions of two neighbouring powers, the Russians and 
 the Hungarians, the latter of whom reduced Cracow. In 
 great consternation the nobles then raised to the throne 
 Uladislas Herman, son of Casimir, and brother of the 
 unfortunate Boleslas. 
 
 The first act of Uladislas was to despatch a deputation 
 to Rome to procure a reversal of the interdict. The 
 churches were in consequence opened, and permission 
 given that Poland should again be ranked among Chris- 
 tian nations ; but the royal dignity was withheld : Ula- 
 dislas was allowed to reign as duke ; but no prelate in 
 Poland dared to anoint him as king. It cannot but sur- 
 prise us, in these times, that the chief of a great people 
 should have incurred the humiliation of submitting to the 
 papal pretensions ; but perhaps Uladislas expected the 
 
 * Authorities for the reign of Boleslas II., besides those already quoted, 
 Kadlubek, lib. ii. epist. 20, 21. Dlugoss, lib. iii. col. 247298. Cromer, 
 lib. iii. 7991. Sarnicki, lib. vi. cap. ix. Albert Krantz, Vandal, lib. iii. 
 cap. xii. Naruszewitz (as quoted by Zielinski), ii. 254 275., and the two 
 chronicles (in the collection of Silesian historians). Some aid has also been 
 derived from Solignac, torn. i. p. 213288. This last-named writer is by 
 far the best narrative historian of Poland in any language, but he is not 
 always faithful, the fault of negligence rather than of design. A much 
 greater defect is, that he takes little notice of the laws, institutions, and 
 manners of the people whose history he writes : besides, his work is left 
 unfinished. 
 
1086. ULADISLAS I. 45 
 
 return of his brother, over whose fate a deep mystery 
 was believed to hang, and had no very strong wish 
 to assume a title which he might hereafter be com- 
 pelled to resign. The example, however, was disastrous 
 for the country : during more than 200 years the regal 
 title was disused; nor could the rulers of Poland, as 
 dukes, either repress anarchy at home, or command re- 
 spect abroad, so vigorously as had been done by the kings 
 their predecessors. 
 
 But whether Boleslas should return or not, Uladislas, 
 sensible that he had a powerful party in his interests, 
 resolved to marry, and perpetuate his authority in his 
 offspring. Judith, daughter of Andrew, king of Hun- 
 gary, w r as selected as the duchess of Poland. As, how- 
 ever, in two. years from her arrival this princess exhi- 
 bited no signs of pregnancy, both Uladislas and his clergy 
 were apprehensive that she was cursed with barrenness, 
 and no less so of the consequences which such a misfor- 
 tune might produce. Recourse was had to the inter- 
 ference of heaven ; prayers, alms, pilgrimages, were em- 
 ployed in vain, until the bishop of Cracow advised her 
 to implore the intercession of St. Giles, who had done 
 wonderful things in this way. Pilgrims with rich pre- 
 sents w r ere accordingly sent to a monastery in Lower 
 Languedoc, where that saint had spent and ended his 
 days. Her prayers were heard ; for who could doubt 
 that the son which she afterwards brought forth was 
 miraculously vouchsafed to her ? Her child was christened 
 Boleslas ; but the mother did not long live to enjoy her 
 happiness. 
 
 Soon after his marriage Uladislas surprised his sub- 
 jects by the recall of his nephew, Miecislas. By some 
 this step was imputed to magnanimity, by others to 
 policy. Certain it is that the young prince was very 
 popular in Hungary, and the duke might have reason to 
 fear for the prospects of his infant son should the inte- 
 rests of the exile be espoused by that country. However 
 this be, he received Miecislas with much apparent cor- 
 diality, and, in four years from his arrival, procured him 
 
46 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1089 
 
 the hand of Eudoxia, a Russian princess ; but the prince 
 became a greater idol in Poland than he had ever been 
 in Hungary, and the apprehensions of the duke naturally 
 acquired threefold strength. Things were in this state 
 when the sudden death of Miecislas was spread over the 
 country,, and caused a sincerer national grief than had 
 ever been felt since the loss of Casimir. That his death 
 had been violent was the general impression ; and suspi- 
 cion pointed to the duke as the murderer, merely because 
 no other man was supposed to be so deeply interested in 
 his removal. Uladislas, however, was not a man of 
 blood ; on the contrary, he was remarkable beyond any 
 prince of his age for the milder virtues of humanity ; 
 and some better foundation than suspicion must be found 
 before impartial history will allow his memory to be 
 stained with so dark a crime.* 
 
 It was the misfortune of Uladislas that, during the 
 greater part of his reign, his dominions were exposed to 
 the incursions of his fierce neighbours ; and a still hea- 
 vier one that he had neither the vigour nor the talents 
 to repress them. The Russians were the first to revolt ; 
 the conquests made by Boleslas the Bold were lost with 
 greater rapidity than they had been gained. Before the 
 duke could think of recovering them (ff such, indeed, was 
 ever his intention), the Prussians, a people more savage, 
 though much less stupid perhaps, than the ancient Mus- 
 covites, prepared to invade his dominions. With great 
 reluctance he marched against them. The steady valour 
 of his followers enabled him, or rather his general, 
 Sieciech, to triumph over the undisciplined bravery of 
 
 * I have my doubts that the death of Miecislas was violent. Dlugoss 
 (lib, iv. col. 314.) is, as far as I can gather, the first Polish historian who 
 adverts to the rumour of violence ; but even rumour throws the blame on 
 a portion of nobles hostile to the prince and nis father, not on Uladislas. 
 Neither Kadlubek nor Boguphal (in Script. Rer. Silcs. torn, ii.), both an- 
 terior by two centuries to Dlugoss, make any mention of the circumstance. 
 Jt is, indeed, darkly alluded to by the anonymous authors of two meagre 
 chronicles (in Script. Rer. Siles. torn, i.1, of whom both were very little prior 
 to Dlugoss ; and whose authority, on a point three centuries preceding their 
 times, is worth absolutely nothing. It is strange that Solignac (i. 300.) 
 should appear to credit this vulgar rumour. Modern native historians 
 'Naruszewitz, Bandkia, Zielinski,) follow Dlugoss, and throw the blame on 
 the nobles j but they have no ancient authority for the statement 
 
1089- ULAOISLAS I. 47 
 
 these pagan barbarians. But no sooner did the victors 
 retire from the forests of Prussia,, than the natives again 
 rose, massacred the garrisons which had been left in 
 their fortresses, and joined in pursuit of the Poles. An 
 obstinate and a bloody battle ensued on the banks of the 
 Notez (Netz), which arrested the advance of the enemy, 
 but so weakened the invaders that they were compelled 
 to return in search of fresh reinforcements. Having 
 gained these (chiefly Bohemian mercenaries), they again 
 directed their march to the Notez, and assailed the 
 strong fort of Nackel on the bank of that river ; but on 
 this occasion, we are told, they were seized with an unac- 
 countable dread : they stood so much in fear of an irrup- 
 tion into their tents by the wild defenders of the fort, that 
 they could scarcely be persuaded to snatch a few mo- 
 ments of repose. Every bush, every tree, every rocky 
 height, to their alarmed imaginations seemed peopled 
 with the terrific enemy; and one night, when it had 
 covered the plain before them with these visionary beings, 
 they left their tents to run the risk of an action. The 
 besieged, in the mean time, penetrated to their tents, 
 which they plundered and set on fire, and massacred all 
 whom the light attracted to the place. The loss of the 
 Poles in this most inglorious scene was so severe that 
 they were compelled to retreat. To veil their cowardice, 
 they averred that they had been driven back by super- 
 natural means ; that armies of spectres had arisen to 
 oppose them. Absurd as was their plea, it was gene- 
 rally believed : the pagans were thought to be in league 
 with the powers of darkness; so that in the following year 
 when Uladislas returned to vindicate the honour of his 
 arms, not a few wondered at his temerity.* This time 
 he was more successful ; Prussia and Pomerania sub" 
 mitted, but with the intention of revolting whenever 
 fortune presented them with the opportunity. 
 
 The wars of the duke with Bohemia were less decisive. 
 
 * That demons are always favourable to idolaters, we have no less a tes- 
 timony than that of the sage Kadlubek. " Dsmones suos idololatras ab ini- 
 micis suis protegunt, et circa hos miracula faciunt." 
 
48 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 Bretislas, duke of that country, resolved to claim the 
 rights which the emperor Henry, in a fit of displeasure 
 with Uladislas, had, a few years before, pretended to 
 bestow on his father, rights involving even the pos- 
 session of the Polish crown, which Henry, as lord para- 
 mount, claimed the power of transferring, invaded 
 Silesia, and wrapt every thing in flames. By the duke's 
 command reprisals were made in Moravia, a dependency 
 of the Bohemian crown. The Pomeranians advanced 
 to the assistance of Bretislas, and threw themselves into 
 the strongest fortress in Silesia. They were reduced by 
 Boleslas, son of Uladislas, who, though only in his tenth 
 year, began to give indications of his future greatness. 
 The army indeed was commanded by Sieciech, the Polish 
 general ; but the glory of the exploit belonged only to 
 the prince. It is certain that from this time jealousy 
 took possession of the general's heart, and that he did all 
 he could to injure the prince in the mind of Uladislas, 
 over whom his influence was without a rival, an in- 
 fluence which he exerted solely for his own advantage, 
 and very often to the detriment of the people. Hence 
 the dissensions which began to trouble the peace of the 
 duke ; dissensions too in which another individual was 
 destined to act not the least prominent part. 
 
 Before his marriage with the princess Judith, the 
 duke had a natural son named Sbigniew, whose depra- 
 vity is represented as in the highest degree revolting, 
 and who became a dreadful scourge to the kingdom. 
 The youth, indeed, owed little gratitude to a parent by 
 whom he had been grossly neglected. From a peasant's 
 hut, in a mean village, he had been sent to a monastery 
 in Saxony, where it was intended he should assume the 
 cowl. During his seclusion in the cloister, the tyran- 
 nical conduct of Sieciech, to whom the duke abandoned 
 the cares and the rewards of sovereignty, forced a consi- 
 derable number of Poles to expatriate themselves and 
 seek a more tranquil settlement in Bohemia. With the 
 view of disquieting Poland, Bretislas persuaded these 
 emigrants to espouse the cause of Sbigniew, whom he 
 
1098. ULAD1SL 
 
 drew from the monastery to 
 
 reignty of Silesia. The hope o v - crushing 
 
 favourite,, and of living in peace i 
 
 of their native princes, made them 
 
 standard of the new chief. 
 
 At the head of these men, Sbigniew boldly advanced 
 to the gates of Breslaw, the governor of which he knew 
 to be unfriendly to the favourite. As his avowed object 
 was merely to effect the removal of an obnoxious minis- 
 ter, the city at length received him. Uladislas advanced 
 to support his authority : Sbigniew fled, collected an 
 army of Prussians, and again took the field. The father 
 conquered ; the rebellious prince fell into the hands of 
 Sieciech, his greatest enemy, by whom he was thrown 
 into a dreary dungeon : but the advantage was counter- 
 balanced by the incursions of the Bohemians, who ravaged 
 Silesia, and whom the duke was too timid or too indo, 
 lent to repress; and ere long the bishops procured the 
 liberation of Sbigniew, whose influence they well saw 
 would soon annihilate that of the detested favourite. 
 The youth, indeed, was more than pardoned ; he was 
 raised to the highest honours, and associated with his 
 brother Boleslas in the command of an army which was 
 despatched against those inveterate rebels, the Pomera- 
 nians. The two brothers, however, disputed and effected 
 nothing ; when Uladislas, alarmed at the prospect of the 
 civil wars which might arise after his decease, took the 
 fatal resolution of announcing the intended division of 
 his states between his two sons : to Boleslas he promised 
 Silesia, the provinces of Cracow, Sendomir, and Siradia, 
 with the title of duke of Poland ; to Sbigniew, Pome, 
 rania, with the palatinates of Lenszysa, Cujavia, and 
 Masovia. This expedient, which he adopted in the 
 belief that it would prevent all further contention between 
 the princes, became the source of the worst troubles ; 
 the example, as we shall hereafter perceive, proved fatal 
 to the prosperity, and even threatened the existence, of 
 Poland. 
 
 For a time, indeed, the two youths were united. Both 
 
50 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1098. 
 
 burned for the destruction of Sieciech, and each had 
 need of the other to secure the common object. With 
 the troops which they had obtained to oppose a pre- 
 tended invasion of the Bohemians, they forced the 
 feeble and infirm Uladislas to exile his favourite to a dis- 
 tant fortress. But even this did not satisfy them ; they 
 besieged the place : Uladislas, by means of a disguise, 
 threw himself into it, resolved to share the fate of his 
 favourite. His unnatural sons had the army, and, what 
 was more, the hearts of the Poles in their favour ; nor 
 would they lay down their arms until the odious min- 
 ister was banished the country : they then submitted to 
 their parent. 
 
 During the few remaining months of this feeble duke's 
 life, Poland was governed by the two princes. Its fron- 
 tiers were frequently a prey to the Pomeranians and 
 Prussians : the valour of Boleslas chastised their pre- 
 sumption. As for Sbigniew, his ambition indeed was 
 boundless, and his disposition restless; but his abilities 
 were slender, and his weakness betrayed him into situ- 
 ations from which he found it hard to escape. There is 
 reason to believe he was meditating the means of weak- 
 ening, if not of supplanting, his brother, when the death 
 of the aged duke suspended for a moment his criminal 
 designs. By some writers, indeed, that event is said to 
 have been hastened by a dose of poison, administered by 
 this precious limb of illegitimacy ; but as Boleslas affec- 
 tionately took his station by the bed of the dying prince, 
 which he left not until the last sigh had been breathed, 
 it is impossible to believe that he should not have known 
 the crime were it really committed, and that knowing it 
 he should not have punished it. 
 
 Uladislas deserved a better fate. He appears to have 
 been a Christian and a patriot ; a mild and benevolent 
 monarch. That his weakness of mind rendered him 
 the instrument of others, and his infirmity of body pre- 
 vented him from long enduring the iron labours of war, 
 can scarcely be attributed to him as a fault, however 
 disastrous both proved to his subjects. Even for the 
 
1104. BOLESLAS III. 51 
 
 fatal division of his dominions between his children, 
 fatal more as an example to others than for the posi- 
 tive evil it produced in this case, though that evil was 
 great, he had precedents enough, not only in the early 
 history of Poland, but in the neighbouring country of 
 Russia.* 1 
 
 BOLESLAS III. 
 
 SUBNAMED WBYMOUTH. 
 1102 1 
 
 SCARCELY were the last rites paid to the deceased duke, 
 than Sbigniew began to show what the nation had to 
 expect from his perversity, and from the imprudence 
 which had left him any means of mischief. He forcibly 
 seized on the ducal treasures at Plotsko, which, how- 
 ever, the authority of the archbishop of Gnesna com- 
 pelled him to divide with his brother Boleslas. He 
 hoped, too, to usurp the provinces and title of that prince, 
 whose assassination he had probably planned ; and his 
 rage may be conceived on learning that Boleslas was 
 about to marry a Russian princess, to perpetuate the 
 hereditary dignity in the legitimate branch of the family. 
 Instead of attending the nuptials, he proceeded into Bo- 
 hemia, and at the head of some troops, furnished him 
 6y the duke of that country, he invaded Silesia. But 
 his followers, who neither respected nor feared him, soon 
 abandoned him, and returned to their homes, before 
 Boleslas could march to the defence of that province. 
 The latter despatched one of his generals to make repri- 
 sals in Moravia ; and, after the conclusion of his mar- 
 riage feasts, he himself hastened to humble the presump- 
 
 * For the reign of UladislasI.,myPolish authorities are.Kadlubek, lib. ii. 
 epist. 23. Boguphal, theChronica Polonorum, and theChronica Principum 
 Polonise (all three contained in the collection of Silesian historians, torn. i. 
 et ii. Lipsiae, 1729.)- Dlugoss, lib. iv. col. 301348. Cromer, iii. 100-- 
 104. Sarnicki, lib. vi. cap. 10. Narnszewitz (as quoted by Zielinski), iii. 
 37 74. See also ^Eneas Sylvius, cap. 2227. Dubravius, lib. ix. et x., and 
 the C'ironicle of Cosma of Prague, lib. iii. Cosma lived in the twelfth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1105. 
 
 tion of the Bohemians. But they fled before him, and 
 left him nothing but the satisfaction of laying every 
 thing waste with fire and sword. 
 
 Though Sbigniew had thus signally failed,, his dispo- 
 sition was too restless, and his breast too depraved, to 
 suffer him to remain long at peace either with his coun- 
 try or his brother. In the Pomeranians, whose spirit 
 was in many respects kindred to his own, he found ready 
 instruments. They armed with the intention of re- 
 treating to their forests whenever a large Polish force 
 appeared on their frontiers, and of emerging from their 
 recesses on its departure. Boleslas, however, took a cir- 
 cuitous route, and fell by surprise on their town of Col- 
 berg. The place was valiantly defended, and the duke 
 was obliged to raise the siege. 
 
 A second expedition was not more decisive : the bar- 
 barians fled before him. Soon he was constrained to 
 make head a third time against not only them and his 
 rebellious brother, but the Bohemians, the cause of 
 whose exiled duke he had espoused. The latter re- 
 treated ; their cowardice ashamed him, since it rendered 
 his success too easy. He now marched into Pomerania, 
 and furiously assailed Belgard. The place was defended 
 with great obstinacy : even women and children ap- 
 peared on the walls to roll stones or boiling pitch on the 
 heads of the Poles. The duke was undaunted ; with a 
 buckler in one hand, and a battle-axe in the other, he 
 hastened to one of the gates, passed over the ditch by 
 means of long planks, and assailed the ponderous bar- 
 rier with the fury of a demon. Boiling water, pitch, 
 stones, missiles, fell on him in vain : he forced the door, 
 admitted his soldiers, and with them made a terrible 
 slaughter of the people, sparing neither age nor sex, and 
 desisting only from the carnage when their hands were 
 tired with the murderous work. No people in Europe, 
 not even excepting the Russians, have shown themselves 
 so vindictive in war as the Poles. The fall of this town 
 was followed by that of four others no less consider- 
 able, and by the submission of the whole country. 
 
1108. BOLESLAS HI. 53 
 
 In this expedition Boleslas exhibited another proof of 
 his fearless intrepidity. He had been invited to pass a 
 few days at the house of a noble in the country, to be 
 present at the consecration of a new church. While 
 there he set out early one morning for the chase, accom- 
 panied by eighty horse. He was suddenly enveloped by 
 3000 Pomeranians. He tranquilly drew his sabre, and, 
 followed by his heroic little band, speedily fought his 
 way through the dense mass which encompassed him. 
 This was not all : disdaining to flee, he turned round on 
 the enemy, and again passed through them. His fol- 
 lowers were now reduced to five ; yet he was foolhardy 
 enough to plunge a third time into the middle of the 
 Pomeranians. This time, however, he was well nigh 
 paying dear for his temerity : his horse was killed ; he 
 fought on foot, and was on the point of falling, when 
 one of his officers arrived with thirty horse, and extri- 
 cated him from his desperate situation. Is this history 
 or romance ? 
 
 Sbigniew, disconcerted at the success of his brother, 
 now sued for pardon through the duke of Kiow, father- 
 in-law of Boleslas. He readily procured it on engaging 
 to have no other interests, no other friends or enemies, 
 than those of his brother. Yet at this very moment he 
 was in league with the Bohemians to harass the frontiers 
 of Poland. He had scarcely reached his own territories 
 when, on Boleslas requesting the aid of his troops, he 
 refused it with expressions of insult and defiance : he 
 knew that both Bohemia and Pomerania were arming in 
 his cause. The patience of Boleslas was worn out : with 
 a considerable body of auxiliaries from Hungary and 
 Kiow he invaded the territories of his brother, whose 
 strongest places he reduced with rapidity : all were ready 
 to forsake the iron yoke of a capricious, sanguinary, and 
 cowardly tyrant. Sbigniew implored the protection of 
 the bishop of Cracow, and by the influence of that pre- 
 late obtained peace, but with the sacrifice of ah 1 his pos- 
 sessions except Masovia. He was too restless, however, 
 to remain long quiet; so that, in the following year, an 
 E 3 
 
54 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1108. 
 
 assembly of nobles was convoked to deliberate on the 
 best means of dealing with one who violated the most 
 solemn oaths with impunity. It was resolved that he 
 should be deprived of Masovia, and for ever banished 
 from Poland. 
 
 At this time Boleslas was engaged in a serious war 
 not only with the Bohemians, but with Henry V.., em- 
 peror of Germany, who espoused their interests. He 
 was victorious ; but, like the enemy, having occasion to 
 recruit his forces, he abandoned the field. Hearing that 
 the town of Wollin in Pomerania had revolted, he 
 marched to reduce it. He had invested the place, when 
 he was suddenly assailed in his rear by a troop of the 
 natives, whom he soon put to flight, several prisoners 
 remaining in his hands. One of these refused to raise 
 the vizor of his helmet; it was forcibly unlaced, and 
 then was discovered Sbigniew ! A council of war was 
 assembled, and the traitor was condemned to death : but 
 he was merely driven from the country by Boleslas, who 
 warned him, however, that his next delinquency, nay, 
 his next appearance in Poland, should be visited with 
 the last punishment. But Gnievomir, one of the most 
 powerful Pomeranian chiefs, who had some time before 
 embraced Christianity, had sworn fealty to Boleslas, and 
 had now both abjured his new religion and joined the 
 party of Sbigniew, was not so fortunate as that outlaw : 
 he was hewn to pieces in presence of the Polish army 
 a barbarous act, but one which had for a time a salutary 
 effect on the fierce pagans. 
 
 In the war which followed with the imperialists, who 
 were always ready to harass a power which refused to 
 acknowledge the supremacy of the empire, which they 
 hated and dreaded at the same time, nothing is more 
 deserving of remembrance than the heroic defence made 
 by the city of Glogaw against the power of Henry. The 
 women and children shared in the toils and the glory of 
 the men. The emperor was often driven from the walls, 
 his works demolished, the breaches repaired ; but he as 
 often returned, and vowed he would never leave the place 
 
1110. BOLESLAS III. 55 
 
 until it fell into his power. At length both sides agreed 
 to a suspension of hostilities, on the condition that if 
 Boleslas did not relieve the place within five days, it 
 should be surrendered to Henry, to whom hostages were 
 delivered. The Polish duke was not far distant; but he 
 was waiting for the arrival of his reinforcements from 
 Russia and Hungary, without whose aid he durst not 
 attack the combined force of the empire: he exhorted 
 the inhabitants to hold out at the expiration of the period 
 limited, assuring them that he would hang them if they 
 surrendered. The time expired ; the citizens refused to 
 fulfil their engagements. The indignant Henry moved 
 his legions to the walls, placing in front the hostages he 
 held. Not even the sentiments of nature affected them 
 so powerfully as their hatred of the German yoke, and 
 their apprehensions of Boleslas : they threw their mis- 
 siles, beheld with indifference the deaths of their children 
 transfixed by their own hands, and again forced the 
 imperialists to retire from the walls. Boleslas now ap- 
 proached: he enclosed the Germans between himself and 
 the ramparts, and held them as much besieged in the 
 plain as were his subjects in the city. For several suc- 
 ceeding days his cavalry harassed them in their entrench- 
 ments, but no general engagement took place. 
 
 Irritated at the delay, he had then recourse to a dia- 
 bolical expedient : he procured the assassination of the 
 Bohemian chief for whose cause Henry had armed, and 
 in the very tent of that emperor. The Bohemians, as 
 he had foreseen, now insisted on returning to their homes; 
 Henry, weakened by their desertion, slowly retreated : 
 the Poles pursued until both armies arrived on the vast 
 plain before Breslaw, where the emperor risked a battle. 
 It was stoutly contested ; but in the end the Germans 
 gave way ; and the Poles, true to the ferocity of their 
 character in all ages, committed a horrible carnage on 
 such as were unable to flee. Peace was soon after made 
 between the emperor and duke ; the latter, who was a 
 widower, receiving the hand of Adelaide, and his son 
 E 4 
 
56 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1110. 
 
 Uladislas that of Christina (or Agnes), the one sister, the 
 other daughter of Henry. 
 
 During the following four years Boleslas was perpe- 
 tually engaged in war, either with the Bohemians or the 
 Pomeranians, or, as was more frequently the case, with 
 both at the same time. His own ambition was as often 
 the cause of these wars as the restlessness of the enemy. 
 He appears, indeed, to have been so far elated with his 
 successes as to adopt a haughty domineering tone towards 
 his neighbours ; a tone to which they were never willing 
 to submit. Yet he had many great traits of character : 
 he often behaved nobly to the vanquished Bohemian 
 duke; and he even so far mastered his aversion as to 
 recal his exiled brother, who never ceased either to im- 
 portune for his return, or to plot against his peace. 
 
 Sbigniew made a triumphal entry into Poland ; the 
 very reverse of one that became a pardoned criminal. 
 Every man who considered his ungrateful character, his 
 insolence, his incorrigible depravity, and the irascible- 
 disposition of the duke, foresaw the fatal termination of 
 his career. In a few short months Boleslas yielded to 
 the incessant arguments of his courtiers, and Sbigniew 
 was assassinated. 
 
 During the succeeding years of his life Boleslas en- 
 deavoured to stifle his remorse, by such works as he 
 hoped would propitiate the favour of Heaven. Having 
 quelled repeated insurrections in Pomerania, he under- 
 took to convert it to the true faith. His efforts were to 
 a certain extent successful ; not, perhaps, so much 
 through the preaching of his ecclesiastics, especially of 
 Otho, bishop of Bamberg, as through the sums which he 
 expended in disposing the minds of the rude but avari- 
 cious chiefs to the doctrines of Christianity. Many towns 
 publicly embraced the new religion. For a time Stettin 
 stood out ; but the golden argument, or at least the pro- 
 mise of an exemption from imposts, brought about its 
 conversion. Idols were in most places demolished, 
 churches erected, priests ordained, and bishops conse- 
 crated. Still the voice of inward conscience spoke out 
 
1129- BOLESLAS III. 57 
 
 too loud to be silenced, and the unhappy duke had re- 
 course to the usual expedient of the times. He built 
 churches and monasteries ; fasted ; subjected himself to 
 rigorous acts of penance ; and visited, in the garb and 
 with the staff of a pilgrim, the shrines of several saints. 
 Not only did he thus honour the relics of St. Adalbert 
 at Gnesna, and the tomb of St. Stephen of Hungary, 
 but, it is said, he ventured on a long and painful pil- 
 grimage to the shrine of St. Giles in Languedoc, the 
 efficacy of whose intercession had been so signally expe- 
 rienced by his mother. On his way he relaxed not from 
 the severe austerities he had imposed : with naked feet 
 he daily stood in the churches, joining with the utmost 
 fervency in the canonical hours, in the penitential psalms, 
 and all other offices of devotion ; at every chapel or ora- 
 tory he turned aside to repeat his prayers, or offer gifts ; 
 he relieved ah 1 the poor he approached; and wasted 
 himself with vigils. On reaching the end of his journey 
 he practised still greater austerities ; during fifteen suc- 
 cessive days he lay prostrate before the tomb of St. Giles : 
 such, indeed, was his abstinence, his contrition, his hu- 
 mility, that the monks were as edified by his visit as he 
 himself. He returned safely to his country, lightened, 
 in his own mind at least, of no small burden of his 
 guilt, and purified completely in the eyes of his subjects. 
 If his reformation was in some respects mistaken, it was 
 certainly sincere, and charity may hope availing. 
 
 But a mortification more bitter than any which reli- 
 gious penance could inflict awaited him. Until within 
 four years of his death his arms were almost invariably 
 successful. He had repeatedly discomfited the Bohe- 
 mians and Pomeranians ; he had humbled the pride of 
 emperors ; had twice dictated laws to Hungary, and 
 gained signal triumphs over the Russians.* It was now 
 his turn to meet with a reverse of fortune : he was sur- 
 
 * The old Polish Histories lead Boleslas into Denmark. This is a fable 
 arising probably from an alliance (obscurely hinted at) between him and 
 Nicholas, the usurper of that kingdom, in which both engaged to act 
 in concert in subduing the wild ink abitants on the southern coast of the 
 Baltic. 
 
58 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 prised and defeated on the banks of the Niester by a 
 vastly superior force of Hungarians and Russians : the 
 Polish historians throw the blame on the palatin of Cra- 
 cow, who retired from the field in the heat of the action. 
 After a precipitate retreat, Boleslas deliberated what 
 vengeance should be inflicted on a man through whose 
 cowardice his arms had been thus fatally dishonoured. 
 His first impulse was to execute the recreant ; but venge- 
 ance gave way to a disdainful pity. The palatin was left 
 with life and liberty ; but the reception of a hare skin, 
 a spindle, and distaff, from the hands of the duke, was 
 an insult too intolerable to be borne, and he hanged 
 himself. 
 
 One of the last acts of Boleslas was to redeem as 
 many of the prisoners made on this occasion as could be 
 mustered. The blow fell heavily on his heart. The 
 victor in forty-seven battles, the bravest prince of the 
 age, could not review his disgrace at an age when his 
 bodily strength had departed, and when no one was to 
 be found on whom he could devolve the task of repairing 
 it. After a year's indisposition more of the mind than 
 of the body in which he followed the fatal precedent 
 of his father, by dividing his dominions among his sons, 
 death put a period to his temporal sufferings. With 
 him was buried the glory of Poland until the restoration 
 of the monarchy. His character must be sufficiently 
 known from his actions.* 
 
1139- ARISTOCRATIC RULERS. 59 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 HOUSE OP PIAST CONTINUED. ARISTOCRATIC RULERS. 
 
 11391295. 
 
 THE period from the death of Boleslas Wrymouth to 
 the restoration of the monarchy is one of little interest ; 
 it exhibits nothing but the lamentable dissensions of the 
 rival princes, and the progressive decay of a once power- 
 ful kingdom. 
 
 By the will of the late duke, Poland was thus divided 
 among his sons : 
 
 The provinces of Cracow, Lentsysa, Sieradz, Silesia, 
 and Pomerania fell to the eldest, Uladislas, who, to pre- 
 serve something like the unity of power, was also invested 
 with supreme authority over the rest. 
 
 Those of Masovia, Kujavia, with the territories of 
 Dobrezyn and Culm, were assigned to the second bro- 
 ther, Boleslas. 
 
 Those of Gnesna, Posen, and Halitz were subjected 
 to Miecislas, the third brother. 
 
 Those of Lublin and Sendomir were left to Henry, 
 the fourth in order of birth. 
 
 There remained a fifth and youngest son, Casimir, 
 to whom nothing was bequeathed. When the late duke 
 was asked the reason why this best beloved of his chil- 
 dren was thus neglected, he is said to have replied by 
 a homely proverb ; " The four-wheeled chariot must 
 have a driver :" a reply prophetic of the future superi- 
 ority of one whose talents were already beginning to 
 open with remarkable promise. It is more probable 
 that his tender years alone were the cause of his present 
 exclusion ; and that, as the provinces before enumerated 
 were intended to be held not as hereditary, but as move- 
 able fiefs, reversible to the eldest son, as lord paramount, 
 
60 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 on the death of the possessors,, he was secure of one in 
 case such an event should happen during his life. 
 
 The fatal effects of this division were soon apparent. 
 The younger princes were willing, indeed, to consider 
 their elder brother as superior lord ; but they disdained 
 to yield him other than a feudal obedience, and denied 
 his authority in their respective appanages. In an as- 
 sembly at Kruswick, however, they were constrained 
 not only to own themselves his vassals but to recognise 
 his sovereignty, and leave to his sole decision the im- 
 portant questions of peace and war. 
 
 But such discordant materials could not be made to 
 combine in one harmonious frame of goverment. Ula- 
 dislas naturally considered every appearance of authority 
 independent of his will as affecting his rights of primo- 
 geniture. His discontent was powerfully fomented by 
 the arts of his German consort, who incessantly urged 
 him to unite under his sceptre the dissevered portions 
 of the monarchy. Her address prevailed. To veil his 
 ambition under the cloak of justice and policy,, he con- 
 voked an assembly of his nobles at Cracow. To them he 
 exposed, with greater truth than eloquence, the evils which 
 had been occasioned in former periods of the national 
 history from the division of the sovereign power; and 
 he urged the restoration of its union as the only measure 
 capable of saving the country either from domestic 
 treason or from foreign aggression. But they were not 
 convinced by the arguments of one whose ambition they 
 justly deemed superior to his patriotism : those argu- 
 ments, indeed, they could not answer j but they modestly 
 urged the sanctity of his late father's will, and the ob- 
 ligation under which he lay of observing its provisions. 
 Disappointed in this quarter, he had recourse to more 
 decisive measures. He first exacted a heavy contribution 
 from each of the princes : his demand excited their 
 astonishment, but they offered no resistance to it. With 
 the money thus summarily acquired, he not only raised 
 troops, but hired Russian auxiliaries to aid him in his 
 design of expelling his brethren from their appanages. 
 
1146. CJLADISLAS II. 6l 
 
 Their territories were soon entered, and, as no defence 
 had been organised, were soon reduced ; and these un- 
 fortunate victims of fraternal violence fled to Posmania, 
 the only place which still held for Henry. In vain did 
 they appeal to his justice no less than his affection : in 
 vain did they endeavour to bend the heart of the haughty 
 Agnes, whom they well knew to be the chief author of 
 their woes. A deaf ear was offered to their supplica- 
 tions; and they were even given to understand that 
 their banishment from the country would follow their 
 expulsion from their possessions. 
 
 This arbitrary violence made a deep impression on the 
 Poles. The archbishop of Gnesna espoused the cause 
 of the deprived princes. Uszebor, palatin of Sendomir, 
 raised troops in their behalf. The views of both were 
 aided far beyond their expectation by a tragic incident. 
 Count Peter, a nobleman of great riches and influence, 
 who had been the confidential friend of Boleslas Wry- 
 mouth, and who lived in the court of Uladislas, inveighed 
 both in public and private against the measures of the 
 duke. But as his opposition was confined to speaking, 
 it did not wholly destroy his favour with the latter. 
 One day both being engaged in hunting, they alighted 
 to take refreshment. As they afterwards reclined on 
 the hard, cold ground (it was the winter season), Ula- 
 dislas observed : " We are not so comfortably situated 
 here, Peter, as thy wife now is, on a bed of down with 
 her fat abbot Skrezepiski ! " " No," replied the other ; 
 cc nor as yours in the arms of your page Dobiesz ! '* 
 Whether either intended more than as a jest is doubtful ; 
 but the count paid dear for his freedom. The incensed 
 Agnes, to whom the duke communicated the repartee, 
 contrived to vindicate herself in his eyes ; but she vowed 
 the destruction of the count. She had him seized at 
 an entertainment, thrown into prison, and deprived both 
 of his tongue and eyes.* The popular indignation now 
 
 * Kadlubek (iii. ep. 28.) quaintly assures us : " Mulieris truculentiam 
 saeviorem esse omni severitate." Even the placidity of the sex is destruc- 
 tion. " Est enim omnis mansuetudo foeminas omnium (beasts) severitate 
 ttuculentior, omnium truculentia severior." 
 
62 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1146. 
 
 burst forth in every direction. Uszebor defeated the 
 Russian auxiliaries ; the Pomeranians poured their wild 
 hordes into Great Poland ; the pope excommunicated the 
 princess, because through her he was disappointed of 
 the aids he solicited against the infidels ; and the same 
 dreaded doom was hurled at the head of the duke by the 
 archbishop of Gnesna, the staunch advocate of the exiled 
 princes. Uladislas himself was defeated, and forced to 
 take refuge in Cracow. Thither he was pursued by his 
 indignant subjects, who would probably have served him 
 as he had done count Peter, had he not precipitately 
 abandoned both sceptre and consort, and fled into Ger- 
 many to implore the aid of his brother-in-law, the em- 
 peror Conrad. Cracow fell; Agnes became the captive 
 of the princes whose ruin she had all but effected. Her 
 mean supplications moved their contempt as much as 
 her ambition and cruelty had provoked their hatred. 
 She was, however, respectfully conducted over the fron- 
 tiers of the duchy, and told to rejoin her kindred.* 
 
 By the princes and nobles BOLESLAS, the eldest of 
 the remaining brothers, was unanimously elected to the 
 vacant dignity. 
 
 The new duke had need of all his talents and courage 
 and he possessed both in no ordinary degree to 
 meet the difficulties of his situation. By confirming 
 his brothers in their respective appanages, and even in- 
 creasing their territories, he effectually gained their sup- 
 port ; but he had to defend his rights against the whole 
 force of the empire, which espoused the cause of the 
 exiles. In a personal interview, indeed, he disarmed 
 the hostility of Conrad, who was too honest to oppose 
 a man whose conduct he could not fail to approve ; but 
 Frederick Barbarossa, the successor of that emperor, was 
 less scrupulous, or more ambitious. A resolution of the 
 
 * Authorities for the reign of Uladislas II. Kadlubek, lib. iii. epist 8. 
 and 29. Dlugoss, lib. v. col. 453 473. Chronica Principum Polonise, nec- 
 non Chronica Polonorum (in Script. Rerum Siles. torn. i.). Boguphali 
 Chronica (in eadem collectione, t. ii.). Cromer, 136 146. Stanislai Sar- 
 nicii Annalium Polon. lib. vi. cap. 12. Naruszewitz (as quoted by Zielinski), 
 torn. iii. p. 201 219. The last of these writers is sometimes, on points of 
 chronology, strangely at variance with the old authorities. 
 
1 i 09- BOLESLAS IV. 63 
 
 diet having summoned the Polish duke to surrender his 
 throne to Uladislas, or acknowledge his country tributary 
 to the empire, he prepared to defend his own dignity 
 and the national independence. Aided by his brothers, 
 whose privileges he had so religiously respected, and by 
 his subjects, whose welfare he had constantly endeavoured 
 to promote, he feared not the result, though an over- 
 whelming force of imperialists and Bohemians rapidly 
 approached Silesia. Had he ventured, however, to 
 measure arms with the formidable Barbarossa, neither 
 the valour of his troops nor the goodness of his cause 
 would have much availed him ; but by hovering about 
 the flanks of the enemy, by harassing them with re- 
 peated skirmishes, and, above all, by laying waste the 
 country through which they marched, he constrained 
 them to sue for peace. The conditions were, that Ula- 
 dislas should have Silesia, and that Barbarossa should 
 be furnished with three hundred Polish lances in his ap- 
 proaching expedition into Italy. The former died before 
 he could take possession of the province ; but through 
 the interference of the latter it was divided among his 
 three sons, who held it as a fief of Poland, and did 
 homage for it to duke Boleslas.* 
 
 The subsequent exploits of Boleslas were less success- 
 ful. In one expedition, indeed, he reduced the Prus- 
 sians, who, not content with revolting ever since the 
 death of Boleslas Wrymouth, had abolished Christianity 
 and returned to their ancient idolatry ; but, in a second, 
 his troops were drawn into a marshy country^ were 
 there surprised, and almost annihilated. This was a 
 severe blow to Poland : among the number of the slain 
 was Henry, the duke's brother, whose provinces of Sen- 
 domir and Lublin now became the appanage of Casimir. 
 
 * From the latter of these conditions, and the concurrent testimony of 
 the German histories, I am not sure that Poland was altogether so inde- 
 pendent of the empire as the national writers pretend. It is certain that 
 the former unanimously term the country as tributary as Bohemia itself. 
 Servit et ipsa (Polonia) sicut Boe'mia, sub tribute imperatoriee majestatis, are 
 the words of Helmotd, who wrote in the time of Barbarossa. Another 
 authority adds, that Boleslas, before he could obtain peace, was obliged to 
 approach the emperor with naked feet, and a sword held over his head. 
 This is incredible. 
 
64 HISTORY OP POLAND 1170. 
 
 To add to the general consternation, the sons of Uladis- 
 las demanded the inheritance of their father ; the whole 
 nation, indeed, began to despise a ruler who had suf- 
 fered himself to he so signally defeated by the bar- 
 barians : by a powerful faction of nobles Casimir was 
 invited to wrest the sceptre from the hands which held 
 it. Fortunately for Boleslas his brother had the virtue 
 to reject with indignation the alluring offer ; and he 
 himself, with his characteristic address, succeeded in 
 pacifying the Silesian princes. His reverses, however, 
 and the little consideration shown him by his subjects, 
 sunk deep into his heart, and hastened his death. To 
 his surviving son, Lesko, he left the duchies of Maso- 
 via and Cujavia ; but, in conformity with the order of 
 settlement, the government of Poland devolved on MIE- 
 CISLAS (1174.)* 
 
 This prince, from his outward gravity, and his affect- 
 ation of prudence, had been surnamed the Old ; and the 
 nation, on his accession, believed it had reason to hope 
 a wise and happy administration. But appearances are 
 proverbially deceitful ; and gravity more so than any 
 other. He had scarcely seized the reins of government 
 before his natural character, which it had been his policy 
 to cover, unfolded itself to the universal dismay of his 
 people. His cruelty, his avarice, his distrust, his ty- 
 ranny, made him the object alike of their fear and 
 hatred. They were beset with spies ; were dragged 
 before his inexorable tribunal for fancied offences ; were 
 oppressed by unheard-of imposts, which were collected 
 with unsparing rigour ; and were subjected to sanguin- 
 ary laws, emanating from his caprice alone. Confis- 
 cation, imprisonment, and death, were the instruments 
 of his government. The people groaned ; the nobles, 
 whose privileges had increased inversely with the decline 
 of the monarchy, and whose pride made them impatient 
 of a superior, openly murmured ; the clergy execrated 
 one whose exactions weighed even on them. At length 
 
 * The authorities for the reign of Boleslas IV. are the same as those last 
 quoted. 
 
1180. MIECISLAS III. CASIMIB II. 65 
 
 Gedeon, archbishop of Cracow, after vainly endeavouring 
 to effect his reformation, and employing, like the pro- 
 phet of old, a striking parable to convict him of his 
 injustice from his own lips, joined a conspiracy formed 
 against him. Cracow was the first to throw off its alle- 
 giance ; the example was followed by the greater part 
 of the kingdom, and with such rapidity, that before he 
 could dream of defending his rights, his brother CASIMIB 
 was proclaimed duke of Poland. This event was soon 
 followed by his expulsion. 
 
 It was not without considerable difficulty that this 
 youngest of the sons of Boleslas Wry mouth was pre- 
 vailed on to accept the ducal crown. With philosophic 
 indifference he had twice declined the brilliant offer : 
 his sense of justice too made him averse to receive what 
 he regarded as belonging to another ; and he was still 
 more loth to profit by the errors of a brother. But the 
 same philosophy which taught him to prefer a humble 
 station, would not long permit him to sacrifice to his 
 own ease, or to a mistaken delicacy, the happiness of 
 millions who looked up to him alone for security and 
 enjoyment. 
 
 One of the first acts of Casimir was to procure the 
 abolition of an abuse which had long oppressed the poorer 
 portion of the landed proprietors. From the accession 
 of the Piasts, the Polish monarchs, in their progress 
 through the country for the administration of justice, 
 had been furnished with horses, food, lodging, and every 
 other necessary, both for themselves and their numerous 
 suites, by the inhabitants of the districts through which 
 they passed. Very soon, whatever the occasion of the 
 journey, the same aid was demanded. This evil was 
 sufficiently great ; but it became intolerable when the 
 powerful barons imitated the state of kings, and insisted 
 on the same supplies in their never ceasing migrations, 
 and in their perpetually recurring feuds with each other. 
 Then the insolent rapacity of the claimants ; their fre- 
 quent violations of the most sacred rites of hospitality ; 
 their lewd conversation, and dissolute habits, had gene- 
 
66 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1180. 
 
 rated a deeply-rooted feeling of aversion towards them. 
 In an assembly of nobles and clergy, convoked at 
 Lenszysa, which is regarded as the first effort towards 
 Polish legislation, the suppression of this obnoxious 
 privilege, as far as regarded the nobles, was solemnly 
 decreed ; the peasants were declared exempt from claims 
 which had reduced them to wretchedness; and a 
 dreadful anathema was pronounced against prince or 
 noble who should disturb them in their possessions. 
 At the same time the nobles were relieved from some 
 heavy compositions sanctioned by the canon law ; 
 and the goods of the clergy, which, on the death of the 
 possessors, had long been subject to the usurpations 
 of the barons, were declared thenceforth inviolable. 
 These, and several other laws equally salutary, were so- 
 lemnly approved by Casimir, by Otho (son of the exiled 
 Miecislas) duke of Posnania, by Boleslas duke of Bres- 
 law (son of Uladislas and Agnes), by Lesko duke of 
 Mazovia, and by all the nobles and prelates. They were 
 confirmed by pope Alexander III., who, at the entreaty 
 of Casimir, abolished the law of Boleslas Wrymouth, 
 and declared the sovereignty of Poland hereditary in the 
 descendants of the reigning grand duke. Still the great 
 grievance remained untouched ; though the dukes of 
 Posuania, Masovia, Breslaw, &c. were rendered inca- 
 pable of aspiring to the throne of Casimir so long as a 
 legitimate offspring existed to claim it, yet were they 
 all confirmed in their respective appanages, and the 
 succession vested in their descendants, in the order of 
 primogeniture. Thus the existence of four or five 
 hereditary, and almost independent, governments was 
 acknowledged. 
 
 The peculiar mildness of Casimir's administration, his 
 known aversion to punish, his neglect of his own in- 
 terests, emboldened Miecislas, who had sought a refuge 
 in Silesia, to request from him the restitution of the 
 throne. Posterity will have some difficulty in believing 
 what we are yet assured is the fact that he seriously 
 proposed his own abdication to make way for this hope- 
 
1194. CASIMIR II. 67 
 
 ful and modest exile; a proposal, however, which his 
 nobles received with so much indignation that he was 
 compelled to desist from his design. Disappointed in 
 this appeal to fraternal generosity, Miecislas had recourse 
 to arms. At the head of some Pomeranian allies he 
 advanced into Great Poland, which he wrested from the 
 feeble hands of Otho, without any opposition from Ca- 
 simir. His success led the way to bolder attempts. 
 During the absence of his brother, whose military talents 
 he had not yet learned to appreciate, on an expedition 
 against the Russians, by corrupting the minister of Les- 
 ko, duke of Mazovia and Cujavia, he procured himself 
 to be declared heir of that duchy, and even obtained its 
 administration. The return of Casimir, whose arms had 
 been victorious, was followed by the restoration of the 
 rightful possessor, and by the declaration of Lesko thai 
 the duke of Poland himself should inherit the two 
 provinces. The third attempt was still more audacious, 
 but equally unsuccessful. While the grand duke was 
 occupied in another expedition, Miecislas had the address 
 to persuade the people that he was dead, and to procure 
 his recall to the supreme government. His authority was 
 not recognised by all the nobles ; and while he was en- 
 deavouring to reduce them Casimir arrived, and the 
 insurrection was instantly crushed. From this time he 
 desisted from disturbing the tranquillity of one whom 
 success invariably attended, and by whose generosity his 
 offences were so readily pardoned. 
 
 The foreign wars of Casimir, however decisive in his 
 favour, merit little attention. He triumphed over the 
 Hungarians * and the Russians, and reduced the revolted 
 Prussians. His fame as a captain was not inferior to 
 his reputation for justice. His last days were tranquil. 
 By his nephews, the Silesian princes, he was respected ; 
 by Miecislas he was feared ; by the neighbouring powers 
 his valour had been too often felt to be provoked with 
 impunity; by his own subjects he was idolised. He 
 
 * So say the Polish writers, but no mention is made of such a circum- 
 stance by the Hungarians. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1 194. 
 
 now hoped long to enjoy the blessings which he had so 
 nobly earned : his days were passed in redressing the 
 complaints of his people, in the exercise of an hospitality 
 truly princely, or in disquisitions with his prelates on 
 the nature and end of man. One day, however, after 
 drinking a small cup of wine he fell backwards and ex- 
 pired. Apoplexy was probably the cause of his death ; 
 though poison was also hinted at. 
 
 In clemency and justice Casimir was unrivalled, in 
 many other virtues he was eminent. That clemency, 
 however, sometimes degenerated to a culpable weakness, 
 especially as by his facility of pardoning he invited to 
 new commotions among his people; and those virtues 
 were sullied by frequent adultery. His piety has been 
 praised his prayers, his fastings, his alms-giving, and 
 above all, his zeal in the foundation of churches and 
 monasteries ; but the piety which can subsist with con- 
 jugal infidelity has little claim to our respect. 
 
 In his reign the crusade against Saladin was preached 
 in Poland, and a provincial council held at Cracow, the 
 capital, for the reformation of ecclesiastical abuses.* 
 
 Casimir left two sons; but as both were of tender 
 age, and unequal to the defence of the kingdom and the 
 repression of rebellion, Miecislas again offered himself to 
 the electors at Cracow. He was, however, set aside, and 
 LESKO, surnamed The White, from his fair complexion, 
 the elder of the two princes, was declared duke of Poland. 
 
 The enraged Miecislas having engaged the Silesians 
 in his interests invaded the realm. He was met by the pa- 
 latine of Cracow within seven leagues of that capital, a 
 battle was fought, which, though of the most sanguinary 
 description, was indecisive. By it, however, both par- 
 ties were so much weakened that neither could for some 
 time continue hostilities. But what the cunning old 
 man had failed to obtain by force, he at length secured 
 by stratagem. He had the address to persuade the prin- 
 
 Kadlubek, lib. iv. cap. 619. Boguphal, Chronica Polonorum. Chro- 
 inca Principum Poloniae (all three in Script. Kerum Silesia, i. ii.). Dlu- 
 ffoss, vi. 534567. Cromer, 163174. Sarnicki,vi. cap. 14. Naruszewitz 
 (as abridged by Zielinski), torn. iv. pp 3470. 
 
1202. LESKO THE WHITE. 69 
 
 cess Helen, mother and guardian of Lesko, that in aim- 
 ing at the government of the state he had only in view 
 the welfare of her two sons of what use, he asked, 
 was power to one on the brink of the grave ? Though 
 he had sons of his own, the credulous princess was made 
 to believe that on his death, an event not far distant, 
 Lesko would be restored. Through her influence the 
 young prince abdicated ; the civil war ceased, and Mie- 
 cislas seized on the administration of Poland. 
 
 No sooner had this wily prince obtained the object of 
 all his hopes than the princess Helen had reason to la- 
 ment her credulity. She had been promised the pala- 
 tinate of Cujavia, for the investiture of which she now 
 sued in vain, and as unsuccessful were her efforts to 
 procure the recognition of her son as heir to the crown. 
 She had still credit enough to frame a formidable con- 
 spiracy, which, for a moment, deprived him of his usurped 
 powers ; but he acquired them a third time. He did 
 not, however, long live to enjoy a dignity for which he 
 had sacrificed every tie of nature, and every obligation 
 of morality. 
 
 In the death of Miecislas the nation regarded the 
 restoration of Lesko the White as inevitable. The in- 
 trigues, however, of the palatine of Cracow, whom the 
 mother of that prince had once offended, favoured the 
 election of ULADISLAS III. son of the deceased duke. 
 The sovereign power had lamentably diminished, and that 
 of the aristocracy as fatally increased, when one of the 
 great nobles could thus, by influencing his own order, 
 procure the election or rejection of any candidate. Even 
 now the nobles of Cracow began to consider the throne 
 as no longer subject to the claims of either testamentary 
 bequest or hereditary descent ; but as something which 
 they were at liberty to confer on whatever prince of the 
 house of Piast they chose to invest with the honour. 
 
 Their early assumption of such a dangerous privilege 
 
 was ominous enough of their future preponderancy, and 
 
 of the endless evils that awaited the country. On the 
 
 present occasion, however, it must not be concealed, that 
 
 F 3 
 
70 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1202. 
 
 Lesko would again have obtained the throne had he 
 consented to sacrifice a virtuous minister to the personal 
 enmity of the palatine ; but he scorned to purchase even 
 a throne by an act of injustice, and he had the magna- 
 nimity to behold the elevation of Uladislas, not merely 
 without mortification, but, as we are assured, with satis- 
 faction. This, indeed, seems to have been the age of 
 magnanimity, no less than of domestic anarchy ; for the 
 new duke refused to accept the dignity until it was pe- 
 remptorily declined by Lesko. 
 
 But in the absence of the unity of power, and of a 
 well defined law of succession, and still more, in the 
 fondness of change so characteristic of a fierce and all- 
 powerful aristocracy, the ruler who could long enjoy his 
 authority undisturbed must have been more than man. 
 Lesko having gained a splendid victory over the Russians, 
 became in the opinion of the nation the only prince fit 
 to be intrusted with their destinies. Uladislas was ac- 
 cordingly deposed or rather he abdicated the moment 
 he found that his deposition was contemplated and 
 Lesko the White was again raised to a precarious dig- 
 nity. The former returned to the tranquiUity of private 
 life with more joy than he had abandoned it. Such in- 
 stances of moral heroism, such unparalleled self-sacri- 
 fices, would be incredible, were they not too well attested 
 to be doubted. But our admiration must be somewhat 
 qualified by the inferior temptations held out to ambition 
 in an unsettled throne, a throne, too, which had long 
 ceased to inspire reverence, and which the nobles had 
 learned rather to protect than to obey.* 
 
 Great as were the virtues of Lesko, his reign was not 
 fortunate : if he was admirably adapted for a private 
 
 * Kadlubek, iv. cap. 2126. Boguphal, Chronica Polonorum. Chronica 
 Princip. Polon. (in Script Rer. Siles. torn. i. il). Dlugoss, vi. 569 600. 
 Cromer, 174188. Sarnicki, vi. cap. 1518. Solignac, ii. 186211. Na- 
 ruszewitz (as condensed by Zielinski), iv. 72 103. 
 
 I must here take leave of Kadlubek, the father of Polish historians, from 
 whose meagre chronicle little indeed can be gathered, yet that little is 
 
 been a better Latinist than I am : it is one of the most obscure books I eve: 
 consulted. 
 
1227- ULADISLAS in. 7'i 
 
 station, or even for a crown in times of peace, he had 
 not sufficient vigour to curb the ambition either of his 
 fierce neighbours or of his powerful barons. If he had 
 once triumphed over the Russians, who contended for the 
 possession of Halitz a province rendered dependent on 
 Poland by Casimir I. very different was his success 
 in a subsequent expedition. Halitz was wrested from 
 his grasp ; and he had some difficulty in defending his 
 more immediate territories against the Russian invaders. 
 On another side the Prussians ravaged the provinces of 
 Mazovia and Cujavia, the government of which he had 
 confided to his brother Conrad. These barbarians had 
 long been kept in check by a valiant palatine, the faith- 
 ful counsellor and friend of Conrad ; but on the death 
 of this " God of Poland," as they termed him, who fell 
 a sacrifice to the tyranny of his master, they resumed 
 their ancient ravages. They burned two hundred churches 
 and oratories ; penetrated to Plotsk, the capital of Ma- 
 zovia, and compelled the now trembling Conrad to pur- 
 chase his security by the most humiliating concessions. 
 But the most fatal enemy of Lesko was one Swantopelk, 
 whom he had placed over eastern Pomerania. From his 
 first investiture this man had aimed at independence of 
 his liege lord ; an object which, considering the weak- 
 ness of Poland, and the pacific disposition of her ruler, 
 he regarded as easy of acquirement. He refused at 
 length to pay the customary tribute : as he was powerful, 
 stratagem and not force was employed to destroy him. 
 He was invited to a diet where affairs of importance 
 were to be discussed. He had sagacity enough to pene- 
 trate the design, yet he resolved to attend. With a 
 strong body of armed men he approached the place, 
 the village of Gansaw, in Great Poland, where many 
 members of the diet, with Lesko himself, had already 
 assembled. These followers he concealed in a wood, 
 prior to the execution of the purpose he had formed, 
 which was neither more nor less than to cut off at one 
 blow the Polish nobles and their duke. Hearing one 
 day that Lesko was in the bath, he led them to the vil- 
 
 F4 
 
72 HISTORY OP POLAND. 1227 
 
 lage, slew all whom he encountered, and eagerly rode 
 forward in quest of his victim. On hearing the tumult, 
 the duke had precipitately left the bath, had mounted a 
 horse and fled. He was soon overtaken, surrounded, 
 and after a gallant defence was assassinated by his ruth- 
 less pursuers. 
 
 Thus fell Lesko the White, whose virtues, however 
 shining, were useless to his country, since they were 
 unsupported by the energy necessary to give them effect. 
 The promise of his early years was woefully belied by 
 the weakness of his mature age. It has been truly ob- 
 served of him, that had he never reigned he would have 
 been thought eminently worthy of reigning. 
 
 The corruption of morals seems to have reached a 
 fearful height in this reign. Feeble were the re- 
 straints either of law or conscience over a licentious 
 and independent nobility, who recognised no authority 
 but brute force. With respect to the clergy the case 
 was no better. Ignorance, luxury, incontinence, not 
 merely existed but abounded. Some were openly mar- 
 ried, others had concubines, and in both cases their 
 children were admitted to the rights of inheritance. 
 Among the laity marriage had ceased to be considered 
 indissoluble, or at least pretexts were found for evading 
 its obligations. These abuses cried aloud for reform- 
 ation ; they reached the ears of pope Celestine III., who 
 despatched cardinal Peter, with legatine authority, to 
 enquire into their extent, and to apply the canonical 
 remedies. The cardinal acquitted himself of his task 
 with unbending rigour. Terrible punishments were 
 decreed against every priest who married or maintained 
 a concubine ; and to render lay marriages less disputable 
 they were thenceforth to be solemnised in presence of 
 the congregation.* 
 
 BOLESI,AS V., surnamed the Chaste, was but seven 
 
 years old on the murder of his father : no wonder that 
 
 new disasters should arise. The first was a struggle 
 
 between Conrad, uncle of the prince, and Henry duke 
 
 * Authorities, the same as those last quoted.. 
 
1228. BOLESLAS V. ?3 
 
 of Breslaw, his cousin, for the guardianship of his per- 
 son. After a bloody battle Conrad prevailed. The 
 second was the irruption of the Prussians into the very 
 heart of Poland, who on this occasion exceeded, if pos- 
 sible, their former ferocity. A third, and eventually a 
 greater, was the calling in the aid of the ambitious Teu- 
 tonic knights against these saguinary pagans. 
 
 In its origin this order was distinguished for humility. 
 In the siege of Acre eight Germans, seeing the number of 
 wounded Christians who daily perished for lack of assist- 
 ance, formed themselves into a voluntary association for 
 the purpose of mitigating, by their personal attendance, 
 the agonies of which they were the spectators. For the 
 victims left to expire under a burning sun, or amidst the 
 deadly dews of night, they constructed tents made of the 
 sails of ships : their next acts of mercy were to wash 
 the wounds and to relieve the wants of the sufferers. 
 Their zeal, so honourable to humanity, and their valour, 
 which it exalted, drew on them the admiration of their 
 generals. On the reduction of Acre, an hospital and a 
 church were built for them in that town, and subse- 
 quently at Jerusalem. Their numbers were soon in- 
 creased ; their time was divided between the field and 
 the bed of sickness ; and their services were of such 
 acknowledged utility, that the king of Jerusalem formed 
 them into an order, to be called Knights of our Lady of 
 Mount Sion. It was approved in 11 91, by the emperor 
 Henry VI., and pope Celestine III. By the statutes 
 the knights were to be of noble descent, bound by their 
 vows to celibacy, to the defence of the Christian church 
 and the Holy Land, and to the exercise of hospitality 
 towards pilgrims of their own nation ; their habit was a 
 black cross on a white mantle ; their rule that of Saint 
 Augustine. Their original number, besides their first 
 grand master Henry of Waelfort, was twenty-four lay- 
 men, and seven priests : the latter had permission to 
 celebrate mass clothed in complete armour, with swords 
 at their sides. They were soon raised to forty, exclusive 
 of numerous attendants. For some time their discipline 
 
74 HISTORY OP POLAND. 1228. 
 
 was sufficiently rigorous ; among other things they suffered 
 their beards to grow, and slept on the ground. Under their 
 fourth grand master, Herman of Salsa., when their reve- 
 nues had prodigiously increased, they relaxed from their 
 austerities. On their expulsion from the Holy Land, 
 Herman, with his knights, retired to Venice, ignorant 
 in what country they might obtain a settlement, but re- 
 solved to oppose the enemies of the cross, and northern 
 Europe had yet many, wherever their services might 
 be required. The application of Conrad, regent of Po- 
 land, was readily embraced. Seven knights proceeded 
 to that country to receive his instructions. On condi- 
 tion of their subjugating Prussia, and effecting its final 
 conversion to Christianity, they were offered in perpe- 
 tuity the fortress and territory of Dobrzyn. Their ex- 
 ploits were so successful that the grateful Conrad sur- 
 rendered to them the territory of Culm, and all the 
 country between the Vistula, the Mokra, and the Dru- 
 entsa. This cession, we are told, of so considerable a 
 portion of the state, was designed to be but temporary ; 
 that on the successful termination of the war it was to be 
 restored to the Poles, with one half the conquests the 
 order might wrest from the pagans ; and it was accom- 
 panied by another condition, that of assisting the 
 Poles against the Lithuanians, the Livonians, or any 
 other enemies of the cross. One or two of these con- 
 ditions have been disputed: that none were observed 
 will be but too apparent from the sequel of this history. 
 More pressing evils left no room for even just antici- 
 pation of such as were distant. The aim of Conrad was 
 evidently directed at the life and throne of his ward. 
 Boleslas, though a close prisoner, contrived to escape, and 
 claim the aid of Henry of Breslaw. That duke, at the 
 head of a powerful army, entered Poland, and seized on 
 the regency. At the end of a two years' civil war, his 
 authority was recognised by Conrad: but his wise ad- 
 ministration was short lived. His death left the feeble 
 Boleslas a prey to the arts of the ambitious uncle. To 
 fortify himself, the young prince espoused Cunegund, 
 
1246. BOLESLAS V. 75 
 
 daughter of Bela king of Hungary ; but their alliance 
 could little avail him with a new and more dreaded 
 enemy, who now arrived to lay waste his dominions. 
 
 The Tatars, whom Ghengis Khan had so often led to 
 victory and plunder, after subduing Russia and making 
 it a desert, carried their terrific depredations into more 
 western countries. Poland, torn by internal faction, and 
 weakened by rival contests, became their easy prey. 
 Its towns they took by assault ; its fields they wasted ; 
 its rivers they dyed with the blood of the inhabitants ; 
 its temples they plundered and destroyed ; the confla- 
 gration of the whole kingdom evinced their work of 
 destruction. Some of the Polish nobles, true to the 
 gallantry of their nation and order, endeavoured to make 
 a stand, but they were speedily overwhelmed. The 
 tide of destruction at length rolled on to Silesia and 
 Moravia, or diverged to Hungary, whence it quietly 
 subsided; but it left effects behind which a century 
 could not repair. 
 
 During these horrors where was Boleslas ? His first 
 step was to flee into Hungary : when danger approached 
 that country, he retreated to a monastery in the heart of 
 Moravia. His example was followed by many thousands 
 of his subjects, whom, had he remained, he might have 
 disposed to resistance. His pusillanimous desertion of the 
 most sacred of duties, that of defending his people or 
 of perishing with them, drew on him the execration of 
 those who survived. During his abode in Moravia they 
 resolved to elect another chief, and they actually invested 
 a prince of the blood of Piast with the dignity. Again 
 the restless Conrad, incensed at his rejection, kindled the 
 flames of civil war, and triumphed. His capricious 
 iron yoke was more odious than the imbecile one of the 
 absent Boleslas, whom they hastened to recall. But his 
 restoration could not be effected without the effusion of 
 more blood. In one battle he was victorious ; in a se- 
 cond he was defeated ; and he would probably have been 
 expelled the kingdom, had not his inveterate enemy been 
 removed by death. 
 
?6 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1246 
 
 While these disasters were afflicting the very heart of 
 the country, others, not less ruinous, were harassing the 
 frontier provinces. Swantopelk, the assassin of Lesko 
 the White, taking advantage of the heavy losses sus- 
 tained by the Teutonic knights in the recent struggle 
 with the Tatars, and of the hatred borne towards them 
 by the Prussians, persuaded the latter to join him in 
 hostilities against that enterprising order. Prezemislas, 
 duke of Great Poland, aided the knights. A most de- 
 structive war followed, in which Eastern Pomerania, 
 Culm, and Cujavia, were frequently ravaged with fire 
 and sword. Silesia was no less unfortunate. The am- 
 bition of one of its princes gave rise to a succession of 
 destructive contests, by which its resources were ex- 
 hausted, its plains deluged with blood ; and the same 
 scourge fell on several interior provinces. Of the twenty- 
 four vassal princes among whom Poland was shared, 
 scarcely one obeyed the feeble Boleslas ; many openly 
 derided his authority. The cup of his disgrace was not 
 yet full. To this picture of horrors must be added the 
 destroying fury of the Tatars, whose re-appearance was 
 characterised by the same excesses as on the preceding 
 occasion. Boleslas again fled into Hungary, whence he 
 did not dare to return until he was satisfied that the 
 formidable hordes had departed. 
 
 Impartial history, however, must not conceal the fact, 
 that Boleslas sometimes remembered the martial virtues 
 of his ancestors. Four years after the retreat of the Ta- 
 tars he made head against the Jadvingi, a most warlike 
 people who inhabited Podlasia, a country lying between 
 Lithuania and Mazovia, and extending northward as far 
 as the palatinate of Lublin. They had often harassed 
 the eastern provinces of Poland, sometimes alone, some- 
 times in concert with the Lithuanians : they had sup- 
 ported the rebellion of Mazos ; and though they had 
 owned the conquering arm of Casimir the Just, they 
 were ever ready to act on the offensive. They were still 
 pagans ; for though, with the view of subduing their 
 savage ferocity, the Franciscans and other missionaries 
 
1279- BOLESLAS v. 77 
 
 had entered their country, and partially converted them, 
 they had abjured their new faith, and joined their hea- 
 then neighbours, the Lithuanians, in menacing the very 
 existence of Poland. They were the* most formidable of 
 northern barbarians. Of extraordinary strength and still 
 greater courage, they avoided not the combat with an 
 enemy ten times their superior in number. In vain did 
 the Teutonic knights labour to effect what the Franciscans 
 had left incomplete. The haughtiness of these military 
 monks, and their cruelties towards apostates, exasperated 
 this ferocious people, who renewed their incursions on 
 the eastern frontiers of Poland. Boleslas triumphed, 
 doubtless through an immense preponderance of force. 
 He not merely subdued, but almost annihilated, these 
 sons of the forest, and compelled the few who survived 
 to receive baptism. Their overthrow was followed by 
 that of the Russians ; but to this success the only share 
 which he contributed was to hold up his hands, and 
 pray at a distance, in modest imitation of the Jew 
 of old, while the brave palatine of Cracow routed and 
 pursued the enemy. 
 
 The last years of this prince's life were happily free 
 from the troubles which had so long agitated it. At 
 peace within and without, he occupied himself in 
 ecclesiastical erections, and in works of charity. His 
 devotion was fervent, but often mistaken. With a 
 monastic admiration of chastity, he observed it when to 
 do so was no virtue, but a crime. It was his boast that 
 throughout the period of his marriage he had taken no 
 other freedom with his beautiful and excellent consort 
 than a brother might lawfully take with a sister. Hence 
 his surname The Chaste. It is as singular as it is 
 true, that princes of this extraordinary temperament 
 have seldom been otherwise distinguished; they may 
 have preserved the milder, but history shows us they 
 were strangers to the higher, virtues; that they were 
 alike unfit to rule in peace or lead in war.* 
 
 * Dlugoss, lib.vi. col. 638. to lib. vii. col. 8 18. Cromer, pp. 191 238. 
 Boguphal, Cronica Polonias (in Script. Rer. Siles. torn. ii.). Sarnicki, lib. vi. 
 cap. 20. Naruszewitz (as quoted by Zielinski), tom. iv. p. 168. to torn, v 
 v. 150. Dubra^us, lib. xvl Bonfinius, lib. ii. 8. 
 
78 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1279- 
 
 By the will of the late ruler, LESKO THE BLACK, duke 
 of Sieradz and Cujavia, succeeded to the throne.* The 
 union of his provinces with the crown caused his acces- 
 sion to he regarded* with hope. His reign, however, was 
 destined to prove as disastrous as that of his predecessor. 
 
 The new duke, immediately after his elevation, had 
 to contend with one of his own subjects, the bishop of 
 Cracow, whose hatred he had incurred at a former pe- 
 riod, and who was resolved to dethrone him. This pre- 
 late was fitter to head banditti, of whom he had actually 
 many in his interests, than to edify the church. He 
 had no scruple to seize nuns in their cloisters, to convey 
 them to his tower, and keep them openly as mistresses. 
 He offered the crown to a Silesian prince, whom he in- 
 duced to take the field against Lesko, and whom he 
 joined at the head of his creatures and retainers. Lesko 
 triumphed. The bishop had subsequently recourse to 
 the Lithuanians, whom he persuaded to ravage Poland. 
 They too yielded to the valour of the duke. The rest- 
 less rebel was now imprisoned: he contrived soon to 
 escape, and to incite several discontented chiefs against 
 their sovereign. Cracow, the capital, was besieged : it 
 made, however, a gallant defence until it was relieved 
 by Lesko, who had previously vanquished the rebels on 
 the banks of the Raba. Not less signal was his success 
 over the Muscovites, whom internal treachery, not less 
 than their own ambition, had armed against him. To 
 the Tatars, however, who a third time arrived to inun- 
 date the country, he offered no resistance. Like his 
 predecessor Boleslas, he precipitately fled into Hungary, 
 whence he did not dare to return until the enemy, after 
 laying waste several provinces, had retired into Russia. 
 Despised for his cowardice, harassed by Conrad duke 
 
 * Did this choice of Lesko arise from a kindred feeling ? Some years 
 before, Consors Leskonis Nigri, Ducissa Griphina, filia Roscislai Russia 
 Ducis, quamvis prope sex annis in viri sui Leskonis Nigri contubernio de- 
 geret, virginem tamen se gessit in earn diem, nee a viro suo cognitam, im- 
 potentiamet fragilitateni illi ohjiciens, baronum etm\\\tar\ummatronarum- 
 que concione advocata, agente etiam Leskone duce coram, et accusationem 
 silentio profitente, deduxit. The lady very naturally retired to a convent, 
 Leskonis duels consortia evitare, conjugii hujusmodi divortiam qua?s>itura. 
 Dlugoss, 791. 
 
LESKO THE BLACK. 79 
 
 of Mazovia, his cousin, who had long aimed at his crown, 
 and whom he had persecuted with singular animosity, 
 his life became a burden, and he died of a broken heart. 
 The death of Lesko the Black, who left no posterity, 
 was followed by disasters greater, perhaps, than any 
 which had previously existed even in this land of lawless 
 violence. The numerous princes of the blood of Piast 
 simultaneously arose to procure by force their elevation 
 to the vacant dignity. Boleslas duke of Masovia was 
 the first who obtained it : he was speedily deprived of 
 it by Henry duke of Breslaw : Henry in his turn was 
 driven away by Uladislas, brother to Lesko the Black. 
 Uladislas was compelled to yield to that duke, who a 
 second time seized the reins of government, but did not 
 long live to hold them. The number of claimants was 
 now increased by the pretensions of Wenceslas, king of 
 Bohemia, in whose favour his aunt Griffina, widow of 
 Lesko the Black, forged a will.* By this pretended 
 document indeed she constituted herself heiress of the 
 realm, of which she at the same time made a donation 
 to that prince. He sent an army to support his claims : 
 it was defeated by Uladislas. The success of the victor 
 urged the disappointed claimants to call in the aid of 
 the Lithuanians. He retreated before these new enemies, 
 but only to measure his arms with Wenceslas, who ar- 
 rived in person to defend the validity of the forged will. 
 The Bohemians made some conquests, which he gar- 
 
 * The Bohemian writers mention the will, hut not the forgery. I am 
 not sure it was not a perfectly legal instrument, though every Polish au- 
 thority loudly denounces it as a forgery : but what authority had Lesko the 
 Black, still less what authority had his widow, to confer absolutely what 
 belonged to neither, but to the nobles and clergy of the realm ? " Monstro 
 persimile foret, matronam Bulgaria? ortam, Polonorum principatus do- 
 nandi et conferendi potestatem nactam esse, quam falso sibi in Leskone 
 Nigro Duce, viro suo, ementiebatur, literis, si qua? extabanf, vitiatis, et 
 prater mariti voluntatem false signatis, attributam." Dlugoss, vii. 858. 
 Now let us hear Dubravius : " Nam Lesko Niger cognominatus, Griffinae 
 uxori suae moriens testamento Cracoviam et Sandomitiam cum amplis di- 
 tionibus legavit. Eaque Griffina jus suum Venceslao nepoti suo ex sorore 
 delegavit, quippe Cunegundis mater Venceslai, et ipsa Griffina sorores ger- 
 mana?, ambaeque filiae regis Bulgariae erant " Hist. Bohem. lib. xviii. 
 p. 148. Whether the will was genuine or not, I am persuaded Wenceslas 
 thought it so : he was too honourable a man to participate in deception, he 
 has been canonised for his virtues. He cannot so easily be defended from 
 his eagerness to grasp a sceptre which he well knew no individual could 
 be 1'ieath him, which the magnates of the state only could confer. 
 
80 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1290. 
 
 risoned with his own troops; hut seeing no hope of 
 finally securing his election, he returned to his own 
 kingdom, leaving Uladislas to struggle with a host of 
 foreign and domestic enemies. This beautiful state of 
 things was not all : the Tatars came a fourth time ; the 
 Prussians and Bohemians invaded another frontier. Po- 
 land was ahout to be erased from the list of nations 
 we may well be surprised how such a catastrophe had 
 been hitherto averted but the very imminency of the 
 danger proved its salvation. The nobles and clergy, in 
 consternation at the prospect before them, felt that with- 
 out an approach to something like a monarchy, without 
 a union of the petty independent chiefs, the ruin of the 
 country was inevitable. They looked round for a prince 
 of martial reputation, and of superior possessions. They 
 found one in Prezemislas duke of Great Poland and of 
 Pomerania, and heir of Cracow and Sandomir. The 
 propriety of the choice was so evident that the other 
 candidates desisted from their pretensions ; even Ula- 
 dislas retired without murmuring to his hereditary states, 
 confessing that a better one could not have been made. * 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 HOUSE OF PIAST CONCLUDED. MONARCHY RESTORED. 
 
 12951386. 
 
 PREZEMISLAS. 
 
 12951300. 
 
 WITH the authority this prince assumed the title of 
 king. Without stooping to the humiliation of soliciting 
 
 * Boguphal, Chronica Polonoruia Chronica Principum Poloniae (in 
 Script. Rer. Siles. torn. i. ii. x , . Dlugoss, vii. 818 874. Cromer, 247 %9. 
 Sarnicki, vi. cap. 2022. Solignac, iii. 309347. Naruszewitz (as followed 
 by Zielinski), torn. v. p. 160200. JEneas Sylvius, cap. xxviii. p. 136. (in 
 Script. Rer. Bohem.). Dubravius, ubi supra. 
 
1296. PBEZEMISLAS. 81 
 
 the crown from the hands of the pope,, he received it 
 from his nobles and clergy,, amidst the acclamations of a 
 whole people. The important ceremony was performed 
 at Gnesna by the archbishop of that see. 
 
 The new monarch fully justified the confidence of the 
 nation. Combining firmness with moderation,, a clear 
 vigorous understanding with promptitude of decision, 
 undaunted courage with great prudence, and exhibiting 
 astonishing activity without the least precipitation,, he 
 was admirably fitted to allay the animosities, and quell 
 the turbulence, of his nobles. Some he reasoned, others 
 he forced into submission: on all he successfully in- 
 culcated the necessity of union among themselves, and 
 of obedience to the laws. But the evils of two centuries 
 were not to be cured in a day ; and he could do no more 
 than lay the foundation of future prosperity : time alone 
 could raise the structure. 
 
 Having restored peace within, the king endeavoured 
 to cultivate it with his neighbours, to whom he despatched 
 embassies worthy of his new title. He fortified Dantzic, 
 and established his authority throughout the greater part 
 of Pomerania. In memory of his success he caused a 
 seal to be engraved, on one side of which might be read, 
 " Sigillum Premislai Polonorum Regis et Duds Po- 
 meranice;" on the other, " Reddidit ipse suis victricia 
 signa Polonis ;" a boast which he was fully entitled to 
 make. 
 
 Unfortunately for Poland, she had scarcely begun to 
 enjoy the sweets of a settled government when the smil- 
 ing prospect was again obscured. The elevation and suc- 
 cess of Prezemislas awakened the fears no less than the 
 jealousy of his neighbours. To unbend his mind from 
 his arduous duties he had retired to Rogozno, to cele- 
 brate with feasts and tourneys one of the high festivals 
 of the church. One night, when the diversions were 
 over, and the numerous guests were wrapped in sleep, 
 when even his guards were overcome by the strength of 
 their potations, his cousin, the margrave of Anhalt, ac- 
 companied by a few ruffians, entered his apartment. He 
 
 6 
 
82 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 awoke in time,, indeed,, to make a resolute defence, but 
 not to avert his fate. He fell beneath their redoubled 
 blows, before any member of his household could hasten 
 to his assistance.* 
 
 His crimej say the national historians, went not un- 
 punished : in twenty years the house of Anhalt, which 
 then consisted of twelve nobles, ceased to exist. 
 
 As the murdered king left no offspring but a female 
 child, and as the Bohemians, the Silesians, and the Bran- 
 denburgers were preparing to profit by this melancholy 
 event, the suffrages of the Poles fell on the same Ula- 
 dislas who had relinquished his pretensions in favour of 
 Prezemislas. He triumphed over his enemies ; but suc- 
 cess corrupted him : he became severe and tyrannical. 
 Detested by his people, excommunicated by the church, 
 an assembly at Posen pronounced his deposition, and 
 proclaimed Wenceslas of Bohemia king of Poland. In 
 selecting this prince, less regard was had to the will 
 forged by Griffina than to his connection with the royal 
 family of the nation, and to the transforming a powerful 
 enemy into a friend : besides, submission to a foreigner 
 and a sovereign was less galling than to a native and an 
 equal. Wenceslas, too, was a widower, and at liberty to 
 marry the daughter of the deceased Prezemislas.t 
 
 WENCESLAS. 
 
 1300 1306. 
 
 HAVING espoused Rixa, daughter of Prezemislas, this 
 king was crowned at Gnesna amidst the silence rather 
 than the acclamations of the Poles. They regretted 
 
 * Another account says perhaps with equal probability of truth that 
 the attendants of the king flew to his succour, and that many of the mar- 
 grave's followers were slain before the royal victim was laid low. In this 
 case John of Brandenburgh must have been accompanied by a numerous 
 party, and fallen on the royal residence while the king and his nobles were 
 unprepared for resistance. The account in the text is generally received 
 by modern Polish writers. 
 
 f Dlugoss, vii. 875892. Cromer,xi. 270274. Sarnicki,vi. cap. 23. and 
 24. Naruszewitz, v. 200 220. JEneas Sylvius, Dubravius, ubi supra ; and 
 Fontanus, Bohemia Pia, lib. ii. 
 
1304. WENCESLAS. 83 
 
 their expulsion of Uladislas, and their subjection to one 
 whose ancestors had been the most bitter foes to their 
 country. 
 
 The first acts of the new monarch were not of a nature 
 to allay the national animosity. He filled the fortresses 
 with Bohemian soldiers ; none, it is said, but Bohemians 
 shared his confidence or his favours: Bohemians, in 
 short, had his whole affection. First jealousy, next dis- 
 content seized on his new subjects, who began to regard 
 their deposed prince with compassion and loyalty. By 
 Wenceslas he had been deprived of his patrimonial 
 estates and driven into exile. He sought a refuge with 
 his friend the king of Hungary, who promised to assist 
 him in regaining his throne. 
 
 In the mean time the events which happened in Poland 
 cheered the hopes of the exile. On one side the Lithu- 
 anians, on another the dukes of Eusi and Rugen, ravaged 
 the kingdom : to these evils was added the plague, which 
 raged with destructive fury. To escape it, and troubles 
 which he knew not how to appease, apprehensive, too, 
 lest the emperor, his personal enemy, should raise dis- 
 turbances in his hereditary states, Wenceslas confided 
 the administration of Poland to the Bohemian garrisons, 
 and with his consort departed for Prague. The sway of 
 these foreigners is said to have been tyrannical and rapa- 
 cious : we must remember, however, that the account is 
 given us by enemies. That they defended the country 
 with vigour and success, is evident from the victory which 
 they gained over the combined Russians, Tatars, and 
 Lithuanians, near Lublin. Wenceslas could interfere 
 little with the Poles ; more pressing interests absorbed 
 him. He had been called to the throne of Hungary, in 
 right of his mother Cunegund ; but three kingdoms ex- 
 ceeded alike his ambition and his ability to govern. 
 That of Hungary he abandoned to his son ; but the young 
 prince became so unpopular, that a Bohemian army was 
 sent to support him, but in vain. Then the wars of the 
 emperor Albert in Moravia, and the opposition of the 
 pope, for both envied his increased possessions,, left 
 G 2 
 
84 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1 306. 
 
 him no time to consult the interests of a people that 
 feared and disliked him. 
 
 In the mean time Uladislas was not idle. He jour- 
 neyed to Rome, where, by his penitence for his past 
 errors, he procured the favour of the pontiff; he made 
 irruptions into the duchy of Cracow, at the head of some 
 troops furnished him by the duke of Transylvania. On 
 the first occasion the Poles wept and pitied him, but 
 durst not espouse his cause ; on the second, perceiving 
 that Wenceslas was too much occupied in Moravia to 
 return immediately, many eagerly flocked to his standard. 
 Several easy victories gave new vigour to their efforts, 
 especially after news arrived of the death of Wenceslas. 
 Though the Bohemian governors and their new prince, 
 who laid claim to the throne, made some show of re- 
 sistance, the affection of a people for one whom they 
 believed purified by exile and suffering bore down all 
 opposition. The assassination of his presumptuous and 
 unfortunate rival, by the hands of those who were sus- 
 pected to have deprived the father of life*, put an end 
 to his struggles and his fears.t 
 
 ULADISLAS IV. 
 
 13061333. 
 
 ULADISLAS IV., 'surnamed Loketek, or the Short, was 
 immediately acknowledged by Little Poland and Pome- 
 rania ; but Great Poland, which could not soon forget 
 
 * Albert was suspected of the murder, to settle his son Rodolph on the 
 throne of Bohemia. With Wenceslas III., who left no posterity, expired 
 the race of Premislas, which is said by the ancient chroniclers to have go- 
 verned Bohemia 584 years. From this period the kingdom has obeyed 
 foreign princes. 
 
 f Chronica Princip. Polon. (in Script. Rer. Siles. t. i.). Dlugoss, ix. 893 
 911. Cromer, Sarnicki, Naruszewitz, ubi supra. I do not think the death 
 of St. Wenceslas, the father, was violent : that event was more likely to have 
 been occasioned by anxiety or disease. " Valetudo adversa, sive ex morbo, 
 sive ex senio, sive ut quorundam habuit assertio ex veneno, illunc crepit 
 impetere," is too indefinite to fix the charge of murder on Albert. Disease 
 seems to have been the cause of his death : it is the cause assigned by JEneas 
 Sylvius and Dubravius. 
 
1307. ULADISLAS iv. 85 
 
 his former tyranny, refused to submit, and placed itself 
 under another prince of the house of Piast. On the 
 death, however, of that prince, which took place about 
 four years after his accession, an assembly convoked at 
 Gnesna unanimously proclaimed him king of all Poland; 
 but he did not assume the title until the fourteenth year 
 of his reign : he was superstitious enough to fear that 
 without the papal sanction, which neither Prezemislas 
 nor Wenceslas had been able to obtain, the royal dignity 
 would not be considered sufficiently sacred ; and even 
 then its assumption was the effect of the implied permis- 
 sion rather than the sanction of Clement V.* 
 
 The long reign of Uladislas was chiefly one conti- 
 nued struggle with the Teutonic knights, whom, fatally 
 for the kingdom, Lesko the Black had located in Culm. 
 Dantzic, the chief city of Pomerania, being closely in- 
 vested by the marquis of Brandenburg, who had rapidly 
 reduced that province, the king, considering the urgency 
 of the danger, and the impossibility of his marching in 
 time to relieve it, summoned the knights, in virtue of 
 their original compact with his predecessor, to succour it. 
 They readily complied ; they threw supplies into the 
 place, and forced the Brandenburgers to raise the siege : 
 but no sooner had they performed this duty than, by 
 their superior numbers, they disarmed the Polish gar- 
 rison, and declared the city a possession of the order. 
 In vain did Uladislas expostulate with these unscrupu- 
 lous monks ; in vain did he remind them of the genero- 
 sity of his ancestor, who had received them when Europe 
 was closed against them ; in vain did he tax them with 
 their treachery, and menace them with his vengeance if 
 the place were not immediately restored ; they derided 
 
 * It must not, however, be concealed, that the situation of the pontiff 
 was rather delicate. At the time Uladislas urged his claim, a similar one 
 was pressed by John king of Bohemia, whose pretensions rested on the right 
 of his wife, daughter of the elder Wenceslas, and grand-daughter of Preze- 
 mislas, As there was no law to exclude females from the succession, the 
 rights of the princess, hereditarily considered, were superior to those of 
 Uladislas; but neither hereditary descent nor actual possession were much 
 regarded by the Poles. 
 
 G 3 
 
86 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1307. 
 
 alike his remonstrances and threats,, and proceeded to 
 reduce other fortified towns of the province ; besides,, they 
 knew that he had enough to do in Great Poland,, which 
 was then ravaged by the Germans,, whom a Piast had 
 called in to oppose him. To colour their usurpation, 
 they had recourse to an extraordinary expedient. Under 
 the pretext that the marquis of Brandenburg was the 
 lawful sovereign of Pomerania, they offered him 10,000 
 marks for that province. An emperor of Germany, 
 indeed, had once promised to an ancestor of that prince 
 the investiture of this maritime region, provided he 
 could conquer it from the Prussians and Poles, the actual 
 possessors : the marquis was surprised ; but the money 
 was too tempting to be refused in exchange for an ima- 
 ginary title, and the bargain was effected. The bare- 
 faced impudence of this transaction was more provoking 
 to Uladislas than even the loss of the province. He 
 burned to inflict vengeance on these audacious, un- 
 principled monks ; but whenever he prepared to put 
 his troops in motion, some disturbance or other within 
 his kingdom, raised up no doubt by the knights, pre- 
 vented his departure. Compelled from time to time 
 to defer his long-meditated expedition, he applied to 
 pope Julius XXII., who had many heavy grounds of 
 complaint against the order, as well for its condemnation 
 as for the restoration of the province. Commissioners 
 were accordingly appointed, who, after observing the pre- 
 scribed formalities, gave judgment against the knights, 
 and condemned them besides to pay a heavy sum to the 
 king by way of indemnification. This was not all: sen- 
 tence of excommunication was pronounced against them, 
 and an interdict laid on their territories until they made 
 satisfaction for their injustice. It appears, however, 
 either that the thunders of the church passed harmless 
 over their heads, or that the presents they distributed 
 among the confidential advisers of the pope purchased 
 their impunity : they restored nothing ; they proposed 
 nothing. In 1328, Uladislas resolved to chastise them 
 
1331. ULADISLAS IV. 8? 
 
 with a considerable force of Poles and of Hungarian and 
 Lithuanian auxiliaries: he laid waste their palatinate of 
 Culm, and thereby ruined the innocent peasantry for the 
 iniquities of their oppressive masters. Here ended his 
 first expedition. In a second, he penetrated into the 
 heart of their territory, where he committed horrible 
 excesses. He strictly enjoined his plunderers, who were 
 of themselves sufficiently inclined to ferocity, to spare 
 neither age nor sex, to disregard alike pity or remorse, 
 and to perpetrate every imaginable excess. The knights 
 were not strong enough to meet him in the field, but from 
 their fortresses they safely defied his arms. A truce 
 concluded this second expedition, in which the barbarous 
 conduct of Uladislas must consign his name to everlast- 
 ing infamy. In a third, the success was more varied. 
 He had made his son Casimir governor of Great Poland ; 
 and, to make way for him, had displaced Samatulski, a 
 noble of great wealth and influence. Indignant at what 
 he conceived an injustice, the latter passed over to the 
 knights, whom he offered to aid against his country. By 
 his advice they crossed the Vistula at Thorn, and by 
 circuitous, though rapid marches, pushed their bands 
 into Great Poland, which they ravaged without mercy, 
 and with perfect impunity. In a second irruption they 
 wasted Cujavia and Kalisch : even Gnesna was taken 
 and pillaged. They were, indeed, at this time resistless, 
 from the number of their allies and their own valour 
 they were always the bravest of the brave: they were 
 joined by the troops of John of Bohemia, who openly 
 aspired in right of his wife to the Polish crown. It is 
 probable that Uladislas, notwithstanding his experience 
 and valour, would have been compelled to bend before 
 the storm, had he not succeeded in allaying it by a ha- 
 zardous expedient. He knew that Samatulski was the 
 soul of the hostile manoeuvres : the monarch sued to the 
 rebel, whom he secretly won over by promises of pardon, 
 and even of favour. Remorse had long torn the heart 
 of Samatulski : he threw himself at the feet of his king, 
 G 4 
 
88 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1331. 
 
 whom he engaged to aid by a second treachery. He 
 kept his Word. In a battle which took place two days 
 after his nocturnal visit to the Polish tents, and in which 
 he commanded a considerable body of men entirely de- 
 voted to him, he turned round on the knights his allies, 
 in the very heat of the action, and by this unexpected 
 manoeuvre decided the fortune of the day.^ As usual, 
 no quarter was shown by the victors ; 20,000 of the 
 vanquished were massacred on the field. In the utmost 
 consternation, the knights despatched messengers to their 
 ally, the Bohemian king, to make a diversion in their 
 favour on the western frontiers of Poland. Accordingly 
 John advanced, and laid siege to Posen. Uladislas has- 
 tened to its succour, leaving the monks to retreat unmo- 
 lested, and to combine their plans for the ensuing cam- 
 paign ; but, though they did not fail to resume their 
 operations, and to reduce several important places, their 
 further career was checked by the valour of the king, 
 who, though at an advanced age, carried on the war with 
 the spirit of youth. This was the last expedition he 
 undertook against an enemy whose arms had done more 
 to harass his kingdom than the efforts of all his other ene- 
 mies combined. In spite of all his successes, of all the 
 money he had expended, and the blood he had spilt, 
 Pomerania, Cujavia, and other possessions, remained in 
 the hands of the knights. 
 
 But this province was not the only one lost during 
 this reign. By address rather than open force, John 
 king of Bohemia procured his recognition as lord para- 
 mount over Silesia from the independent princes of that 
 country. Ever since the establishment of a separate, 
 though nominally subordinate, government in that pro- 
 vince, by the immediate heirs of Boleslas Wrymouth, 
 Poland had lost her hold over it; the last feeble link 
 which bound it to her was now for ever broken : Silesia 
 became an appendage of the Bohemian crown. 
 
 The other warlike actions of Uladislas do not merit 
 
 * Samatulski was afterwards torn in pieces by the enraged nobility of 
 Great Poland. 
 
1333. ULADISLAS IV. 8[) 
 
 particular attention. He obtained some partial successes 
 over the Bohemians and Brandenburgers ; but his mur- 
 derous expeditions procured him no solid advantage, while 
 they tarnished the lustre of his exploits. He made war 
 like a captain of banditti, rather than as a Christian 
 knight.* 
 
 If the wars of Uladislas led to unfavourable results, it 
 was not so with his policy. The Lithuanians had always 
 been the most formidable enemies to Poland ; their in- 
 cursions had never ceased ; their valour had almost al- 
 ways rendered those incursions successful ; their activity 
 enabled them to elude pursuit whenever a powerful army 
 of Poles approached to defend the eastern provinces. In 
 the inaccessible recesses of their forests they enjoyed the 
 plunder they had amassed, and devolved on their nume- 
 rous prisoners the servile employments of life. To pro- 
 cure the alliance of these warlike pagans, was the anxious 
 object of Uladislas. He sent a deputation to Gedymin, 
 duke of Lithuania, to solicit the hand of that prince's 
 daughter for Casimir his son : this proposal was accepted ; 
 the princess was brought to Poland, and with her 24,000 
 captives who had long groaned in the most rigorous 
 bondage. The restoration of these wretches to their 
 country was more gratifying to the monarch's heart than 
 the most brilliant portion could have been. The grati- 
 tude of their kindred, the disarming of a fierce enemy, 
 the acquisition of auxiliary troops in his wars with the 
 Bohemians and Teutonic knights, were the present ad- 
 vantages of this happy alliance ; the future ones, as we 
 shall hereafter see, were still more valuable. 
 
 The last words of Uladislas to his son Casimir urged 
 him to an exterminating war with the perfidious knights 
 of Pomerania. <c Rather bury yourself," said the dying 
 
 * During one of these expeditions the nuns were not spared. The way 
 in which one of these intended victims of brutality escaped violation, is 
 related with applause by all ancient historians (the modern writers of Po- 
 land are not always honest enough to notice the evil deeds of their ances- 
 tors). She was a Prussian nun. " She told a soldier that if he would spare 
 her, she would communicate to him an important secret which would render 
 him invulnerable j and, to convince him of its efficacy, she bade him strike 
 her with his sword. He believed hei ; and, by cutting off her head, pre 
 served her chastity." Dlugoss, 990. 
 
90 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1333. 
 
 king, " under the ruins of your throne, than suffer them 
 to possess the territories they have invaded. Punish the 
 traitors ; drive them out of the kingdom if you can ! " 
 
 The qualities of this prince have been overrated. That, 
 after his restoration to the throne, he exhibited the sa- 
 lutary effects of adversity; that he was temperate, active, 
 just, clement towards his people, whom his abilities, no 
 less than his valour, often preserved from foreign sub- 
 jugation and domestic anarchy, are indisputable facts ; 
 but his reign was one series of disasters, a great portion 
 of which seems to have been imputable to himself. His 
 talents as a general were not of a high order, and his 
 cruelty towards the innocent vassals of his enemies, as 
 we have before seen, strongly urged by himself, proves 
 him to have been destitute of that generosity, that chi- 
 valric clemency, inseparable from true greatness of mind. 
 
 Under this monarch the Dulceans (so called from their 
 leader, an Italian heretic,) made many proselytes. Dul- 
 cean contended that he was the apostle of religious re- 
 form ; that the pope and cardinals knew nothing of the 
 gospels ; that in the communion of Christians every thing 
 should be common, even wives and children. In two 
 years he was quartered and burnt. Another sect, the 
 Fratricelli, openly attacked all existing authority, tem- 
 poral or spiritual : their monstrous doctrines occasioned 
 the establishment of the inquisition, which continued in 
 force until the time of Sigismund I. * 
 
 * Chronica Principum Polemize (in Script. Rer. Siles. torn. i. p. 13.). Dlu- 
 goss, ix. 9141030. Cromer, 277305. Sarnicki, vi. cap. 26. and 27. 
 Neugebaver, Historia Rerum Poloniarum, lib. iii. 177 197. Naruszewitz 
 (abridged by Zielinski), v. 238277. Dubravius, lib. xx. et xxi. Bon- 
 finius, ii. lib. ix. 
 
1347- CASIMIR III. THE GREAT. 91 
 
 CASIMIR III. THE GREAT. 
 
 13331370. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the dying injunctions of his father, 
 Casimir made no attempts to expel the Teutonic knights 
 from his dominions. The reason doubtless was his 
 inability to carry on the war with any prospect of suc- 
 cess. His situation was not without its difficulties : the 
 Bohemian king still aspired to the Polish throne ; two of 
 his own palatins were in the interests of that monarch; 
 and the internal state of the kingdom, the nullity of the 
 laws, the insecurity of property and persons, were evils 
 which loudly called for reparation. Peace with these 
 enterprising monks was indispensable to the reforms he 
 meditated : it was at length concluded through the me- 
 diation of the Hungarian king, but on conditions deeply 
 mortifying to the nation. Cujavia, and the territory of 
 Dobrzyn, were restored; but Casimir, renounced for him- 
 self and successors, Culm, Michalow, and Pomerania. 
 The clergy, the barons, the equestrian order, long refused 
 to sanction so unexpected a concession ; but the argu- 
 ments of the king convinced them that no better terms 
 could be procured, and they reluctantly concurred. 
 
 In his proposed reformation of abuses, Casimir first 
 applied his attention to one which threatened to dissolve 
 the frame of society. The highways were infested by 
 numerous parties of robbers, chiefly disbanded soldiers, 
 who plundered alike travellers and peasantry, and long 
 defied punishment. Many of them were doubtless pro- 
 tected by certain nobles, whose interests in return they 
 zealously espoused. They were now pursued to their 
 last hiding-places, were brought before the tribunals of 
 the country, and punished with inflexible severity. The 
 scaffolds of Cracow and the provincial towns continually 
 smoked with the blood of the guilty. His severity not 
 
92 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1347. 
 
 only struck a salutary terror into the hearts of the law- 
 less, but impressed the whole nation with a high idea of 
 his vigour. 
 
 Casimir at length aspired to the noble ambition of be- 
 coming the legislator of his people. He found the laws 
 barbarous, but so sanctioned by time and custom that 
 their abrogation or improvement was a work of great 
 delicacy. Nor were the judges who administered them 
 a less evil : their sentences were not according to equity, 
 but capricious or venal; corruption had seized on all, 
 from the princely palatine to the lowest link in the ju- 
 dicial chain. To frame a body of laws uniform in their 
 character, and of universal application, he convoked at 
 Wisliza a diet of bishops, palatins, castellans, and other 
 magistrates ; and, in concert with the best-informed of 
 these, he digested a code which was thenceforth to be 
 received as obligatory and perpetual. It was comprised 
 in two books, one for Little, the other for Great Poland. 
 Their provisions were on the whole as good as could be 
 expected in an age when feudality reigned undisputed, 
 and when civil rights were little understood. They se- 
 cured to the peasant, no less than to the nobles, the pos- 
 session and the rights of property ; and subjected both, 
 in an equal manner, to the same penalties and tribunals. 
 In other respects, the distinction between the two orders 
 was strongly marked. Hitherto the peasants had been 
 adscripti glebae, slaves to their masters, who had power 
 of life and death over them, and were not allowed to 
 change owners. Servage was now abolished ; every serf 
 employed in cultivating the ground, or in colonisation, 
 was declared entitled to the privileges of the peasant : 
 but the peasants were still chained by a personal, though 
 not a territorial dependence. Of this order there were 
 two descriptions : those who, as serfs previously, could 
 do nothing without their master's permission ; and those 
 who, as born free, or made so, could offer their industry 
 to whatever master they pleased. Yet even one of the 
 latter class free as he would be thought who, by 
 his agreement with his feudal superior, could migrate to 
 
^34-7- CASIMIB III. THE GREAT. Q3 
 
 another estate with or without that superior's permission, 
 was affected by the system. If he sued another at the 
 law, and sentence was pronounced in his favour, his lord 
 shared the compensation awarded. The murderer of a 
 peasant paid ten marks : five went to the lord, the other 
 five to the family of the deceased. The reason of these 
 regulations, apparently so arbitrary, was, that as the time 
 of the peasant, so long as he remained on his lord's 
 estate, belonged to that lord, so any injury inflicted on 
 him which interfered with his labour, or diminished in 
 any way the profits of his industry, must be felt by the 
 other : by his death he left his family chargeable to the 
 owner of the estate ; the lord then, as he participated in 
 the injury, had a claim to share also the compensation. 
 The peasants not free those who could not migrate as 
 they pleased, and whose families were subject to the same 
 dependence were yet entitled to a share of the profits 
 arising from their industry, and with these were qualified 
 to purchase their freedom. On their decease their effects 
 devolved, not as heretofore, to their lords, but to their 
 surviving kindred. If ill-treated themselves, or if their 
 wives and daughters were persecuted by their masters, 
 they could remove as free peasants to another estate: the 
 freed peasant could even aspire to the dignity of a noble. 
 Money, or long service in the martial retinue of the great 
 barons, or success in war, or royal favour, could procure 
 that distinction. The importance of the several orders 
 was carefully graduated by the code under consideration. 
 The murder of a free peasant was redeemed by ten marks; 
 of a peasant recently ennobled, or, in more correct lan- 
 guage, recently admitted to the privileges of a gentleman, 
 fifteen marks ; of a common noble (Anglice, gentleman) 
 thirty marks ; of a baron or count, sixty marks. These 
 distinctions in time gradually disappeared; all were merged 
 in the common designation of noble; every noble was 
 thenceforth equal: but the more the order was confounded 
 in itself, the more it laboured to deepen the line of 
 demarcation between itself and the inferior order of 
 peasants. In the following reigns, indeed, the salutary 
 
9& HISTORY OF POLAND. 134?. 
 
 regulations made in favour of the latter by this prince, 
 were disregarded. The nobles again assumed over them 
 a despotic authority, and arrogated to themselves a juris- 
 diction which rightly belonged to the local magistrates. 
 Until within a very modern period, this judicial vassalage 
 subsisted in Poland. The lord of the soil held his court 
 for the trial of his peasantry, as confidently as any judge 
 in the realm : in capital cases, however, the culprit lay 
 within the jurisdiction of the palatinal courts. 
 
 Poland had two description of laws, the German, 
 or Teutonic, which was obligatory on the citizens ; and 
 the national, which bound the nobles and the peasants : 
 they may be more correctly denominated the burger and 
 the feudal. As the latter was not favourable to foreigners, 
 whom policy, however, required to settle in the towns 
 and villages, Casimir retained so much of the former, 
 for the encouragement of industry and the arts, and the 
 establishment of communities, as agreed with the improved 
 circumstances of his people. The tribunals in the cities, 
 towns, and villages, over which the feudal system had 
 no control, and which were consequently subject to the 
 Teutonic law, were still composed of advocates, bailiffs, 
 and syndics ; but appeals to Magdeburg were prohibited. 
 A Teutonic tribunal was established at Cracow, consist- 
 ing of a judge duly conversant with the foreign law, 
 and of seven respectable householders nominated by the 
 starost.* Its jurisdiction extended over the subordinate 
 tribunals of other towns. Its decisions were not final : 
 an appeal lay open to a court extraordinary of twelve 
 counsellors, nominated by the king, (two from each of 
 the towns, Cracow, Sandecz, Bochnia, Wielitzka, Ka- 
 zimierz, and Ilkusz,) whose sentence was irrevocable. 
 
 Hence it appears, that the Poles were divided into 
 three great classes, the nobles, the peasants, and the 
 burgers. The clergy were taken from all three, and 
 constituted a fourth body, but subject to the same laws, 
 except where the discipline of the church was concerned. 
 The dignified clergy and the barons were generally the 
 
 * See the last chapter of this work, 
 
I3&7' CASIMIB III. THE GREAT. 9^ 
 
 only members of the national diet ; but sometimes Ca- 
 simir admitted the inferior clergy, the magistrates, many 
 of the nobles, and the burger deputies. By submitting 
 to their decisions questions so important as the cession 
 of provinces ; the abrogation, change, or enacting of 
 laws; the control, if not the assessment of 'taxes; and 
 even the power of electing kings, and of departing from 
 the strict line of hereditary descent (as will be soon 
 shown), he impressed the members with a new confi- 
 dence in their own powers, and laid the foundation of 
 that aristocratic domination, and that monarchical feeble- 
 ness, which occasioned first the decay, and next the de- 
 struction, of the nation. 
 
 But Casimir was the great patron of industry, no less 
 than a legislator. Through his encouragement numbers 
 flocked into his kingdom from various parts of Germany, 
 and by their means commerce and the useful arts of life 
 were taught to flourish. He fortified many of his chief 
 towns, which had previously been unprotected by walls 
 and open to the ravages of every enemy. He did more, 
 he embellished them : rude edifices of wood gave way 
 to erections of brick, which astonished the eye by their 
 architectural proportions. Colleges, hospitals, churches, 
 and other public buildings, attested alike his genius, his 
 magnificence, and his patriotism. 
 
 As from his union with the princess Anne of Lithu- 
 ania Casimir had only a daughter *, his attention was 
 anxiously directed towards the choice of a successor. 
 Though several princes remained of the house of Piast, 
 he did not consider any one of them sufficiently powerful 
 either to repress the insurrectionary disposition of his 
 nobles, or to make head against the military monks, 
 whose ambition he so justly dreaded. He proposed 
 Lewis king of Hungary, the son of his sister, and there- 
 fore a Piast, to the diet he had convoked at Cracow. 
 He thus recognised in that body a right to which they 
 had never dared to make a claim. They felt their im- 
 
 * Cunegund, afterwards married to Romulus, son of the emperor 
 Charles IV. By a third marriage he had two other daughters. 
 
30 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1347- 
 
 portance, and resolved to avail themselves of it. He en- 
 countered great opposition. One party would have him to 
 nominate the duke of Mazovia ; another, the duke of Op- 
 pelen: both reproached him for his partiality to a foreigner, 
 in prejudice of the male descendants of his house. For- 
 tunately for his views, they opposed each other with so 
 much animosity, that, in the end, both adopted his pro- 
 position as a means of avoiding the shame of a defeat. 
 But though they thus united in the election of Lewis, they 
 resolved to draw their own advantage from it. The 
 sceptre of Casimir, though never swayed more rigorously 
 than justice permitted, they felt to be one of iron, after 
 the long impunity they had enjoyed during two centuries. 
 Some years afterwards they sent deputies to Breda, to 
 inform Lewis that, though in compliance with the wishes 
 of their king they had concurred in his election, they 
 should yet consider themselves free to make choice of 
 any other prince if he refused them certain concessions. 
 He was not to invest Hungarians or any other foreigners 
 with the offices of the state ; he was to declare the 
 Polish equestrian order exempt from contributions, to 
 confirm them in their utmost privileges, and even to 
 support their retinues in. his warlike expeditions. The 
 Hungarian king had the weakness to comply with these 
 and other demands (all unreasonable, except the first), 
 and thereby to forge chains for his successors. Hence 
 the origin of the pacta conventa, or the covenants be- 
 tween the nobles and the candidate they proposed to 
 elect, covenants exclusively framed for their own be- 
 nefit, and for the detriment alike of king and peasantry. 
 Casimir was a man of peace. War he desired not, yet 
 he never shunned it when it was forced upon him, or 
 when the voice of his nobles demanded it. Both he and 
 they, perhaps, feared the knights too much to engage with 
 them ; but he triumphed over the Silesians (now sub- 
 ject to the Bohemians), the Russians, the Lithuanians, 
 and Tatars : he subdued Volhinia and Podolia, with the 
 palatinates of Brescia and Beltz. These successes, 
 with the alliance of two princes so powerful as Lewis 
 
1356. CASIMIB III. THE GREAT. 97 
 
 and the emperor, rendered him formidable to his neigh- 
 bours, and deterred his enemies of Pomerania from their 
 cruel aggressions. 
 
 But the great qualities of this prince were sullied by 
 some excesses. He was much addicted to drunkenness, 
 and immoderately so to women. Long before his fa- 
 ther's death he had dishonoured the daughter of an 
 Hungarian noble, and fled from the vengeance of her 
 friends. To none of his wives (and he had three) did 
 he dream of fidelity. After the death of the princess 
 Anne, he married Adelaide, a German princess ; but her 
 jealousy, and still more her reproaches, incensed him so 
 much that he exiled her to a fortress. His career of 
 intemperance was thenceforth the more headstrong. He 
 soon became enamoured of a Bohemian lady, whom all 
 his arts, however, failed to seduce, and who declared she 
 would yield only to marriage. (How his engagement 
 with Adelaide was to be set aside, we are not informed ; 
 perhaps he had the art to convince her that he had ob- 
 tained a divorce.) He feigned to comply ; but instead of 
 the bishop of Cracow, whom she wished to perform the 
 ceremony, and whose authority she conceived would 
 sanction the act, he substituted a monk (the abbot of 
 Tynieck), who assumed the pontifical robes, and thus 
 became a participator in the most detestable of decep- 
 tions. Her he soon discarded, to make way for a Jewess 
 named Esther, by whom he had two sons. During this 
 concubine's favour, Poland was the paradise of the Is- 
 raelites : the privileges, indeed, which at her entreaties 
 he granted to them, remained in force long after his 
 reign ; and, no doubt, was the cause why they have con- 
 tinued for so many ages to regard this kingdom with 
 peculiar affection, and to select it as their chief resi- 
 dence. After Esther, or perhaps contemporary with her, 
 we find a multitude of favourites. His licentiousness 
 knew no bounds: he established a regular seraglio, which 
 he filled with frail beauties. The bishops murmured, 
 but dared not openly reproach him : the pope expostu- 
 lated, but in vain. A priest of Cracow, at length, had 
 
 H 
 
98 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1370. 
 
 the courage to reprove him ; but, as he was quickly 
 thrown into the Vistula, his fate deterred others from 
 imitating his temerity. Age effected what reason and 
 religion had attempted in vain. After his union with 
 a third wife (a Piast), he became less notorious for his 
 amours ; and as the fire of lust expired before the chilling 
 influence of age, his subjects had the consolation of find- 
 ing that their wives, sisters, and daughters were safe 
 from pollution. 
 
 Casimir's death was occasioned by a fall from his 
 horse while hunting. The accident might not have been 
 fatal, had he not turned a deaf ear to the advice of his 
 physicians. To this day his memory is cherished by 
 his country, which justly regards him as the greatest 
 prince of a great line. Of his genius, his patriotism, 
 his love of justice, his success in improving the condition 
 of his people, his acts are the best comment ; but his 
 splendid qualities must not blind us to his vices, vices 
 which not only sully the lustre of his character, but must 
 have had a pernicious influence on the minds of a people 
 with whom the obligations of religion and morality were 
 not in that age usually strong.* 
 
 During the reign of this last male prince of the house 
 of Piast, the Flagellants, a numerous sect of enthusiasts, 
 so called from the rigour of their self-inflictions, entered 
 Poland from Hungary : they went naked to the waist, 
 wore crosses on their lower garments, and entered every 
 town two by two, with caps descending to their eyes, and 
 exhibiting on their breasts and backs the wounds caused by 
 their merciless whippings. Twice a day, and once during 
 the night, did they inflict upon themselves this horrible 
 penance, sometimes in the churches, sometimes in the 
 public cemeteries, vociferating the whole time, mercy ! 
 After which, joining in a song alluding to our Saviour's 
 
 * After reckoning the virtues and vices of the great Casimir, Dlugoss 
 adds, " Rediraens vitia virtutibus, plura habebat qua? merito laudari de- 
 buerant, quam quibus debebat ignosci." If this excellent canon alludes to 
 the public character of the monarch, he is right; if to the private one, he 
 is notoriously wrong. No private virtues can redeem gluttony, drunken- 
 ness, ill usage of a wife, continued adultery, treachery, and murder. 
 
1370. LEWIS. 99 
 
 passion, they would suddenly throw themselves on the 
 ground, regardless of stones, flint, or mud : one of their 
 lay preachers would then pass from one to another, say- 
 ing, (C God forgives thee thy sins!" Thirty days' conti- 
 nued suffering they considered a full atonement for sin : 
 hence they dispensed with the sacraments, which they 
 taught were abrogated, grace being obtained, and guilt 
 removed, by this penance alone. They took in a strange 
 sense that most Christian of truths, (c without shedding 
 of blood there can be no remission." The success of 
 these madmen in making proselytes would appear incre- 
 dible, had we not instances enough in our times how 
 easily heresy and fanaticism and those too of the 
 worst kind may be propagated among the vulgar. 
 Hungary, Poland, Germany, Italy, France, and even 
 England, were overrun by the Flagellants. They were 
 long treated with respect even by those who considered 
 them as displaying more zeal than knowledge ; but, in 
 the end, it was found that their vices were superior to 
 both. Men and women roamed together from kingdom 
 to kingdom; and while thus publicly enduring so severe 
 a discipline, made ample amends for it in secret : they 
 lived in the worst species of fornication. Until their 
 knavery was discovered, and they were scouted by the 
 very populace, pope and prince vainly endeavoured to 
 repress them.* 
 
 LEWIS. 
 
 13701382. 
 
 SCARCELY had this king arrived at Cracow when his 
 unpopularity commenced. One of his first acts was 
 to confer two of the best fiefs of the crown on strangers, 
 whose only merit consisted in being his relations. In 
 the fear that the two youngest daughters of Casimir 
 
 * Dlugoss, 10291116. Cromer, 304329. Sarnicki, vii. cap. 1. Neu- 
 gebaver, 195209. Krantz, viii. cap. 28. Solignac, ill. 104181. Zie- 
 linski, i. 241278. Dubravius, cap. xxii. Bonfinius, lib. x. 
 H 2 
 
100 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1370. 
 
 might contract royal alliances, and thereby endanger the 
 stability of a throne which he wished to remain in his 
 own family, he removed them into Hungary. Both mea- 
 sures called forth the indignation of the Poles. But what 
 most dissatisfied his new subjects was his ignorance of 
 their language : whenever favours were solicited, or 
 complaints laid before him, an interpreter was necessa- 
 rily present, who, it may be reasonably supposed, did 
 not always faithfully render the wants of the one party, 
 or reply of the other. Distrust, discontent, dislike soon 
 arose on both sides. Finding that there was little hap- 
 piness or glory to be reaped in this country, he confided 
 the regency to his mother Elizabeth, and returned to his 
 Hungarian subjects, whose prosperity he had constantly 
 at heart, and by whom he was beloved. 
 
 This queen was more disliked than even himself. 
 Capricious, arrogant, avaricious, distrusting the fierce 
 people she was called to govern, and fond of lavishing 
 entertainments on her Hungarian visitants alone, she 
 raised herself a host of enemies, but did not secure a native 
 friend. She was soon despised ; her authority was de- 
 fied; 1 60 Hungarians were massacred in an insurrection 
 of the populace ; bands of robbers scoured the country ; 
 and a numerous army of Lithuanians ravaged the pala- 
 tinates of Lublin and Sendomir. The terrified old lady 
 fled to her son, who, perceiving that if he did not return 
 Poland would be lost to himself and successors, hastened 
 to remedy the evils which his absence had occasioned. 
 
 Lewis had the good sense to overlook what he could 
 not punish. He spoke not of the Hungarian massacre ; 
 he showed no sign of discontent : on the contrary, he 
 behaved to his Polish subjects with the greatest kind^ 
 ness, and with them he speedily triumphed over the 
 Lithuanians. His object was to procure the election of 
 his daughter, Maria, to the throne after his decease (he 
 had no male offspring). With much difficulty he 
 attained it, but not without making new concessions to 
 the nobles, the true tyrants of the country. He then 
 returned to his Hungarians, leaving the duke of Oppeleu 
 
1382. LEWIS. 101 
 
 regent of the kingdom. The Poles refused to obey the 
 new governor : the regency was then put in commission, 
 and intrusted to three natives. Their administration 
 was any thing but a benefit; the Poles obeyed no autho- 
 rity with willingness, much less that of equals. 
 
 This prince died in 1382. His memory is unjustly 
 treated by the Poles. He had great qualities and great 
 virtues. That he favoured his Hungarian in preference 
 to his Polish subjects, is natural enough : the former 
 idolised, the latter hated him ; the former served him 
 with alacrity and constancy, the latter disobeyed him in 
 every thing. As he could not reside in both kingdoms, 
 he preferred his native country to a foreign land. To 
 the Poles, however, he was a mild, but a weak ruler. 
 By yielding to the exorbitant demands of the turbulent 
 and interested nobles ; by increasing their privileges, 
 and exempting them from the necessary contributions, 
 he threw a disproportionate burden on the other orders 
 of the state, and promoted that aristocratic ascendancy 
 before which monarch and throne were soon to bow. 
 There is another and a better founded charge brought 
 against him by the national writers. He relinquished 
 all claims of sovereignty over Silesia, and annexed Red 
 Russia, a dependency of Poland, to the Hungarian 
 crown. For the former act it may be urged in his de- 
 fence, that, as the re-conquest of Silesia was impossible, he 
 only abandoned a vain title ; and for the latter, that he 
 surrendered two or three provinces in exchange for the 
 country thus annexed, a country, too, which his Hun- 
 garian troops had assisted to subdue. Still, the one was 
 impolitic, the other unjust. Had he, on finding his 
 inability to govern two nations, resigned the crown of 
 Poland to one of his daughters, his fame would have 
 been amplified, and his real powers undiminished ; but 
 the shadow of power is not willingly abandoned, even by 
 good princes.* 
 
 * Authorities the same as last quoted. According to Bonfinius (lib. x., 
 
 the Hungarians mourned three whole years after the death of Lewis. 
 
 " Quantum ejus mors et Ungaris et sociis moeroris attulerit, hinc facile 
 
 congiderari potest, quod annos tres universa Ungaria pulla veste Incessit, 
 
 H 3 
 
102 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1382. 
 
 HEDWIG. 
 
 13821386. 
 
 THE death of Lewis was speedily followed by troubles 
 raised chiefly by the turbulent nobles. Notwithstanding 
 their oaths in favour of Mary and her husband Sigis- 
 mund, oaths in return for which they had extorted such 
 great concessions, they excluded both, with the design 
 of extorting still greater from a new candidate. Sigis- 
 mund advanced to claim his rights. Ziemovit, duke 
 of Mazovia, and a Piast, also aspired to the throne; a 
 civil war desolated several provinces. The latter prince 
 might have united the suffrages in his favour had he not 
 exhibited great ferocity, rashness, impatience, and other 
 qualities sufficient to disgust the Poles with his preten- 
 sions. The factions at length agreed that the crown 
 should be offered to Hedwig, youngest daughter of the 
 late king, and grand-daughter of Casimir the Great, on 
 condition that she should accept as husband any one of 
 the princes whom her subjects might propose to her. 
 
 As this princess was only in her fourteenth year, 
 the deputies treated with her mother Elizabeth. That 
 queen, however, being bent on the succession of her 
 eldest daughter Maria, to whom the Poles had sworn 
 obedience *, had recourse to policy. She accepted the 
 throne, indeed, for Hedwig ; but, on the plea that the 
 princess was too young to undertake the onerous du- 
 ties of government, she despatched Sigismund to act 
 as regent, in the view that he would be able to reconcile 
 the people to his authority. Her stratagem failed ; he 
 was not even allowed to enter the country ; and a mes- 
 
 totidem annis luctum regionatim celebravit. Nusquam risus, jocus, sonus 
 chorea, aliquoclve festivitatis genus spectatum est." It is a pity that exa 
 
 geration is made to spoil every thing. 
 and daugh 
 
 xag- 
 
 . 
 
 The fate of mother and daughter was a hard one. Elizabeth was 
 drowned in the troubles which followed in Hungary ; Maria narrowly es- 
 caped the same end, was long confined a prisoner, and treated with rigour. 
 In the sequel she was restored, when her husband Sigismund had gained 
 possession of the throne. 
 
1385. HEDWIG. 103 
 
 senger was sent to inform her, that if Hedwig was not 
 given to the nation in two months, a new election would 
 be made. This menace had the desired effect ; Hedwig 
 arrived in Poland,, and was immediately crowned at 
 Cracow. 
 
 HEDWIG. The beauty of this princess, her affabi- 
 lity, her virtues, discernible even at that tender age, and 
 above all her crown, soon brought her many suitors. 
 Among them was the duke of Mazovia; but the evils 
 his ambition had brought on the country (his ravages 
 had never ceased since the death of Lewis) caused his 
 rejection. The most powerful was Jagello, son of Gedy- 
 min, duke of Lithuania, and his proposals most advan- 
 tageous to the nation. He offered not only to abjure 
 paganism, and to introduce the Christian faith into his 
 hereditary dominions, Lithuania, Samogitia, and a 
 portion of Russia, but to incorporate these dominions 
 with the Polish crown, and even to reconquer Silesia, 
 Pomerania, and the other territories formerly dependent 
 on it. His pretensions were instantly supported by 
 the whole nation; but a difficulty intervened which 
 threatened to blast its fairest hopes. 
 
 Young as was the queen, she had long loved, and 
 been affianced to, William duke of Austria. In a vir- 
 tuous heart such a passion could not be readily sacrificed. 
 She remembered his elegant form, his pleasing manners, 
 and, above all, the tender affection he had shown her in 
 her childhood ; and she could not avoid contrasting him 
 with the rude, savage, uncomely pagan. Her subjects 
 well knew what passed in her mind ; they knew too that 
 she had written to hasten the arrival of duke William ; 
 they watched her day and night, intercepted her letters, 
 and kept her like a prisoner within her own palace. 
 When her lover arrived he was not permitted to ap- 
 proach her. She wished to see him once but once 
 to bid him a last adieu j in vain. Irritated, or per- 
 haps desperate at the refusal, she one day seized a 
 hatchet, with which she threatened to break open her 
 iron gates to admit the duke ; and it was not without 
 
104 HISTORY OP POLAND. 1385. 
 
 difficulty that she was forced to desist from her purpose. 
 This was a paroxysm of the passion scarcely to be won- 
 dered at in one of her strong feelings. But she was 
 blessed with an understanding remarkably clear for her 
 years : in her cooler moments she perceived the advan- 
 tages that must accrue to her people from her acceptance 
 of Jagello ; and, after a few violent struggles with nature, 
 she resolved to see the formidable barbarian, and, if 
 possible, to subdue the repugnance she felt for him. He 
 arrived, and did not displease her.* His baptism, by 
 the name of Uladislas, a name dear to the Poles, his 
 marriage, and coronation, followed. The disappointed 
 duke of Austria long concealed himself in Cracow, in 
 the hope that a first love would eventually plead for 
 him. On one occasion he hid himself in a chimney, to 
 escape the pursuit of men who were anxious to remove 
 him from the city and country; and when, from the 
 success of his rival, he indignantly left Cracow, he left 
 his treasures behind him, treasures which had doubt- 
 less lost all value in his eyes. There is something ex- 
 ceedingly romantic in the attachment of these royal 
 lovers. By sacrificing the heart's best and purest affec- 
 tions, Hedwig attained the dignity of heroism ; but she 
 might be excused if, after her union with a jealous 
 though fond husband, she looked back with a sigh to the 
 destruction of her earthly hopes.t 
 
 * " Petit, laid, cruel, toujours vtu de peaux de btes fauves, ce barbare 
 epouvantait la tendre Hedvige." Salvandy, Histeire de Pologne, Sfc. i. 93. 
 Romance. 
 
 f Dlugoss, lib. x. 1. 102. Cromer, 348368. Sarnicki, yii. cap. 2. et 3. 
 Petr. de Rewa, Rerum Hungaricarum, cent. iv. et v. Solignac, iii. 185 
 245. Zielinski, i. 278296. Bonfinius, dec. iii. lib, i. Michaelis Ritii de 
 Regibus Ungaria?, lib. ii. 
 
1387- ULADISLAS IV. 105 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 DYNASTY OP THE JAGELLOS. * 
 
 13861572. 
 
 ULADISLAS IV. (JAGELLO.) 
 
 13861434. 
 
 FAITHFUL to his engagements, one of the first acts of 
 the new monarch was to effect the conversion of the 
 Lithuanians. A diet, assembled at Wilna, declared that 
 idolatry should be destroyed. Hedwig had the conso- 
 lation to see her husband zealously assist the priests in 
 this great work. He accompanied them in their visits 
 of instructions, often translated their meaning into the 
 Lithuanian language, and, though but a novice himself 
 in such matters, enforced the leading doctrines and duties 
 of Christianity in a way creditable alike to his sincerity 
 and ability. These rude people were, very wisely, not 
 burdened with much theological knowledge. A mo- 
 derate acquaintance with the Lord's Prayer and the 
 Creed, both which they carefully committed to memory, 
 and were taught to understand, was the only preparation 
 required for the first and the greatest of the sacraments. 
 This change was effected with much less difficulty than 
 might have been reasonably expected. Some were se- 
 duced by the condescension, others by the gifts, of Ula- 
 dislas ; and few were inclined to respect their ancient 
 faith, when they saw the sacred fire at Wilna extinguished, 
 the deified reptiles slain, and the consecrated woods cut 
 down with perfect impunity. t The establishment of a 
 
 * During this period the monarchy was as much elective as hereditary. 
 
 f The first grand duke of Lithuania was Ringold, who assumed that title 
 in 1235. Gedymin was the fourth hereditary ruler ; he was slain on the 
 field of battle by a Teutonic knight. Olgerd, his brother, succeeded, and 
 greatly extended the limits of the grand duchy. Uladislas was one of the 
 thirteen sons of this fierce pagan. 
 
106 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1387- 
 
 bishopric at Wilna, and of seven parishes in its vicinity, 
 all well endowed, laid the foundation of future success. 
 
 On his accession to the Polish crown, Uladislas con- 
 fided the government of Lithuania to Skirgello, one of 
 his brothers. This was a fatal error : he might have 
 known that the pride of barbarians would not long brook 
 even the suspicion of dependence on a country which 
 they had so often ravaged with fire and sword. Had he 
 crowned himself king of Lithuania as well as of Poland, 
 and occasionally honoured the former country with his 
 residence, the disasters which followed would probably 
 have been averted. Skirgello was a tyrant ; his rule, 
 consequently, became odious to the people : their dis- 
 content was fomented by Witold, another brother, who 
 aspired to his place, and who, in his blind ambition, had 
 recourse to the Teutonic knights, the inveterate enemies 
 of Poland, to assist him in deposing Skirgello. Their 
 armies suddenly attacked the frontier places of Lithuania: 
 Uladislas hastened to oppose them. Though defeated, 
 they returned to renew the war in greater numbers than 
 before. Wilna, however, was invested in vain during 
 two or three successive campaigns. But the war was 
 troublesome to Uladislas, who had the weakness at length 
 to sue for peace with Witold, and even to invest him 
 with the government of the country. Indignant that 
 rebellion should be rewarded while fidelity was openly 
 neglected, Skirgello now took up arms : he was pacified 
 by concessions from the king. A third brother naturally 
 imitated their example : the same policy, if such weak- 
 ness deserves the name, was employed with respect to 
 him. Whenever any of the three wished to extort more 
 concessions from their royal brother, they had only to 
 league themselves with the knights, the German emperor, 
 or some other enemy of Poland. It was now evident 
 that Witold aspired to royalty and to independence. 
 His courage was of the first order, and was exceeded 
 only by his ambition : had his policy been equal to either, 
 his object would not have been difficult of attainment. 
 By plunging into a war with the Tatars, commanded 
 
1403. ULADISLAS IV. 107 
 
 by a lieutenant of Timur, his forces were annihilated, 
 and he was, for a time, too much weakened to measure 
 arms with his brother. Yet, though he preserved the 
 appearance of peace, though he even rendered important 
 services to Uladislas against the knights and other foes, 
 he never lost sight of the one great purpose. To counter- 
 act his designs, the Polish king at length adopted an 
 expedient which, for a time, disconcerted his aims. The 
 Lithuanian nobles were admitted to the same privileges 
 as those of the crown; were qualified to vote at the 
 election of a king ; and were required, in return, to ad- 
 mit the Polish nobles to vote with them at the election 
 of a grand duke. This was an important step towards 
 an incorporation of the two countries; but ages were 
 required to extinguish the animosity which ages had 
 cherished. As Uladislas advanced in years he became 
 more pacific, and the measures of Witold less disguised. 
 Being refused by the Polish senate the title of king, he 
 prepared to usurp it. His alliance with the knights and 
 the emperor Sigismund, of whom both constantly urged 
 him to establish an independent regal dignity, rendered 
 him so formidable, that Uladislas, to avert the separation 
 of the two kingdoms, proposed to resign to him the 
 Polish crown. This was opposed by the senate, to whom 
 the ambition of Witold gave just umbrage, and who were 
 successful enough to frustrate his designs. He died 
 from pure vexation.* Swidrigal, another brother, of 
 equal ambition but inferior abilities, was appointed to 
 succeed. Uladislas was one of those whose fate it was 
 to learn no wisdom from experience. One of the first 
 acts of the new grand duke was to arrest and imprison 
 him immediately after the funeral of Witold, to attend 
 which he had left Poland accompanied by a slender re- 
 tinue. Through the efforts of pope Martin V., and still 
 
108 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1404. 
 
 more through dread of the Polish nobles, the grand duke 
 now released his prisoner ; on condition, however, of his 
 being confined in his government. But peace was of 
 short continuance : he aspired to the incorporation of 
 Podolia and Volhynk with Lithuania. This insolent 
 demand incensed the Poles ; a destructive war followed, 
 in which the knights and the allies of Swidrigal exhibited 
 even more than their usual ferocity. At length the Li- 
 thuanians themselves became tired of the war, and still 
 more of their duke, whom they expelled from the coun- 
 try. His nephew, Starodubski, succeeded, who promised 
 to hold Lithuania as a fief reversible to the crown on his 
 decease, and never to make war or peace without the 
 sanction of the Polish kings, his liege lords a compact 
 solemnly ratified by the Lithuanian senate. The sequel 
 will show how this compact was observed. 
 
 Nor was the policy of Uladislas more successful in 
 his transactions with the Teutonic knights.* He had 
 promised to recover Pomerania, Culm, Dobrzyn, and the 
 other possessions usurped by the order. It was a pro- 
 mise, as he soon found, not quite so easy to perform as 
 to make. By a treaty with them he recovered Dobrzyn ; 
 but it was only by paying 50,000 florins, and by the 
 sacrifice of Samogitia. Five years afterwards they again 
 took that territory, and insisted that Uladislas should 
 abandon the title of duke of Pomerania. The monarch 
 unwillingly armed for the defence of his people's rights 
 and his own. After some unimportant operations on 
 both sides, a great battle took place between Tannenberg 
 and Grunnervaldt, in which 50,000 men, we are told, 
 were slain on the part of the knights, with their grand 
 master, t This was by far the greatest and most deci- 
 
 * " Grace a lui (Jagello), les Polonais apres tant de siMes revirent les ri- 
 vages de la mer Baltique : on raconte qu'ils dansoient de joie a 1'aspect 
 
 de ses flots d'azur. L'ordre Teutonique rendit hommage dans les 
 
 dietes a la nation Polonaise." Salvandy, Histotre de Pologne, &c. Utterly 
 without foundation. 
 
 f It seems doubtful that the number of the slain, or even that of the Ten. 
 tonics previous to the action, reached so high. Where could a few monks 
 raise such an army? This is not the twentieth instance in which the na- 
 tional writers, who never lose sight of the national glory, are at variance 
 with thoae of Germany. The truth is seldom to be got from either when 
 
1414. ULADISLAS IV. 109 
 
 sive victory Poland had ever gained : it placed the order 
 at her mercy ; but, by his want of decision, Uladislas lost 
 the benefits of this splendid action. Instead of hasten- 
 ing to improve it by the reduction of the Pomeranian 
 fortresses, he allowed the knights time to repair their 
 losses : he refused even to accept their proposals of 
 peace, proposals that went so far as to surrender three 
 fourths of their possessions to the victors ; he seemed 
 resolved to extirpate the order, yet neglected to take any 
 measures for doing so at the only moment success could 
 be expected from such a resolution. Witold, to whose 
 valour the victory was chiefly owing, was seduced by the 
 emissaries of the knights, who promised to aid him in 
 his long-meditated views of ambition : he drew off his 
 troops in opposition to the prayers and menaces of the 
 king, and returned into Lithuania. Weakened by his 
 desertion, the Poles, after some unimportant operations, 
 consented to a peace, as the price of which they again 
 received Dobrzyn, with 200,000 florins, but agreed -to 
 restore Samogitia on the death of Witold. In another 
 expedition, Witold no less fatally crossed the designs of 
 the king. Just as the Poles, who had penetrated into 
 Prussia, were sanguine of success, at the instigation of 
 the knights he again weakened them by his desertion. 
 They were persuaded to submit their cause to the pope 
 and the council of Constance, then assembled to condemn 
 the doctrines of Huss ; but nothing was decided in their 
 favour. Their interests were perpetually crossed by the 
 emperor Sigismund, the inveterate enemy of Poland, 
 who supported the knights or Witold whenever either 
 felt disposed to harass them. 
 
 Uladislas, indeed, had it frequently in his power to 
 be revenged of that selfish emperor. Dissatisfied with 
 the sway of Sigismund, at one time the Hungarians, at 
 another the Bohemians (he possessed the throne of both 
 in addition to that of the empire), offered to accept the 
 
 their respective interest or fame is concerned. Dlugoss is more honest 
 than the modern historians of his country. " Quamvis difficile credam 
 quanti ex hostibus ceciderunt, exacta supputatione asserere." 
 
110 HISTORY OP POLAND. 1414. 
 
 Polish monarch as their ruler. To the throne of Hun- 
 gary Uladislas had a good claim; since, on the accession 
 of Hedwig, it had been agreed,, that if Maria, the wife 
 of Sigismund, should die without issue, that throne 
 should devolve on the Polish queen. But he had no 
 ambition ; or, if he had, it was inferior to his moderation 
 or his love of ease : perhaps, too, he found one sceptre 
 too much for his grasp. He declined both,, on the ground 
 that, as Sigismund was the lawful ruler, he would not 
 usurp the rights of that emperor. Besides, he was at no 
 pains to conceal his aversion to the Bohemian heretics, as 
 he termed the disciples of Huss, whose opinions were 
 then prevalent in that kingdom. This generosity had 
 no effect on Sigismund, whose hostility he continued to 
 experience to the very close of life.* 
 
 In his domestic character, Uladislas exhibited the 
 same melancholy weakness that attended his foreign 
 policy. To the magnanimous Hedwig he proved a dis- 
 agreeable consort. Exceedingly jealous by nature, con- 
 scious of his own inability to please, and, above all, con- 
 vinced of the admiration which her personal attractions, 
 no less than her sweetness of disposition, produced, his 
 suspicions of her fideli ty allowed her little peace. Duke 
 William perpetually haunted his thoughts. One of 
 those court reptiles who, to crawl a little longer in the 
 sunshine of royal favour, would commit any baseness, 
 endeavoured to destroy her reputation. The credulous 
 king was made to believe that the Austrian's visits 
 were neither few nor innocent. In the pride of in- 
 jured virtue, she demanded a rigid inquisition into 
 her conduct : she was triumphantly absolved, and her 
 accuser compelled, in the singular fashion of the coun- 
 try, to lie prostrate under a table, and declare that he 
 had (< lied like a dog/' and at the same time to imitate 
 
 * It may be doubted whether Sigismund deserves the hard names bestowed 
 on him by Polish authorities. Of course they are not warranted by any 
 thing to be found in the Bohemian or HungaVian writers. By Bonfinius 
 (Dec. Hi. lib. iii.)> by Dubravius (p. 128.), he is extravagantly lauded; but 
 the very extravagance proves that he had many regal qualities. His perse- 
 cution of the Hussites is a stain on his memory. 
 
1430. ULADISLAS IV. Ill 
 
 the barking of that animal.* She was thus restored 
 to the confidence of her husband, but a confidence which 
 would assuredly be interrupted by the first unreasonable 
 whim. The death of this princess (in 1399) afflicted 
 him severely ; her memory dwelt continually in his heart,, 
 as it did in that of the whole nation.-)- Whether through 
 indifference to a world no longer pleasing to him, or from 
 a fear that, as he had derived the throne in her right, he 
 should no longer be allowed to fill it, immediately after 
 her funeral he retired into Russia. He was soon pre- 
 vailed on to return, and to marry the princess Anne, a 
 niece of Casimir the Great, through whom his claim to 
 the throne of the Piasts was rendered still stronger. Of 
 this queen we know little, and as little of her successor, 
 Elizabeth ; but his fourth and last wife, a Lithuanian 
 princess, was destined to suffer the same injustice as the 
 first. The accuser of this queen was her own uncle, 
 Witold, who could not pardon her for refusing to pro- 
 mote his interests with the aged monarch. She too was 
 justified, according to the usage of the times, by her own 
 oath, and that of seven matrons of high rank and unble- 
 mished virtue. J But though she was speedily restored 
 to his favour, her tranquillity was but of short duration : 
 his outrageous suspicions embittered her life, as they had 
 embittered that of her predecessors. 
 
 At the diet of Jedlin his son Uladislas was declared 
 his successor. As usual, this honour was by no means 
 gratuitously conferred, not till several important con- 
 
 * " Decretum autem sententiae hujusmodi, Gnievossius (the false ac- 
 cuser) implere extemplo compulsus, subter bancum corpore curvato intravit. 
 Et revocatione facta, in qua se profitebatur falso et mendaci probro, reginam 
 Hedwigim insimulasse, publicum etiam latratum edidit." Dlugoss, x. 1 L 23. 
 The barking was to be repeated three times. This singular punishment for 
 defamation continued in force in Poland unto the last century. 
 
 f The affecting observation of this queen on the restoration by Uladislas 
 of some cattle, unjustly seized by his authority, does her infinite honor. 
 " Though the cattle is restored, who will restore the tears ? " Dlugoss 
 (x. 161.) calls her the Star of Poland, and says that miracles were wrought 
 at her intercession. She might have been canonised with much more reason 
 than many other Polish saints. 
 
 J This odd mode of justification was resorted to in other countries. Some 
 doubts having been cast on the legitimacy of Cloth aire, infant son of Chil- 
 peric, three bishops, and three hundred persons of distinction, swore that 
 the child was in reality son of that king. The same course was adopted 
 with regard to Judith, wife of Lewis le De"bonnaire. 
 
112 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1434. 
 
 cessions had been extorted from him : besides an exemp- 
 tion from every species of contribution, and an allowance 
 of five marks for every horseman whenever occupied in 
 war beyond the frontiers, the nobles insisted that none 
 of the higher offices, either in the army or state, should 
 be conferred on any member of the royal family, or on 
 any person other than the landed aristocracy of the 
 country. 
 
 Uladislas died in 1434. The most prominent parts 
 of his character were, honour, sincerity, generosity, and 
 justice, an ardent zeal for religion and for the happiness 
 of his people. His chief defects were profusion, incon- 
 stancy, credulity, idleness : his addiction to the pleasures 
 of the table rendered early rising impossible, and, con- 
 sequently, abstracted considerably from the hours which 
 he owed to the administration of justice.* 
 
 CJLADISLAS V. 
 
 14341445. 
 
 THOUGH the Poles owed much to the memory of Jagello, 
 and had extorted from him such important privileges as 
 the price of their election of his son, they now showed 
 that neither gratitude nor their own oaths had much in- 
 fluence over them. They were preparing to set aside 
 the young prince, then only in his eleventh year, when 
 the address, even more than the influence, of the virtu- 
 ous Olesnicki, bishop of Cracow, made them, for a mo- 
 ment, ashamed of their criminal design, and raised prince 
 Uladislas to the throne. 
 
 The minority of the young king was inevitably a sea- 
 son of troubles. Lithuania was a prey to the ferocity of 
 the Russians and Teutonic knights, whom Swidrigal 
 armed in his support. The defeat of this rebel only 
 
 * Dlugoss, x, xi. 106660. Cromer, 368471. Sarnicki, vii. cap. 4, 5. 
 Neugebaver, 230 297. Solignac, iii. 245 >78. Zielinski (the abbreviator 
 of Naruszewitz, &c.), i. 296321. JEneas Sylvius, cap. 5154. Dubravius, 
 cap. 25 27. Pontanus, Bohemia Pia, lib. ii. p 28. Bonfinius, ubi supr, et 
 Ritius (Rizzio) de Regibus Ungarlee, lib. ii. 
 
1442. ULADISLAS 
 
 made way for the ambition of taroclubski, tne grand 
 duke, who, like Witold, aspired to royalty and inde- 
 pendence. A sect of the rebellious Hussites * having 
 elected Casimir, brother of Uladislas, to be king of Bo- 
 hemia, troops were sent to support the pretensions of the 
 prince; in the end legitimacy triumphed in the esta- 
 blishment of Albert, formerly Sigismund. Casimir, on 
 the assassination of Starodubski, was nominated grand 
 duke of Lithuania : he, too, openly aspired to sovereignty. 
 But an event soon occurred which, more than all these, 
 influenced the destiny of Uladislas. 
 
 Albert, king of Bohemia and Hungary, dying with- 
 out male issue, and the latter country lying open to the 
 ravages of the Turks, whose formidable empire now be- 
 gan to threaten the neighbouring powers, the Hungarian 
 nobles were anxious to appoint a successor capable of 
 defending their liberty. The promising talents of Ula- 
 dislas ; the military reputation of the people whose re- 
 sources he wielded ; and his affinity with the blood of 
 their kings (he was the grandson of their favourite king 
 Lewis), pointed him out as by far the most proper per- 
 son to fill the vacant throne. The widow of Albert was, 
 indeed, pregnant, and might be delivered of a son ; but 
 the danger was considered too pressing to wait the pos- 
 sible birth of a prince who would himself require the 
 protection which the kingdom expected from its ruler. 
 At the suggestion of John Corvinus, then an inferior 
 officer, but afterwards the famous Huniades, it was 
 agreed that the crown and widow of Albert should be 
 offered to the Polish king. The glory of being consti- 
 tuted the bulwark of Christendom raised the ambition of 
 Uladislas, who, after appointing a regency, accompanied 
 the Hungarian deputies to Buda. He was immediately 
 acknowledged by most of the kingdom; but Elizabeth, 
 who, in the interim, had brought forth a male child, 
 
 * Their rebellion will surprise no one acquainted with the persecutions 
 they had endured ; but what can justify it ? If unable to obtain toleration 
 by peaceful means, they ought, to use their own scriptural expression, to 
 have girded up their loins, and tabernacled with their brethren of some 
 freer region. In no state can harmony long subsist where the will of the 
 minority is allowed to disturb that of the greater number. 
 I 
 
114 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1442. 
 
 naturally espoused its interests, and prevailed on a con- 
 siderable party to oppose his coronation. In the end she 
 sued for peace., acknowledged him as king, and affi- 
 anced to him her eldest daughter, with a valuable por- 
 tion. 
 
 Monarch of two powerful states, Uladislas now turned 
 his undivided attention to the long-meditated war with 
 the Turks. The sultan Amurath II. was pressing the 
 siege of Belgrade ; he offered to raise it, on condition that 
 Hungary would become tributary ; or, if. surrendered 
 into his hands, he would in future abstain from disturb- 
 ing the kingdom. The insulting alternative was indig- 
 nantly rejected by Uladislas, who, at the head of a 
 combined army of Hungarians and Poles, crossed the 
 Danube, and advanced into Bulgaria. Success attended 
 his arms : Sophia, the capital, he took and destroyed ; 
 his general, Huniades, whom he had made voivode of 
 Transylvania, killed 30,000 in a nocturnal sally of the 
 Moslems. In the mountains of northern Macedonia 
 he defeated the army of the pacha of Natolia, and took 
 that general prisoner. All Europe resounded with his 
 praises ; and the states which had hitherto taken little 
 interest in the war, showed a disposition to aid him. 
 Amurath was alarmed ; he offered as the price of peace 
 to restore Servia, and all conquests, except Bulgaria, 
 which had been subdued by his predecessor Bajazet. 
 The proposal was too advantageous to be declined ; a 
 ten years' suspension of hostilities was agreed upon, and 
 ratified by solemn oaths, by the Christians on the gos- 
 pel, by the Turks on the koran. 
 
 Glorious as was the peace, it was disapproved by the 
 pope, and by several Christian princes, who at this time 
 appeared to have adopted the preposterous notion that 
 the Turks might be expelled from Europe. How 
 powers proverbial for their disunion, and a thousand 
 times more jealous of each other than fearful of the 
 Moslems, could hope to subvert a compact united em- 
 pire, and one, too, then the most military under heaven, 
 is difficult to conceive. Perhaps it was believed that 
 
ULADISLAS VI. 
 
 1 15 
 
 Europe would, at length, lay aside its dissensions, and 
 join in one general crusade against the misbelievers. 
 Charles VII. of France, Philip of Burgundy, the re- 
 publics of Venice and Genoa, Scanderbeg of Epirus, 
 and the emperor of Constantinople, loudly expressed 
 their determination to join heart and hand in it. Car- 
 dinal Cesarini undertook to incline Uladislas to renew 
 the war. That monarch had the weakness to believe 
 that he could be righteously absolved from the oaths he 
 had taken : besides, his own ardour responded to the 
 spirit which was said to shake Europe to its extremities. 
 Again he passed the Danube this time atOrsova, and 
 descended into the plains of Bulgaria. 
 
 No sooner was the sultan acquainted with the per- 
 fidy of the Christians, than he returned with a mighty 
 force to the theatre of war. He found Uladislas at the 
 head of about 1 5,000 horse and the same number of in- 
 fantry, drawn up to receive him in the vicinity of Varna. 
 Huniades led the attack, and charged with such fury 
 that the Moslems gave way. At this critical moment, 
 Amurath is said to have drawn from his bosom the 
 treaty he had recently concluded, and to have exclaimed, 
 while looking up to heaven, " Christ, if thou art the 
 true God, avenge thyself and me of the perfidy of thy 
 disciples ! " * He then rallied his followers, and attacked 
 with confidence the right wing of the Christians, which 
 fell back. Uladislas now advanced with the reserve to 
 support his heroic general. His ardour led him to push 
 one division of the Turks to their very camp : in vain 
 did Huniades caution him to beware lest they should 
 suddenly extend their line, and envelope him. He pe- 
 netrated to the janizaries, who formed the body-guard of 
 
 * This invocation of Christ by Amurath seems apocryphal. It is very 
 differently related by Cantemir and Leunclavius (of whom both follow, 
 or rather transcribe, Turkish authorities), and still more so by subsequent 
 Christian writers. Some will have it that the sultan produced the host on 
 the field, not the treaty. Cantemir (i. 28*.) says, " There is a tradition 
 that Amurath did so and so." Sarnicki, Bonfinius, and Peter de Rewaalso 
 allude to it, professedly following the Turkish annals. They have no other 
 annals of that people than what is contained in the two authors already 
 mentioned. Bonfinius, however, imputes the loss of the battle to the im- 
 precations of the Turks : " Tales igitur poenas, exauditis Turcae impre- 
 cationibus, Deus Justus & Christianas exegit." P, 334. 
 
 i 2 
 
116 HISTORY OF POLAND, 1444. 
 
 the sultan ; but here his triumphs ceased : he was in- 
 stantly surrounded by overwhelming numbers, and fu- 
 riously assailed. The conviction of his danger only 
 served to heighten his courage. His horse fell under 
 him : he maintained the combat on foot, and slew Karam 
 Beg, one of Amurath's lieutenants, who advanced to take 
 him. He astonished the Turks by his fearless intre- 
 pidity; but the contest was too unequal to continue long : 
 the valiant band which accompanied the king was de- 
 stroyed, and he himself fell among a heap of slain, most 
 of whom his own hand had laid low. With great 
 difficulty Huniades saved the wreck of the army. 
 
 Thus fell Uladislas VI. ere he had reached his twen- 
 tieth year. His great capacity of mind, his magnani- 
 mity, his virtues, rendered him the most promising prince 
 of his age. His fate was not immediately known : 
 Huniades could give no information respecting it ; both 
 Hungarians and Poles were loth to believe that their 
 beloved monarch was no more. It was not until many 
 months had elapsed that either abandoned the hope of 
 his return. Their grief and that of Christendom was 
 his noblest monument. The powers which had driven 
 him to the renewal of hostilities by their promise to sup- 
 port him, and which were selfish or cowardly enough to 
 abandon him when exposed to the vengeance of the 
 mighty Amurath, will not be forgotten by posterity.* 
 
 bert CJrantz, vanaai, zis z//. songnac, iv. i 21. ^leimsKi, \.sttl MO. 
 Dlugoss says that the catastrophe of the king was owing to the desertion 
 of Huniades and the Hungarians : this shows how little a contemporary 
 (the author was born in 1415) may know of what does not pass immediately 
 under his own eye. Sarnicki justly describes the sensation produced over 
 Europe by this event : ** Mirum est quanta fama et celebritas sit istius 
 pugna?, ut fere nullus sit historicus, nullus poeta, nullus jurisconsultus, 
 nullus denique theologus, qui hujus nobilissimi regis vicem querulis vocibus 
 non deploret et lugeat." (In fin. reg. Uladis.) 
 
1453. CASIMIR iv. 117 
 
 CASIMIR IV. 
 
 14451492. 
 
 WHEN the Poles were constrained to believe that Ula- 
 dislas was no more, they met to elect another king. 
 Their suffrages fell on his brother Casimir, grand duke 
 of Lithuania, not because that prince had very great 
 qualities to recommend him, but solely because, during 
 the absence of the deceased monarch, he had contrived 
 to separate Lithuania from Poland, countries which 
 they were naturally anxious to re-unite. For some time 
 he refused to accept the vacant dignity ; he thought it 
 better to exercise a despotic sway in his grand duchy* 
 than to fill a throne subject to the all-powerful control 
 of the nobles. They were preparing to elect another 
 candidate, when he signified his intention to reign. 
 
 This prince, however, long refused to accept the con- 
 ditions imposed on his predecessors : instead of swearing 
 to the pacta conventa, and to the indissolubility of the 
 union between the kingdom and the grand duchy, he 
 precipitately fled into Lithuania to escape the persecu- 
 tions of his new subjects ; and when compelled to be 
 present at the Polish diets, he adhered to his purpose 
 with an obstinacy which occasioned them equal indigna- 
 tion and surprise. In vain did they reproach him, in 
 vain stigmatise him as a tyrant and a traitor; he bore their 
 vociferations, their howls of execration, with provoking 
 coolness. A confederation of the chief nobility at length 
 met, and resolved in his very presence to depose him, if 
 
 * " Tel etait sur eux " (the Lithuanians) " 1'empire de leur grand due, 
 qu'un historien presque contemporain raconte, que condamns par lui a 
 mourir, ils dressoient eux-memes la potence, et, de peur de deplaire par ties 
 retards, consommaient leur supplice en tout hate: sujets si dociles qu'ils 
 craignaient la disgrace jusque sur Pechafaud." Salvandy, Histoire du 
 Fologne, &c. i. 95. This, like most other things in this conceited writer, 
 is a gross exaggeration ; but even exaggeration proves the despotism. Most 
 of the Lithuanians at this day have no great desire for liberal institutions. 
 The tranquillity they enjoy under the Russian sceptre, they consider (and 
 justly) as superior to the stormy liberty they once possessed. 
 
 i 3 
 
i!8 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1453. 
 
 he persisted in his obstinacy. This menace had the 
 desired effect. From this moment Poland was in truth 
 a republic, a name which she already began to as- 
 sume; and her kings were but the lieutenants of the 
 diet. 
 
 The sway of the Teutonic knights had always been 
 tyrannical ; it had long been intolerable. The Prussians 
 resolved o cast it off. In a simultaneous rising they 
 seized on afl the fortresses of the order, except Marien- 
 burg, the residence of the grand master. Deputies 
 arrived in Poland to propose the incorporation of Prussia 
 with the republic, and to stipulate in return for a com- 
 munity of privileges. Their proposal was eagerly 
 accepted, their homage received, and ambassadors sent to 
 exact the usual oaths from the nobles of the country. 
 Casimir himself soon followed. He was received as a 
 deliverer : he conferred privileges on the chief towns with 
 great facility, and thereby secured their attachment. In 
 the mean time the knights were not idle. With the 
 money raised on their few remaining possessions, they 
 raised troops in Bohemia and Silesia, and advanced 
 against Casimir. The Poles were signally defeated: 
 they levied new forces. But money did more than their 
 arms: for a sum amounting nearly to half a million of 
 florins, they obtained possession of Marienburg from the 
 mercenaries of the order, which was unable to pay its 
 soldiers. The knights had no longer a foot of ground 
 in all Prussia; being conducted to the frontiers, they 
 were told to depart in peace. They speedily spread 
 throughout Germany, the courts of which looked with 
 no favourable eye on this sudden aggrandisement of 
 Poland. Means were furnished them for asserting their 
 claims to the country whence they had been expelled. 
 A desolating war followed, in which the successes of the 
 two contending parties were nearly balanced : smoking 
 ruins, and fields laid waste, alone remained. At length 
 both parties, from their mutual losses, sighed for peace. 
 It was made on conditions sufficiently advantageous to 
 the republic. Western Prussia, comprising Pomerania, 
 
1479- CAST JIIR iv. 119 
 
 Culm, Malborg, with the important cities of Dantzic, 
 Marienburg, Elbing, Thorn,, &c. which had been dis- 
 membered, were restored to Poland ; Eastern Prussia, or 
 Prussia Proper, the cradle of that fierce race, was left to 
 the knights who were to hold it as a fief of the crown, 
 and every future grand master to do homage for it to the 
 king and senate. These advantages, however, had been 
 dearly purchased : in this war 300,000 men had fallen, 
 17^000 villages and hamlets were burnt*, and immense 
 sums expended. 
 
 From his accession, Casimir had exhibited gross par- 
 tiality for the Lithuanians, to the prejudice of his Polish 
 subjects. Yet as a Pole had the boldness to reproach him 
 in full senate, they had deserved little favour at his hands; 
 they had betrayed his predecessors and himself; they 
 had recently formed the design not only of dismembering 
 Podolia from the republic, but of choosing another ruler: 
 it was by money, by entreaties, by promises lavished on 
 the chiefs of the revolt, that he had succeeded for a time 
 in tranquillising them ; but though their purpose slum- 
 bered, it was sure to be renewed whenever Poland was 
 engaged in a war more than usually serious. At their 
 instigation the Tatars invaded Polish Russia ; but the 
 misunderstanding between the two people was suspended 
 by the appearance of an enemy whose arms threatened 
 the subjugation of both. 
 
 Under Ivan Vasilevitch the Muscovites freed them- 
 selves from the yoke of the Tatars. Without any other 
 assistance than his own courage and genius, this extra- 
 ordinary man not only secured the independence of his 
 country, but amplified it by important conquests : his 
 subjects he was the first to discipline, and prepare for 
 that career of ambition which his successors have ever 
 since pursued. He took Novogorod the Great, which 
 Witold had joined to Lithuania, and which paid an an- 
 nual revenue of 100,000 roubles; Siewiertz, and a por- 
 tion of White Russia, were next subjugated. Casimir 
 
 * So say the historians ; but few readers will believe a statement so extra, 
 vagantly exaggerated. 
 
 I 4 
 
120 HISTOHY OF POLAND. 14/79' 
 
 hastened to stop his progress by suing for a peace, as the 
 condition of which he was allowed to retain his conquests. 
 Lithuania soon learned, by dear-bought experience, that 
 she was unable alone to resist her formidable neighbours, 
 and that a union with the republic was the only means 
 left by which her subjugation could be averted. She 
 found that the Tatars, whom she had so criminally drawn 
 into the country, were not easily to be dismissed. These 
 barbarians laid waste several flourishing provinces, and 
 committed the most horrible depredations. The Poles 
 under John Albert, son of Casimir, advanced to the re- 
 lief of the Lithuanians: two decisive victories won by 
 that prince, freed the grand duchy from the fierce in- 
 vaders. 
 
 On the death of Ladislas, king of Bohemia and Hun- 
 gary (the posthumous son of Albert), both kingdoms 
 were thrown into confusion ; both had to choose a ruler 
 in critical times. Casimir, as the husband of one of the 
 daughters left by Albert, was the legitimate heir of both 
 crowns. In the interim the government of Bohemia was 
 seized by Podiebraski, who, though he professed to hold 
 the reins only until a king should be crowned, evidently 
 aspired to render it hereditary in his family ; and who, 
 as a Hussite, was sure of the support of a numerous party. 
 The catholic party, the Silesians, the pope, pressed Ca- 
 simir to ascend the throne ; but he was then engaged in 
 the war with the knights, and he was too conscious of 
 his inability to struggle with a second enemy, to bring 
 on his hands Podiebraski and the Hussites. The Bo- 
 hemian catholics, however, on the excommunication of 
 that aspiring ruler, elected him (Casimir), or, if he de- 
 clined the dignity, one of his sons, as their king. Still 
 he refused to engage in another war. Matthias, son of 
 the famous Hunrades, whom the Hungarians had raised 
 to their throne, now contended for that of Bohemia. 
 Resolved to disarm one at least of his enemies, Podie- 
 braski, on whom the papal thunders fell harmless, de- 
 clared Uladislas, the eldest son of Casimir, his successor 
 to the crown. Thus both Hussite and catholic acknow- 
 
CASIMIR IV. 121 
 
 ledged the rights of the Polish royal family,, the former, 
 it must be observed with regret, and with the intention 
 of one day disputing them. He was,, in fact, preparing 
 to exclude Uladislas from the accession in favour of Mat- 
 thias, whom this measure had disarmed, when death put 
 a period to his stormy and unprincipled career. Uladislas 
 was crowned at Prague, notwithstanding the opposition 
 of the Hungarian king. 
 
 Irritated at the heavy contributions they had been 
 compelled to raise, and at the progress of the Turkish 
 arms on their frontiers, the Hungarian nobles combined 
 to dethrone Matthias, and to put in his place Casimir, 
 second son of the Polish king. Twenty thousand Poles 
 proceeded to Hungary with the young prince; they were 
 expelled by Matthias, to whom a strong party still adhered. 
 On the death of that king the Hungarians elected not 
 Casimir *, but John Albert, the third son of the Polish 
 monarch, whose victories over the Tatars had given lustre 
 to his name. Uladislas aspired to the same throne, and 
 was proclaimed, through the intrigues of the widow of 
 Matthias. A war followed between the two brothers, in 
 which John Albert was taken prisoner, and was not set 
 at liberty until he had renounced all claims to the Hun- 
 garian crown. The aged Casimir strongly reprobated 
 the ambition of Uladislas, whom one kingdom could not 
 satisfy, and whom he disinherited at his death. 
 
 Under this monarch aristocracy made rapid progress 
 in Poland. When, on the conclusion of the war with 
 the knights, he assembled a diet to devise means for 
 paying the troops their arrears, it was resolved to resist 
 the demand in a way which should compel him to relin- 
 quish it. Hitherto the diets had consisted of isolated 
 nobles, whom the king's summons, or their own will, had 
 assembled : as their votes were irresponsible, and given 
 generally from motives of personal interest or pre- 
 judice, the advantage to the order at large had been 
 purely accidental. Now, that order resolved to exercise 
 
 * This prince was more ambitious of a celestial than of an earthly crown. 
 He died in 1482, and was canonised by pope Paul V. 
 
122 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1492. 
 
 a new and irresistible influence over the executive. As 
 every noble could not attend the diet, yet as every one 
 wished to have a voice in its deliberations, deputies were 
 elected to bear the representations of those who could not 
 attend. Each of these deputies was strictly bound down 
 by the instructions he received from his constituents; he 
 had no longer the power to preserve his own interests 
 separate from those of his order ; he had, in fact, no will 
 of his own, except in so far as it coincided with the will 
 of those who sent him : he was their servant, though 
 their equal. Each palatinate sent two deputies ; so also 
 did each district.* 
 
 The success of this first representative diet astonished 
 all Poland ; it was the first in which the members did 
 not openly quarrel. It was resolved that all future ones 
 should be representative also. Thus, what accident alone 
 occasioned, was perpetuated from its convenience, and 
 its admirable adaptation to the purpose for which it was 
 intended the diminution of the royal prerogative. It 
 soon became too powerful for the crown, which it tram- 
 pled under foot; and for the senate of prelates and barons, 
 whose measures it controlled. What in England was 
 the foundation of rational freedom, was in Poland sub- 
 versive of all order, all good government : in the former 
 country, representation was devised as a check to feudal 
 aristocracy, which shackled both king and nation; in the 
 latter, it was devised by the aristocracy themselves, both 
 to destroy the already too limited prerogatives of the 
 crown, and to rivet the chain of slavery on a whole na- 
 tion. This very diet annulled the humane decree of 
 Casimir the Great, which permitted a peasant to leave 
 his master for ill usage, and enacted that in all cases such 
 peasant might be demanded by his lord; nay, that who- 
 ever harboured the fugitive, should be visited with a heavy 
 fine. This, and the assumption of judicial authority 
 over his serfs, for peasants they can no longer be called, 
 
 * See the last chapter of the present work, in which the number of pala- 
 tinates, of senators, and deputies will be found. 
 
1492. CASIMIR iv. 123 
 
 was a restoration of the worst evils of feudality. But 
 the most ruinous effects of the new system were the fac- 
 tions which soon began to reign in these assemblies, the 
 depression of the executive authority, and the indecision 
 which accompanied the public acts. The deputies, as a 
 celebrated historian well observes*, considered them- 
 selves, in their representative character, the highest 
 order in the republic. Merely to show their independ- 
 ence, they frustrated the designs of the king, or op- 
 posed the advice of the senate with perfect impunity ; 
 in fact, they annihilated all power other than their own. 
 Instead of adjusting the balance of the state; instead of 
 repressing on the one hand the encroachments of royalty, 
 and on the other those of popular license, they looked 
 only to the interests, or prejudices, or passions of their 
 order. Reason and moderation, nay, the very appearance 
 of deliberation, were banished from their assemblies ; 
 clamour alone, or noisy presumption, could obtain a hear- 
 ing. Thus it has been, and thus it ever will be, where- 
 ever the popular voice has an undue preponderance, 
 wherever that voice is not awed by superior au- 
 thority, t 
 
 The feeble though obstinate Casimir IV. was regretted 
 by nobody. Whatever good appeared under his reign, 
 says a national writer, must be referred to the favour of 
 Heaven; whatever bad, to the weakness of his adminis- 
 tration. Idle, indifferent to the welfare of his Polish 
 subjects, and blindly partial to the Lithuanians ; with- 
 out knowledge of men or business ; without economy or 
 method either in public or private life, he seems to have 
 been the passive creature of impulse, and to have re- 
 signed himself to the stream of circumstances, where- 
 ever no prejudice interfered. He was too weak to have 
 a character. 
 
 * Rulhiere, Anarchic de Pologne. 
 
 t The system of deputies, in its commencement, was not adopted by all 
 the palatinates ; some openly resisted it, and adhered to their ancient pri- 
 vileges of appearing at the diet en masse. 
 
 t Dlugoss, lib. xiii. 1^92. Cromer, xxii. 502657. Sarnicki, vii. cap. 7. 
 Neugebaver, 319428. Kojalowitz, Historia Lituaniae, 194256. ot>- 
 
124< HISTORY OF POLAND. 1492. 
 
 The throne of Casimir was successively filled by three 
 of his sons. 
 
 JOHN I. (ALBERT.) 
 
 14921506. 
 
 ON the death of Casimir, efforts were made to raise to 
 the throne Sigismund, the youngest son of that prince ; 
 but the deputies, who remembered the exploits of John 
 Albert, being sustained by a body of cavalry furnished 
 by the queen, secured the triumph of their favourite. 
 This choice was in conformity with the last wishes of 
 Casimir ; and so was the election of another son, Alex- 
 ander, to the grand ducal throne of Lithuania. Neither 
 people, however, had yet learned to lay aside their na- 
 tional jealousies, and unite their suffrages in favour of a 
 common ruler. 
 
 The first expedition of this monarch proved that his 
 merit by no means corresponded with his reputation. At 
 the head of a considerable force of Poles, of Lithua- 
 nians, and of Teutonic auxiliaries, he penetrated into 
 
 lignac, iv. 122238. Zielinski, i. 330358. Bonfinius, Rerum Hungar. 
 decad. iii. lib. 7, 8. 
 
 The history of Dlugoss ends in 1480; a work in which this excellent 
 old man was occupied near twenty-five years. It contains many super- 
 stitions, many legends, many things utterly improbable ; but these must be 
 placed to the age, much more than to the man : in him the true is easily dis- 
 tinguished from the fabulous. As a record of Polish history from the earliest 
 times down to 14SO, it is beyond all comparison the best work of the kind : 
 preceding writers are too meagre to afford much information ; subsequent 
 ones, such as Cromer, Sarnicki, Neugebaver, &c. have done no more than 
 abridge him. At the close of his labours, he is exuberant in his gratitude 
 that his life had been spared to complete them. " Immensas autem gratias 
 ago, infinitasque et immortales, sanctae et immortali Trinitati, Patri et Filio 
 et Spiritui Sancto, et Dei genetrici, excellentissimae Virgini Maria?, sanctaa 
 theotocos, et omnibus angelis, patriarchis, prophetis, apostolis, martyribus, 
 confessoribus, virginibus, omnibusque calestium virtutum ordinibus, prae- 
 sertim tarn beatis Michaeli archangelo, utrique Joanni patriarchae et apo- 
 stolo, beato Stanislao, Venceslao, Adalberto, Floriano, Hedvigi, palronis 
 regni Poloniaa gloriosis, et beato Vincentio martyri famoso, et beatis virgi- 
 nibus et electis Annas, Mariae Magdalenae, Dorothea, Margaretha*, Barbara?, 
 et beatis confessoribus Hieronymo, Augustino, Ambrosio, Gregorio, Basilio, 
 Benedicto, et omnibus sanctis quorum suffragiis et auxiliis et intercessione 
 credo me librum praesentem scripsisse et dictasse." He exhorts the clergy, 
 doctors, masters, scribes, &c. to continue his work after him. Dlugoss 
 was canon of Cracow, and preceptor to the sons of Casimir : he constantly 
 refused church dignities. He died the very year in which he finished his 
 labours. 
 
1500. JOHN I. 125 
 
 Wallachia, without intimating whether his hostilities 
 were to be directed against the voivode of that province, 
 or the Turks, or both. He had soon reason to repent of 
 his temerity : the Wallachians, unable to oppose him 
 openly, hid themselves in their forests, but emerged 
 from time to time to harass his detachments: provisions, 
 too, failed ; the invaders were discouraged ; and an ar- 
 mistice was obtained, by favour of which they turned 
 their way homewards. But the sequel of this inglorious 
 expedition is still more disastrous. As they were re- 
 turning through a thick forest, and a country full of 
 defiles, where they could not draw out their forces in 
 line, they were suddenly assailed by the perfidious voi- 
 vode : trees, which had been previously sawn asunder, 
 yet so contrived as to remain in an upright position, were 
 made to fall on them, and crush their crowded and encum- 
 bered masses : the scene was horrid ; all were eager to 
 escape destruction ; the king was with difficulty extricated 
 by some of his devoted followers ; great numbers were 
 made prisoners, and relentlessly massacred. Probably all 
 would have been cut off, but for the eagerness of the enemy 
 to pillage, and their inability, from lassitude, to join in 
 a vigorous pursuit. The fugitive remnant of a once 
 mighty host was cordially welcomed on its return. The 
 king seemed to become more dear to the nation from his 
 very disasters. 
 
 But John Albert could be loved only so long as his 
 character was unknown. Entirely governed by a fa- 
 vourite, who was also odious as a foreigner, he had not 
 the wish any more than the ability to repair the evils he 
 had occasioned. Others, of a nature still more to be 
 dreaded, menaced the murmuring kingdom. Aided by 
 the Turks and Tatars, the voivode of Wallachia pene- 
 trated into Podolia and Polish Russia, the flourishing 
 towns of which he laid in ashes, and returned with im- 
 mense booty, and 100,000 captives. A second irrup- 
 tion of these barbarians would have been as fatal and as 
 Jittle resisted, had not a season unusually rigorous (it 
 
126 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1500. 
 
 was December) saved Poland and Lithuania. Forty 
 thousand of the invaders perished, alike from the inten- 
 sity of the cold and the want of provisions. Many were 
 found dead in the bellies of their horses, which they had 
 ripped open in the expectation of finding warmth within. 
 The voivode and sultan, in consternation at so terrific a 
 misfortune, were glad to sue for peace. 
 
 But the kingdom was no sooner rid of one enemy 
 than it was assailed by another. The formidable Ivan, 
 under the pretext that his son-in-law Alexander had 
 not, according to contract, erected a chapel, and procured 
 a Greek priest for his daughter Helen, fell on Lithuania. 
 At the same time a khan of the Tatars, in concert with 
 the Muscovites, ravaged Beltz and Lublin. Both tri- 
 umphed; for no serious opposition was made to either, 
 except in Lithuania, where a handful of the natives 
 were exterminated by the Muscovites. During these 
 incursions, John Albert tranquilly remained in his ca- 
 pital, which he fortified. 
 
 Hitherto the king had exhibited weakness only ; he 
 now showed that he could be perfidious. He had pre- 
 vailed on a Bulgarian khan beyond the Volga to advance 
 with a host of Tatars, and assist him in making head 
 against the Muscovites and the other khan. The treaty 
 between them, which was offensive and defensive, had 
 been cemented by the most solemn oaths on the part of 
 the Poles, who engaged to meet Shah Achmet on the 
 confines of the Ukraine. In pursuance of his treaty the 
 shah advanced, but received no aid from the Polish king, 
 who, though he had made peace with Ivan, was com- 
 pelled by honour, justice, and truth, not to abandon his 
 ally. Through the Machiavellian counsel of his Italian 
 favourite, John Albert left that ally to his fate ; consi- 
 dering that the weakening of the Tatars by the hands of 
 each other could not but be advantageous to the republic. 
 Achmet was soon assailed by the rival chief: in one 
 battle he was victorious ; in a second he was completely 
 routed^ and obliged to flee for safety into the states of his 
 
1501. ALEXANDER. 12? 
 
 allies. The melancholy result of this detestable policy 
 will appear in the next reign. 
 
 This feeble, despicable prince died just as his kinsman 
 Frederic, grand master of the knights, refused to do him 
 homage. Nobody regretted him : he was one of the 
 most deplorable of human beings. Under his reign not 
 only was the national independence in great peril, but 
 internal freedom, the freedom of the agricultural class, 
 was annihilated. At the diet of Petrikau (held in 1 496), 
 the selfish aristocracy decreed that henceforth no citizen 
 or peasant should aspire to the ecclesiastical dignities, 
 which they reserved for themselves alone. The peasantry, 
 too, were prohibited from other tribunals than those of 
 their tyrannical masters : they were reduced to the most 
 deplorable slavery. The deputies at the same diet took 
 care to preserve the confirmation of their own exemption 
 from all direct contributions. But they not only put the 
 finishing hand to the degradation of the people : they 
 still further diminished the royal prerogative, by decree- 
 ing that in future no king should be allowed to declare 
 War without their permission.* 
 
 ALEXANDER. 
 
 15011506. 
 
 THIS prince was elected, like his father Casimir IV., 
 not because his talents were judged worthy of the honour^ 
 but in the fear of losing Lithuania, which he would pro- 
 bably have dismembered, had his claims as a candidate 
 been rejected. Before his coronation by his brother, the 
 cardinal Frederic, archbishop of Gnesna, it was agreed 
 that the two nations should henceforth be more closely 
 united; that Lithuania should no longer be governed by 
 separate dukes ; that its deputies should attend the diets 
 of election in Poland ; and that both the crown and the 
 
 * Cromer, 658674. Sarnicki, vii. cap. 8. Neugebaver, 429441. Koja- 
 lowitz, 259 '289. Solignac, iv. 239276. Zielinski, i. 358370. Karamsin, 
 Histoirc de Russie, torn. vii. 
 
128 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1501. 
 
 duchy should enjoy the same laws, privileges, interests, 
 and metallic currency. This was the only wise measure 
 adopted during three consecutive reigns. 
 
 Alexander was scarcely seated on his throne when the 
 unfortunate Achmet, after wandering through vast de- 
 serts, came to demand hospitality and protection from 
 his selfish allies. He soon found that his friends had 
 vanished with his empire. The palatin of Kiow seized 
 his person, and conducted him to Wilna, to await the 
 pleasure of the king. During three years he was con- 
 fined a prisoner. Alexander was then too much occupied 
 with his favourite Glinski, and in his negotiations with 
 Russia, to cast a look on misfortune. On the conclusion 
 of a treaty with that power, a diet was held at Radomski, 
 before which the sultan was required to appear. He was 
 met by the king, who received him with much appear- 
 ance of pomp, as if purposely to insult him in his ad- 
 versity. Before the senate the Tatar stood as firm and 
 majestic as if he still commanded 100,000 men. His 
 noble deportment, his dignified complaints, proved him 
 to be truly royal, and must have covered his base allies 
 with confusion, had virtue enough been left for such a 
 sentiment as shame. cc I have no wish/' said the sultan, 
 " to rail at the insults you have offered me ; by so doing 
 I should deserve them. My reverses, my captivity, your 
 own remorse, must convince you of your injustice. Was 
 it only to destroy me that you enticed me so far into 
 these inhospitable regions ? I trusted to your promises, 
 your oaths, your urgent necessities ; for you I have lost 
 my subjects, troops, glory, and nation: where is my 
 recompense ? Where is the people who would treat an 
 enemy as you treat an ally and a friend ! But he who 
 is false to his God can never be true to man ! " He 
 concluded by beseeching the senate to permit his return 
 home ; he offered to forgive the past. " If you repent 
 of your injustice, it is enough ; I am not disposed to 
 revenge ; benefits only impress my heart." It was feared, 
 however, that if he were permitted to return, he must 
 seek revenge : he was detained at Troki, and obliged to 
 
1506. ALEX^DER. 129 
 
 promise that he would not attempt to escape. Hopes 
 were held out to him that his detention would be only 
 temporary. But his personal enemy, the khan of the 
 Crimea, urged his perpetual imprisonment ; as the price 
 of which that prince offered peace, and threatened war 
 in the event of his enlargement. Seeing that no hope 
 of his freedom remained, Achmet had the weakness to 
 break his parole, by precipitately flying from Troki. To 
 this rash step he was urged by some of his countrymen 
 who arrived to demand his deliverance, and who appear 
 to have convinced him that he owed little fidelity to a 
 perjured nation. He was overtaken, brought back, and 
 guarded with greater caution than ever in the fortress of 
 Kowno, in Samogitia. He submitted to this new trial 
 with the same unbending constancy, and predicted that 
 iniquity would be its own punishment, that the Tatar 
 khan, for whose gratification this violence was committed, 
 would soon turn against them. 
 
 The result approved the foresight of Achmet. Po- 
 dolia, Polish Russia, and a portion of the Grand Duchy, 
 were ravaged by a flying army of Tatars, immediately 
 after the ratification of the treaty. Glinski, the favourite, 
 who had some talents for war, advanced with 7000 
 horse to meet the invaders. (Alexander had for some 
 time lain sick at Wilna, while on his passage to meet the 
 enemy.) They were defeated, their booty and prisoners 
 retaken; and hope again revisited the long desponding 
 hearts of the Poles. The victory was indeed a signal 
 one, considering the small numbers on both sides : that 
 of the enemy might amount to 20,000. 
 
 The king was in the agonies of death when this intel- 
 ligence reached him. He had no longer the use of his 
 speech ; but his eyes, his upraised hands, his quivering 
 lips, bespoke his satisfaction, and his gratitude to heaven 
 for this unexpected success. 
 
 Thus ended a reign more deplorable, if possible, than 
 that of John Albert. It is, however, remarkable for 
 some things that ought not to pass unnoticed. In a diet 
 held at Radom a few burgher deputies were admitted 
 
 K 
 
130 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1506, 
 
 with the nobles. In the same diet it was decreed that 
 nothing important should be undertaken without the 
 common consent (communi consensu) of the deputies ; 
 a concession made by the senate, or prelates and barons 
 of the realm. But one obvious thing was overlooked : 
 the decision of the deputies was not defined to depend 
 on the majority, but was received as implying unanimity 
 of suffrages. This fatal omission gave rise to the veto, 
 which involved in its exercise the ruin of the nation. 
 
 Alexander is known as something of a legislator. He 
 commanded a number of scattered ordinances to be col- 
 lected into one body, and rendered their observance 
 binding on ah 1 orders of the state.* 
 
 SIGISMUND I. 
 15061548. 
 
 THIS prince, who had been hitherto known as duke of 
 Glogau, and had been sent for by his dying brother, 
 arrived at Wilna a few hours after Alexander's death. 
 He was immediately acknowledged by the Lithuanians, 
 who thus already disregarded the contract made with the 
 Poles, that no ruler should be chosen without the con- 
 sent of both nations. The latter, however, ratified the 
 choice the more readily, as Sigismund was now the only 
 prince of the house of Jagello eligible to the throne. 
 Uladislas had crowns enough already ; and Frederic, as 
 an ecclesiastic, could not well be proposed. 
 
 Having resumed certain domains of the crown which 
 the blind profusion of his predecessors had alienated, and 
 ordered his judges to proceed to the trial of Glinski, the 
 favourite of Alexander, he proposed to chastise the pre- 
 sumption of the Muscovites. Glinski, however, does not 
 appear at this time to have deserved such rigour. Pros- 
 
 * Cromer, 674- 688. Sarnicki, vii. cap. 9. Neugebaver, 441 451. Ko- 
 jalowitz, 289315. Solignac, iv. 276310. Zielinski, i. 371380. Karamsin, 
 Histoire de Russie, torn. vii. 
 
1512. siGisaiuND i. 131 
 
 perity might have made him overhearing to his equals, 
 but we are not told that he had done any thing worthy 
 of condemnation : on the contrary, his victory over the 
 Tatars should have procured him the gratitude, though 
 it only increased the envy, of the Poles. Perceiving 
 that the nohles were thirsting for his destruction, he now 
 became really criminal: he opened a correspondence 
 with Vasil Ivanovitch, whose designs on Lithuania he 
 well knew, and offered to aid that Muscovite prince with 
 his counsel and arms. His traitorous proposals were 
 eagerly accepted. An army of Muscovites invaded the 
 palatinate of Micislaf : he joined them, and was im- 
 mediately invested with the chief command. The 
 Lithuanians advanced to meet him; the Muscovites 
 retreated, and sued for peace, but with the deliberate 
 purpose of renewing hostilities as soon as they had col- 
 lected a greater force. Accordingly, Vasil soon returned 
 with a formidable host ; he subjugated Livonia, which . 
 as the Polish armies were engaged in Transylvania, they 
 could not relieve. Two years afterwards, at the instance 
 of the emperor Maximilian, he penetrated into Lithuania. 
 GHnski, however, who conducted his army, and whom 
 remorse had long afflicted, exhibited little disposition to 
 forward his views. Smolensko was not so much taken by 
 force as persuaded to submit ; but Glinski intended to 
 restore it to Sigismund, whose pardon he had obtained, 
 and whose arms he had resolved to rejoin. 
 
 This double treachery proved fatal to its framer : it 
 hcd long been suspected; it was now discovered; and 
 Giinski was undone. As the Polish king was now able 
 to send a considerable force into these regions, success 
 abandoned the Muscovites. One of his generals routed 
 80,000 of them on the banks of the Borysthenes *; but, 
 as usual, the victory was stained by horrible cruelty. 
 No mercy was shown to the survivors ; the whole plain, 
 for the space of four miles, was strewn with dead. This 
 disaster was long felt by the Muscovites, yet the ad- 
 
 * The Russian historians, probably with great justice, much reduce tho 
 formidable numbers of their countrymen in their contests with the republic. 
 K 2 
 
132 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1512. 
 
 vantages of the war were theirs : the acquisition of 
 Smolensko, and a great portion of Livonia, was more 
 agreeable to Vasil than the honour of victory to Sigis- 
 mund. The Poles have seldom derived much advantage 
 from success in the field : if they have won many battles, 
 they have taken few cities ; and their conquests have 
 often been lost almost as soon as gained. 
 
 The Wallachians were no less humbled. Incensed at 
 being refused the hand of a Polish princess, Bogdan, 
 their chief, entered Podolia, and laid siege, first to Halitz, 
 and next to Leopol. Both places vigorously resisted. 
 At the approach of Sigismund, Bogdan retreated, and 
 wreaked his vengeance on the towns through which he 
 passed. He was pursued by the castellan of Cracow, 
 who vanquished him in a decisive action on the banks 
 of the Dniester or Borysthenes. Again were the Polish 
 arms sullied by vindictive fury. During more than 
 twenty years the Wallachians respected the valour of the 
 republic. Their renewal of hostilities was not less unfa- 
 vourable to their hopes. At Oberstein, in the province 
 of Pokucia, they were again signally defeated by the 
 palatine Tarnowski. Sigismund, it is said, meditated 
 the entire subjugation of Wallachia, which he proposed 
 to incorporate with his kingdom, and assembled a mighty 
 force at Leopol to effect his purpose ; but the dissen- 
 sions of his nobles and the intrigues of his queen occu- 
 pied him too closely to permit him to think of conquests. 
 
 A third and more implacable enemy was the military 
 order, which had already occasioned such disasters to 
 Poland. Unmindful of the conditions which his pre^ 
 decessor had subscribed with Casimir, the grand master, 
 Frederic of Saxony, had refused homage to the republic, 
 and even insisted on the restoration of Pomerania, and 
 the other conquests formerly made by the knights. Pre- 
 tensions so astounding show that he had resolved on war : 
 his audacity had been increased by the emperor Maxi- 
 milian, who promised to aid him in his efforts at in- 
 dependence. Neither his death, nor the secession of 
 Maximilian from the interests of the order, could damp 
 
1520. SIGISMUND I. 133 
 
 the ambition of his successor, Albert of Brandenburgh.* 
 For some years the Poles were too much occupied in their 
 wars with the Muscovites and Wallachians to punish his 
 rebellion. In the design of amplifying his possessions, 
 Albert carried his arms into Samogitia, which he would 
 have subdued but for the prompt resistance of the pala- 
 tine Radzivil. This check did not discourage him. He 
 had recourse to some princes of the empire,, who were 
 ever ready to sell the blood of their subjects to the high- 
 est bidder. With the troops thus acquired, he laid siege 
 to some Pomeranian fortresses. He was at length op- 
 posed by Firley, palatine of Sandomir, one of the ablest 
 generals of Sigismund. Not only did he lose the few 
 conquests he had made, but he had the mortification to 
 see the last possessions of his order in peril. In dismay 
 he now sued for peace : he waited on Sigismund, then 
 at Thorn, whom he had little difficulty in disarming : 
 his near connection with the royal family of Poland, and 
 the peaceable disposition of his uncle, will account for 
 his success. But his perfidy was at least equal to his 
 ambition. While arranging with the king the conditions 
 of a peace which he professed his earnest wish to be per- 
 petual, he heard that a considerable reinforcement of 
 Danes and Germans had arrived at Konigsberg. He 
 hastily broke off his negotiations, and requested per- 
 mission to return. At first the Poles, who well knew 
 his design of renewing the war, hesitated whether they 
 ought not to detain him as a prisoner ; but he had re- 
 ceived a safe-conduct, and Sigismund scorned to take 
 advantage of his situation at the expense of honour. 
 The gates of Thorn were opened, and hostilities recom- 
 menced. But though the German auxiliaries were headed 
 by the celebrated Schonenberg, and occasional success 
 shone on the banners of the knights, the result of the 
 war was unfavourable to them, and Albert was again 
 compelled to invoke the magnanimity of his uncle. A 
 
 * Albert was the son of Sophia, sister of Sigismund. He was only in his 
 twenty. fifth year when elected grand master of the order. 
 K 3 
 
134 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1520. 
 
 truce of four years was willingly granted., until the basis 
 of a lasting peace could be formed. 
 
 On the expiration of this period,, Europe was surprised 
 at the singular treaty made between Albert and Sigis- 
 mund. The Teutonic order was abolished ; the grand 
 master and most of the knights having embraced the 
 doctrines of Luther, and separated from the Romish 
 communion. In resigning his dignity, Albert was created 
 prince of Eastern Prussia, of the territories ceded to 
 the order by Casimir II., and the principality was 
 made hereditary in his family : it was to be held for 
 ever as a fief of the crown ; homage and military service 
 were to be performed for it ; every new prince was to 
 receive the investiture from the hands of the Polish mon- 
 arch, and to have a high place in the senate : it could 
 not be sold, alienated, encumbered, or dismembered, 
 without the consent of the diet : an appeal lay from the 
 decision of the prince to the tribunal of the kingdom ; 
 and, finally, in case the male posterity of Albert, or that 
 of his brothers, became extinct, the fief should revert to 
 the crown. By this important treaty, Albert, who had 
 already taken a wife, congratulated himself as the founder 
 of a new dynasty, and of a sovereignty which he fore- 
 saw his measures would not fail to amplify ; and Sigis- 
 mund, that he had dealt the death-blow to an order 
 which had long been the scourge of the country, and 
 which no valour could extirpate. Perhaps, too, he ex- 
 ulted in the aggrandisement of his family; he might 
 even hope that it would ultimately prove advantageous 
 to Poland, since, in case his own posterity should fail, 
 Prussia might furnish a successful candidate for the 
 crown, and be incorporated, as Masovia and other duchies 
 had been, with that country. If, as will be hereafter 
 seen, the consequences of such a concession have been 
 fatal to the republic, assuredly the blame is not his : he 
 may be forgiven for not foreseeing what no human pru- 
 dence could have predicted. 
 
 The other wars of Sigismund were few and unim- 
 portant. One of his generals aided the Hungarians 
 
1529- SIGISMUND i. 135 
 
 against the Turks; but the Christian army was signally 
 defeated. By pope Julius II. he was urged to march 
 against those formidable barbarians, and was offered the 
 chief command of the European forces. But the offer, 
 however brilliant, made little impression on one whose 
 uncle had perished through a misplaced confidence in 
 Christian co-operation, and who saw the two greatest 
 potentates in Europe (Charles V. and Francis I.) more 
 eager to destroy each other than to oppose the in- 
 fidel, nay, in strict league with that great enemy of 
 their faith. To war he appears to have entertained a 
 great aversion, though he never shunned it when it was 
 required by the interests of his people. This moderation 
 met with its reward. He had the consolation to see 
 among his subjects an abundance to which they Had 
 hitherto been strangers : private feuds, too, became less 
 frequent and vindictive. Many laws were made at his 
 suggestion ; but a more solid benefit to both Poles and 
 Lithuanians was his assimilating the codes of the two 
 people, and thereby promoting the great end of their 
 union. He had, however, many obstacles to encounter : 
 neither the patriotism of his views, nor the influence of 
 his character, could always restrain the restless tumults 
 of his nobles, who, proud of their privileges, and secure 
 of impunity, thwarted his wisest measures whenever ca- 
 price impelled them. The intrigues of hisjqueen (daugh- 
 ter of Sforza, duke of Milan, whom he had received at 
 the hands of the emperor Maximilian, one of the most 
 mercenary, ambitious, and unprincipled of women, even 
 in a country where such epithets may be universally ap- 
 plied to her sex,) embarrassed him still more, and fre- 
 quently brought his administration into disrepute. Then 
 the opposition of the high and petty nobility ; the eager- 
 ness of the former to distinguish themselves from the 
 rest of their order, by titles as well as riches ; the hos- 
 tility of both towards the citizens and burghers, whom 
 they wished to enslave as effectually as they had done 
 the peasantry ; and, lastly, the fierceness of contention 
 between the adherents of the reformed and of the old 
 K 4 
 
136 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1530. 
 
 religion, filled his court with factions, and his cities with 
 discontent. 
 
 The doctrines of Luther must have made considerable 
 progress in the Polish dominions,, before a powerful order 
 of monks would consent to strip themselves of their nu- 
 merous advantages, and descend from sovereignty to a 
 private station. From the number of proselytes made 
 by the disciples of Huss, proselytes, however, whom 
 fear of persecution caused outwardly to conform with 
 the established faith, these doctrines gained a speedy 
 triumph, especially in Pomerania and Prussia. To ex- 
 tirpate them, Sigismund had recourse to the very worst 
 of arguments, fire and sword. It must not, therefore, 
 be concluded that such measures were congenial to his 
 disposition; he was naturally much more inclined to 
 mildness; but the spirit of the age was one of persecution, 
 and he ought not to be blamed with undue severity for 
 not rising superior to it. His fulminating decrees were 
 lost on the Dantzickers, who, not satisfied with deriding 
 his bigotry, openly resisted his authority, and refused to 
 allow the very toleration which they claimed for them- 
 selves. They deposed their magistrates, created new 
 ones, profaned the churches, expelled the priests, pil- 
 laged the monastic establishments, and committed many 
 other excesses. For a time they were too formidable to 
 be opposed, especially as they were under the protection 
 of the grand master Albert ; but, on the conclusion of 
 his treaty with that aspiring prince, Sigismund resolved 
 to punish them, rather for their revolt than for their 
 opinions. He might yet be pardoned for confounding 
 the two, as he evidently did, and for concluding that obe- 
 dience and heresy were inconsistent, if not irreconcilable. 
 Fourteen of the principal ringleaders were beheaded, 
 the rest banished, and the ancient worship was restored. 
 Afterwards he had the good sense to relax from his 
 severity: though he refused to admit the protestants 
 into public offices, he connived at their toleration. 
 
 Sigismund lived to the age of eighty-two, the effect 
 of temperance, of exercise, and of bodily vigour. His 
 
15'18. SJGISMUND II. 137 
 
 strength was prodigious ; he could break in his hands 
 the hardest metals. Modest,, humble, humane, enlight- 
 ened, indefatigable, the father of his people, he had 
 strong claims on their affection and gratitude. But his 
 character will be best known from the success of his 
 administration. When he ascended the throne, he found 
 the eastern provinces of his kingdom little better than 
 deserts ; the Teutonic knights in open revolt ; strife and 
 poverty within. His victories taught his enemies to 
 respect his territories, which soon smiled with abund- 
 ance: industry brought comfort and content to his 
 people, who loved him in life, and revered his memory 
 after death. At no previous period of her history could 
 Poland boast of so much wealth, nor, consequently, of 
 so much general happiness ; never before did she number 
 so many able generals, or such valiant nobles. The 
 esteem of four successive pontiffs, of the greatest poten- 
 tates in Europe, not even excepting the grand signior, 
 who respected his character still more than his power, 
 rendered him a striking contrast to the despicable princes 
 his immediate predecessors.* 
 
 SIGISMUND II. (AUGUSTUS.) 
 15481572. 
 
 As a mark of respect to his father, and because he was 
 the last male heir of the house of Jagello, Sigismund 
 Augustus had been declared successor to the throne many 
 years before its vacancy. There was consequently no 
 interregnum, no election. 
 
 From the early dissipation into which the prince had 
 plunged, and his effeminate education under his Italian 
 
 * Cromer, 688 709. (The work of this author properly finishes with 
 Alexander, but his funeral oration of Sigismund maybe regarded as a con. 
 tinuation until 1548). Sarnicki, vii. cap. 10. Neugebaver, 452 570. Vita 
 Petri Kmithas (ad calcem Hist. Dlugossi, torn. ii. col. 16071632). Koia. 
 lowitz, 316408. Solignac, iv. 311 430. Zielinski, ii. 1. 31. 
 
138 HISTORY OF POLAND. 154>Q. 
 
 mother*, the nohles flattered themselves with the prospect 
 of a feeble reign. A clandestine marriage, into which 
 he had entered while at Wilna, with a young widow, a 
 Radzivil, was the first subject of contention between 
 him and them. At the diet of Petrikau, they deliberated 
 about annulling it, on the ground that it was a contract 
 made without their knowledge, or that of the late king, 
 and therefore illegal. They justly argued, that a monarch 
 should be compelled to sacrifice private affections to the 
 good of the state ; that the indulgence of a weak passion 
 was a poor compensation to the republic for the loss of a 
 powerful foreign alliance. They insisted that the union 
 should be dissolved, and another contracted more in 
 harmony with the interests and honour of the nation. 
 The result showed that in calculating on his presumed 
 easiness of temper they had wofully erred. He steadily 
 refused to hear their proposal : he observed, that a faith- 
 less husband must necessarily make a faithless king; 
 that his vows to his queen were indissoluble; and that 
 no power on earth should induce him to violate them. 
 In vain did they entreat, expostulate, menace ; he was 
 inflexible. In a transport of rage they threatened his 
 deposition, and would probably have proceeded to that 
 extremity, had he not suddenly exhibited a stroke of 
 policy that silenced the leading members of the senate 
 and diet. By proposing to restore the ancient laws 
 against pluralities either in the church or state; by 
 inveighing against the prelates and barons who usurped 
 a multitude of dignities and starosts, to the prejudice of 
 obscure merit, he gained over to his side most of his 
 hearers, all, in fact, except the few who were inter- 
 ested in the present unequal mode of distribution. 
 Praises of the king, and bitter curses against the plural- 
 ists resounded in the assembly. His object was com- 
 pletely secured : not only was all opposition hushed, but 
 the queen was crowned with acclamation. And well she 
 
 * " Mater enim hunc puerum habuit indulgenter, nee facile patiebatur 
 ilium a suo latere, etiam cum esset grandior, discedere." Stanisl, Orichov. 
 Annal. 1 5. Mothers are every where much the same. 
 
1552. SIGIS31UND II. 139 
 
 deserved the honour. Her piety, her charity, her in- 
 tercession for oppressed innocence, her unostentatious 
 virtues, soon rendered her the delight of the Poles ; and 
 her premature death was regarded as a national cala- 
 mity. 
 
 From this domestic affliction the king was roused, 
 not so much by the progress of the reformation, as by 
 the dissensions between its adherents and those of the 
 ancient faith. The disciples of the new doctrines had 
 amazingly increased. Not only the burghers and citizens, 
 but nobles, senators, nay, even priests and bishops*, were 
 among the number. Many of the latter had thrown off 
 the unnatural obligation of celibacy, had married, not 
 secretly, but in the face of the world, and were now 
 prepared to defend the justice of the change. The 
 prelates, also, who still continued within the pale of the 
 established church, were at a loss what measures to 
 devise in this emergency. For a time they had recourse 
 to severity. The bishop of Cujavia had condemned to 
 the flames a priest of his diocese for administering the 
 Lord's supper under both kinds. A lady of some distinc- 
 tion had suffered the same fate, by command of the 
 bishop of Cracow, (the Polish prelates, like the barons, 
 had judicial powers even in cases of life and death,) for 
 denying the real presence. Great numbers were visited 
 with the milder doom of banishment and loss of property. 
 Measures so opposed to humanity, and even to sound 
 policy, could not be long employed with impunity. In 
 another diet held at Petrikau, they were forcibly assailed 
 by several members, who spared not the prelates them- 
 selves. A powerful baron, Raphael Lesczynski, who 
 had resigned a palatinate to follow the bent of his 
 conscience (no dignity could yet be held by a Lutheran), 
 distinguished himself above the rest in his hostility to 
 the Roman catholic hierarchy.t This voluntary renun- 
 *c 
 
 to th 
 
 either open or secret protestants. 
 
 f He refused to kneel, or even to uncover, at the customary mass before 
 the opening of the diet : he regarded the ceremony with smiles of contempt, 
 
140 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1552. 
 
 elation of senatorial dignity and immense wealth, instead 
 of lessening, increased his influence. The speech which 
 he made in answer to the chancellor, who called on the 
 diet to invest the bishops with new powers to check the 
 growing heresy, displayed almost as much eloquence as 
 intrepidity. He inveighed against the rulers of the 
 church as men who had obtained their stations by birth, 
 faction, bribery, or favour by any thing rather than 
 their own merit : he represented them as luxurious in 
 their living, as scandalous in their morals, as overbearing 
 in their pretensions. l( Through their idleness, their 
 bad example, religion has suffered, its exercise has been 
 degraded, its purity has been sullied by childish super- 
 stitions. Hence their aversion to such believers as 
 ascend to the first ages of the church to acquire a know- 
 ledge of its doctrines and practice : hence these pro- 
 scriptions, these murders, this right of life and death, 
 which they assume over free citizens, whose only offence 
 is a refusal of their guidance lest the flock be lost with 
 the shepherd/' Language like this was admirably adapted 
 to its object : it roused not only the protestant members 
 of the diet, but the catholics, to whom the pomp of the 
 hierarchy had long been displeasing ; it was applauded 
 both by deputies and senators. Tarnowski, castellan of 
 Cracow, and a catholic, followed on the same side. He 
 defied the bishops to produce any law which authorised 
 them to assume the power of life and death over the 
 people. He did not, however, distinguish (because to 
 do so did not suit his purpose) between their ecclesias- 
 tical and temporal privileges : as bishops, they had no 
 such power ; as barons, they were as much enabled to 
 hold courts as any palatine or castellan in the realm. 
 Such authority was, doubtless, objectionable, since the 
 sword of justice should never be wielded by ministers of 
 peace. Hence he argued with greater truth and force 
 
 and preserved throughout a standing posture. Orichov. lib. v. p. 1538 (in 
 calc. Dlugoss, torn. ii.). The fervour of zeal is seldom united with discre- 
 tion. Would this man have submitted to the same irritable disrespect if 
 ehown in a conventicle ? Not often has dissent been distinguished for a tole. 
 rant spirit 
 
1552. SIGISMUND II. 141 
 
 in saying, that, if such power existed, it ought no longer 
 to be recognised, since it was at variance with that 
 equity which forbade the same party to be both accuser 
 and judge, and subversive of a freedom which king and 
 republic were bound equally to respect. In conclusion, 
 he disclaimed all intention of favouring heresy : (C Let 
 our prelates oppose it, but let them use no other arms 
 than such as become their characters good example, 
 reason, persuasion." An incident lent additional force 
 to what was now become the popular cause. 
 
 Orzechowski, canon of Przemysl, and probably in- 
 clined to the reformed religion, had publicly married.* 
 Sentence of degradation and of banishment had been 
 pronounced against him by his diocesan, a zealous stickler 
 for ecclesiastical discipline and the privileges of his order. 
 In the process, however, some customary formalities had 
 not been observed; the priest appealed to the senate 
 against the illegality, no less than the unreasonableness, 
 of the conviction ; he even appeared in person to expose 
 both. An animated and a noisy debate arose : the bishop 
 in question defended his jurisdiction : it was opposed, as 
 contrary to the laws of the state. Several prelates ad- 
 mitted that the punishment awarded exceeded the guilt 
 of the crime, and appeared to doubt their own com- 
 petency to decide in any case except where heresy was 
 concerned : even breaches of discipline serious enough 
 to require condign punishment, they seemed to think 
 within the exclusive province of the lay tribunals. But 
 in the present temper of the nation those tribunals would 
 have acquitted Orzechowski : the deputies were evidently 
 resolved to vote for it, and many of the senators were 
 similarly disposed. Rather than see their privileges 
 usurped by the lay members, the bishops at length re- 
 leased him from all canonical penance, and restored him 
 to his clerical functions. In return for such extraor- 
 dinary indulgence, they only required from him a confes- 
 sion of the orthodox faith, and a promise that he would 
 visit Rome to procure the confirmation of their absolu- 
 
 * Author of the six books of Annals referred to in the notes. 
 
142 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1552. 
 
 tion, or, in case it could not be had, to renounce the 
 engagement he had formed.* This was a cowardly, we 
 may add, a highly criminal subterfuge. Whether celibacy 
 was right or wrong, they had sworn to enforce it. 
 
 The conduct of Sigismund at this remarkable diet was 
 any thing but decisive. On one side, he feared the power 
 of the prelates; on another, he reprobated their vices, 
 and inclined towards toleration. Probably, in his heart 
 he was not much averse to the new doctrines. He openly 
 protected them in Lithuania; he permitted Calvin to 
 dedicate to him a commentary on St. Paul's epistle to 
 the Hebrews, and Luther an edition of the translation 
 of the bible. He had even sent the Franciscan Lisma- 
 nini into Switzerland to obtain more certain information 
 as to the tenets of the reformers f; tenets, which both 
 Melancthon and Calvin believed he was about to embrace. 
 But the majority of his people were still catholics, and 
 as such were liable to the influence of their priesthood : 
 then the arrival of a papal legate with powers to end the 
 distractions of the bishops, and with the design of watch- 
 ing the king's measures, added to the difficulties of his 
 situation. After long deliberation, bigotry, or rather 
 rashness, prevailed : the sectarians of the kingdom were 
 subjected to the episcopal tribunals. This event was 
 wholly unexpected : it was too bold not to surprise even 
 the prelates themselves, and it filled the converts with 
 more indignation than alarm. Its impolicy was soon 
 evident : though the fires of persecution began to burn 
 with great fury, they were speedily quenched, not by 
 the humanity of the ecclesiastical judges, but by the 
 amazing increase of proselytes, whose numbers inspired 
 the hierarchy with dread. To punish hundreds of thou- 
 sands was impossible. In despair, the prelates abandoned 
 the exercise of their odious jurisdiction, and silently per- 
 mitted what they had not power to prevent. 
 
 The report of Sigismund's barbarous policy soon 
 
 * We are told that he ultimately obtained a papal dispensation for keep- 
 ing his wife. The story is incredible. 
 
 t This worthy never returned to give an account of his mission. He 
 married and settled "in Geneva. 
 
1555. SIGISMUND II. 143 
 
 reached the inhabitants of Dantzic, who had heen among 
 the first converts to the reformed faith. To escape its 
 effects, or to be revenged on him who had framed it, 
 they were preparing to transfer their allegiance to an- 
 other master, when Sigismund suddenly arrived amongst 
 them : his presence only,, as he well knew, could recall 
 their fidelity. He was received with outward respect 
 indeed, but with great distrust. Lest his escort, which 
 was as numerous as it was well armed, should fall on 
 the people, burgher guards were placed in the streets at 
 every twenty paces, and sentinels were posted in the bel- 
 fries, to summon the whole population to arms at the 
 first signal. The situation of the king was critical, but 
 he knew how to extricate himself from it. His easy 
 manners, his candour, his apparent regard for the inha- 
 bitants, soon disarmed their hostility. He asked them 
 what advantage they could possibly hope to gain from 
 submission to the emperor ; whether in such a case they 
 could rationally expect privileges so ample as they 
 already possessed. He reminded them that they were 
 almost sovereigns in their own city, and assured them 
 that by himself and the Poles they were regarded with 
 brotherly affection. As to their change of religion, he 
 neither authorised nor approved it ; but he would not 
 imitate his father ; he would not attempt by force what 
 reason was unable to accomplish. His wise and digni- 
 fied and affectionate remonstrance had its effect. The 
 inhabitants were now eager to testify their attachment to 
 his person and fidelity to his government. No doubt 
 he really felt the moderation he professed ; for thence- 
 forth he ceased to interfere with the faith of his people, 
 whom he permitted to worship God in the way most 
 agreeable to themselves. Dissidents were allowed to 
 hold their synods openly : in one held at Kozmin, the 
 Hussites and Calvinists, who had previously weakened 
 themselves by their animosities, effected a union. Their 
 number and credit was so great that many were returned 
 as deputies to the national diet, and had the hardihood 
 to propose the abolition of clerical celibacy, the celebra- 
 
144 HISTORY OP POLAND. 1555. 
 
 tion of the Lord's supper under both kinds, that of the 
 mass in the vulgar tongue, and that first-fruits should 
 no longer be sent to Rome. Assuredly there was no- 
 thing unreasonable in any one of these demands ; but we 
 cannot avoid expressing our surprise that in so short a 
 time as had elapsed since the first preaching of the re- 
 formation, it should have gained so firm a footing in 
 one of the most bigoted countries in Europe. 
 
 From religious dissensions Sigismund was at length 
 summoned to others of a more formidable character. 
 William de Furstenburg, grand master of the knights 
 sword-bearers in Livonia*, made war on the archbishop 
 of Riga, whom he took and imprisoned. As this prelate 
 was brother to duke Albert of Prussia, and cousin to the 
 Polish king, the latter sent an ambassador to demand his 
 enlargement. The messenger was assassinated, probably, 
 as was believed, by the contrivance of the grand master. 
 The Poles cried for vengeance ; an army was raised, 
 with which the king marched into Livonia. The 
 knights of the sword were immediately dispersed ; Furst- 
 enburg was obliged to make a humiliating submission, 
 to liberate his captive, and to acknowledge his victor as 
 lord paramount of his dominions. Without the consent 
 
 * In 1158 the faith of Christ was carried into Livonia by some merchants 
 of Lubec. The first bishop, Meinhard, was consecrated, in 1170, by the 
 archbishop of Bremen. He was succeeded, in 119.3, by Berthold, abbot of 
 Lucca, in Saxony, who founded Riga. Many Germans who had taken the 
 cross for the Holy Land followed him into this pagan region, on being pro. 
 mised by Celestine III. the same indulgences as if they warred with the 
 Mussulmans. Berthold was slain in an engagement with his infidel flock. 
 His successor, Albert, raised an army, whose zeal was so great that it led 
 them to form an association on the plan of the Templars. They took nearly 
 the same vows, and engaged to subdue and convert the pagans. Their habit 
 was white, on which two swords were crossed in red ; hence their appella- 
 tion of Ensiferi, or sword-bearers. The order was approved in 1204 by 
 Innocent III. The first grand master was Vinno, who founded several 
 towns. In 1238 the knights united with the Teutonics. Thenceforth the 
 Livonian knights were governed by a provincial master deputed by the 
 chapter in Eastern Prussia. They soon acquired sovereign power in Livonia, 
 obliging even the archbishop of Riga to acknowledge it. That prelate and 
 his suffragans at length assumed the habit of the order. When Albert, 
 grand master of the Teutonics, commenced his war with the Poles, he 
 borrowed money of Walter de Plettenberg, provincial of Livonia, whom he 
 rendered free and independent, and whom Charles V. afterwards made a 
 prince of the empire. Under Plettenberg, Riga, Revel, Dorpat, and other 
 towns embraced the reformed religion. He was succeeded by Henry de 
 Galen, and the latter by Furstenberg. Dlugoss, iv. 318. Albert! Krantzii 
 Saxon., vii. cap. 13. Sarnicki, vi. cap. 18. 
 
1562. SIGISMUND II. 145 
 
 of Poland he could make neither peace nor war ; least 
 of all with Muscovy. 
 
 The union of so considerable a province with the 
 republic roused the envy of Ivan Vasilevitch, commonly 
 called Ivan the Terrible.* He poured 120,000 men 
 into Esthonia, which they ravaged: several towns of 
 Livonia were taken, the knights massacred or dispersed, 
 except a few who were led captives to Moscow. The 
 cruelties committed by these ferocious barbarians in this 
 expedition, not on their prisoners only, but on all that fell 
 in their way on women and children and helpless age 
 are frightful. Streets were deluged with blood ; women 
 every where violated before they were murdered ; their 
 children's brains dashed out before their eyes; every 
 thing combustible committed to the flames, and thou- 
 sands led away to hopeless slavery.t The unhappy 
 Livonians had no help from the Poles, who, with their 
 usual want of foresight, had disbanded immediately after 
 receiving the homage of the grand master. In vain 
 did Kettler, who had been just raised to that dignity, 
 wait on their king ai 'Cracow : Sigismund had the will 
 but not the power to aid them; the Poles were not 
 to be roused, perhaps they were not very eager to 
 encounter the vast forces of the tsar. The Lithuanians 
 were more easily persuaded. At a diet convoked at 
 Wilna, Kettler and the king appeared. In consideration 
 of several privileges bestowed on them by Sigismund, 
 the nobles decreed that Livonia should be relieved. A 
 treaty was made, in which the superiority of the king 
 was again recognised, or rather Livonia was declared a 
 portion of the republic; Courland and Semigallia being 
 ceded to the grand master, who engaged for himself and 
 successors to do homage for these possessions. It also 
 guaranteed the privileges of the people, their toleration 
 in matters of religion (they were mostly protestants), and 
 
 * For an account of the strange actions of this ruler the most extraor- 
 dinary man, perhaps, to be found in all history see Karamsin, Histoire 
 de Russie, torn. viii. 
 
 f So say the Polish historians, doubtless with great truth ; but why do 
 they not confess their own atrocities ? 
 L 
 
146 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1562. 
 
 their defence against all enemies. It was ultimately 
 approved in the castle of Riga, where Kettler solemnly 
 renounced his rights as grand master, surrendered the in- 
 signia of his order, and was immediately declared here- 
 ditary duke of Courland and Semigallia; as such he 
 received the oaths of the nobles of those countries. Thus 
 ended the order of the sword, which during three cen- 
 turies and a half had ruled over these remote regions. 
 Like Albert and the Teutonics, Kettler and most of his 
 knights had embraced the doctrines of Luther. 
 
 The result of this treaty was far from corresponding 
 with its solemnity. The Swedes, who had some pre- 
 tensions over Livonia, and who already possessed Revel 
 and one or two other fortresses, invaded the duchy. The 
 Muscovites followed the example, at the head of an 
 amazing force. A bloody war ensued, in which the 
 Poles acquired the honour but not the advantages of 
 victory. Though they defeated the Russians in three 
 successive actions, yet the latter subjugated and retained 
 the palatinate of Polotsk ; and Esthonia fell to Sweden. 
 
 Under this monarch, the union between Lithuania 
 and Poland was cemented more strongly than before. 
 From this time the two people were conjoined in every 
 treaty with foreign powers, in every war, and were con- 
 sidered as forming one indivisible republic, under a chief 
 elected by both in the general diet at Warsaw. The 
 Lithuanians had their two separate chambers, senators 
 and deputies, like the Poles, for their own internal'ad- 
 ministration. Before the time of this king, their privileges 
 were not so great as those enjoyed by their neighbours. 
 They had often and vainly complained, and had as often 
 been promised redress ; but Sigismund Augustus was the 
 first of their princes who fulfilled their just expectations. 
 By him the nobles of the grand duchy were placed on an 
 equal footing with those of the crown. 
 
 Sigismund Augustus died without issue : with him 
 was extinguished the male line of the Jagellos, who had 
 ruled the two nations with glory during one hundred 
 
1572. SIGISMUND ii. 147 
 
 and eighty-six years. * The refusal of the pope to annul 
 his marriage with his last wife, an archduchess of Aus- 
 tria, from whom he separated, prevented his intended 
 union with a younger princess, and cut off all hope of pos- 
 terity. His reformed subjects, in deed, were willing enough 
 to annul it, and by so doing to burst asunder the ties 
 which bound the realm to the see of Rome ; but he was 
 too timid or too prudent to adopt their advice. He con- 
 tented himself with showing greater favour than ever to 
 the protestants, to whom, in revenge for the pope's ob- 
 stinacy, he opened the way to the dignities of the state, 
 The same circumstance, doubtless, contributed to his 
 laxity with respect to women, the only vice (yet that 
 is great enough) with which history can charge hirr. 
 As a king, he ranks very high. He was possessed of no 
 great military talents ; but by his prudence, his pene- 
 tration, his activity, his enlightened views, his patriotism, 
 his love of justice, and his generosity, he procured ad- 
 vantages for his people which well compensated for their 
 absence. The happiness of his reign appears with 
 greater lustre when contrasted with those which fol- 
 lowed. With him ended the greatness of Poland. 
 Though succeeding monarchs often covered their brows 
 with laurels, the extinction of an hereditary line of 
 princes, the anarchy inseparable from an elective crown 3 
 and from the gradual diminution of its prerogatives, 
 and, above all, the increasing power of the tsars, sapped 
 the foundations not merely of its prosperity, but of its 
 security, and with fearful rapidity accelerated its ruin. 
 In about two centuries from this period, and Poland 
 will be no more, t 
 
 * " Les princes de Lithuanie avaient regne sur la r^publique cent 
 soixante-dix ans. Salvandy, i. 28. This writer is correct in nothing. 
 
 f Neugebaver, 570640. Kojalowitz, 410495. Orichov. Annal. lib. vi. 
 Vita Petri Kmitee (ad calc. Dlugoss, torn, ii.) Lubieniec, Historia Reforma- 
 tionis Polon., lib. i. et ii. Sarnicki, vii. cap. ii. Solignac, v. i, 165. ZieU 
 inski, ii. 31 56. Karamsin, Histoire de Russie, torn. ix. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1572. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE CROWN ELECTIVE. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 FROM THE EXTINCTION OF THE JAGELLOS TO THE DEATH 
 OF JOHN SOBIESKI. 
 
 INTERREGNUM. HENRY DE VALOIS. 
 15721574. 
 
 THE death of Sigismund Augustus gave the Polish no- 
 bles, what they had long wanted, the privilege of elect- 
 ing their monarchs, and of augmenting their already 
 enormous powers by every new pacta conventa. Those 
 of Great Poland, Little Poland, Polish Russia, and Li- 
 thuania, first assembled in their dietines, in which they 
 formed a confederation *, for the twofold purpose of pre- 
 serving internal tranquillity and of defending the republic 
 against the incursions of any neighbouring state. In the 
 preliminary diet, held always at Warsaw, called also 
 the diet of convocation) a dispute arose whether the 
 primate or the crown-marshal was to exercise some of 
 the most important functions of the interred. That 
 they had always rested with the archbishop of Gnesna, 
 was too notorious to be denied _; but the marshal, John 
 Firley, was a protestant, and his partisans were naturally 
 anxious to invest their champion with authority. It was 
 constitutionally decided that the power of convoking diets 
 and dietines, and of nominating the successful candidate, 
 rested with the prelate ; but the privilege of proclaiming 
 the new king should be left with the marshal. A day 
 was appointed for the diet of election ; the place was not 
 so easily settled. The Poles proposed Warsaw, the Li- 
 thuanians a village on the frontiers of Poland and the 
 
 * See the last chapter in this work. 
 
INTERREGNUM. 14.9 
 
 grand duchy, as still more central. It was at length 
 decided that the nobles should meet on the plains of 
 Praga, opposite to Warsaw, and on the eastern bank of 
 the Vistula. At first it was expected that the election 
 would be made by deputies only ; but on the motion 
 of a leading palatine, that as all nobles were equal in the 
 eye of the law, so all ought to concur in the choice of a 
 ruler, it was carried by acclamation that the assembly 
 should consist of the whole body of the equestrian order, 
 of all, at least, who were disposed to attend. This 
 was another fatal innovation : a diet of two or three 
 hundred members (exclusive of the senators) might 
 possibly be managed ; but what authority could control 
 one hundred thousand ? 
 
 In this preliminary diet the protestants were not 
 inattentive to their own concerns, which they were, 
 indeed, bound by duty to promote. What they wished 
 was ample toleration ; but as they were the weaker 
 party in point of numbers, and as some of the Polish 
 prelates, no less than the papal legate Commendoni, 
 were averse to their just claims, they were compelled 
 to act with great caution. Under the general name of 
 dissidents*, a name which comprised themselves, Soci- 
 nians, members of the Greek church, and even such Ro- 
 man catholics as were opposed to persecution, they 
 concluded an alliance with the heads of the latter, by 
 the terms of which the amplest toleration was secured to 
 all who differed from the established faith. The odious 
 zeal, however, of the legate and the primate procured 
 the dissolution of so salutary a covenant, and left open 
 a field for the display of religious rancour, no less than 
 of the other bad passions, which could not fail to agitate 
 the congregated mass. The Greeks, schismatics as they 
 are insolently termed by a predominant church, from 
 their numbers and weight, (they comprised a great 
 
 * In its original import this term included the Polish Christians of every 
 denomination : " Nosdissidentes in religione," or " We differing in religion," 
 was the language of their confederations. It was subsequently renounced 
 by the Roman catholics, and its signification restricted within the limits of 
 the text 
 
 L 3 
 
150 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 majority of the Lithuanians,, and nearly all the inhabit- 
 ants of Polish Russia,) were secure against persecution , 
 but the Lutherans had no aid but in their own policy 
 and were constrained to watch with scrutinising atten- 
 tion the measures of their adversaries. 
 
 At the time appointed for the holding of the elective 
 diet, such numbers of nobles arrived that the circum- 
 ference of the plain (twelve miles in extent) where they 
 were stationed by palatinates for the greater facility of 
 collecting their suffrages, was scarcely able to contain 
 them * ; and as they were all armed, they looked like 
 men assembled to conquer a kingdom, rather than to 
 exercise a peaceful deliberative privilege. In the centre 
 of the circle or kolo was the tent of the late king, where 
 the senators and ministers of the crown were met in 
 consultation, t 
 
 The candidates for the vacant crown were Ernest 
 archduke of Austria, Henry de Valois duke of Anjou, a 
 Swedish prince, and the tsar of Russia. The arrogance 
 of the last, and the inability of the third to offer any 
 considerable advantage to the republic in support of his 
 pretensions J, occasioned the rejection of both, and left 
 the contest between the two rival powers of France and 
 Austria. There was, indeed, some intention of pro- 
 posing a Piast, a term thenceforth applied, not to a prince 
 of the ancient family of that name, for none remained, 
 but to a native,m contradistinction to a foreign candidate; 
 but the jealousy of the great barons, who dreaded nothing 
 so much as the elevation of an equal, immediately scouted 
 the suggestion. 
 
 The protestant party were in favour of the archduke, 
 
 * Yet they comprised only the nobles of the crown and the grand duchy 
 with the incorporated palatinates of Polish Russia. The dukes of Courland, 
 Prussia, and Pomerania claimed to be present by their deputies, but the 
 claim was not admitted by a selfish diet. With respect to the duke of 
 Prussia, this refusal was clearly an infraction of the treaty made with 
 Albert of Brandenburg. 
 
 f The royal tent was contained in an immense building of wood, capable 
 of holding five or six thousand persons. Jt was subsequently called the 
 Szojja. 
 
 J Either John III., however, or his son Sigismund (who was in fact after- 
 wards elected), had acquired a claim to the Polish crown in virtue of their 
 connection with the family of Jagello. John had married a sister of the 
 late king of Poland, and Sigismund was the issue of that union. 
 
1572. INTERREGNUM. 151 
 
 as belonging to a house of acknowledged tolerance, to one 
 which, whilst the fires of persecution were burning almost 
 every where else, honourably distinguished itself by mo- 
 deration, and that, too, in spite of papal entreaties or 
 remonstrances. In every other respect, indeed, the pre- 
 tensions of Ernest were immeasurably superior to those 
 of his rival ; but two causes occasioned his failure the 
 tolerance of his house, which displeased the bigots, and 
 the aversion entertained towards the empire by the Poles 
 from the earliest period of their history. The factitious 
 reputation which Henry had acquired in the civil wars of 
 France, his known hostility to the reformation, and the 
 wily manoeuvres of his ambassador Montluc bishop of 
 Valence, secured his triumph; yet that triumph was not 
 obtained without great labour, and the obstacles which in- 
 tervened would have been insurmountable to an agent less 
 unprincipled than the prelate. News of the horrid mas- 
 sacre of St. Bartholomew long thwarted his designs. At 
 first, with an effrontery peculiarly his own, he denied that 
 such an event had happened at all.* When doubt as to that 
 most perfidious and most infamous of transactions could 
 no longer exist, he extricated himself from the dilemma 
 in which his falsehood had placed him, by pretending 
 that he had received no account of it from his govern- 
 ment. If his honour was lost, his impudence was ex- 
 haustless, and it served him well on the present occasion. 
 He reluctantly admitted that there had been an execution, 
 but he reduced the number of victims to forty, and con- 
 tended that they had met their fate not because they 
 were hugonots, but because they were implicated in a 
 
 * Yet he himself, prior to leaving France, was near falling a sacrifice to 
 the bloodthirsty fury of his court. As his inclination towards the doctrines 
 of the reformers was well known, orders were sent down into Lorraine to 
 arrest and put him to death before he could pass the frontier. He was 
 accordingly intercepted, and would immediately have been executed, had 
 not his impudence averted the catastrophe. By exhibiting his letters of 
 credence, by contending that the order for his arrest was a forgery, and by 
 loudly threatening them with the vengeance of Catherine de Medicis and 
 the duke, he actually intimidated the soldiers, and made them doubtful of 
 the instructions they had received. He was detained at Verdun until the 
 court, with characteristic duplicity, disavowed the violence, and sent him 
 permission to proceed. See Daniel, Histoire de France, torn, v ; also 
 Anquetil, Histoire des Guerres de la Ligue. 
 
 L 4 
 
152 HISTORY OF POLAND. 15?2. 
 
 conspiracy to dethrone Charles IX., to make way for the 
 prince of Conde. The sincerity of the Poles made them 
 his dupes ; they could not imagine that the ambassador 
 of a Christian country could utter a deliberate falsehood. 
 Even the protestants were taught to believe that their co- 
 religionists were treated in France with peculiar mildness. 
 After exacting some stipulations for themselves stipu- 
 lations which they procured by means of an armed con- 
 federation^ and which they compelled even Montluc to 
 sanction *, Firley, their chief, no longer hesitated to 
 proclaim the duke of Anjou. Throughout this hollow 
 negotiation, the conduct of the agent was suitable to the 
 infamous government he represented. . 
 
 The chief articles of the pacta conventa, as proposed 
 to each of the candidates previous to the election, and 
 intended as the basis of all future covenants between the 
 Poles and their new sovereigns, were : l.That the king 
 should not in the remotest degree attempt to influence 
 the senate in the choice of a successor ; but should leave 
 inviolable to the Polish nobles the right of electing one 
 at his decease. 2. That he should not assume the title 
 of master and heir of the monarchy, as borne by all pre- 
 ceding kings. 3. That he should observe the treaty of 
 peace made with the dissidents. 4. That he should not 
 declare war, or dispatch the nobles on any expedition, 
 without the previous sanction of the diet. 5. That he 
 should not impose taxes or contributions of any descrip- 
 tion. 6'. That he should not have any authority to 
 appoint ambassadors to foreign courts. 7- That in case 
 of different opinions prevailing among the senators, he 
 should espouse such only as were in accordance with the 
 laws, and clearly advantageous to the nation. 8. That 
 he should be furnished with a permanent council, the 
 members of which (sixteen in number; viz. four bishops, 
 
1573 INTERREGNUM. 153 
 
 four palatines,, and eight castellans) should be changed 
 every half year, and should be selected by the ordinary 
 diets. / 9- That a general diet should be convoked every 
 two years, or oftener, if required. 10. That the duration 
 of each diet should not exceed six weeks. 1 1 . That no 
 dignities or benefices should be conferred on other than 
 natives. 12. That the king should neither marry nor 
 divorce a wife without the permission of the diet. The 
 violation of any one of these articles, even in spirit, was 
 to be considered by the Poles as absolving them from 
 their oaths of allegiance, and as empowering them to 
 elect another ruler. Besides these important concessions 
 to the nobles concessions which virtually annihilated the 
 power of the crown, and which are known as the articles 
 of Henry, Montluc engaged that France should send a 
 fleet into the Baltic, to ensure for the Poles the dominion 
 of that sea ; that in the event of a war with Muscovy, 
 she should furnish the republic with 4000 of her best 
 troops, and pay them herself; that in case of war with 
 any other power, she should aid her ally with money 
 instead of troops ; that Henry should annually apply, 
 for the sole advantage of the republic, a considerable 
 portion of his hereditary revenues in France ; that he 
 should pay the debts of the crown ; and that either at 
 Paris or Cracow he should be at the expense of educating 
 and supporting 100 young Polish nobles. 
 
 When these conditions were laid before Henry by the 
 Polish ambassadors, who were despatched to Paris for 
 that purpose*, he was staggered at their number and 
 extent. He had evidently no wish to accept the honour 
 awarded him to become, as he expressed it, a mere 
 judge, a mere minister of state to the sovereign diet : 
 and his aversion to it was increased by the lingering, 
 hopeless condition of his royal brother, and by an inci- 
 dent sufficiently characteristic of the fierce people he was 
 about to manage. To the article respecting the dissidents, 
 
 * The appearance of these ambassadors with their bows and quivers, their 
 shaven crowns (see p. 12. Introduction), their flowing garments, and rich 
 equipages, made a singular impression on a people so fond of novelty as the 
 Parisians. De Thou, Hist. Univ. vi. 699. 
 
154 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1574. 
 
 moderate as were its terms, he hesitated to swear. 
 Montluc durst not acknowledge that he had sanctioned 
 it. The Polish ambassadors, who were one day present 
 with their new king, were highly indignant at the pre- 
 late's cowardice. One of them, Zborowski, who severely 
 upbraided him for it, no less than for his lack of sin- 
 cerity, being asked by Henry the reason of his vivacity, 
 fearlessly replied, ce I am telling your majesty's ambas- 
 sador, that, if he had not undertaken to procure your sanc- 
 tion to the article in question, your majesty would never 
 have been elected king of Poland ; and I say more, that 
 unless you do sanction it, our king you never shall be ! " 
 The king at length did swear to it; but he had no inten- 
 tion of being bound by its obligations : he was resolved 
 to invent, if possible, some decent pretext for remaining 
 in France. The delays which he eagerly sought in com- 
 mencing his journey irritated the Poles, who began openly 
 to talk of a new election the very end to which his 
 efforts were directed; but his brother, jealous of his 
 popularity, and, perhaps, fearing his ambitious designs 
 nearer home, actually forced him to leave the kingdom.* 
 The new king was crowned at Cracow, February 21. 
 1574. The ceremony did not pass without opposition 
 from Firley and his fellow protestants, who openly in- 
 sulted him, and insisted on new concessions to their 
 body. Perhaps the very cathedral in which it was 
 solemnised would have been stained with blood, had not 
 one of the palatines had presence of mind sufficient to 
 avert the dreaded catastrophe : the ceremony was allowed 
 to proceed unmolested. But their hostility to their 
 monarch was too bitter to be long restrained. They 
 
 * The mortifications Henry was doomed to support in his passage through 
 Heidelberg from the elector of Saxony have been described by the French 
 historians. A large picture in the palace of Frederic represented the 
 horrible details of the recent massacre : the curtain which covered it was 
 suddenly withdrawn ; and he was asked, in no pleasing tone, if he recol- 
 lected Coligni and other personages there exhibited. At table he was pur- 
 posely served by French refugees ; and the conversation between the elector 
 and his friends spared neither " the Lorraine butchers," nor the Italian 
 traitors." De Thou. Daniel. Anquetil, Histoire des Guerres de la Ligue, 
 torn. i. Varillas, Histoire de Charles IX. torn. i. et ii. The reproof was 
 merited, but the way in which it was given was below the dignity of the 
 elector. 
 
15J4. HENRY. 155 
 
 showed it on every occasion, and were joined by not a 
 few of the leading catholics ; by all who had been re- 
 fused a share in the distribution of crown favours. 
 
 The fickleness of Henry, his superficial qualities, his 
 duplicity with respect to the protestants whom he sought 
 occasions to humble, if not openly to persecute, his in- 
 application to the duties of royalty, and his childish 
 ostentation, soon convinced the Poles that they had 
 chosen an unworthy ruler ; one little fitted to grasp the 
 sceptre of the Piasts and the Jagellos. An incident 
 added to his unpopularity. Samuel Zborowski, a young 
 noble of great riches and still greater arrogance, one day 
 struck his lance into the ground opposite the apartment 
 of Henry, and in a loud voice challenged any one who 
 might be zealous for their new master, to remove the 
 weapon from its place. The challenge was accepted by 
 an obscure gentleman, who bore away the lance in 
 triumph. The latter was a domestic of count Tenczyn, 
 a circumstance which mortified still more the pride of 
 Zborowski, who asserted that the count had sent the 
 man on purpose to insult him, and also loudly insisted 
 that the hand which had dared to remove the weapon 
 should instantly replace it. Tenczyn refused to inter- 
 fere ; high words and hostile messages ensued. At the 
 head of some armed horsemen Zborowski fell on the 
 partisans of Tenczyn ; the king hastened to the spot ; 
 the combatants removed, to end the affray in some other 
 place ; and in the struggle which followed, the castellan 
 Wapowski, while endeavouring to establish peace between 
 the disputants, was mortally and wantonly wounded by 
 the sabre of Zborowski. The bleeding body was imme- 
 diately borne into the presence of Henry, and vengeance 
 loudly demanded on the homicide. The king promised 
 that justice should be done ; but, whether through fear 
 or partiality, he merely banished the assassin, without 
 depriving him of either honours or riches. A sentence 
 so little in conformity with the laws, and so inadequate 
 to the offence, raised universal indignation ; nor was this 
 indignation lessened, when, on the death of Firley, the 
 
15(5 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1574. 
 
 palatinate of Cracow was conferred on a brother of 
 Zborowski. 
 
 This feeble prince soon sighed for the banks of the 
 Seine : amidst the ferocious people whose authority he 
 was constrained to recognise, and who despised him for 
 his imbecility, he had no hope of enjoyment. To escape 
 their factions, their mutinies, their studied insults, he 
 shut himself up within his palace, and with the few 
 countrymen whom he had been permitted to retain near 
 his person, he abandoned himself to idleness and dissi- 
 pation. He had resolved to escape from his bondage, 
 and he cared not whether the vessel of the state, which 
 he thus left to itself, sailed or sunk. He drowned the 
 complaints of the people in shouts of revelry. Their 
 menaces would probably have roused him, had not an 
 event which he had long foreseen afforded him an oppor- 
 tunity of flight. 
 
 By .the death of his brother, who died on the 30th of 
 Majj 1574, he was become heir to the crown of the 
 Valois. His first object was to conceal the letters which 
 announced that event, and to flee before the Poles could 
 have any suspicion of his intention. The intelligence, 
 however, transpired through another channel. His sena- 
 tors advised him to convoke a diet, and, in conformity 
 with the laws, to solicit permission of a short absence 
 while he settled the affairs of his new heritage. Such 
 permission would willingly have been granted him, more 
 willingly still had he proposed an eternal separation ; 
 but he feared the ambition of his brother the duke of 
 Alencon, who secretly aspired to the throne; and he re- 
 solved to depart without it. He concealed his extra- 
 ordinary purpose with great art ; it was not so much as 
 suspected by the Poles, who, indeed, would not readily 
 have believed that the man they had deigned to honour 
 by their choice, could be so base and so ungrateful as to 
 imitate a criminal escaping from justice. The truth is, 
 no criminal ever longed to flee from his fetters so heartily 
 as Henry from his imperious subjects. On the evening 
 of the 18th of June, he gave a grand entertainment to 
 
1574. HENRY. 157 
 
 the sister of the late king Sigismund, and graced it with 
 his best smiles. At the usual hour he retired to his 
 apartment, and the lights were extinguished; but at 
 the same moment one of his confidential domestics en- 
 tered, conducted him by a private passage out of the 
 palace, and hastened with him to the appointed rendez- 
 vous, which was a chapel in the suburbs.* Here he was 
 joined by several horsemen, and ah 1 set out with full 
 speed towards the frontiers of Silesia, which they reached 
 early on the following day. His flight was soon made 
 known ; the whole city of Cracow was thrown into com- 
 motion ; the streets were instantly filled with inhabit- 
 ants who had left their beds, and whose murmurs, if not 
 curses, were rendered more awful amidst the faint glim- 
 mer of torches. The friends of the fugitive were in- 
 sulted, and narrowly escaped being victims to the popular 
 indignation. _A pursuit was ordered; but Henry was 
 already on the lands of the empire before he was over- 
 taken by the grand chamberlain Tenczyn, accompanied 
 by five Polish horsemen. Being asked by one of the 
 prince's attendants whether he came as a friend or foe ? 
 and having replied, as a friend, he was admitted to speak 
 with the king, but not until he had put off his armour. 
 The chamberlain addressed him with respectful firm- 
 ness, represented the injury which by a precipitate and 
 inglorious flight he was doing, not only to the republic, 
 but to his own character, and pressed him to return, 
 that he might take possession of his new kingdom with 
 the consent of the diet, and in a manner worthy the ruler 
 of two great states. He was, however, inexorable. Hav- 
 ing presented the chamberlain with a ring, which he 
 drew from his finger, he continued his journey, with a 
 promise that he should not fail to return as soon as he 
 had restored France to tranquillity, a promise which, it 
 is almost needless to observe, he never intended to fulfil. 
 Some letters found on a table in his apartment attempted 
 
 * Solikovius says the rendezvous was at the royal stables : " Extinctis 
 luminibus, per posteriorem arcis januam ad stabulum pervenit ; ubi equo 
 parato conscenso, cum octo comitibus, tota nocte effuso equi cursu, Oswie. 
 cismo prima luce transito, ad Pozynam oppidum Silesia? pervenit." Rerum 
 Polon. Corn. p. 31. The variation is almost too slight to be noticed. 
 
158 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1575. 
 
 to account for his precipitate departure by the urgency 
 of the troubles in his hereditary kingdom ; yet he did not 
 reach Lyons till the following year. 
 
 In a diet assembled at Warsaw, it was resolved that 
 if the king did not return by the 12th May, 1575, the 
 throne should be declared vacant. Deputies were sent 
 to acquaint him with the decree. His return, indeed, 
 was neither wished nor expected; but in a matter of so 
 much importance, and so unparalleled, the Poles were 
 unwilling to act with precipitation, or to afford the world 
 any reason for concluding that justice had less sway over 
 them than their national resentment. After the expi- 
 ration of the term, the interregnum was proclaimed in 
 the diet of Stenzyca, and a day appointed for a new 
 election.* 
 
 STEPHEN. 
 
 15751586*. 
 
 AFTER the deposition of Henry, no less than five foreign 
 and two native princes were proposed as candidates for 
 the crown. The latter, however, refused to divide the 
 suffrages of the republic, wisely preferring the privilege of 
 electing kings to the honour of being elected themselves. 
 The primate, many of the bishops, and several palatines, 
 declared in favour of an Austrian prince ; but the greater 
 portion of the diet (assembled on the plains opposite to 
 Warsaw) were for the princess Anne, sister of Sigismund 
 
 * Joannis Dem. Solikovii Archiep. Leop. Commentarius Brevis Ilerum 
 Polonicarum a morte Sigismundi August!, p. 1 47. Histoire des Dietes 
 
 OI X 1 raliue uy uanivi auu xiuquctii, me uuirraocu JLJIDHJJ^ ui j~/c J.IIULI, auu. 
 
 the History of Charles IX. by Varillas. The best authority for the subse- 
 quent life of Henry de Valois is to be found in the Memoires et Correspond, 
 ance de Duplessis Mornay, the celebrated fac-totum of Henry de Bourbon, 
 king of Navarre. 
 
 The unfinished work of Solignac ends with the inglorious flight of 
 
 a circumstance which frequently renders his work tedious ; a still stronger 
 objection to it is, that he was almost unacquainted with the constitution, 
 laws, and policy of the Poles. In this, however, he is partly excusable, as, 
 at the time he wrote, the national writers had not learned to apply the torch 
 of criticism to the darkness of their historic literature. 
 
STEPHEN. 159 
 
 Augustus, whose hand they resolved to confer on Stephen 
 Batory, duke of Transylvania. Accordingly, Stephen was 
 proclaimed king by Zumoyski starost of Beltz, whose 
 name was soon to prove famous in the annals of Poland. 
 On the other hand, Uchanski the primate nominated the 
 emperor Maximilian, who was proclaimed by the marshal 
 of the crown : this party, however, being too feeble to 
 contend with the great body of the equestrian order, de- 
 spatched messengers to hasten the arrival of the emperor; 
 but Zamoyski acted with still greater celerity. While 
 his rival was busied about certain conditions, which the 
 party of the primate forced on Maximilian, Batory ar- 
 rived in Poland, married the princess, subscribed to every 
 thing required from him *, and was solemnly crowned. 
 A civil war appeared inevitable, but the death of Maxi- 
 milian happily averted the disaster. The primate and 
 his party at length submitted, but not until they were 
 menaced by the activity of the new king, who made vi- 
 gorous preparations to subdue them. 
 
 But though Poland and Lithuania thus acknowledged 
 the new king, Prussia, which had espoused 'the interests 
 of the Austrian, was less tractable. The country, how- 
 ever, was speedily reduced to submission, with the ex- 
 ception of Dantzic, which not only refused to own him, 
 but insisted on its recognition by the diet as a free and 
 independent republic. The inhabitants confided in the 
 strength of their fortifications, in their own courage, and 
 in the known inability of the Poles to press a siege with 
 vigour. They did not sufficiently attend to, perhaps 
 in their yearnings after sovereignty they disregarded, 
 the military reputation of Batory, whom merit alone had 
 raised from an humble station t to the government of 
 
 * He had confirmed by his ambassadors the articles of Henry; had 
 engaged to recover the conquests made by the Muscovites ; to pay the debts 
 of the state; to pour 200,000 florins into the Polish treasury; to redeem the 
 captives made by the Tatars; not to employ Polish troops in foreign wars; 
 to maintain, in case of need, at his own expense, 1500 infantry; and to 
 marry the princess Anne. The last condition had been evaded by Henry : 
 it was made obligatory on Batory, who had naturally no great liking to a 
 lady of fifty-two. 
 
 f The family, however, of Batory was ancient, as appears from Bonfinius, 
 Historia Pannonica, passim. 
 
1GO HISTORY OP POLAND. 1577. 
 
 Transylvania, and for ^whom it had secured the respect 
 and alliance of tile Porte. Enthusiasm seldom reasons ; 
 that enthusiasm least of all which is the offspring of re- 
 ligious fervour and of aspiring freedom. Here, as in 
 religion, faith is believed capable of moving mountains : 
 its very intensity not unfrequently leads to its realisation, 
 in cases where human wisdom would predict a very dif- 
 ferent result. Had the Dantzickers sought no other 
 glory than that of defending their city, had they reso- 
 lutely kept within their entrenchments, they might have 
 beheld the power of their king shattered against the bul- 
 warks below them ; but the principles which moved them 
 pushed them on to temerity. Not satisfied with behold- 
 ing from their ramparts the ineffectual assaults of the 
 Poles, they issued from their gates to contend in the open 
 plain, where that people have seldom appeared without 
 victory. Their rashness cost them dear ; the loss of 
 8000 men compelled them again to seek the shelter of 
 their walls, and annihilated their hope of ultimate suc- 
 cess. Fortunately they had to deal with a monarch of 
 extraordinary moderation, who wished to correct, not to 
 destroy them, and who deemed clemency superior to the 
 honour even of a just triumph. Their submission dis- 
 armed his resentment, and left him at liberty to march 
 against other enemies. 
 
 ^During this struggle of Stephen with his rebellious 
 subjects, the Muscovites had laid waste Livonia. To 
 punish their audacity, and wrest from their grasp the 
 conquests they had made during the reign of his imme- 
 diate predecessors, was now his object. War, however, 
 was more easily declared than made ; the treasury was 
 empty, and the nobles refused to replenish it. Of them 
 it might truly be said, that while they eagerly concurred 
 in any burdens laid on the other orders of the state, 
 on the clergy and the burghers, those burdens they 
 would not so much as touch with one of their fingers. 
 It was not without exceeding difficulty that the deputies 
 to the diet at V^arsaw were induced to sanction a con- 
 tribution of a florin an acre, a contribution considerable 
 
1580. STEPHEN*. l6'l 
 
 certainly, but inadequate to the purpose for which it was 
 raised,, and far inferior to that which the clergy had vo- 
 luntarily imposed on themselves. Three of the most 
 considerable palatinates persisted in their opposition. 
 With the supplies, however, thus afforded,, he opened a 
 brilliant campaign at the head of his combined Poles, 
 Lithuanians,, and Hungarians. Success every where ac- 
 companied him. Polotsk, Sakol, Turowla, and many 
 other places, submitted to his arms. The investiture of 
 the duchy (Polotsk, which the Muscovites had reduced 
 in the time of Sigisrnund I.) he conferred on Gottard 
 duke of Courland. On the approach of winter he re- 
 turned, to obtain more liberal supplies for the ensuing 
 campaign. Nothing can more strongly exhibit the dif- 
 ferent characters of the Poles and Lithuanians than the 
 reception he met from each. At Wilna his splendid 
 successes procured him the most enthusiastic welcome ; 
 at Warsaw they caused him to be received with sullen 
 discontent. The Polish nobles were less alive to the glory 
 of their country than to the preservation of their mon- 
 strous privileges, which, they apprehended, might be 
 endangered under so vigilant and able a ruler. With 
 the aid, however, of Zamoyski and some other lead- 
 ing barons, he again wrung a few supplies from that 
 most jealous of bodies, a diet : Zamoyski was rewarded 
 with the chancellor's seal, and the marshal's baton. Ste- 
 phen now directed his course towards the province of 
 Novogorod : neither the innumerable marshes, nor the 
 vast forests of these steppes, which had been untrodden 
 by soldier's foot since the days of Witold, could stop his 
 progress ; he triumphed over every obstacle, and, with 
 amazing rapidity, reduced the chief fortified towns be- 
 tween Livonia and that ancient mistress of the North.* 
 But his troops were thinned by fatigue, and even victory ; 
 reinforcements were peremptorily necessary; and though 
 in an enfeebled state of health, he again returned to col- 
 lect them. On this occasion he reproached the diet, with 
 something like indignation, that his measures were sp 
 
 * " Who can resist God and Novogorod the great ? " 
 M 
 
\6 C Z HISTORY OF POLAND. 1580. 
 
 coolly supported; and that, through their absurd jealousy, 
 his valiant followers were constrained to pause in the ca- 
 reer of conquest. The succeeding campaign promised to 
 be equally glorious, when the tsar, by adroitly insinuating 
 his inclination to unite the Greek with the Latin church, 
 prevailed on the pope to interpose for peace. To the 
 wishes of the papal see the king was ever ready to pay 
 the utmost deference. The conditions were advantageous 
 to the republic. If she surrendered her recent conquests, 
 which she could not possibly have retained, 
 she obtained an acknowledgment of her rights of sove- 
 reignty over Livonia; and Polotsk, with several surround- 
 ing fortresses, was annexed to Lithuania. Stephen di- 
 vided Livonia into three palatinates, over which he placed 
 three palatines, three castellans, and other functionaries, 
 as in the palatinates of the crown : he appointed the times 
 and places of the dietines, and granted entire liberty of 
 conscience to the protestant inhabitants.* 
 
 But from his wise policy with respect to the Cossacks 
 Batory derived more glory than from all his victories. 
 This singular people were originally deserters from the 
 armies maintained by the republic, near the banks of the 
 Borysthenes, to arrest the incursions of the Tatars. The 
 almost inaccessible isles of that river, and the vast steppes 
 of the Ukraine, served for secure places of retreat. As 
 their numbers increased by propagation and desertion, 
 and they opened their arms to the people of every 
 nation who arrived among them, they made frequent 
 predatory incursions into the Ottoman territories ; they 
 sometimes ventured as far as the suburbs of Constanti- 
 nople, and in rude boats, consisting merely of trees 
 hollowed out, they did not hesitate to trust themselves 
 on the Black Sea, every shore of which they visited and 
 ravaged. Their soil, the richest in corn of any in 
 Europe, required little cultivation, and they were con- 
 
 * In his organisation of Livonia, Stephen was indirectly aided by the 
 historian Solikowski, whom he promoted to the archbishopric of Leopol. 
 For his valour in the preceding campaigns, Zamoyski, crown marshal, was 
 presented with the hand of Batory's niece. 
 
1582. STEPHEN. 163 
 
 sequently at liberty to pass most of their time in plunder, 
 piracy, or open war. 
 
 As they were Christians in their origin, they preserved 
 a sort of Christianity among themselves, but so mingled, 
 in time, with idolatrous and Mahommedan notions, that 
 its fair characters were almost lost. The Polish gen- 
 tleman, whom infamy had branded or justice threatened; 
 the Polish serf, who fled from the iron despotism of a 
 haughty rapacious master; the Greek schismatic, the 
 persecuted Lutheran, either imperfectly remembered or 
 but negligently practised the rites of their respective 
 churches : hence a sort of mongrel worship prevailed, of 
 which the leading features more resembled the eastern 
 than the western church. But they did not much trou- 
 ble themselves with either the doctrines or the duties 
 of Christianity. Robbers by profession, and cruel by 
 habit, they were the terror of surrounding countries. 
 Strong, hardy, of indomitable courage, fond of war even 
 more for the dangers which attended it than for the 
 plunder it procured them, their alliance was eagerly 
 sought by Lithuanians, Poles, Muscovites, Tatars, and 
 Turks. To the former people, as the stock whence 
 the majority were derived, they long bore sentiments 
 of affection : indeed, they acknowledged themselves 
 vassals of the republic, though their chief obedience was 
 owing to their own grand hetman. Ostafi Daskiewitz, 
 a peasant on the estates of a Lithuanian noble, (many 
 nobles both of the crown and the grand duchy had ex- 
 tensive estates in the Ukraine,) was the first who divided 
 them into regiments, and taught them discipline. As a 
 reward for his exertions, he was presented by Sigis- 
 mund I., who appeared sensible of the advantages which 
 these formidable warriors might procure for the king- 
 dom, with the starosty of Tserkassy, and the jurisdiction 
 of some fortresses near the Borysthenes, Had the advice 
 of this simple but strong-minded man been taken, Poland 
 would have been effectually screened against the incur- 
 sions of the Tatars. He counselled Sigismund to maintain 
 10,000 armed men on the banks of the river, who in 
 M 2 
 
164 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1582. 
 
 their rude rafts could easily prevent the enemy from 
 crossing : a few troops of horse might forage for this 
 stationary little army. A still more important suggestion 
 was to build forts and little towers on the islets of that 
 magnificent stream. * What Sigismund had not the 
 spirit, perhaps not the means to accomplish, Batory 
 might and should have effected. The latter monarch, 
 however,, did much towards so desirable an end. He 
 diligently cultivated the affection of the Cossacks ; and 
 they are among the most grateful of men. He gave 
 them the city of Trychtymirow, which became their chief 
 magazine., and the residence of their grand hetman : he 
 introduced among them the useful arts of life, and 
 greatly improved their discipline : he formed them into 
 six regiments, each consisting of 1000 men (ten compa- 
 nies of 100), and commanded by a hetman (hattaman). 
 Each grand hetman, whom the whole force obeyed, 
 received his investiture at the hands of the king : the 
 symbols were an ensign, a horse tail (bonzuk), a baton 
 resembling a club, and a looking-glass. The Cossacks 
 being thus attached by new ties, those of gratitude and 
 allegiance, to the republic, TOre well disposed to fulfil 
 the purpose assigned them : their fidelity was striking ; 
 until from friends they were transformed into enemies by 
 the most intolerable wrongs.* 
 
 In his internal administration Stephen was not less 
 wise or vigilant. The establishment of a supreme tri- 
 bunal at Cracow remedied the inconvenience of a multi- 
 plicity of appeals from the inferior courts to the assemblies 
 of the palatines, and from the latter to the king. From 
 his infirm state of health, Sigismund Augustus had found 
 it impossible to decide on many of these appeals : hence 
 the nobles arrogated to themselves the privilege of ap- 
 pointing judges from their own body to exercise a final 
 jurisdiction, but it was one which that monarch refused 
 to sanction. It was, however, extorted from Henry. 
 Batory, like Sigismund, opposed it, and still more the 
 
 * Chevalier, Histoire de la Guerre des Cossacs centre la Pologne, &c. 
 p. 302, &c. Malte-Brun, Tableau de la Pologne ancienne et raoderne, 
 torn. i. p. 461, &c. 
 
1585. STEPHEN. 165 
 
 dangerous practice of self-election by the inferior judges 
 in each palatinate. He decreed that in future each 
 great palatinate should elect two nobles, each small 
 palatinate one, who at Petrikau should decide on the 
 affairs of Great Poland, and at Lublin on those of Little 
 Poland ; and that from the decisions of those courts an 
 appeal should lie open to the supreme tribunal before 
 mentioned, in the proceedings of which he could consti- 
 tutionally share. Similar tribunals he also established in 
 Lithuania. 
 
 But however signal the services which this great 
 prince rendered to the republic, he could not escape the 
 common lot of his predecessors, the jealousy, the op- 
 position, and the hatred of a licentious nobility; nor 
 could he easily quell the tumults which arose among 
 them. Hroin_the family of Zborowsld he was doomed 
 to experience the~most trouble. Samuel, who, as ob- 
 served in the preceding reign, had been banished for the 
 murder of Wapowski, had not only ventured to return 
 on the accession of Stephen, but had formed or joined a 
 faction for the destruction of Zamoyski, starost of Cra- 
 cow. He was informed by his intended victim, that if 
 he continued to disturb the peace of the state, or to 
 appear openly while subject to the punishment decreed 
 against him, justice should lay hands on him. Instead 
 of profiting by this judicious warning, he hastened his 
 preparations for revenge : he posted armed satellites to 
 waylay the starost ; but his measures were watched, and 
 he himself was arrested. Zamoyski submitted the affair to 
 the king, who ordered the culprit to be judged according 
 to the laws. In his examination he implicated his two 
 brothers, Andrew and Christopher, in a conspiracy, the 
 object of which was to dethrone or assassinate the best 
 of monarchs. Samuel was beheaded at Cracow, and the 
 senate assembled at Lublin to examine into the truth of 
 the charges against the other two. They appeared at 
 the trial, but, like Orgetorix of old, with such a number 
 of armed followers and friends, that they hoped to over- 
 awe the proceedings. Stephen, however, was not to be 
 M 3 
 
166 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1585. 
 
 intimidated in the discharge of a solemn duty. His 
 firmness, and still more their own consciousness of guilt, 
 daunted these haughty nobles, who vainly appealed to 
 his clemency. 
 
 After an impartial trial, in which they were clearly 
 convicted of high treason, Christopher, as the more cri- 
 minal of the two, was condemned to death, and the 
 decision concerning Andrew was postponed to the follow- 
 ing diet. In vain did the nobles, who could not but 
 respect the justice of the sentence, and who were yet 
 alarmed at the courage with which the king ventured to 
 punish one of the most powerful members of their 
 order, solicit the pardon of the criminals : he was inex- 
 orable. But Christopher escaped into Germany, and the 
 well deserved chastisement of the other was averted by 
 an unexpected event. 
 
 Batory had resolved to chastise the perfidious aggres- 
 sions of the tsar, and was busied in his preparations for 
 a vigorous campaign, when death suddenly seized him 
 at Grodno. His last words, " In manus tuas, Domine, 
 commendo spiritum meum," were evidence of his reli- 
 gious sincerity, a sincerity which some of his enemies 
 had endeavoured to dispute.* His character ranked him 
 among the greatest and best monarchs of Poland. In 
 early life he had been instructed in that most salutary 
 of schools adversity: for vigilance, for perseverance, 
 for vigour, for enlightened views and patriotic inten- 
 tions, he yields to no prince in Polish history. To science 
 and letters he was a constant benefactor. He founded 
 the university of Wilna, and stimulated young students 
 to increased diligence, by holding out to them the pro- 
 spect of honourable employments. He was himself no 
 mean proficient in literary pursuits ; he was acquainted 
 with several languages, and was familiar with (to a 
 prince) that most important of subjects, history and 
 the policy of nations : his Latinity was unequalled by 
 any writer of his kingdom. What does him much more 
 
 * " In templo plus quam sacerdos," was the character of Batory's piety, 
 as drawn by a coateinporary. 
 
1586. SIGISMUND III. 167 
 
 honour is his tolerant spirit. When urged to severe 
 measures with the dissidents, he replied, " I reign over 
 persons ; but it is God who rules the conscience. Know," 
 he would add, " that God has reserved three things to 
 himself; the creation of something out of nothing, 
 the knowledge of futurity, and the government of the 
 conscience." 
 
 Some months before his death he advised the diet to 
 make the crown hereditary, and thereby to avert the doom 
 which the abuses of an elective one would infallibly 
 bring on the country. He foresaw that doom ; and so 
 might any one, without much claim to the gift of pro- 
 phecy. Though his great qualities, for a time, averted 
 the evil, it was rapidly approaching.* 
 
 SIGISMUND III. 
 
 15861632. 
 
 As usual, the interregnum afforded ample opportunity 
 for the gratification of individual revenge, and of the 
 worst passions of our nature. The feud between the 
 Zborowskis and Zamoyskis was more deadly than ever. 
 Both factions appeared on the field of election with nu- 
 merous bodies of armed adherents : the former amounted 
 to 10,000 ; the latter were less strong in number, but 
 more select. The two armies occupied positions within 
 sight of each other, and would soon have come to blows, 
 had not the primate and the senate decreed that no 
 armed individual should be suffered on the field. To 
 this hostile demonstration must be added the murmurs 
 of the Lithuanians, who insisted on the incorporation of 
 Livonia, Podolia, and Volhynia with their grand duchy; 
 and who complained that the two last elections had been 
 
168 HISTORY OP POLAND. 1586. 
 
 made without their participation. Then the Prussians 
 submitted a long list of grievances, of which most were 
 imaginary, but which were admirably calculated to in- 
 crease the confusion already existing. In short, dis- 
 cordance ran so high, that unless the great body of the 
 nobles, who had no interest in the dissensions of a few 
 ambitious leaders, had threatened to sweep away all be- 
 fore them, no election would probably have been made 
 for many months. 
 
 Such was the inauspicious temper of the diet when 
 the candidates were proposed. There were one or two 
 Austrian princes, as usual; Feodor Vasilevitch the tsar, 
 and Sigismund prince royal of Sweden. Of course Za- 
 moyski and the Zborowskis espoused opposite interests : 
 the former, with the great bulk of the palatines and nobles, 
 declared for Sigismund ; the latter supported the arch- 
 duke Maximilian ; the Lithuanians favoured the pre- 
 tensions of the tsar. The current of feeling was so 
 strong in behalf of a scion of the Jagellonic dynasty, that 
 the Swedish prince was nominated by the primate, and 
 proclaimed by Zamoyski, in the absence of the marshals. 
 With the same formalities did the opposite party pro- 
 claim Maximilian. The former reached Cracow, De- 
 cember 1.; the latter, on the l6th of the same month, 
 arrived at Mogila. A contest was now inevitable. Za- 
 moyski defeated the adherents of the archduke, and Sigis- 
 mund was crowned on the 27th. The pacta convenia, 
 to which he swore, guaranteed the articles of Henry, an 
 alliance offensive and defensive between Poland and 
 Sweden ; the free navigation of the Baltic to the Poles ; 
 the erection of five fortresses on as many weak points of 
 the frontiers ; the discharge of the national debts ; and 
 the preservation of the national privileges.* 
 
 Biit4hcugk the new king was thus seated on die throne, 
 it could be secured to him only by another victory. If 
 the party of his competitor had been checked, it had not 
 
 * The Poles also required the cession of Esthonia ; but as the Swedish 
 king was naturally averse to the dismemberment of his states, the subject 
 was postponed until the death of that monarch. Subsequent events rendered 
 its consideration at that time useless. 
 
1590. SIGISMUND III. 169 
 
 been humbled : with considerable reinforcements Maxi- 
 milian seized Lublo, but was compelled to retreat by the 
 active Zamoyski, who pursued him into Silesia, defeated 
 and took him prisoner. He was conducted to a Polish 
 fortress, to await the pleasure of Sigismund. Zamoyski 
 on this occasion behaved with real magnanimity. He 
 gave liberty to his inveterate enemies, the Zborowskis, 
 and the other partisans of the archduke, and treated his 
 prisoners with the utmost deference. The only revenge 
 which he took on the Austrian prince for refusing to sit 
 at his table, and for adhering, with a pride less dignified 
 than puerile, to the formalities of etiquette, was to seat 
 his captive at a separate one, surrounded with a golden 
 chain. Nor did Sigismund himself act with less great- 
 ness of mind. He refused to exact a ransom from his 
 rival ; he declared that he would never add insult to 
 misfortune : the only conditions which he required were, 
 that Maximilian should restore some domains on which 
 he had unjustly seized, and for ever relinquish all claim 
 to the Polish crown. If the latter remained a prisoner 
 longer than was expected, his own obstinacy was the 
 cause. 
 
 Sigismund, however, though he had some good quali- 
 ties, had likewise some defects ; he was very unfit to fill 
 the throne of Batory. He did not strive to cultivate the 
 good- will of the nation ; he adhered, with a weak perti- 
 nacity, to the usages of the Swedes; he passed much of 
 his time with a chemical enthusiast, in pursuit of the 
 philosopher's stone; he testified something like indif- 
 ference to his new duties, and dissatisfied some of his 
 best friends by mistaken pride. Even Zamoyski, the 
 hero of the republic, to whom he was indebted for his 
 Cown, he treated with marked disrespect. He soon 
 violated the pacta conventa, first, by espousing, contrary 
 to the wishes of his subjects, an Austrian princess ; and, 
 secondly, by persecuting the dissidents. He found, how- 
 ever, that he could do neither with impunity : secret 
 rumours gave way to open hostility ; an extraordinary 
 diet was convoked, by the marshal of the crown and 
 
170 HISTORY OF POLAND. 15QO. 
 
 some senators, to enquire into the nature of his corre- 
 spondence with the court of Vienna. He was present. 
 The sight of a king on his throne, subject to the re- 
 proaches of his assembled nobles, and constrained to 
 acknowledge their justice, was new to Europe, and even 
 to Poland. The venerable primate Karnkowski, who 
 glowed for the honour of his country, used little cere- 
 mony with this royal delinquent. After upbraiding him 
 with the odious connection he had formed, the prelate 
 intimated to him that the Poles knew how to deal with 
 one who forfeited his word. " Your majesty must re- 
 member that you reign over a free people ; over nobles 
 who have no equals under heaven. Your dignity, sire, 
 is far above your father's, who reigns only over peasants. 
 Think of what was said by Stephen Batory, of glorious 
 memory, ' I will one day teach these little Swedish 
 kings to know themselves/ " This mortifying disparage- 
 ment of his country, and this purposed display of the 
 honour which Poland, by deigning to choose him, had 
 conferred on " the little king/' incensed him highly. 
 Zamoyski next adduced the heads of accusation, sup- 
 porting each by documentary or verbal evidence. How- 
 ever, proceedings ceased for this time, on Sigismund's 
 promising to be in future more mindful of the obligations 
 he had contracted, and of doing nothing without the 
 concurrence of the diet. But some years afterwards the 
 flame of discontent burst forth with increased fury. Two 
 ambitious nobles openly headed a confederation, which 
 insisted that Sigismund should not only promise amend- 
 ment in presence of a diet, but should publicly ask pardon 
 of the members for his infringement of the pacta con- 
 venta. He had the firmness to scorn so humiliating a 
 proposal, and to vindicate his authority by arms. The 
 rebels were not slow to meet him. At Guzaw, in an 
 engagement of some importance, from the numbers ar- 
 rayed on both sides, he subdued the rebels, chiefly 
 through the means of his general, Chodkiewicz, whose 
 name was afterwards to become so famous in the wars 
 of Livonia, Muscovy, and Turkey. The rebellion was 
 
1593. SIGISMUND III. 171 
 
 extinguished by the submission of its framers ; but the 
 dissatisfaction with him and his government ended only 
 with his reign. 
 
 To these civil commotions succeeded a war with the 
 Tatars., whom the incursions of the Cossacks, the ac- 
 knowledged vassals of the republic, armed for revenge. 
 Zamoyski, after defeating the duke of Transylvania, 
 who had seized on Wallachia, and appointing a palatine 
 who should rule that principality (Wallachia), as the 
 tributary of Poland, hastened to oppose their khan. The 
 khan was at the head of 70,000 combatants ; and, what 
 was still more threatening, an army of Turks was only j 
 waiting for the success of its Tatar ally to fall on/ 
 Kaminiec (in Podolia), one of the great bulwarks of the 
 republic. The Polish hero triumphed : the khan was 
 constrained to sue for peace, as the price of which he 
 agreed to evacuate Moldavia, and to acknowledge the 
 new hospodar. The Turks were held in respect by this 
 signal humiliation of their allies, and were eager enough 
 to prolong the peace with the republic. For his conduct 
 in this astonishing campaign, in which he had routed 
 60,000 Transylvanians and Servians, humbled the aspir- 
 ing ambition of the Transylvanian duke Michael Batory, 
 changed the governors of Wallachia and Moldavia, anni- 
 hilated rather than routed a great army of Tatars, and 
 held in check the whole power of the sultan, Zamoyski 
 was enthusiastically cheered by the diet at Warsaw. 
 
 If the weakness and bigotry of Sigismund rendered 
 him unpopular in Poland, they did him still more in- 
 jury in Sweden : they lost him the crown of the Goths. 
 His injudicious zeal for the re-establishment in that 
 country of the Roman catholic religion ; his imprudent 
 deportment towards the Lutherans during two successive 
 visits to his native kingdom, his negligence in repressing 
 the ambitious designs of his uncle Charles, whom he 
 appointed regent, and the ultimate usurpation of that 
 politic prince, are subjects belonging to Swedish history. 
 
 Sigismund had little difficulty in interesting the Poles 
 in his quarrel with his? relative. War was decreed on 
 
172 HISTORY OF POLAND. 3593. 
 
 the Swedish possessions in Livonia,, whither Charles 
 hastened in person. The veteran Zamoyski defeated 
 him in several actions ; and when, through disgust with 
 his prince and the growing infirmities of age,, he relin- 
 quished the command to his lieutenant Chodkiewicz, the 
 honour of the Polish arms was nobly supported by that 
 general. With less than 4000 men, the latter inflicted 
 a terrible defeat on 17,000 Swedes, with Charles at their 
 head. In consequence of this signal event, Livonia 
 remained in the power of the victors. The theatre of 
 war was now changed to Muscovy. 
 
 Boris, marshal of the court of Moscow, had married 
 his sister to the feeble tsar Feodor, and had in conse- 
 quence of this alliance been permitted to exercise un- 
 bounded power. As the monarch was without offspring, 
 and as another prince, brother of the tsar, alone remained 
 of the race of the mighty Ruric, the minister soon formed 
 the design of securing the succession for himself. He 
 caused the heir apparent, Demetrius (Dmitri), to be 
 assassinated, and after the death of Feodor seated himself 
 on the imperial throne.* He speedily entered into re- 
 lations with Poland: he made an alliance of twenty years 
 with Sigismund; yet, with the barbarian duplicity of his 
 character, he secretly favoured the kindred usurper of 
 Sweden. Sigismund had soon an opportunity of revenge: 
 an adventurer appeared in Poland, pretending to be the 
 real Demetrius, who told a plausible story of the way in 
 which he had escaped the bloody purpose of Boris. As, 
 in person, manner, and age, he resembled the mur- 
 dered prince, he gained credence with many. The pope 
 and Sigismund regarded, or professed to regard, him as 
 the unquestionable heir of the tsars. Two of the greatest 
 houses in the republic, with one of which he solicited the 
 honour of an alliance, openly armed in his behalf, and 
 
 * Boris, in many points of his character, and still more in his actions, 
 resembles our Richard III.; the same unprincipled ambition, the same 
 cold-blooded cruelty, the same successful attempt to gain plebeian favour, 
 the same pretended unwillingness to accept the throne, the same tyranny 
 when the object of that ambition was secured, distinguished both ; and 
 though the end of both was not the same, it was in neither peace. History 
 is but a picture of God's moral justice. See Karamsin, torn. x. xi, 
 
1607- SIGISMUND III. 173 
 
 enabled him to set out for Moscow at the head of some 
 forces. In vain did Boris adduce evidence to prove the 
 death of prince Demetrius, and that the impostor who 
 had assumed the name and character was one Otrepieff, a 
 deserter from the monastery of Cudnow : in vain did he 
 menace Poland with the whole force of the empire, if 
 any assistance were afforded to the adventurer. Whe- 
 ther the pretensions of the latter were real or false, they 
 were too favourable to the views of the Polish king, and 
 to the palatine of Sandomir, whose daughter Marina 
 was to be raised to an imperial throne, not to be espoused 
 with ardour : both were convinced that a host of discon- 
 tented Muscovites would join his standard. Their con- 
 fidence was well founded. ThisWarbeck of the North 
 was soon strong enough to contend on the field with the 
 armies of the tsar. He was defeated, indeed, but only 
 to re-appear with greater hopes of success. Such were 
 his courage and conduct, and such the favourable com- 
 bination of circumstances, that he triumphed in an under- 
 taking which sober reason would have pronounced as 
 worse than Quixotic. Sudden death removed Boris, 
 and a brilliant victory precipitated from the throne the 
 youthful son of that monarch. He ascended it, and 
 fulfilled his engagements with the palatine by placing the 
 diadem on the brow of Marina. Still more extraor- 
 dinary than this success is the fact, that one who had 
 been so base as to invent and practise so great a decep- 
 tion, should yet exhibit qualities well worthy of his 
 exaltation generosity, clemency, magnanimity, enlight- 
 ened views, and patriotic sentiments. But his span of 
 empire and of life was brief: a party, which raged at 
 the sight of successful imposition, and still more at the 
 favours with which a grateful ruler rewarded the instru- 
 ments of his elevation, his Polish adherents, silently raised 
 its head. Demetrius was assassinated amidst the enter- 
 tainments of his marriage. The head of the conspiracy, 
 Vasil Shouiski, remotely related to the imperial race of 
 Ruric, was proclaimed tsar; and Marina with her Polish 
 attendants was transferred from a palace to a dungeon. 
 
174? HISTORY OP POLAND. 
 
 The strangest passage, however, in this strange history 
 remains to be read. Though the body of the murdered 
 emperor had been exposed to the populace of Moscow, his 
 name and person were assumed by another impostor, 
 who boldly asserted that he had been almost miracu- 
 lously preserved from death, and that he now re-appeared 
 to claim the support of his faithful subjects : he was 
 immediately recognised by thousands as the twice-mur- 
 dered Demetrius, and by Marina herself as her royal 
 husband. The Poles and Cossacks flocked to his standard ; 
 and Shouiski, to fix a tottering throne, called in the assist- 
 ance of Sigismund's most implacable enemy, the king of 
 Sweden. 
 
 As yet the Polish king had not openly taken a share 
 in the troubles of Russia ; he had only connived at the 
 armaments of his nobles. Now war was decreed by the 
 diet, and he himself set out to conduct it. At no time 
 had Poland braver troops or abler generals. The Mus- 
 covites were defeated in several engagements ; and, after 
 a siege of eighteen months, though strongly defended, 
 Smolensko became the prize of the victors. Afterwards 
 the marshal of the crown, Zolkiewski, a worthy successor 
 of the illustrious Zamoyski, with no more than 8000 
 Poles, utterly routed Shouiski at the head of 30,000 
 Muscovites and 8000 Swedes. This splendid success 
 enabled the marshal to effect a junction with Demetrius, 
 and to march on Moscow, which he closely invested. In 
 consternation at their menaced destruction, the Mus- 
 covites placed all their hopes of escape from it in a 
 misunderstanding between Demetrius and his allies. 
 Cunning served them better than force : they opened the 
 gates to the Poles, delivered up to Zolkiewski (Sigismund 
 still remained at Smolensko) their tsar Shouiski with his 
 two brothers, and professed their readiness to place on 
 tJiaimperial throne Uladislas, son of Sigismund. Being 
 thus left without foreign support, Demetrius retired from 
 Moscow. The young prince was proclaimed, and actu- 
 ally invited to take possession of the dignity. But one 
 condition displeased the father : before Uladislas could 
 
1621. SIGISMUND III. 176 
 
 ascend the throne, he was required to embrace the Greek 
 religion. Sooner than see his son a schismatic, the con- 
 scientious monarch would willingly have sacrificed even 
 a more brilliant diadem. His imprudent return to War- 
 saw, and his still more imprudent indecision, lost a crown. 
 Incensed at both, and still more that he could obtain no 
 money for the payment of his troops, Zolkiewski also re- 
 turned. His triumphant entry into the capital with his 
 imperial captive was but a poor compensation for the 
 valour which had been displayed, and the sacrifices which 
 had been sustained. The Muscovites rose against the 
 Polish garrisons : in the contest which followed, a great 
 part of Moscow was laid in ashes. This wanton outrage 
 raised the indignation of the natives to the highest pitch ; 
 the Poles were expelled from the country ; Michael Fe- 
 derovitsh, descended on the maternal side from the an- 
 cient dukes of Russia, and ancestor of the present auto- 
 crat, was raised to the throne ; Marina was drowned, and 
 her infant son strangled. In vain did Sigismund and his 
 son endeavour to re-establish their affairs : the nation 
 showed little disposition to gratify their personal am- 
 bition by engaging in a new and hopeless war. With 
 the few troops they were able to collect, they could do no 
 more than obtain an , honourable peace, as the price of 
 which they acknowledged the new tsar. 
 
 _The wars of Sigismund with the Turks were more 
 splendid than advantageous. The first campaign, in- 
 deed, was disastrous : the Poles, unable to support their 
 ally, the voivode of Moldavia, who at their instigation 
 had refused to pay tribute to the Porte, were compelled 
 to desist from their pretensions over that principality, to 
 see it governed by a nominee of the sultan, and their 
 strongest barrier against the ambition of the Ottomans 
 thus demolished before their eyes. Gratiani, indeed, 
 the new voivode, attempted to throw off the Moslem yoke, 
 and to place the country in its ancient dependence on 
 Poland ; but a formidable army of Turks soon expelled 
 him from his capital, and forced him to implore the aid 
 of the republic. The favour which Sigismund now 
 
176 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1621. 
 
 showed to Batory, voivode of Transylvania, to whom the 
 Porte was inimical, increased the breach between Poland 
 and Turkey. Zolkiewski, who had been censured, per- 
 haps not without justice, for the disasters of the pre- 
 ceding campaign., for treating with the enemy instead of 
 defeating him, was again ordered to take the field. No 
 more than 8000 Poles, however, and some Cossacks, 
 accompanied him in his expedition ; and Gratiani could 
 not furnish him with more than 600 followers, instead 
 of the thousands which had been promised. Though his 
 entire force fell short of 20,000, this great captain did 
 not hesitate to measure arms with his 70,000 oppo- 
 nents*, among whom were the flower of the Ottoman 
 army. For a whole day he opposed a wall of adamant 
 to the overwhelming masses of the infidels, on whom he 
 inflicted a terrific slaughter. Even victory, however, had 
 so diminished his numbers, that he was forced to retreat; 
 a measure rendered still more necessary by the murmurs 
 of his officers, who refused to be led like sheep to the 
 slaughter. That retreat he conducted in a masterly 
 manner; and as often as he turned about to face his 
 pursuers, he taught them to respect him. The intrepid 
 chief, however, with his little army, were cut off at 
 Cecora, near the banks of the Dniester : his head was 
 sent to Constantinople, and all Podolia was ravaged by 
 the enemy. 
 
 To avenge this disaster, the Poles now armed in 
 greater numbers; and under the brave Chodkiewicz, 
 conqueror of the Swedes, opened a new campaign. The 
 present struggle promised to be more terrific than any 
 which had preceded it : at the head of the whole force 
 of Turkey, and of the Tatars, amounting, it is said, to 
 300,000 men, the sultan Osman advanced with the re- 
 solution of crushing Poland at one blow. Christendom 
 
 * Some modern Polish historians reduce their own force to 8000, and 
 increase that of the enemy to 100,000. On most occasions where the Turks 
 are concerned, they calculate with the same unfairness. Had the Ottomans 
 historians of their own, the numbers, no doubt, would be materially altered. 
 Nevertheless, the Poles must be admitted to be the bravest among brave 
 nations as having exhibited more splendid feats of valour than any people 
 in Europe 
 
1629- SIGISMUND III. 177 
 
 trembled for the republic ; but, under such a leader, 
 and with an army (including Cossacks) above 60,, 000 
 strong, the Poles feared not for themselves. On the 
 plains of Kotzim the infidels sustained a fearful slaugh- 
 ter: the veteran Chodkiewicz was present in the thickest 
 of the affray ; he spread consternation even to the sul- 
 tan's camp. But his fatigues were too much for his 
 age and strength. Feeling his last hour approach, he 
 caused himself to be carried to his tent ; and from his 
 bed of death he resigned the command to Lubomirski, 
 whom he exhorted to conquer or to die. His death only 
 inflamed his countrymen to greater deeds. On the morn- 
 ing of September 28. (16*22),, 30,000 infidels fell in 
 an attack headed by their sultan. Disease and famine 
 aided the sword, and forced the Turkish monarch to sue 
 for peace. As from his numbers he was still formidable, 
 it was readily granted by the Christians. The condi- 
 tions were advantageous to the republic : the treaty made 
 with Zolkiewski was confirmed ; the Tatars and Cos- 
 sacks were to desist from their inroads into the terri- 
 tories of their respective enemies ; and the hospodar of 
 Moldavia, though subject to the Porte, was to be a 
 Christian, and an ally of Poland. Osman returned to 
 his capital, to be assassinated by the Janizaries for losing 
 60,000 of his best troops. 
 
 The reign of Sigismund is a strange mixture of splen- 
 dour and weakness of splendour on the part of his 
 great generals, of weakness in his neglecting to profit by 
 the advantages procured for him. While Chodkiewicz 
 was acquiring immortality on the banks of the Dniester ; 
 another Polish captain was nobly supporting the military 
 honour of the republic in Livonia against the youthful 
 Gustavus Adolphus, successor to Charles. To detail 
 the events of this nine years' war would require a vo- 
 lume ; it must suffice to observe, that whatever success 
 was gained by arms, was lost by the imbecility or obsti- 
 nacy of Sigismund, and that peace could not be obtained 
 without sacrificing a portion of Livonia to the Swedes. 
 Still less can we dwell on the famous thirty years' war 
 
 N 
 
178 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 between the catholic and protestant interests of Europe; 
 a war in which the few Polish troops who were engaged, 
 and who fought, not as principals, but as allies of the 
 emperor, performed prodigies of valour. 
 
 The same year witnessed the deaths of the two Vasas, 
 of the northern lion on the plains of Zutphen, and of 
 Sigismund in his palace at Warsaw. It would be diffi- 
 cult to say which of the two was the greater enemy to 
 Poland; whether Gustavus by his victories, or the Polish 
 monarch by his bigotry, his weakness, his obstinacy, his 
 inactivity, and above all by his indifference to a people 
 indifferent to him in return. He had, however, some 
 good qualities : pious, just, merciful, the same in pros- 
 perity and adversity, he could not but win the respect, 
 though he could never obtain the esteem, of his subjects. 
 His reign, as might be expected from his character, was 
 disastrous. The loss of Moldavia and Wallachia, of a 
 portion of Livonia, and perhaps still more of the Swedish 
 crown for himself, and of the Muscovite for his son, 
 embittered his declining years. Even the victories which 
 shed so bright a lustre over his kingdom were but too 
 dearly purchased by the blood and treasure expended. 
 The internal state of Poland, during this period, is still 
 worse. It exhibits little more than his contentions with 
 his nobles, or with his protestant subjects, and the op- 
 pression of the peasants by their avaricious, tyrannical, 
 and insulting masters ; an oppression which he had the 
 humanity to pity, but not the vigour to alleviate.* 
 
 By his two wives, both archduchesses of Austria and 
 sisters, Sigismund had several sons, of whom two were 
 destined to sway the sceptre of Poland. 
 
 * Sulikovius, 171224. Puffendorf, Introduction & 1'Histoire, &c. 
 torn. Iv. v. vi. Karamsin, torn. x. xi. Zielinski, ii. 13G 191. Schiller, 
 Histolre de la Guerre de Trente Ans, torn. I ii. 
 
1634. ULADISLAS VII 179 
 
 ULADISLAS VII.* (VASA.) 
 16321648. 
 
 AT the present election the number of candidates was 
 fewer, and the proceedings less violent,, than for some 
 time past. Both Uladislas and John Casimir, sons of 
 Sigismund, were closely connected with the house of 
 .Austria ; and either would have been supported both by 
 that power and the empire. The only disturbance arose 
 from the claims of the dissidents, and the obstinacy of 
 the catholics in resisting them. The former insisted on 
 a perfect community of privileges, without calling to 
 mind that, as they were so much inferior in respect to 
 numbers and influence, their demands, however just, 
 could only lead to intestine dissension ; and the latter, 
 with all the haughtiness of a dominant church, scarcely 
 condescended to allow simple toleration. Both appeared 
 armed on the field of election ; but both concurred in 
 choosing the elder prince. Uladislas, the successful 
 candidate, long become the idol of the nation, had the 
 address to reconcile them. The chief articles of the 
 pacta conventa were, that the king should supply the 
 public depots with arms; recover the conquered pro- 
 vinces; settle the disputes with Muscovy and Sweden; 
 fortify some places, and construct others, and maintain a 
 fleet in the Baltic ; that he should not presume to marry 
 without the sanction of his people, nor confer posts on 
 strangers, &c.t Some of the conditions were imprac- 
 ticable, most were subsequently disregarded ; their very 
 unreasonableness occasioned their nullity. 
 
 Having pacified the dissidents, established a mathe- 
 matical and military college at Leopol, and by a union 
 of moderation with firmness given promise of a brilliant 
 
 * The modern Polish historians term Uladislas the fourth monarch of the 
 name. Though three princes of that name were but dukes, they were, no- 
 ninally at least, sovereigns of Poland. 
 
 t These conditions were added to the " articles of Henry," which always 
 formed the basis of the covenants between the Polish raonarchs and their 
 eubjects. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 HISTORY OP POLAND. 1634. 
 
 reign, the new monarch,, in compliance with the declared 
 wish of his diet, grepared for war with the Muscovites, 
 who had made several destructive incursions into tht 
 eastern provinces of the republic, and were now invest- 
 ing Smolensko. In the absence of money and troop s, 
 such preparations were not made without much difficulty. 
 Having at length collected a small army in Lithuania, 
 he proceeded to Smolensko, the siege of which he soon 
 raised, and pursued the fugitive enemy. Within an 
 entrenched camp, and in the depths of their forests, the 
 Muscovites during five months resisted his attacks. The 
 extreme severity of the weather (it was now winter), 
 the scarcity of provisions, and the want of suitable ac- 
 commodations, thinned the ranks of the assailants, but 
 could not damp the ardour of their chief, who took up 
 his abode in a wretched hut, and submitted to the same 
 privations as the meanest of his followers. Sehin, the 
 general of the tsar, was at length compelled to own, 
 with bended knees, the ascendant of Uladislas, to whom 
 he abandoned his camp, and at the same time engaged 
 to take no further part in the present war. The reduc- 
 tion of some places, among which Viazma was the most 
 considerable, added to the glory of the king. Moscow 
 itself began to take the alarm ; the tsar Michael Fede- 
 rovitsh sued for peace, as the price of which he proposed 
 to renounce all pretensions over Li?onia, Esthonia, 
 Courland, Smolensko, Severia, and Tsernichof ; but in 
 return he required a renunciation on the part of Uladislas 
 of the imperial throne. Several reasons urged the king 
 to accept the conditions. If he had ever seriously re- 
 solved to obtain possession of a dignity to which he 
 believed he had a claim, he found his troops, originally 
 but 20,000, and now greatly reduced in number, un- 
 equal to his purpose, and, still more, unwilling to effect 
 it. From the severity of the season, and much more 
 from inability to obtain their arrears of pay, they were 
 become mutinous. On the conclusion of peace they 
 returned home, but not without ravaging the estates of 
 the nobles and the richer clergy, and inflicting as great 
 
1636. ULADISLAS VII. 181 
 
 injury on their country as could have been clone by the 
 Muscovites themselves. 
 
 On his return, Uladislas found reason for rejoicing 
 that he had so happily concluded the recent war. At 
 the instigation of the Turks, and with the concurrence 
 of the tsar, the Tatars had penetrated into Podolia, the 
 southern portion of which they laid waste with their 
 usual barbarity. They were met and routed on the 
 plains of Moldavia, by the grand general of the crown, 
 who next discomfited an army of Turks which advanced 
 to support them. The sultan, Amurath IV., in con- 
 sternation at this unexpected check, and still more at the 
 result of the Muscovite expedition, hastened to disavow 
 the hostility of his pachas, one of whom, Ali, he pun- 
 ished with death, as if that general had not acted by his 
 own orders. Where his own reputation or interest is 
 concerned, an act of injustice, however cruel, costs little 
 to a tyrant. Both Muscovy and Turkey were now con- 
 vinced that the councils of Poland were directed by a 
 vigorous hand, and both were taught to respect the faith 
 of treaties. 
 
 The success of Uladislas in his policy with Sweden 
 was highly advantageous to the republic. During the 
 wars of his predecessors with the two princes who had 
 successively borne the crown of the Goths, many places 
 in Polish Prussia had been reduced by the enemy. To 
 regain them was now the firm resolution of the king. 
 The opportunity was favourable to his purpose : an in- 
 fant princess filled the throne of the great Gustavus, and 
 the regency, in its struggles with the empire, was un- 
 willing to draw on Sweden another enemy ; one, too, so 
 formidable as the republic. The storm was averted by 
 negotiation. While Uladislas was marching his troops 
 into Prussia, proposals were made him of relinquishing, 
 as the condition of peace, every place held in that country 
 by the Swedish forces. He thus acquired all that he could 
 have obtained by a fortunate war, without resigning his 
 title to the crown of his ancestors. 
 
 But all the glories of this reign, all the advantages it 
 N 3 
 
182 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1636. 
 
 procured to the republic, were fatally counterbalanced by 
 the haughty and inhuman policy of the nobles towards 
 the Cossacks. Of late, the grant of lands in the Ukraine 
 to these rapacious landlords had been more frequent. 
 In the central provinces of the republic their unbounded 
 power was considerably restrained in its exercise by their 
 habitual residence among their serfs ; but these distant 
 possessions never saw the face of the proprietors, and 
 were abandoned to Jews, the most unpopular and hateful 
 of stewards. These Israelites had, in most cases, ad- 
 vanced money on the forthcoming produce of the soil; 
 and were naturally anxious to make the most of it ; 
 nor were they likely to show much indulgence in its 
 collection. The Cossacks were still less likely to 
 submit with patience to the extortions they were made 
 to endure. They insisted, not only on the entire abo- 
 lition of these grievances, but that their chiefs should 
 have a seat in the diet. Their remonstrances, their 
 cries, their demands of justice, were received with 
 insulting indifference or with open refusal : the abuses 
 so loudly complained of were aggravated by new im- 
 posts, or by insults still more intolerable to a people re- 
 solved to be free. Obtaining no redress from the diet, 
 the members of which, however jealous of their own 
 liberties, would allow none to the people, they had laid 
 their complaints before the throne of Sigismund III. 
 With every disposition, that monarch was utterly pow- 
 erless-to^xelieve them ; Uladislas was equally well-inten- 
 tiojxedr and equally unable to satisfy them. On one 
 occasion the latter prince is said to have replied to the 
 deputies from these sons of the wilderness, " Have you 
 no sabres ? " Whether such a reply was given them or 
 not, both sabres and lances were speedily in requisition. 
 Their first efforts were unsuccessful ; though they de- 
 stroyed the fortress of Kudak, which had been erected to 
 overawe them, they were surprised and defeated by 
 Potocki, grand hetman of the crown. This failure 
 rather enraged than discouraged them, and their exas- 
 peration was increased by the annihilation of their reli- 
 gious hierarchy, of their civil privileges, of their territo- 
 
1648. ULADISLAS VII. 183 
 
 rial revenues, and by their degradation to the rank of 
 serfs, all which iniquities were done at the diet of 
 1638. Nay, a resolution was taken at the same time to 
 extirpate both their faith and themselves, if they showed 
 any disposition to escape the bondage doomed them. 
 Again they armed, and by their combination so imposed 
 on the troops sent to subdue them, that a promise was 
 made them of restoring the privileges which had been so 
 wickedly and so impolitically wrested from them. Such 
 a promise, however, was not intended to be fulfilled : 
 the Cossacks, in revenge, made frequent irruptions into 
 the palatinates of the grand duchy, and no longer pre- 
 vented the Tatars from similar ravages. Some idea 
 may be formed of the extent of these depredations when 
 it is known that from the princely domains of one noble 
 alone 30,000 peasants were carried away and sold as 
 slaves to the Turks and Tatars. Things were in this 
 state when a new instance of outrageous cruelty spread 
 the flames of insurrection from one end of the Ukraine 
 to the other, and lent fearful force to their intensity. 
 
 There was a veteran Cossack, Bogdan Chmielnicki by 
 name, whose valour under the ensigns of the republic 
 was known far beyond the bounds of his nation. His 
 success twenty years before, in defending Zolkiew against 
 the assaults of the Tatars, had given lustre to his cha- 
 racter. This man had a windmill, with some lands ad- 
 jacent, situated near the banks of the Borysthenes, on 
 which the steward of a great Polish family had cast a 
 longing eye : this steward thought that the surest way of 
 obtaining the mill and estate would be through the ruin 
 of the owner. On some frivolous charge or other, Bog- 
 dan was summoned before the tribunal of the stewards 
 master, Alexander Koniecpolski, grand ensign of the 
 crown, was thrown into prison, and would probably have 
 been sacrificed but for the interference of the castellan 
 of Cracow.* On the death of that dignitary, the poor 
 
 * James Sobieski, father to the hero:c John III., whose lady Bogdan had 
 saved from slavery by the defence of Zolkiew. Bogdan, however, was no 
 saint. To escape the punishment of homicide, he had fled from the neigh- 
 bourhood of Zolkiew, his patrimonial residence, to seek an asylum among 
 
 N 4 
 
184 HISTORY OP POLAND. l648. 
 
 Cossack was left without a protector, and his mill was 
 unceremoniously seized by his enemy : his indignant re- 
 monstrances were met by blows, or by attempted assas- 
 sination. In vain did he appeal to the diet sitting at 
 Warsaw ; neither justice, nor a consideration of his for- 
 mer services, could touch the members. Resolved to 
 humble himself no longer before these insulting tyrants, 
 he fled to the Tatars, with the intention, no doubt, of 
 interesting them in his behalf. It does not appear that 
 he had ever seriously resolved to make war on the re- 
 public ; his design was merely to procure the redress of 
 his personal wrongs, until Czapalinski, the infamous 
 steward before named, not satisfied with violently usurp- 
 ing his property, first violated, next murdered, his wife, 
 and set fire to his habitation, amidst the flames of which 
 his infant son perished. Another son, Timothy, who 
 had grown up to man's estate, was publicly scourged for 
 venting a natural indignation.* The bolt of vengeance, 
 so long suspended, at length fell. At the head of 40,000 
 Tatars, and of many times that number of Cossacks, who 
 had wrongs to be redressed as well as he, and whom the 
 tale of his had summoned around him with electric ra- 
 pidity, he began his fearful majcML Two successive ar- 
 mies of the republic, which endeavoured to stem the tide 
 of inundation, were utterly swept away by the torrent ; 
 their generals and superior officers led away captives, 
 and 70,000 peasants consigned to hopeless bondage. 
 
 At this critical moment expired Uladislas, a misfortune 
 scarcely inferior to the insurrection of the Cossacks ; for 
 never did any state more urgently require the authority 
 of such a monarch. He is chiefly known for his love 
 of justice, his abilities as a captain, his great valour, and 
 his amiable manners. Under him the republic was pros- 
 
 the Cossacks, the usual resort of men answerable to the laws. The property 
 he possessed in the Ukraine was the reward of his military services, conferred 
 on him by the grand-general of the crown. 
 
 * There must have been some provocation for this monstrous behaviour 
 of Czapalinski. If, as some accounts state, he had once been ignominiously 
 whipped by the servants of Bogdan, we shall feel less surprise at his dreadful 
 revenge. The Cossack had incurred the hostility of Koniecpolski by his 
 bravadoes, and probably by threats of revolt. 
 
1648. INTERREGNUM. IS 5 
 
 perous, notwithstanding her wars with the Muscovites 
 arid Turks; and had his advice heen taken, the Cossacks 
 would have remained faithful to her, and opposed an 
 effectual barrier to the incursions of the Tatars, put 
 eternal justice had doomed the chastisement of a haugnty, 
 tyrannical, and unprincipled aristocracy, on whom rea- 
 soning, entreaty, or remonstrance, could have no effect, 
 and whose understandings were blinded by hardness of 
 heart. In their conduct during these reigns there ap- 
 pears something like fatality, which may be explained 
 by a maxim confirmed by all human experience: Quern 
 Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.* 
 
 Uladislas died without issue by either of his wives ; 
 the former an Austrian archduchess, the latter Maria 
 Louisa, daughter of the duke of Mantua. 
 
 3 o 
 
 INTERREGNUM. JOHN CASIMIR. 
 
 1648. 
 
 NEVER was interregnum more fatal than that which fol- 
 lowed the death of Uladislas. The terrible Bogdan, 
 breathing vengeance against the republic, seized on the 
 whole of the Ukraine, and advanced towards Red Russia. 
 In his destructive march through Podolia and Volhynia, 
 his chief vengeance was made to fall on the Jesuits and 
 the Jews; the former as the persecutors of the Greek 
 church, no less than of the Arians and anabaptists, who 
 every where flocked to his standard, the latter as the 
 iniquitous oppressors of every class of Christians. He 
 was joined by vast hordes of Tatars from Bessarabia and 
 the Crimea, who longed to assist in the contemplated 
 annihilation of the republic. This confederacy of Mus- 
 sulmans, Socinians, and Greeks, all actuated by feelings 
 
 * Hartknock, Repub. Polon. lib. i. Puffendorf, lib. iv. Pastorius de 
 Hirtenberg, Florus Polonicus, &c. lib. v. Salvandy,i. 171 215. Kwiatowski, 
 (as condensed by Zielinski, torn. ii. 1952201). in his reign of Uladislas IV., 
 p. 1. 427. Little assistance can be obtained from the general historians of 
 Europe during these times : numerous as they are, they are little convers- 
 ant with PoLsh affairs. For some reigns past we have had to lament 
 the gradual falling off of Polish guides : now we feel their loss more 
 than ever. Salvandy is so full of inaccuracies, that nothing he says can be 
 received unsupported by other authority. 
 
186 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1648. 
 
 of the most vindictive character, committed excesses at 
 which the soul revolts : the churches and monasteries 
 were levelled with the ground, the nuns were violated ; 
 some priests were forced, under the raised poniard, not 
 merely to contract, but to consummate a marriage with 
 the trembling inmates of the cloisters, arid in general 
 both were subsequently sacrificed ; the rest of the clergy 
 were despatched without mercy.* But the chief weight 
 of vengeance fell on the nobles, who were doomed to a 
 lingering death; whose wives and daughters were stripped 
 naked before their eyes, and, after violation, were whipped 
 to death in sight of the ruthless invaders. As Bogdan 
 advanced into Red Russia, he was joined by the serfs, 
 whose fetters he broke, and whose champion he loudly 
 proclaimed himself. The chivalry of Poland were with 
 difficulty brought into the field ; whether struck by fear 
 or conscience, they fled without striking a blow before 
 the resistless hetman. Leopol opened its gates to him ; 
 the whole palatinate acknowledged his power except Za- 
 mosk, within the bulwarks of which the braver portion 
 of the Polish chivalry had shut themselves up, resolved 
 to defend it or to die : this last act of despairing courage 
 would have been useless, had not his Tatar allies aban- 
 doned Bogdan to deposit their treasures and captives in 
 their own country, and caused him to prosecute the siege 
 with less vigour. 
 
 At this critical period the diet of election assembled 
 (that of convocation had been previously held) to appoint 
 a successor to a throne which appeared about to fall for 
 jever. The ^candidates were the tsar Alexis, father of 
 Peter the Great, Ragotski, voivode of Transylvania, and 
 two sons of Sigismund III., both ecclesiastics. The elder, 
 John Casimir, had, with the pope's sanction, resigned his 
 dignity of cardinal, assumed the title of hereditary king 
 of Sweden, and become a suitor to the widow of his 
 brother, the late monarch. The younger, the bishop of 
 
 * These atrocities were not unprovoked. The soul of the catholic party, 
 prince Jeremiah Wisnowiecki, had, in Lithuania, inflicted terrific tor- 
 ments on the Arian and anabaptist dissidents. This man was a monster of 
 cruelty. 
 
1649. JOHN ii. 187 
 
 Breslaw, was no less eager to obtain a wife and a crown : 
 for the first time Europe beheld two brothers, invested 
 with the higher honours of the priesthood, rivals for two 
 objects so foreign to their original vocation ; both pro- 
 curing absolution from a twofold vow, and seeking a 
 dispensation for marrying a sister-in-law. The cardinal 
 was the favourite both with the queen and nobles ; his 
 mildness, his amiable manners, his tolerant disposition, 
 contrasted greatly with the stern bigotry of the bishop. 
 John Casimir was so sure of his election (neither of the 
 foreign candidates had any chance of success) that he 
 opened a correspondence with Bogdan, condemned the 
 injustice done to the hetman, and professed his desire to 
 see the pacification of the republic, in terms sufficiently 
 advantageous to Pole and Cossack. (This correspondence 
 accounts for the inaction of Bogdan during the period of 
 election.) His confidence was justified by the event ; 
 on the 20th oTlSovember he was elected, and early in 
 the following year he led to the hymeneal altar the wife 
 of his brother.* 
 
 One of the new king's first acts was to renew his ne- 
 gotiations with Bogdan, who still lay in the vicinity of 
 Zamosk. The hetman showed his respect to the head 
 of the republic by pressing the royal letter to his lips, 
 and countermanding the assault which he had prepared 
 on the walls of that fortress, Every thing presaged 
 peace, when the savage Jeremy Wisnowiecki, general 
 of the grand duchy, unmindful alike of the national 
 honour and that of his king, surprised the camp of 
 the unsuspecting besiegers, and committed a horrible 
 slaughter. Bogdan retreated, his heart big with ven- 
 
 * It was disgust with the world, not a celestial vocation, which drew John 
 Casimir to the cloister. As he was proceeding to Spain (this was during the 
 reign of Uladislas) he was seized at Marseilles by order of the French 
 government, and closely confined in the fortress of Sisteron, built on the 
 summit of a steep rock. From thence, after two years of rigorous captivity, 
 he was transferred to the chateau of Vincennes, to meet with even worse 
 treatment. It wae not without great difficulty that the pope and the 
 republic succeeded in procuring his liberation. Whether the detestable 
 Richelieu, in this vindictive proceeding, wished to punish the Polish 
 monarch for joining with Austria, or John Casimir himself, for having 
 borne arms against France in the thirty years' war, is unknown. From 
 his depressed spirits and enfeebled frame, both occasioned by his imprison, 
 ment, the prince renounced the world, and became an ecclesiastic. 
 
188 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 geance, to prepare for a new campaign ; and naturally 
 refusing all further communication with a people whose 
 perfidy was at least equal to their other qualities. In 
 vain did the king upbraid his nobles for their past and 
 present misdeeds; in vain did he strive to avert the 
 evils which impended ; war was inevitable., and he was 
 reluctantly compelled to share in it. He encountered 
 Bogdan, with a powerful ally, the Tatar khan Islaf, 
 whose combined forces amounted, it is said, to 1 60,000 
 men *, on the plains of Zborow. By this formidable 
 host was the faithless Jeremy invested within an en- 
 trenched camp. The besieged had long baffled the 
 assaults of the barbarians, and had been encouraged to 
 hold out by a letter, which an arrow had brought to 
 them, and which announced the approach of the king 
 with the flower of Polish chivalry. But though the 
 army of John Casimir was 20,000 strong, he could not 
 effect a junction with the 9000 shut up in the camp. 
 He trembled for the republic, which he well saw no 
 human valour could save. But policy saved her : the 
 khan of the Tatars was persuaded by his offers, one of 
 which was the restoration of the annual tribute formerly 
 paid by the Poles, to withdraw them from the confede- 
 racy. By the desertion of so powerful an ally, Bogdan 
 himself was induced to accept the terms proposed by the 
 king. But the peace was of short continuance: instead 
 of gratitude to Heaven for an escape from utter destruc- 
 tion, the Polish nobles felt, only the shame of receiving 
 the boon from a people whom a long habit of oppressing 
 made them despise. The hetman had scarcely reached 
 the Ukraine when his ears were assailed with the notes 
 of preparation for a new war. The nobles in full diet 
 at Warsaw, and in opposition to the prayers of their 
 monarch, refused to ratify the conditions of Zbarras, 
 and decreed the renewal of hostilities by the whole 
 equestrian body. Bogdan was somewhat startled at the 
 
 * Doubtless an exaggeration. Another account has 110,000 ; a third, 
 with that random calculation, and that disregard to accuracy, so fre- 
 quent in the Polish computations of the enemy, impudently raises them 
 to 340,000. 
 
165& JOHN II. 189 
 
 magnitude of the danger : he applied for aid to the sul- 
 tan, but in vain, as the Turkish forces were then occu- 
 pied in the war of Candia : the Tatars, however, were 
 directed to support one whom the Porte recognised as 
 prince of the Ukraine. His best supports were his 
 Greek co-religionists, with the Lutherans, Arians, and 
 anabaptists, who now flocked to his standard, from Red 
 Russia, and the heart of Lithuania, to the Borysthenes ; 
 and the peasants, who, whether catholics or dissidents, 
 were now determined to be free. Again did the two 
 hostile armies meet in Red Russia, near Berestecko ; the 
 Poles amounted to 100,000; the enemy, it is said, to 
 three times that number. Here was at length decided 
 the conflict between schism and orthodoxy, between 
 slavery and tyranny. After an obstinate battle, in which 
 the king exhibited equal bravery and skill, the forces of 
 Bogdan were totally routed with great slaughter. The 
 hetman retreated towards the Borysthenes, but still op- 
 posed a formidable front to the Polish generals. A 
 multitude of petty contests followed, in which the suc- 
 cess was nearly balanced, until a body of 40,000 Poles, 
 who were waiting to intercept the son of Bogdan as he 
 was hastening to his Moldavian bride, were almost ex- 
 terminated in a sudden charge by father and son.* This 
 disaster was a terrific one to Poland ; every man expected 
 to see clouds of Cossacks and Tatars hovering on the 
 banks of the Vistula ; thousands retired to Dantzic, or 
 into Germany, to escape the portentous storm believed 
 to be impending. 
 
 There was, unhappily, reason enough for despair : the 
 in ternaT state of the kingdom was no better than its ex- 
 ternal. The gallantries of the king, especially with the 
 wife of his vice-chancellor, raised him up a host of 
 
 * Scarcely any two writers agree either as to the occasion of this battle of 
 Batowitz, or the extent of the loss sustained by the Poles. Some accounts 
 assign the disaster to the Tatars, not to the Cossacks; others, to the latter 
 alone ; one says it was Bogdan, another his son, who inflicted this severe 
 blow on the republic : in short, it is a subject on which we find nothing but 
 contradiction or confusion. The modern historians of Poland reduce the 
 numbers of their countrymen before the action to 9000. This is highly 
 disingenuous : the loss of so small a number could not have occasioned the 
 consternation which followed throughout the republic. 
 
190 HISTORY OF POLAND. l6$3. 
 
 enemies. While the injured husband fled to the Swedish 
 court, to embroil that power with his native country, a 
 deputy, by his single vetOj dissolved a diet which had 
 been summoned for the express purpose of providing for 
 the defence of the menaced kingdom. This novelty 
 (for though the dangerous power existed in every indi- 
 vidual member, no one hitherto had been hardy enough 
 to exercise it,) filled the assembly with equal surprise 
 and consternation ; by this fatal measure, all the pre- 
 ceding deliberations of that diet were nullified. From 
 this period the dangerous privilege was exercised as often 
 as any individual could be found bold enough to run the 
 risk of his life for assassination was generally his doom 
 if he could not escape in time, or, as was often the case, 
 if he had not protectors powerful enough to screen him 
 from the consequences of his temerity, by thus setting 
 aside the unanimous resolutions of the other members. 
 Strange state of things, in which one equal was admitted 
 to tyrannise over the many ! in which one dissentient 
 voice could arrest the proceedings of a whole deliberative 
 body, and thereby plunge a great nation into woes irre- 
 mediable ! in which, while all power was denied to the 
 king, the most despotic degree of it was allowed to rest in 
 the humble menial for such were many of the nobles 
 of any baron, prelate, or gentleman, in the realm ! 
 
 With forces wholly inadequate to the undertaking, 
 without money or supplies, the dejected king hastened to 
 the relief of Kaminiec, invested by Bogdan. In one of 
 the obscure contentions which followed for no general 
 action could be dreamed of by the Poles the son of the 
 hetman was killed. This event, however, was more 
 likely to exasperate than to pacify the father ; but the 
 defection of his Tatar allies again weakened him too 
 much to permit him to think of immediate venge- 
 ance. Though induced to accept the terms of a truce, 
 he prepared for new hostilities. He applied for aid to 
 the tsar Alexis, whose vassal he offered to become, on 
 condition that 200,000 Muscovites were poured into 
 Lithuania. For some time Alexis hesitated to enter into 
 
1656. joiiN 7 u. 191 
 
 war with a power which hail all but dethroned his father 
 Michael. To know whether such a war were agreeable 
 to Heaven, and consequently likely to issue fortunately, 
 he opposed to each other two wild bulls, the one chris- 
 tened Poland, the other Muscovy ; and had the morti- 
 fication to behold the Polish brute triumphant. The 
 patriarch, however, removed his superstitious fears, and 
 war was declared. The acquisition of a vast territory 
 from the lake Ilmen to the Black Sea, for the sub- 
 mission of Bogdan rendered him lord of those extensive 
 regions, probably influenced him more than the interests 
 of his religion, which his patriarch taught him he was 
 bound to support. In the present distracted state of 
 Poland his arms could not fail to be invincible. Smo- 
 lensko, with its 300 towers, fell before him ; Witepsk, 
 Polotsk, Mohilof, all Severia andSemigallia, acknowledged 
 his sway ; whilst on the Moldavian frontier his Cossack 
 ajlies reduced Haman, Bratslaw, and other fortresses. In 
 vain did the Poles endeavour to oppose so many and 
 such formidable enemies. Their best generals were 
 worsted ; their finest armies routed ; and the pit of de- 
 struction seemed already opened before them, when the 
 appearance of a third enemy rendered all resistance hope- 
 less. 
 
 On the abdication of queen Christina, and the acces- 
 sion of Charles Gustavus, the Polish monarch beheld 
 with indignation and regret his own exclusion from the 
 throne of his ancestors. As the last scion of the house 
 of Vasa, he directed his ambassador at Stockholm to 
 protest against the election of the duke. This incon- 
 siderate act, at a time when, in the eyes of all Europe, 
 Poland was undone, filled Charles with equal indigna- 
 tion and surprise. His ambition for military fame, and 
 the representations of John Casimir's personal enemy, the 
 vice-chancellor Radzichowski, who longed for the de- 
 struction of one that had deprived him of wife and 
 country, and who showed that Poland was a prize at 
 once brilliant and unable to resist, did the rest. Sixty 
 thousand Swedes lauded in Pomerania, and, without loss 
 
1Q2 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1656. 
 
 of time penetrated into Great Poland. As the Greek 
 religionists had joined the arms of the tsar and of the 
 Cossack,, so from that same motive, revenge for past 
 sufferings,, the Lutherans joined those of Charles Gus- 
 tavus, who loudly proclaimed himself the champion of 
 protestantism,, the redresser of all grievances originating 
 in religion. He was immediately strengthened by the 
 adhesion of several palatinates : his march was one tri- 
 umphant career, to the walls first of Warsaw, and next 
 of Cracow, which submitted without resistance. The 
 example was. speedily followed by the rest of the country 
 as far as Leopol in Red Russia. The nobles of the 
 grand duchy felt the universal panic, and acknowledged 
 the Swede ; but from community of religion the Lithu- 
 anian clergy declared for the tsar. The terrified John 
 Casimir fled into Silesia; all Poland obeyed Charles, 
 from the Carpathian mountains to the duchy of Cour- 
 land. Successes so astoundingly rapid scarcely leave the 
 mind time to breathe, but are yet sufficiently explicable. 
 Religious animosities influenced the dissidents more 
 powerfully than love of country ; the peasants, whether 
 catholic or Lutheran, were no less moved by the hope of 
 emancipation ; many nobles thought the Swede might 
 prove as good a ruler as the present monarch ; but panic 
 fear, the utter hopelessness of resistance when so many 
 armies of the republic had been annihilated by Cossack 
 and Muscovite, and when but a handful of troops re- 
 mained, flying from fortress to fortress to escape destruc- 
 tion, did more than all the rest, and blotted Poland for 
 a time from the list of nations. 
 
 But, in human affairs, evil has its tide, as well as good. 
 The very spirits which the sudden and apparently mira- 
 culous successes of Charles Gustavus had humbled to the 
 dust, now began to rise. The haughty behaviour of the 
 victor, who despised the very Poles to whom he was in 
 a great measure indebted for his success ; the exhort- 
 ations of the catholic clergy, whom bigotry much more 
 than patriotism rendered averse to the sway of a fo- 
 reigner and a heretic ; the pillage and depredations com- 
 mitted by the Swedish troops, especially in the catholic 
 
1660. JOHN II. 193 
 
 churches, the peculiar objects of their fury, fermented 
 in the minds of the people the leaven of discontent. 
 Thousands began to flock into Silesia, to rally round the 
 standard of their fugitive monarch. The opportunity 
 was propitious in other respects. Alarmed at the 
 triumph of Charles, the tsar, satisfied with his present 
 conquests, had arrested his troops in the full career of 
 victory ; and even Bogdan had been persuaded by a 
 suppliant messenger from John Casimir to suspend his 
 blows. All Europe, too, began to feel commiseration 
 for a gallant people, or rather to dread the aspiring views 
 of the conqueror. Charles was not a little astonished to 
 find that his work was to recommence ; on every side 
 small armies rose to harass his motions, and confeder- 
 ations were formed for the defence of the rightful king, 
 who hastened to reclaim his crown. ,Xhe Swede was 
 defeated in several en gag-em en ts ; but he still contrived 
 to retain possession of the chief palatinates, and even to 
 invest John Casimir in Dantzic, the inhabitants of which, 
 though protestants, nobly fulfilled their duty. But what 
 can control a whole nation resolved to be free? While 
 the heroic Dantzickers were astonishing all Europe by 
 their defence, llagotski duke of Transylvania, whom 
 Charles had allured by promising to partition the repub^ 
 lie, was utterly routed by Potocki, grand general of the 
 crown. John Casimir was soon conducted from his cri- 
 tical position at Dantzic, to the midst of his subjects, 
 now taught loyalty by misfortune. TJhe Swedes were 
 again defeated, and so were their allies the adherents of 
 Brandenburg, whom the same views as those of the 
 Transylvanians had joined with the invaders. The sun 
 of Charles's fortune now declined with as great rapidity 
 an it had risen. The alliance of Holland, of Denmark, 
 of the empire, Hungary, nay, even of the Brandenburger, 
 who, as the reward of his adhesion to the cause of the 
 republic, was exempted from all homage in his original 
 Pomeranian possessions *, and was presented with the 
 
 * This is denied by some writers on the first partition (1772), but it is new 
 generally admitted by the Poles. 
 
19'i HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 fiefs of Lawemburg and Butow, enabled the republic 
 again to rear her head among nations. The invasion of 
 Sweden itself by the Danish king, recalled Charles to 
 the defence of his hereditary states, and Poland was freed 
 from the foot of the foreigner. The war, however, lin- 
 gered in Pomerania, and along the shores of the Baltic, until 
 the death of Charles, and the peace of Oliva, when the 
 Polish king renounced his vain claim to the crown of 
 the Goths, and ceded almost all Livonia to Sweden, 
 a country occupied by the troops of that power, but me- 
 naced every hour by the arms of the tsar. 
 
 Two years before the death of Charles Gustavus, a fit 
 of apoplexy removed from the busy scenes in which he 
 had delighted the celebrated Bogdan, after ten years of 
 empire. By the Polish writers he has been stigmatised 
 as rebel and traitor, as distinguished alike by malignity 
 and perfidy. The annihilation of their finest armies, 
 and the defeat of their ablest generals, by this extraor- 
 dinary man, have forced them reluctantly to confess his 
 surpassing military talents, and the well-judged policy 
 which enabled him, in spite of the republic, to retain his 
 power to the close of life. The charge of rebellion will 
 scarcely attach to him : the Cossacks were the allies, more 
 than the subjects, of Poland; and in seeking to escape from 
 the intolerable yoke of that country, they did no more 
 than patriotism and justice to themselves sanctioned. 
 The truth is, that though he owed nothing to Poland 
 except the accident of his birth ; though his wrongs were 
 such as would have armed the most loyal of subjects ; 
 though, to use his own expressions, in turning against 
 his wanton persecutors he had done no more than the 
 trodden worm would have done, he was singularly in- 
 dulgent to his native land. At all times he professed 
 his readiness to submit, on condition that his reasonable 
 proposals were sanctioned by the diet : he testified great 
 respect for the king, whose subject he long considered 
 himself; and he more than once arrested the march of 
 his victorious troops when resistance by the Poles was 
 utterly hopeless. Had he been less moderate, we may 
 
l66'7 JOHN ii. 195 
 
 say less magnanimous, the banks of the Vistula, not 
 those of the Borysthenes, would have been the seat of 
 his empire. So much for his rebellion and malignity. 
 As to his perfidy, the charge comes with exceedingly 
 bad grace from men who, in their transactions with the 
 Cossacks, exhibited little else. 
 
 But the empire which Bogdan had raised was dis- 
 solved after his death. His son, George Chinielniski, 
 was recognised beyond the Borysthenes ; another chief, 
 Wyhowski, reigned on this side : the former, to secure 
 his dominion, acknowledged himself the vassal of the 
 tsar ; the latter, of the republic. A long war desolated 
 these fine regions ; a war in which both protecting 
 powers took a part. Wyhowski being treacherously shot 
 by order of the Polish monarch, the remaining Cossacks 
 submitted to the Muscovite. Thus it is that retribution 
 follows crime, as notoriously as effect follows cause. Jjcu 
 general, the Poles were successful in the Ukraine ; but 
 that success procured them no solid advantage, while the 
 Muscovites ruled at pleasure in the grand duchy : even 
 Wilaa was long in the power of the tsar. At length two 
 splendid but dearly bought victories freed Lithuania and 
 Volhynia from the invaders ; the one obtained at Po- 
 louka, by Czarniecki, the ablest perhaps of the many 
 able generals of John Casimir ; the other by Lubomirski 
 and Pot09ki, at Cudnowa. Still many provinces, from 
 Courland to Muscovy, and on the left bank of the Bo- 
 rysthenes, with the important fortresses on the frontiers, 
 for ever remained in the giant grasp of the autocrat. 
 These vast possessions were ceded to the Muscovite by 
 the peace of 166?. But if one enemy was pacified, 
 others remained. An army of Cossacks and Tatars, 
 raised up by the Porte, entered into Podolia, and vigo- 
 rously invested Kaminiec. They were signally defeated 
 by John Sobieski, wJbo, on Jhe death of the generals be- 
 fore mentioned, was intrusted, as grand hetman of the 
 crown, with the supreme command of the Polish armies. 
 Though with but a handful of troops, no more than 
 10,000, this wonderful man routed 80,000 of the 
 o 2 
 
JQ6 HISTORY OF POLAND. l6'6 % 7. 
 
 enemy, and freed his country from the scourge of in- 
 vasion. In the preceding battles, while serving in a 
 subordinate capacity, he had been the right hand of the 
 generals in chief, and had powerfully contributed to their 
 triumphs. The conqueror of Podhaie was now known 
 beyond the bounds of the republic ; his name was re- 
 peated with admiration by all Europe. 
 
 Scarcely an evil can be mentioned which did not 
 afflict the kingdom during the eventful reign of this 
 monarch. To the horrors of invasion by so many ene- 
 mies, must now be added those of civil strife. The 
 queen, in opposition to the pacta conventa, had long and 
 not very secretly endeavoured to bring over the great 
 barons to acknowledge a son of the famous Conde as 
 the successor of Casimir. Such was her influence over 
 her husband, that he hesitated not, in full diet, to pro- 
 pose the young prince to the suffrages of the nobles. 
 Their silence, so contrary to their usual howls when any 
 thing peculiarly disagreeable was introduced, afforded the 
 royal pair a momentary prospect of success; but the 
 vehement opposition of Lubomirski undeceived them. 
 The vindictive queen vowed the destruction of the mar- 
 shal. Summoned before the diet, on no less a charge 
 than that of an understanding with the Cossacks and 
 Tatars to overturn the state, a charge for which there 
 was not even the shadow of a foundation, he refused 
 to appear, and was condemned by a few court creatures 
 to lose his honours, his substance, and his life. But 
 the victor in so many battles, the saviour, in conjunction 
 with the deceased Czarniecki, of his country, was not to 
 be sacrificed with impunity to a woman's hatred. From 
 his asylum in Silesia he perceived the indignation which 
 his sentence had produced. Great Poland loudly de- 
 clared for persecuted innocence. He returned, and a 
 civil war followed, in which the king was twice de- 
 feated by him, and obliged to renounce the interests of 
 the French prince. The victor again departed for Bres- 
 law, where he ended his days. Though innocent of the 
 crimes imputed to him, it may be doubted whether his 
 
1668. JOHN II. 197 
 
 past services to his country were not more than coun- 
 terbalanced hy the disasters of which he was the cause : 
 no wrongs assuredly could justify his armed opposition 
 to his sovereign ; still less the carnage which his desire 
 of vengeance inflicted on the nation.* 
 
 In this beautiful picture of disasters abroad and 
 anarchy at home, of carnage and misery on every side, 
 the disbanded military took a prominent part. On 
 their return from their expeditions against the Musco- 
 vites and the Cossacks, they loudly demanded their ar- 
 rears of pay; and when unable to procure any money, 
 such was the exhausted state of the treasury, they in- 
 demnified themselves by indiscriminately plundering the 
 houses of all who fell in their way, of noble, priest, or 
 burgher; and murder was not unfrequently added to 
 robbery. These disorders were very common in Lithu- 
 ania. 
 
 No wonder that such a sceptre should have become 
 too heavy for the enfeebled hand of John Casimir, or 
 that he should have little delight in a dignity which 
 twenty years of incessant troubles had attended. The 
 loss of so many provinces, the rebellion of his nobles, 
 the disobedience of the army, the inconceivable indif- 
 ference of his people to calamities which it required no 
 prophetic powers to foresee t; and, finally, the death of 
 his queen made him resolve on bidding adieu to his 
 sceptre and the world. His abdication was not without 
 dignity. In the diet convened for that purpose, he stood 
 for the last time on the steps of the throne ; and, in the 
 midst of an assembly profoundly affected at his resolu- 
 tion, a resolution from which he could not be made to 
 swerve, he explained the reasons of so extraordinary 
 a step : " Poles ! the time is come when 1 consider it 
 
 * The decree of attainder issued against him was reversed after the 
 abdication of the king. 
 
 t His speech at the diet of 1661, in which he denounced the partition of 
 Poland as the inevitable consequence of the existing anarchy, has been 
 considered prophetic. Rulhiere (.Histoire de 1'Anarchie de Pologne, torn, i.) 
 has proved, that in using so fatal a word as partition, the king alluded to a 
 fact. The dismemberment of the republic during the invasion of Charles 
 Gustavus had, as before related, been seriously entertained by the surround- 
 ing powers. 
 
 o 3 
 
1.98 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1668. 
 
 e the debt of gratitude contracted by 
 my ancestors, (luring more than three centuries, towards 
 the republic. Enfeebled by age,, exhausted by many 
 campaigns, filled with sorrow at the contradictions I 
 have long endured in your debates, I, your king and 
 father, resign into your hands what the world most 
 values a crown. Instead of a sceptre and a throne, 
 give me a simple habitation ; a few feet of earth, the 
 last possession of us all : and let me leave among you 
 the remembrance, that I was always the first to combat, 
 the last to retreat ; that from love to you and my coun- 
 try, I resigned the crown into the same hands which had 
 honoured me with it." He_concluded by begging pardon 
 of any one he might have offended, as from his heart he 
 forgave all who had ever offended him ; and expressed 
 in strong terms his affection towards Poland, and his 
 assurance that his last prayers should be for her welfare. 
 He then bade an affectionate adieu to his people, and 
 shortly afterwards retired to France, where he died in 
 about five years. 
 
 Under John Casimir, the Arians were expelled from 
 the republic, and the Lutherans were persecuted. Per- 
 secution, however^ is sure to meet its reward. The 
 adhesion of the Greeks to the tsar, and of the other dis- 
 sidents to Charles Gustavus, was its inevitable conse- 
 quence. The king was the unresisting instrument of 
 the Jesuits, whose bigotry would not suffer the country 
 to remain in peace. Ineffectual attempts were made to 
 unite the Greek and Latin Christians : their only effect 
 was to aggravate the hostility already subsisting between 
 them. In short, the reign of this monarch, while it 
 exhibits a continued succession of the worst evils which 
 have afflicted nations, is unredeemed by a single advan- 
 tage" to the republic : its only distinction is the fearfully 
 accelerated impulse which it gave to the decline of Po- 
 land. The fact speaks little either for monarch or diet : 
 but he must not be blamed with undue severity ; his 
 heart was better than his head ; and both were superior 
 to those of the turbulent, fierce, and ungovernable 
 
1668. MICHAEL. 199 
 
 men who composed a body at once legislative and 
 executive. * 
 
 MICHAEL. 
 
 16681673. 
 
 THE first act of the diet of convocation was to declare 
 that no Polish king should hereafter abdicate : the fetters 
 he might assume were thus rendered everlasting. 
 
 The candidates were ithree: the prince of Conde, 
 supported by the primate and the great barons; the 
 princq of frfo>i])y> r gT ^n ally, or rather a creature, of 
 Louis XIV. ; and Charles of Lorraine, a prince in the 
 interests of Austria. The first of these candidates, how- 
 ever illustrious his exploits, could not be acceptable to a 
 nation which detested alike the tyranny and arrogance 
 of the French monarch, and which remembered but too 
 well the disasters inflicted on the republic by one of that 
 nation, Henry de Valois. Though the grand marshal 
 of the crown, Sobieski, left the fields on which he had 
 hitherto reaped his laurels, to swell the partisans of 
 Conde, the cause was hopeless : vast bodies of armed 
 nobles flocked round the kolo, and insisted that the 
 Frenchman should be excluded. The contest, which 
 now lay between the French and Austrian interests, 
 promised to be ruinous, and to end in blood : the adher- 
 ents of each were nearly equal in number, and perfectly 
 so in obstinacy. One morning, however, before the 
 great dignitaries hadlirrived, and while the electors were 
 ranged round the plain, under the banners of their 
 respective palatinates, the cry of aPiast proceeded from 
 that of Russia, and an obscure prince, Michael Koributh, 
 
 * Puffendorf, Historia Caroli Gustavi. Idem, Rerum Brandenb. Hist, 
 lib. viii. This author, however, is ill informed in Polish affairs. Pas- 
 torius de Hirtemberg, part ii. This work is as meagre as the epitome of 
 the writer in whose manner it was composed, Florus. Hartknockde Repub- 
 lica Polonica, lib. i. : a meagre work also, and one, therefore, which we 
 forbore to quote, so long as authorities were numerous : it is, however, 
 a judicious abbreviation. The letters of our countryman Dr. Connor on the 
 ancient and modern state of Poland are worth consulting. Salvandy, i. 
 29 424. Zielinski, xi. 221 258. We omit the immense nerd of contem- 
 porary German historians, whose works, however diffuse on the affairs of 
 France and the empire, exhibit a deplorable ignorance on those of Poland. 
 
 o 4 
 
200 HISTORY OF POLAND. l66Q. 
 
 was proclaimed by those immediately at hand. The cry 
 spread with electric rapidity : it was echoed by the 
 electors of the other palatinates,, who by this unexpected 
 nomination saw an escape from the greatest of all evils, 
 civil war. As the senators approached, they were 
 surprised at the universal clashing of sabres, and the 
 howls of approbation which accompanied the name of 
 Michael ! They were compelled to join in the vast 
 chorus, and ' ' Michael ! Michael ! " resounded with 
 deafening acclamations. In less than two hours he was 
 proclaimed king of Poland. 
 
 Prince Michael Koributh Wisnowie9ki was the son 
 of the ruthless Jeremy, so infamous for his persecution 
 of the dissidents. Infirm in body and weak in mind, 
 without influence, because without courage and riches, 
 he saw that if he was now made the scape-goat for the 
 hostile factions, both would afterwards unite in his pur- 
 suit. With tears in his eyes he begged to decline the 
 proffered dignity ; and when his entreaties were received 
 with howls of (( Most serene king, you shall reign ! " he 
 mounted his horse, and precipitately fled from the plain. 
 He was pursued, brought back, forced to accept the 
 pacta conventa which had been prepared for the suc- 
 cessful candidate, and to promise before the assembled 
 multitude, whose outrageous demonstrations of homage 
 he well knew were intended to insult his incapacity, 
 that he would never seek to evade his new duties. To 
 relieve his extreme poverty, some of the wealthier barons 
 immediately filled his empty apartments with household 
 furniture, and his still emptier kitchen with cheer, to 
 which he had never before been accustomed. In these 
 studied attentions there was more of contempt than of 
 good nature. The mockery was complete, when in the 
 diploma of his elevation it was expressed that he was 
 the sun of the republic, the proudest boast of a mighty 
 line of princes, one who left the greatest of the Piasts, 
 the Jagellos, or the Vasas far behind him. 
 
 With the commencement of his reign Michael began 
 to experience mortification within and danger from with- 
 
16?0. MICHAEL. 201 
 
 out. Though the public treasury was empty, though 
 Poland had no army, even when the Cossacks arid Tatars 
 were preparing to invade her, two consecutive diets 
 were dissolved, and their proceedings consequently nul- 
 lified, by the veto. Then the quarrels of the deputies 
 quarrels which were not unfrequently decided by the 
 sword introduced a perfect contempt for the laws, as 
 well as for all authority other than that of brute force. 
 The poor monarch strove in vain to reconcile the hostile 
 factions ; his entreaties he was too timid or too pru- 
 dent to use threats were disregarded, even by such as 
 the distribution of crown benefices had at first allied 
 with his interests. Without decision, without vigour, 
 without money or troops, and consequently without the 
 means of commanding respect from any one of his sub- 
 jects, he was the scorn or jest of all. ,A. resolution was 
 soon taken to dethrone this phantom of royalty. The 
 turbulent primate Prasmowski was the soul of the con- 
 spiracy, which was rendered still more formidable by the 
 accession of the queen Eleanor, an Austrian princess. 
 In the view of obtaining a divorce, and of procuring the 
 elevation to the throne of one who had long been her 
 lover the prince of Lorraine, she scrupled not to 
 plot against her husband and king. It was, in fact, but 
 exchanging one lord for another, a beloved for a despised 
 one; and whether the plot failed or succeeded, she 
 was sure of a husband and a throne. Fortunately for 
 Michael, there was another conspiracy, the object of 
 which was to transfer the queen and the sceptre to a 
 French prince. Thus one faction neutralised the other ; 
 but in the end one of them would doubtless have tri- 
 umphed, notwithstanding the adhesion of the small nobles 
 to the reigning king an adhesion, however, not the 
 result of attachment to the royal person, but solely of 
 hostility to the great barons had not the loud notes of 
 warlike preparation drowned for a moment the noisy 
 contentions of the rebels. 
 
 During these melancholy transactions, the heroic 
 Sobieski was gathering new laurels on the plains of 
 
202 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1670. 
 
 Podolia and Volhynia. By several successes, though 
 obtained with but a handful of troops, chiefly raised at 
 his own expense, he preserved the frontier provinces 
 from the ravages of the Cossacks, the allies now of Mus- 
 covy, now of the Porte, as best suited their ideas of 
 interest or of revenge. He was now opposed, however, 
 to a new and apparently resistless enemy the Turks, 
 whom the perfidious policy or revenge of Louis XIV. 
 raised up against the republic. The advanced guard of 
 that enemy, consisting of Cossacks and Tatars, whom 
 the Porte had ordered to pass the Borysthenes, he ut- 
 terly routed, retook the important frontier fortresses, and 
 by every where opposing a movable rampart to the 
 barbarians, he kept them in check, fixed the wavering 
 fidelity of the Volhynians, who were ready to join the 
 Muscovites, and re-established his communications with 
 Moldavia. Europe termed these preliminary operations 
 the miraculous campaign. But Mahomet IV. now ap- 
 proached, accompanied by the veteran army which had 
 reduced Candia, and which under its general, Cuprugli, 
 had triumphed over the Venetians, the Hungarians, and 
 the empire. About 300,000 Osmanlis crossed the 
 Dniester, and advanced into Podolia. In the deplorable 
 anarchy which reigned at the diet, no measures what- 
 ever had been taken to oppose the enemy. Sobieski had 
 but 6000 men ; and notwithstanding his energetic re- 
 monstrances, he could obtain no reinforcements. He had 
 the mortification to see the fall of Kaminiec, the reduc- 
 tion of all Podolia, and the advance of the Turks into 
 Red Russia, the capital of which, Leopol, was soon in- 
 vested by Mahomet in person. What man could do 
 what no man but himself could have dared he accom- 
 plished. He cut off an army of Tatars, leaving 15,000 
 dead on the field, and releasing 20,000 Polish captives, 
 whom the robbers were carrying away. But however 
 splendid this success, it coukl not arrest the arms of the 
 Turks. As the panic-struck nobles removed as far as 
 possible from the seat of war, Michael hastened to make 
 peace with the Porte ; as the price of which he ceded 
 
1672. MICHAEL. 203 
 
 Kaminiec and the Ukraine to the victors, acknowledged 
 the superiority of the Porte over the Cossacks, and agreed 
 to pay an annual tribute of 20,000 ducats. 
 
 Such was the humiliating state to which the republic 
 was reduced by its own dissensions. In vain did Sobieski 
 exclaim against the inglorious peace of Budchaz ; in no 
 Polish breast could he awaken the fire of patriotism. It 
 is impossible not to suspect that the money of France or 
 of the Porte had corrupted the leaders of the various 
 factions : a nation renowned beyond all others for its 
 valour, would surely not have thus coolly beheld its glory 
 sullied, its very existence threatened, unless treachery 
 had disarmed its natural defenders. At this time no less 
 than five armed confederations were opposed to each 
 other, of the great against the king; of the loyal in his 
 defence ; of the army in defence of their chief, whom 
 Michael and his party had resolved to try, as implicated 
 in the French party ; of the Lithuanians against the 
 Poles ; and, finally, of the servants against their masters, 
 of the peasants against their lords. 
 
 Though Sobieski despised Michael, he scorned to take 
 revenge on so poor a creature ; his country still remained 
 though humbled and degraded, and he swore to exalt her 
 or to die. Through his efforts, and the mutual exhaus- 
 tion of the contending parties, something like tranquillity 
 was restored,; and, in a diet held at Warsaw, the renewal 
 of the war was decreed. As no tribute was sent, the 
 grand vizier did not wait for the hostile declaration : 
 followed by his imperial master, he crossed the Danube. 
 At the head of near 40,000 men, Poles, Lithuanians, 
 and German auxiliaries, Sobieski opened a campaign 
 destined to be for ever memorable in the annals of the 
 world. His plan was to meet and annihilate Caplan 
 Pacha, who was advancing through Moldavia ; to return 
 and fall on Hussein, another Turkish general, who, with 
 80,000 men, held the strong position of Kotzim, on the 
 Moldavian side of the Dniester, Opposite to Kaminiec : 
 the destruction of these two leaders, he hoped, would lead 
 to the fall of the latter fortress, and enable him to con- 
 
204 HISTORY OF POLAND. l6?3. 
 
 tend with the sultan in person, should the monarch per- 
 sist in advancing. The mutiny of his troops,, however, 
 especially of the Lithuanians, who exclaimed that he was 
 leading them to utter destruction, and who refused to 
 advance into an unknown country, compelled him to 
 begin with Hussein. With difficulty he prevailed on them 
 to pass the Dniester, and to march on Kotzim: he found 
 the Turkish general so strongly fortified, that Paz, the 
 Lithuanian hetman, refused at first to join in the medi- 
 tated assault ; but he had done such wonders in preceding 
 campaigns with a handful of troops, that with 40,000 
 he thought nothing impossible. Paz, his personal enemy, 
 he persuaded to co-operate, and the bombardment com- 
 menced, while the grand assault was preparing. Fortu- 
 nately for the Christian arms, the night of the 10th of 
 November, 1673, was one of unexampled severity: the 
 snow fell profusely, and the piercing blasts were still 
 more fatal to the besieged, most of them from warm 
 Asiatic climes. On the morning of the llth, Sobieski 
 led the attack: ere long his lance gleamed on the heights, 
 and the struggle was renewed in the heart of the Turk- 
 ish entrenchments. In vain did the Janizaries endeavour 
 to prolong it; they fell in heaps, while the less courageous 
 or more enfeebled portion of the enemy sought safety in 
 flight. The bridge, however, which connected the two 
 banks of the river, was in the possession of the Chris- 
 tians, and thousands perished while endeavouring to swim 
 over. The carnage was now terrific ; 40,000 of the 
 Moslems now lay on the plain, or floated in the stream, 
 and an immense booty fell to the victors. Poland was 
 saved; the fortress of Kotzim capitulated. Caplan Pacha 
 retreated beyond the Danube ; Moldavia and Wallachia 
 declared for the republic, and would perhaps have been 
 incorporated with it, had not the grand hetman been re- 
 called from his career of conquest by an important, though 
 not an unexpected, event. 
 
 This was no other* than the death of Michael, who 
 expired at Lemberg (Leopol) the night before the great 
 battle of Kotzim, while on his way to join the army. 
 
1674. JOHN in. 205 
 
 His demise was very agreeable to the Poles., who longed 
 for a prince capable of restoring their ancient glory. Let 
 him not,, however, be judged with undue severity : his 
 feebleness was no more than his misfortune, while his 
 intentions were good. Though without vigour of under- 
 standing, he was accomplished, and even learned ; he 
 was acquainted with several languages, and addicted to 
 literary pursuits. Knowing his own incapacity to rule 
 so fierce a nation, compulsion alone made him ascend the 
 throne ; and if his reign was disastrous, the reason has 
 been sufficiently explained. On the whole, he should 
 be pitied rather than condemned.* 
 
 JOHN III. (SOBIESKI.) 
 16741696. 
 
 THOUGH, on the death of Michael, the number of can- 
 didates was greater than it had been on any preceding 
 occasion, from the state of parties in the republic, no one 
 could doubt that the chief struggle would be between 
 those of France and the empire. The dukes of Lorraine 
 and Neuberg were again proposed : the former was 
 zealously supported by a queen lover; the latter by the 
 money and promises of Louis. (The electors had long 
 been sufficiently alive to the value of their votes.) That 
 a stormy election was apprehended, was evident from the 
 care with which the szopa, or wooden pavilion of the 
 senators, was fortified. The appearance on the plains 
 was exceedingly picturesque: every where were seen 
 small bands of horsemen exercising their daring feats ; 
 some tilting; some running at the ring; others riding 
 with battle-axes brandished to the entrance of the szopa, 
 and with loud hurras inciting the senate to expedition ; 
 others were deciding private quarrels, which always 
 ended in blood; some were listening with fierce im- 
 patience to the harangues of their leaders, and testifying 
 by their howls or hurras their condemnation or approval 
 i % the subject. At a distance appeared the white tents 
 
 * Puffendorf, torn. iv. lib. iv. Hartknock, lib. i. cap. ii. Connor, vol. i. 
 book iii. Salvandv ii. 1156. Zielinski xi. 258272. 
 
206 
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 of the nobles,, which resembled an amphitheatre of snowy 
 mountains,, with the sparkling waters of the Vistula., and 
 the lofty towers of Warsaw. 
 
 The appearance of the Lithuanians was hostile : per- 
 haps they had some reason to suspect the nomination of 
 Sobieski, with whom their hetman, Paz, had long been 
 at variance ; certainly they seemed resolved to support 
 the Austrian to the last extremity. Sobieski, who in 
 the mean time had arrived from Kotzim, proposed the 
 prince of Conde, another candidate; whether in the 
 hope that such a proposition would succeed, or with the 
 view of distracting the different parties, and making way 
 for his own elevation, is not very clear. He soon found, 
 however, that the prince was no favourite on the kolo; 
 and his personal friend, Jablonowski, palatine of Russia, 
 commenced a harangue in support of his pretensions. 
 The speaker, with great animation, and not without elo- 
 quence, showed that the republic could expect little 
 benefit from any of the candidates proposed, and insisted 
 that its choice ought to fall on a Piast; on one, above 
 all, capable of repressing domestic anarchy, and of up- 
 holding the honour of its arms, which had been so la- 
 mentably sullied during the two preceding reigns. The 
 cry of " A Piast ! a Piast ! and God bless Poland !" 
 speedily rose from the Russian palatinate, and was 
 immediately echoed by thousands of voices. Seeing 
 their minds thus favourably inclined, he proposed the 
 conqueror of Slobodisza, of Podhaic, of Kalusz and 
 Kotzim; and the cry was met with cc Sobieski for ever!" 
 All. the palatinates of the crown joined in the acclam- 
 ation ; but the Lithuanians entered their protest against 
 a Piast. Fortunately for the peace of the republic, the 
 grand duchy was not, or did not long continue, unani- 
 mous ; prince Radzivil embraced the cause of the 
 crown ; Paz was at length persuaded to withdraw his 
 unavailing opposition ; and John III. was proclaimed 
 king of Poland.* 
 
 * The pacta conventa signed by this king differed little from those of his 
 predecessors. In the article that offices should be conferred on native nobles 
 only, it was added, and on such only as have worn their honours three gener- 
 
l6'76*. JOHN in. 20? 
 
 Before the new king would consent to be crowned, he 
 undertook "an expedition to rescue Kaminiec, Podolia, 
 and the Ukraine,, from the domination of the Moslems. 
 To preserve these,, and if possible to add to them, Ma- 
 homet IV. had taken the field with a formidable army. 
 Kotzim was retaken, the Muscovites who contended with 
 the Porte for the possession of the provinces on the Bo- 
 rysthenes were expelled from the Ukraine, and several 
 Cossack fortresses carried ; but here the sultan, thinking 
 he had done enough for glory, returned to Constan- 
 tinople. John now entered on the scene, and with great 
 rapidity retook all the conquests that had been made, 
 except Kotzim, and reduced to obedience most of the 
 Cossacks on the left bank of the Borysthenes. But this 
 scene was doomed to be sufficiently diversified: the 
 wicked desertion of Paz, who, with his Lithuanians, 
 was averse to a winter campaign, prevented the king 
 from completing the subjugation of the Ukraine, and 
 even forced him to retreat before a new army of Turks 
 and Tatars : 20,000 of the Tatars, however, were sig- 
 nally defeated at Zlotsow ; and the little fortress of 
 Trembowla made a defence worthy the best ages of Ro- 
 man bravery. The Lithuanian soldiers being compelled 
 by their countrymen to rejoin the king, that monarch 
 again entered on the career of victory. The Turks were 
 defeated at Soczawa, and were pursued with great loss to 
 the ramparts of Kaminiec. With the exception of that 
 fortress and of Podhaic, which they had stormed,, Po- 
 land was free from the invaders. 
 
 Sobieski having thus nobly earned the crown of a 
 kingdom which he had so often saved, returned to Cra- 
 cow, where his coronation was performed with the ac- 
 customed pomp, but with far more than the accustomed 
 joy. At the diet assembled on this occasion, a standing 
 army of 30,000, and an extraordinary one of three times 
 that number, were decreed ; but nothing more was done, 
 
 ations. Every third year he was to pass into Lithuania : it had before been 
 decreed that every third diet should be held at Grodno. A pension was to 
 be paid to queen Eleanor. 
 
208 HISTORY OF POLAND. l6?6. 
 
 and the republic remained defenceless as before. Other 
 salutary proposals submitted by the king, whose talents 
 were as conspicuous in government as in the field,, had 
 no better success. The fate of the republic, however it 
 might be delayed by monarchs so enlightened and con- 
 querors so great as he, was not to be averted. 
 
 From these harassing cares John was summoned by 
 a new invasion of the Turks and Tatars, amounting in 
 number to 210,000*, and commanded by Ibraham 
 Pacha of Damascus, whose surname of Shaitan, or the 
 devil, was significant enough of his talents and character. 
 The Polish king, with his handful of 10,000, was com- 
 pelled to entrench himself at Zuranow, where he was 
 well defended by sixty- three pieces of cannon. His fate 
 was considered perhaps even by himself as decided; 
 all Poland, instead of flocking to his aid, hastened to 
 the churches, to pray for his deliverance. For twenty 
 days the cannonading continued its destructive havoc, 
 occasionally diversified by still more destructive sorties 
 from the camp. The advantage rested with the Poles, 
 but they were so thinned by their very successes, that 
 their situation became desperate. The Tatar khan, 
 however, who knew that the Muscovites were laying 
 waste that part of the Ukraine subject to Doroszensko, 
 the feudatory of the Porte, and were menacing his own 
 territories, clamoured for peace. It was proposed by 
 the pacha, but on the same humiliating terms as those 
 of Budchaz. The enraged Sobieski threatened to hang 
 the messenger who should in future bring him so insult- 
 ing a proposal. Hostilities recommenced ; though the 
 Poles were without provisions or ammunition, he scorned 
 to capitulate. He rode among his dismayed ranks, 
 reminded them that he had extricated them from situ- 
 ations even worse than the present one, and gaily asked 
 vvhether his head was likely to have suffered by the 
 weight of a crown. When the Lithuanians threatened 
 to desert, he only replied: " Desert who will alive 
 or dead I remain ! " But to remain in his camp was no 
 
 * Probably exaggerated. 
 
1682. JOHN III. 209 
 
 longer safe : one morning he issued from it, and drew up 
 his handful of men, now scarcely 7000, in battle array 
 as tranquilly as if he had legions to marshal. Utterly 
 confounded at this display of rashness or of confidence, 
 the Turks cried out " There is magic in it ! " a cry 
 in which Shaitan, devil as he was, joined. Filled with 
 admiration at a bravery which exceeded his imagination, 
 the pacha sued for peace on less dishonourable conditions. 
 By the treaty two thirds of the Ukraine were restored to Po- 
 land, the remaining third being in the power of the Porte ; 
 the question as to.Podolia was to be discussed at Constan- 
 tinople; all prisoners, hostages, c. were also restored. 
 The conditions, indeed, were below the dignity of the 
 republic ; but that such favourable ones could be pro- 
 cured at such a crisis, is the best comment on the valour 
 of the king. This was the sentiment of all Europe, 
 which resounded more than ever with his praises. 
 
 This peace was followed by the prolongation of the 
 truce with Muscovy. Neither were the conditions of 
 the latter so advantageous as could have been desired. 
 Three insignificant fortresses were restored ; but Severia, 
 Smolensko, Kiow, and other possessions, remained in the 
 iron grasp of the autocrat. In vain would the king have 
 endeavoured to wrest them from it : without money or 
 troops, with anarchy also before his eyes, it was no slight 
 blessing that he was able to preserve, from day to day, 
 the independence, nay the existence, of the republic. 
 
 During the four following years the king was unable 
 to undertake any expedition for the reconquest of the lost 
 possessions. Though he convoked diet after diet, in the 
 hope of obtaining the necessary supplies for that purpose 
 diet after diet was dissolved by the fatal veto ; for the 
 same reason he could not procure the adoption of the 
 many salutary courses he recommended, to banish 
 anarchy, to put the kingdom on a permanent footing of 
 defence, and to amend the laws. His failure, indeed, 
 must be partly attributed to himself; since, great as he 
 was, he appeared as much alive to the aggrandisement of 
 his own family as to the good of the republic. There 
 p 
 
210 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1682. 
 
 can be little doubt and he ought to be praised for it 
 that he had long meditated the means of rendering the 
 crown hereditary in his offspring; but the little caution 
 with which he proceeded in this great design, and the 
 criminal intrigues of his queen, a Frenchwoman of 
 little principle, whose influence over him was unbounded, 
 roused the jealousy of the nobles, especially of the Lithu- 
 anians, and compelled him to suspend it. Had he 
 shown more prudence, as well as more firmness, in his 
 administration, and within his palace, his object might 
 have been attained, and Poland preserved from ruin, 
 under the sway of his family. 
 
 John Sobieski had always belonged to the faction or 
 party in the interests of France, and, consequently, 
 averse to that of Austria; but there was one thing in 
 which he would not gratify the perfidious Louis XIV. 
 As a Christian knight, and a noble Pole, he had vowed 
 inextinguishable hostility against the Moslems > a feel- 
 ing, in his case, deepened by the memory of his maternal 
 grandfather, his father, and his brother, who had all 
 perished under the sword of the misbelievers, and he 
 could not consequently band with the Porte against the 
 empire. While the Turks were arming for the invasion 
 of Germany, his alliance was eagerly sought by Louis 
 and Leopold : he entered into a treaty offensive and de- 
 fensive with the latter. To this turn in his policy he 
 was said, perhaps injuriously, to have been not a little 
 disposed by the promise of an archduchess for his eldest 
 son, and by the resentment of some insults shown by 
 the grand monarque to his queen. 
 
 But the money of Louis, and the venality of the 
 Polish barons, opposed great obstacles to the ratifications 
 of this treaty by the diet. A conspiracy was soon set on 
 foot, the object of which was, either to turn the king 
 from the Austrian cause, or to dethrone him. Fortu- 
 nately the correspondence of the French ambassador with 
 the unprincipled court of Paris fell into his hands, and 
 he was enabled to frustrate the criminal design. To 
 escape detection, the very conspirators voted for a war 
 
1683. JOHN in. 211 
 
 with the infidels, and preparations were made for a great 
 campaign. It was time. Vienna was invested by 
 300,000 Turks and Tatars, under Kara Mustapha, the 
 vizier ; the dastardly Leopold had retreated to Lintz, 
 and despatched messenger after messenger to hasten the 
 departure of Sobieski. Germany looked to him as its 
 saviour, and Europe as the bulwark of Christendom, 
 Having beheld at his feet the ambassadors of the empire 
 and the nuncio of the pope, he left Cracow, August 15th^ 
 with a small body of Polish troops, and without waiting 
 for the Lithuanians: the chief part of his army, 
 amounting in all to about 30,000 men, he had pre- 
 viously ordered to rendezvous under the walls of Vienna. 
 The king found the affairs of the imperialists in a 
 worse situation than he had conceived. The Turkish 
 artillery had made a practicable breach, and the terrified 
 inhabitants of the capital were in momentary expectation 
 of an assault. One evening, however, their despair was 
 changed to joy, as they perceived from their telescopes 
 the appearance of the Polish hussars on the heights of 
 Kalemberg. Sobieski was enthusiastically invested with 
 the chief command of the Christian army, consisting of 
 Poles, Saxons, Bavarians, and Austrian s, amounting to 
 70,000 men. One who had been his rival as a candi- 
 date, the duke of Lorraine, gave a noble example of 
 magnanimity by this submission, and by zealously co- 
 operating in all his plans. On the morning of Sept. 12. 
 commenced the mighty struggle between the crescent 
 and the cross. Throughout the day the advantage rested 
 with the Christians ; but the vast masses of the Turks 
 remained unbroken. Towards nightfall the Polish king 
 had fought his way to the entrenched camp of the vizier, 
 whom he perceived seated in a magnificent apartment 
 tranquilly drinking coffee with his two sons. Provoked at 
 the sight he rushed forward, followed by an intrepid 
 band. With the loud war cry of " God for Poland !" 
 and his pious repetition of the well-known verse of 
 Israel's prophet king, ' ' Non nobis, non nobis, Domine 
 txercituum, sed nomini tuo da gloriam !" was united 
 p 2 
 
212 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1683. 
 
 that of " SobiesJci!" Shouts of "Sobieski! SobiesJci!" 
 caught the ears of the Moslems, who, for the first time, 
 now certainly knew that this dreaded hero was with the 
 Christians. " Allah !" exclaimed the Tatar khan, " the 
 king is with them sure enough!" The consternation 
 among the infidels was extreme : but, true to the bravery 
 of their character, they made a vigorous stand. In vain; 
 their ranks strewed the ground ; six pachas fell with 
 them ; the vizier fled, and with him the remnant of his 
 once formidable host. The Turkish camp, with its im- 
 mense riches, became the prey of the victors ; not only 
 Germany but Europe was saved. The hero of Christen- 
 dom hastened to the cathedral of St. Stephen to join in 
 a solemn Te Deum for the success of this memorable day. 
 
 It is painful to dwell on the subsequent conduct of 
 Leopold. Instead of clasping the knees of his saviour 
 with joy, and of blushing at his own cowardice, he met 
 the king with coolness, nay, even with insult. His em- 
 pire was saved, and as he had no more need of further 
 aid, he took care to exhibit no further gratitude. His 
 behaviour astonished no less than incensed the Poles, 
 many of whom, without their king's permission, returned 
 to their homes; but Sobieski, with the rest, proceeded 
 into Hungary in pursuit of the fugitive Moslems. By 
 two subsequent victories won at Parkan and Strigonia, 
 he freed most of that kingdom from the foot of the in- 
 vaders, and would have extended his successes far beyond 
 the Danube, had not the Lithuanians delayed to join 
 him, and his Polish troops insisted on returning to their 
 country. 
 
 On his arrival, he had the additional gratification of 
 finding that one of his generals had obtained some signal 
 successes in the Ukraine, over a combined army of Turks 
 and Tatars ; had dethroned one hospodar of Walla- 
 chia, and elevated another better disposed to the views 
 of the republic. 
 
 But while pursuing the splendid successes of this 
 Christian hero, posterity must blush at the weakness of 
 his policy, at the blindness with which he pursued the 
 
1686. JOHN in. 213 
 
 aggrandisement of his family ; implicitly followed the 
 counsels of his despicable queen ; and trusted to the pro- 
 testations of Leopold, who, when his aid was required, 
 never hesitated at promises, and when that aid was fur- 
 nished, never thought of performing them. Though 
 the archduchess promised to his son was resigned to 
 the elector of Bavaria *, the imperial lure of assisting 
 him to subdue Wallachia, which was to become a per- 
 manent sovereignty in his family, again armed him 
 against the Turks. To be freed from all apprehensions 
 on the side of Muscovy, he for ever confirmed to that 
 power the possession of Smolensko, Siewierz, Tserni- 
 chof, and the greater portion of Kiovia, with Kiow the 
 capital. These possessions, indeed, he could not hope 
 to recover ; but voluntarily to have resigned them, and 
 for ever, justly excited the indignation of many, espe- 
 cially when they found that the tsarina Sophia refused 
 to perform conditions to which she had agreed, to join 
 the genera] crusade against the Porte, and to pay the 
 republic 200,000 rubles in return for these concessions. 
 
 Having raised about 40,000 men, the king entered 
 into Wallachia, to conquer it for one of his sons. But 
 the expedition had no effect, owing partly to the exceed- 
 ing dryness of the season, and to the consequent suffer- 
 ings of his army ; and partly to the non-appearance of 
 the contingents promised by Leopold and the hospodar. 
 He returned, but not without loss, both from the reason 
 already assigned, and from the activity of the Turks in 
 his rear ; who, however, dared not attack him. A second 
 expedition was but partly successful; in fact, the infir- 
 mities of age had overtaken him, and had impaired his 
 mental no less than his bodily vigour. His failure, 
 however, in both expeditions was owing to circum- 
 stances over which he had no control ; in neither did it 
 dim the lustre of his martial fame. 
 
 No two men could be more unlike than Sobieski in 
 the field, and Sobieski at his palace of government : in 
 
 * The young prince, by means of Leopold, was afterwards married to the 
 princess of Neuberg ; a union which connected him with the royal families 
 of Spain, Portugal, and Austria. 
 
214 HISTORY OF POLAND. l686. 
 
 the former he was the greatest, in the latter the meanest, 
 of men. He was justly despised for his tame submis- 
 sion to his worthless queen. To her he abandoned all 
 but the load of administration ; her creatures filled most 
 offices in the state; all, too, were become venal, all 
 conferred on the highest bidder. The bishop Zaluski, 
 on this subject, relates an anecdote, sufficiently charac- 
 teristic of the court where such a shameless transaction 
 could take place. The rich see of Cracow being vacant, 
 the queen one day said to the bishop of Culm, " I wager 
 with your sincerity that you alone will have the bishop- 
 ric of Cracow." Of course the prelate accepted the 
 challenge, and, on being invested with the see, paid the 
 amount. Zaluski himself opened a way to the royal 
 favour by means equally reprehensible. He presented 
 the queen with a medicine- chest, together with a book 
 of directions for employing them, valued at a few hun- 
 dred ducats : she received it with contempt. The offer 
 of a silver altar, estimated at 10,000 crowns, of a valu- 
 able ring, and two diamond crosses, gratified her avarice, 
 and made the fortune of the giver. Her temper was 
 about equal to her disinterestedness. On one occasion 
 the king had promised the great seal to Zaluski ; the 
 queen to Denhoff: of course the latter triumphed. 
 tc You are not ignorant," said the king to the disappointed 
 claimant, his intimate friend, " of the rights claimed by 
 wives ; with what importunity the queen demands every 
 thing that she likes : you only have the power to make 
 me live tranquilly or wretchedly with my wife. She has 
 given her word to another, and if I refuse her the dis- 
 posal of the chancellorship, she will not remain with me. 
 I know you wish me too well to expose me to public 
 laughter, and I am convinced that you will let me do 
 what she wishes, but what I do with extreme regret." 
 Can this be the victor of Slobodyssa, Podhaic, Kotzim, 
 and Vienna ? 
 
 It cannot be matter of much surprise that such a 
 prince should have little influence in the diets, or that 
 his measures should form the subject of severe scrutiny 
 
1696. JOHN in. 215 
 
 by many of his nobles. French money raised him up 
 enemies on every side ; so also did that of his queen, 
 whenever he ventured on such as were unpalatable either 
 to her or to her creatures. The man who could not pre- 
 serve peace in his own family, who could not prevent 
 his wife and eldest son, nor mother-in-law and daughter- 
 in-law, from bringing disgrace on his palace by their 
 unnatural quarrels, could not be expected to have much 
 influence any where. In full senate he was often treated 
 with marked disrespect: the words tyrant! traitor! 
 were lavished on him ; and he was once or twice invited 
 to descend from a dignity which he dishonoured. That 
 he seriously entertained the design of abdication, not- 
 withstanding the decree against it during the interregnum 
 of Michael Koributh, is certain ; but if he had many 
 enemies, he had more friends, and he was persuaded to 
 relinquish it. 
 
 The last days of John Sobieski were passed in literary 
 or in philosophical contemplation. Sometimes, too, he 
 migrated from scene to scene, pitching his tent, like the 
 Sarmatians of old, wherever a fine natural prospect at- 
 tracted his attention. His last hours were wrapped in 
 mystery. He spoke to Zaluski of a dose of mercury 
 which he had taken, and which had occasioned him 
 intense suffering in mind and body. " Is there no one," 
 he abruptly exclaimed, while heavy sobs agitated his 
 whole frame, " to avenge my death !" This might be 
 the raving of a sickly, nervous, distempered mind ; but 
 a dreadful suspicion fixed on the queen. Her subsequent 
 conduct confirmed it. Scarcely was the breath out of his 
 body, when she seized on his treasures, and renewed her 
 quarrels with her eldest son, prince James, with a bitter- 
 ness that showed she felt no regret for his loss.* 
 
 The character of John Sobieski has been unjustly 
 treated by some Polish historians. No one can vindi- 
 cate his deplorable weakness, his unaccountable submis- 
 
 * Yet this was the woman to whom he was devoted through life with 
 more than a lover's fidelity, and to whom his letters, which breathed the 
 utmost affection, uniformly commenced, '* Seulejoiede mon ame, char- 
 mante et bien aime Mariette ! " 
 
 p 4 
 
21 6 
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 sion to the caprice of a shameless woman, his eagerness 
 to advance the interests of his family, his want of firm- 
 ness, as well as of caution, in his administration. But 
 when the contraction of the boundaries of the republic 
 is imputed to him as a crime, he is most harshly judged. 
 That he acted with imprudence, at the most, in ceding to 
 Muscovy the possessions before mentioned, cannot be 
 denied : they had long been held by the tsar, and were 
 for ever lost to Poland. As to Podolia and the Ukraine, 
 let those be blamed who, with criminal negligence, for- 
 bore to support him in his campaigns, who threw on him 
 the responsibility of the war, while they rendered it ut- 
 terly impossible for him to procure for that war a suc- 
 cessful issue. Our only surprise must be, that the limits 
 were not much farther narrowed, that the republic had 
 a province left. Under any other monarch Poland would 
 have been erased from the list of nations. His vigorous 
 arm for a time arrested her in her rapid fall.* He was 
 the last independent king of Poland. His enemies could 
 not but allow that he was one of the greatest characters 
 in royal biography, the greatest beyond comparison in 
 the regal annals of his country. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF SOBIESKI TO THE ANNIHILATION 
 OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 FREDERIC AUGUSTUS I.t 
 
 16961733. 
 
 THE eldest son of the deceased monarch was so sure of 
 the crown, that he began to use his baptismal name 
 
 * Connor, vol. i. b. iii. iv. Puffendorf, Hist. Germ. iv. lib. iv. Zaluski, 
 torn. i. ii. Daleyrac, Anecdotes de Pologne, torn. i. ii Lettres du Roi de 
 Pologne Jean Sobieski a la Reine Marie Casimire pendant la campagne de 
 Vienn'e, &c. in one volume. Salvandy, torn. ii. iii. Zielinski, ii. L 212 312. 
 Malte-Brun, Tableau de Pologne, as enlarged by Chodzko. torn. i. p. 457, &c. 
 See also an article on Poland under Sobieski, in No. XIV. of the Foreign 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 f By the Polish historians usually termed Augustus II., the first being 
 Sigismund Augustus. The first baptismal name ought to be taken wherever 
 there are two, but both, perhaps, are preferable. 
 
1696. FREDERIC AUGUSTUS I. 217 
 
 only; to promise benefices and dignities to his crea- 
 tures, and to act the sovereign as confidently as if the 
 power were already his. But though he had at first 
 many adherents, whom respect for his father's memory 
 rallied round him, he had soon more opponents, among 
 whom the most bitter was his own mother. In hope 
 of procuring the election of her second son, Alex- 
 ander, a prince of easy disposition, and of reigning 
 under his name, she employed the immense treasures 
 she had amassed, to destroy the sanguine expectations 
 of prince James. Nor was the behaviour of the latter 
 prince less unnatural. Scarcely was the breath out of 
 his father's body, when a series of vindictive quarrels 
 disgraced a family which had never been distinguished 
 for harmony. In the apprehension of her dangerous 
 intrigues, James refused her access to. the palace. He 
 flew to Zolkiew, to secure his father's treasures ; and, 
 when followed by his mother and brothers, he turned 
 the cannon of that fortress against them. Such scenes 
 so scandalised the capital and the country, that a re- 
 action took place in the minds of those who had shown 
 a disposition to continue the crown in the royal family. 
 Several dietines formally voted for its exclusion ; and 
 the old queen herself, seeing that there was no hope 
 of her favourite son's elevation, strongly exhorted 
 the nobles to set aside her offspring, and choose some 
 worthier ruler. f{ If you elect any of my sons, your 
 republic is at an end. Above all, beware of prince 
 James !" Her object was now to fix the crown on the 
 head of a bachelor, and secure the continuance of her 
 authority by a husband. She was, however, so univer- 
 sally detested, that the diet insisted on her removing to 
 Dantzic until the election was ended. 
 
 The chief candidates were two ; a nephew of Louis 
 XIV., and the elector of Saxony ; the one a French, 
 the other an Austrian partisan. As usual, the crown 
 and the grand duchy, the great and the small nobles 
 espoused opposite sides : the former inclined to the 
 prince of Contr, the latter to the elector, who had just 
 
218 HISTORY OF POLAND. l6p6. 
 
 abjured Lutheranism, as a necessary step to the dignity 
 he coveted. The party of James having joined that of 
 the royal convert, the elector's became more powerful ; 
 still the other was more imposing. Unanimity being 
 found impossible, both proclaimed their respective can- 
 didates : the primate sung Te Deum for the prince in the 
 cathedral of Cracow ; the bishop of Cujavia in the same 
 place, and in the archbishop's presence, for the elector. 
 The following day, however, the party of Frederic Au- 
 gustus received considerable accessions, and still greater 
 when it was generally known that he had communicated 
 at the altar of Rome. But his chief advantage over 
 his competitor, was his proximity to this scene of poli- 
 tical contention. While the prince of Conti awaited the 
 result in France, he was in Silesia, ready to assist his 
 partisans with money, or to confirm such articles of the 
 pacta conventa* as had been signed by his ambassador. 
 And no sooner was he acquainted with the double elec- 
 tion than he hastened to Cracow, where he was so- 
 lemnly crowned, notwithstanding the opposition of the 
 French party. When the prince of Conti subsequently 
 arrived at Dantzic, he found Augustus too firmly seated 
 to be shaken, without the aid of a considerable army ; 
 and Poland showed no inclination to aid him with one. 
 Eventually the primate and the chiefs of his party 
 submitted : they could not well do otherwise, as the pope 
 had recognised the elector ; but some of the Lithua- 
 nian nobles were never well affected to his cause : a few 
 refused to do homage, until the invasion of Charles XII. 
 enabled them to rebel with impunity. His election was 
 irregular, and therefore null according to the laws ; but 
 laws are regarded only so long as there is force to in- 
 vest them with the necessary vigour.t 
 
 * These were about thirty in number, the most important of which re- 
 garded the recovery of Kaminiec and the Ukraine, &c. ; to support, at his 
 own expense, 6000 troops. These conditions are not worth the trouble of 
 enumerating, as few of them were ever fulfilled. 
 
 f Si on s'en rapportait aux relations diflferentes qui furent publiees dans le 
 terns, il ne seroit pas facile de dire laquelle des deux elections etoit K'gitime, 
 ni meme de quel cote se trouvait le grand nombre, tant les divers e"crivains 
 ontpris de plaisir de"guiserde part et d'autre pour raconter les c hoses & 
 1'avantage de celui de deux princes pour lequel ils s T intressoient. Par. 
 thenay, Histoire de Pologne sous Augusts II., torn. i. Neither election was 
 legitimate. 
 
1700. FREDERIC AUGUSTUS I. 219 
 
 Frederic Augustus lost no time in fulfilling one of 
 the conditions imposed on him at his accession, in re- 
 taking Kaminiec. He invested that fortress with an 
 allied army of Poles, Lithuanians, and Saxons ; but the 
 presence of the foreigners was so disagreeable to the na- 
 tives, that his efforts were long abortive. In the end, 
 however, the place capitulated; and by the peace of 
 Carlowitz, the Porte renounced all pretensions over Po- 
 dolia and the Ukraine. This was an important service to 
 the republic ; for though a portion of the Ukraine was 
 in the power of Muscovy, the Podolian frontier was 
 now ensured against the incursions of the Turks. But 
 this success was counterbalanced by the loss of the dis- 
 trict of Elbing. The elector of Brandenburg besieged 
 and took the city of Elbing, which he proposed, how- 
 ever, to surrender, as soon as he should receive the sum 
 of 400,000 crowns lent to the republic by his father. 
 In this he certainly was justified by existing treaties. 
 The republic instantly commenced negotiations, and 
 promised, after the separation of the diet, then sitting, 
 to pay him 300,000, on the condition of its immediate 
 evacuation. The jewels of the crown were placed in his 
 hands, as security for the due performance of the con- 
 vention. He did evacuate it by torchlight, and it was 
 at the same moment entered by the Polish army. But 
 the money was not paid ; and Frederic Augustus, to in- 
 demnify himself, took possession of the district : he 
 ever afterwards retained both it and the jewels. In 
 little more than a year this able and ambitious man as- 
 sumed the title of king, and as such was immediately 
 recognised by Frederic Augustus* without the concur- 
 rence of the republic. 
 
 The Polish monarch was not very anxious to perform 
 the conditions of the pacta conventa, or to comply with 
 the wishes of his nobles. In his secret treaty with the 
 tsar, the famous Peter I., he acted as if no diet were 
 ever to be called ; and in detaining his Saxon subjects 
 in the kingdom, he exasperated the Poles to such a pitch 
 
 * Of course, as elector of Saxony, not as king of Poland. 
 
220 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1700. 
 
 that numbers of these foreigners were daily massacred 
 whenever they ventured beyond the precincts of the ca- 
 pital. That treaty, however, the object of which was to 
 wrest from Sweden Livonia and Ingria, brought its own 
 punishment. Though the arms of Augustus were at first 
 successful in the former country, his prosperity was soon 
 checked by the youth whom he had ventured to despise. 
 After the affair of Copenhagen, Charles XII. entered on 
 a career of conquest perhaps unrivalled in modern his- 
 tory. The signal victory of Narva, and thie subsequent 
 reduction of Courland, opened the way for the invasion 
 of Lithuania. 
 
 At this time the grand duchy was a prey to two 
 rival factions, the Oginskis and the Sapiehas, whose 
 quarrels deluged it with blood. These vindictive princes 
 made war on each other with as much acrimony, and 
 with forces almost as numerous, as crowned heads ; nor 
 did they condescend to receive the expostulations of their 
 king, who vainly endeavoured to reconcile them. The 
 republic now exhibited a strange spectacle ; the king at 
 war with the Swedes, not only without the consent, but 
 in direct opposition to the loudly expressed wishes, of 
 the diet; the grand duchy one scene of bloody com- 
 motion ; and Poland uncertain what steps to take in a 
 conjunction so unusual. A confederation was at length 
 assembled to repress this anarchy ; but its efforts only 
 added to the disorder. Seeing themselves proclaimed 
 enemies of their country, and their domains subject to a 
 sentence of confiscation, the Sapiehas joined the Swedish 
 invader, whom they instigated to more vindictive pro- 
 ceedings. They were but too well aided by the ambi- 
 tious primate, who had never been friendly to the elevation 
 of Frederic Augustus, and who now urged Charles to 
 dethrone him. The result is in the memory of every 
 reader. After a decisive victory over his enemy, the con- 
 queror penetrated into Poland, obtained possession of 
 Cracow and the capital, and by his policy as much as 
 by his victories procured the deposition of Frederic Au- 
 gustus, The interregnum was proclaimed May 2. 1705, 
 
1710. FREDERIC AUGUSTUS I. 221 
 
 by the cardinal primate. His object was to place the 
 crown on the head of a son of Sobieski ; but the captivity 
 of two of the princes in Saxony, the magnanimous re- 
 fusal of a third; Alexander, to profit by the misfortune 
 of an elder brother, and, above all, the absolute will of 
 the Swedish king, raised Stanislas, palatine of Posnania, 
 to the vacant dignity. 
 
 But though Stanislas had virtues enough to shed a 
 lustre on any crown, he could not be expected to reign 
 undisturbed in a country which the humiliation of being 
 compelled to receive him rendered averse to his sway. 
 Many of the great barons joined the Muscovites, who 
 laid waste the grand duchy, and who advanced or re- 
 treated according to the inverse movements of the Polish 
 and Swedish armies. At length-, while Charles was in 
 Saxony, an assembly at Leopol, over which the archbishop 
 of Gnesna presided, declared null the abdication of Fre- 
 deric Augustus. The whole country was infested by 
 armed partisans, not only of the two kings, but of such 
 as wished neither ; and by a still greater number, who 
 aimed only at procuring some advantage from the anar- 
 chy which prevailed. To this desolating scourge must 
 be added the plague, which in two months carried off, in 
 Warsaw alone, about 15,000 souls, and in Dantzic above 
 24,000. Poland, in fact, was cursed with every possible 
 evil, except a bad king ; nor could the humane, enlight- 
 ened Stanislas atone for the tithe of the mischiefs of 
 which he had been the unwilling cause. The disaster 
 of Pultowa relieved him from a load which he had long 
 sighed to lay down ; and while gratitude called him to 
 share the fate of his benefactor and friend, a captive in 
 Turkey, Frederic Augustus was restored by the diet of 
 Warsaw. 
 
 But the restoration of Frederic Augustus did not 
 restore peace to Poland. His armed auxiliaries, the 
 Saxons and the Muscovites, were quartered in different 
 parts of the country, both to overawe the adherents of 
 Stanislas and to receive Charles, should the Porte be ever 
 reduced to release a captive whose chains he endeavoured 
 
222 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1710. 
 
 to perpetuate. These foreigners were charged with 
 heavy excesses ; their presence was the greatest offence : 
 the Poles confederated against them, and for two years 
 Polish and Saxon blood deluged the country. The efforts 
 of the king to reconcile his hostile subjects were vain : 
 nothing but the absence or the destruction of the Saxons 
 would satisfy the republic. Through the interference of 
 the tsar and from this reign Muscovite influence ac- 
 quired irresistible strength the foreign troops were at 
 length dismissed, and the king reconciled with the Poles. 
 Nor was the republic more prosperous in her foreign 
 relations. After the death of Catherine, the widow of 
 Peter, Courland became so intimately connected with 
 Muscovy as to be for ever lost to Poland. Anne, a 
 niece of Peter, had been married to Kettler, sovereign 
 of that duchy. After his death, the reigning duke, Fer- 
 dinand, being without male issue, the fief would natu, 
 rally in time revert to the crown. The Poles meditated 
 the incorporation of the duchy with the republic, and the 
 consequent abolition of the feudal dignity ; the king 
 hoped to preserve it in his own family ; and the Cour- 
 landers themselves were tenacious enough of their ancient 
 privileges. In opposition to the remonstrances of Fer- 
 dinand, the nobles elected as their future ruler prince 
 Maurice of Saxe, a natural son of Frederic Augustus. 
 The king, however, was forced by a diet held at Grodno 
 to withhold the instrument of investiture, and even to 
 reprimand the Courlanders for attempting to secure the 
 perpetuity of their government. Maurice for some time 
 refused to abandon the people who had elected him ; but 
 there was a third party, which had not yet been con- 
 sulted, and which was resolved that neither of the two 
 should succeed in their views. Muscovy laid pretensions 
 to the sovereignty, in virtue of the claims (chiefly of a 
 pecuniary nature) possessed by the grand duchess Anne ; 
 her troops entered the country, and expelled Maurice. 
 Anne was soon afterwards called to the imperial throne ; 
 and one of her first acts was to invest her favourite, 
 Biron, with the fief. 
 
1724. FREDERIC AUGUSTUS I. 223 
 
 The reign of Frederic Augustus was still further dis- 
 graced by the persecution of the dissidents. The laws 
 in favour of the Lutherans had gradually weakened, 
 probably owing to their numerical decrease ; so that in 
 a diet held at Grodno, in 1718,, access was refused to a 
 Calvinistic deputy. The sectarians were even prohibited 
 from filling offices in the administration of justice. An 
 incident set fire to the combustible spirit of indignation 
 which existed in Polish Prussia and Pomerania, more 
 than any where else, because there the protestants had 
 a numerical preponderance. In a procession of the host 
 to the church belonging to the nuns of St. Benedict, at 
 Thorn, some Lutheran children, while gazing on the 
 spectacle with the curiosity natural to their years, were 
 ordered by a Jesuit student to kneel ; and such as refused 
 were visited with a box on the ear. The parents of the 
 children hastened to chastise the student ; the brethren 
 of the latter, to support orthodoxy. Stones and other 
 missiles flew about, until the soldiers of the guard ar- 
 rived, and safely lodged the original offender in prison. 
 The following day, a body of students proceeded to de- 
 mand the enlargement of their comrade, and insulted 
 the citizens as they passed along. The ringleader of 
 this second mutiny was also seized and confined. At the 
 solicitation of the principal of the order, the first delin- 
 quent was discharged, but the latter was detained. The 
 students assembled a third time, pursued a Lutheran 
 citizen sword in hand, and on his escape they seized a 
 German scholar, whom they dragged to their college by 
 way of reprisal, and confined ; they next assaulted the 
 spectators whom this disgraceful scene had assembled. 
 The chief magistrate sent an officer to pacify the two 
 parties, and at the same time to demand the release of 
 the innocent German. The rector of the institution re- 
 fused to surrender him, unless the young Jesuit were 
 also discharged. This contempt of the laws so enraged 
 the populace, that a tumultuous battle ensued, in which 
 the students were armed with muskets, their assailants 
 with whatever was at hand. It ended in the forcing of 
 
224 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1724. 
 
 the college by the burghers, and the utter destruction of 
 the furniture, books, &c., in a huge fire kindled for the" 
 purpose. 
 
 Such is the account given of these transactions by the 
 senate of Thorn ; but, as may be easily conceived, it 
 differs materially from that drawn up by the Jesuits 
 themselves, who throw the whole blame on the populace. 
 To arrive at the exact truth is impossible : it is suf- 
 ficient to observe, that both parties deserved punishment, 
 since both had wantonly violated the laws ; the populace 
 in a greater degree than even the Jesuits. 
 
 On hearing the report of the fathers, all Poland was 
 in commotion. Commissioners were sent to examine 
 into the truth of the charges. In the discharge of their 
 functions, they exhibited, we are told, gross partiality. 
 From the depositions of the witnesses, sixty- six offenders, 
 all Lutheran burghers, were committed to prison, and an 
 extraordinary tribunal formed at Warsaw, to try and 
 pass sentence on them. Its severity astonished all Eu- 
 rope. The president and vice-president of the munici- 
 pality were ordered to be beheaded, for not having shown 
 sufficient vigour in repressing the tumult ; the property 
 of the former, also, was confiscated in favour of the 
 Jesuits ; two magistrates were to be imprisoned for a 
 short period ; seven ringleaders of the populace were 
 also to lose their heads ; and four others, convicted of 
 dishonouring the images of the saints, were to lose their 
 right hands before decapitation ; finally, about forty 
 others were sentenced to various periods of imprison- 
 ment. These sanguinary proceedings were solemnly 
 sanctioned by a national diet; and thus all Poland shared 
 in the guilt. The executions were hurried, to prevent 
 the effects of the energetic remonstrances, which the 
 neighbouring powers, catholic as well as protestant, the 
 pope and the emperor, as well as the king of Prussia 
 and the tsar, began to make. TThose remonstrances were 
 treated with contempt; and Europe saw with horror the 
 speedy catastrophe of this infernal tragedy. With one 
 or two trifling exceptions, all the sentences were exe 
 
1733. FREDERIC AUGUSTUS II. 225 
 
 cuted, and with such circumstances of wanton barbarity 
 as must stamp both the republic and its agents with 
 everlasting infamy. But history is full of retribution : 
 the time was at hand when the insulted, persecuted 
 Lutherans were to obtain the great object of their 
 hopes to be transferred from the odious sway of these 
 despicable tyrants, to that of Prussia : nay, the last 
 hour of the nation was about to sound ; and whom would 
 its dying notes either surprise or grieve ? * 
 
 Frederic Augustus died early in 1733. He had a few 
 virtues, but more vices. His reign was one continued 
 scene of disasters; many of which may be imputed to 
 himself, but more, perhaps, to the influence of circum- 
 stances.t 
 
 FREDERIC AUGUSTUS II. J 
 
 17331763. 
 
 AFTER passing a severe law against the Lutherans, who 
 were not only deprived of their civil rights, but in- 
 sultingly forbidden to leave their odious country, the 
 diet of convocation resolved that a Piast only should be 
 
 * One cannot help feeling indignant at the way in which the atrocities of 
 Thorn are noticed by the modern historians of Poland. 
 
 f Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII. Parthenay, Histoire de Pologne 
 sous Auguste II., torn. i. et ii. Proyart, Histoire de Stanislas I. Roi de 
 Pologne, torn. i. Rulhikre, Histoire de 1' Anarchic de Poiogne, i. 65 140. 
 Malte-Brun, Tableau de Pologne (as enlarged by Chodzko), torn. i. passim. 
 Zielinski, ii. 312342. 
 
 It may be doubted how far reference to Voltaire's work is justifiable. It 
 ** " 
 
 , , , 
 
 vraies." " Tout 1'ouvrage de monsieur de Voltaire est plein de negligences 
 
 ' " 
 
 vraes. ou ouvrage e monseur e oare es pn e neggenc 
 qui d^shonoreroient une histoire, mais quel'on excuse dans un poeme." The 
 celebrated Swedish senator who spoke of the book with most sovereign con. 
 " 
 
 , 
 loges. 
 
 oges. s s rue. en oare presene s wor o ansas, 
 
 ex-king of Poland, who had retired to France, " il se promettoit des com- 
 plimens flatteurs ; il rie recut que des reproches humilians. Le roi lui de- 
 manda de quel front il osoit presenter & un temoin, et a un acteur, un livre 
 qui outrageoit la veritt: en mille manieres." Lettre du Ptre Louis dePoix 
 a I' Abbe Proyart. It is time that this arch-impostor the greatest that 
 ever disgraced the literature of any country should be unmasked. 
 
 t Usually termed Augustus III. 
 
 Q 
 
226 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1133. 
 
 elected. This exclusion of foreign candidates was in- 
 tended to open the way for the second elevation of 
 Stanislas, now father-in-law of Louis XV., who, in 
 his peaceful court of Lorraine, was too philosophic to 
 be tempted by ambition. Overcome, however, by the 
 French court, and by the pressing entreaties of his for- 
 mer subjects, he reluctantly proceeded to Warsaw, to 
 support by his presence the efforts of his friends. He 
 was received with acclamation, and in the diet of elec- 
 tion sixty thousand voices declared him king of Poland. 
 But the republic had ceased to control her own des- 
 tinies ; her independence had vanished, and she was no 
 longer allowed either to choose her own rulers or to 
 take any other important step without the concurrence 
 of her neighbours. Both Austria and Muscovy had 
 resolved to resist the pretensions of Stanislas, and to 
 enforce the election of a rival candidate, Frederic 
 Augustus, elector of Saxony, son of the late king. The 
 grounds of this arbitrary interference on the part of 
 either power would be vainly sought in the recognised 
 principles of international law. The treaties formerly 
 in force between- the crowns of Poland and Hungary 
 afforded a pretext to the Austrian emperor, as king of 
 the latter country, to watch over the internal peace of the 
 republic ; but the absurdity of such a plea will appear 
 gross enough, when we consider that neither of the 
 powers had ever dreamed of mutual interference in 
 circumstances purely internal, but of mutual aid only 
 against foreign aggressions ; and that even if such an 
 extraordinary agreement had ever existed, it must long 
 since have fallen into oblivion, with the treaties which 
 involved it. The pretensions of Muscovy were still 
 more preposterous; since the treaty between Frederic 
 Augustus and the tsar, in 1?17 the basis on which 
 these pretensions were founded regarded only theevacu- 
 ation of the Polish territory by the Saxon troops under 
 the auspices of Peter, who, as the friend alike of the 
 republic and her king, was permitted on this occasion to 
 interpose his good offices between them. It must not, 
 
FREDERIC AUGUSTUS II. 227 
 
 indeed, be concealed, that the interference of Muscovy 
 had been demanded by the bishop of Cracow and the 
 palatine of Sandomir, as the heads of a party which re- 
 fused to acknowledge Stanislas, and which had even 
 jaken up arms against the adherents of that prince; 
 yet, to render such interference legitimate, it should 
 have been demanded by the majority of the nation in 
 diet assembled, not by a faction after the election had 
 been legally made. But power does not often conde- 
 scend to reason with weakness. An army of Muscovites 
 arrived in the neighbourhood of Warsaw; and at the 
 village of Kamien, in a wretched inn in the depths of 
 a forest, the party of nobles opposed to the French in- 
 terest, proclaimed Frederic Augustus king of Poland. 
 On the 9th of November the elector left Saxony. At 
 Tarnowitz, on the Silesian frontier, he swore to the 
 pacta conventa, and entered triumphant into Cracow, 
 where he and his queen were solemnly crowned. The 
 Muscovite troops pursued the fugitive Stanislas to Dant- 
 zic, where that prince hoped to make a stand until the 
 arrival of the promised succours from France. Though 
 aid arrived from that country, it was too slender to avail 
 him. The bravery of the inhabitants, however, enabled 
 him to withstand a vigorous siege of five months : when 
 the city was compelled to capitulate, he stole from the 
 place, and, in disguise, reached the Prussian territories 
 after many narrow escapes.* 
 
 After receiving the oaths of the Dantzickers, and as- 
 sisting at the diet of pacification the only diet which, 
 during his reign, was not dissolved by the veto Fre- 
 deric Augustus appeared to think he had done enough 
 for his new subjects, and abandoned himself entirely to 
 his favourite occupations of smoking or hunting. To 
 business of every description he had a mortal aversion : 
 the government of his two states he abandoned to his 
 minister count Bruhl. The minister, indeed, strove to 
 resemble him in idle pomp and dissipation, and by that 
 means obtained unbounded ascendancy over him ; an 
 
 * See note A. 
 
228 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1736*. 
 
 ascendancy, however, which was rather felt than seen, 
 and which he who exercised it had art enough to con- 
 ceal. The king had not the capacity, or would not be 
 at the pains, to learn the Polish language ; another 
 source of discontent to the people. But the forests of 
 Saxony were more favourable to the royal sports than 
 those of Poland; Saxony, therefore, had more of the 
 royal presence. Wherever was the king, there also was 
 Bruhl. Both, we are told, would spend whole mornings 
 together without uttering a word : indeed, the respect 
 paid by the minister was too servile to permit him the 
 liberty of speech unasked ; all his ambition was to an- 
 swer, in the fewest possible words, the solitary laconic 
 demands of his master. As the latter paced his apart- 
 ments or his gardens with his never-failing attendant, a 
 pipe, he would sometimes let his half-open eyes care- 
 lessly fall on his minister, and would ask " Bruhl, 
 have I any money ? " " Yes, sire/' was the constant 
 reply. But to satisfy the expensive whims of the king, 
 he was obliged to employ some unpopular if not dan- 
 gerous expedients. The bank of Saxony had more 
 notes than bullion ; and in Poland all offices, all bene- 
 fices, were sold to the highest bidder. The magnificence 
 of the servant was equal to that of the master. If we may 
 believe a contemporary writer *, Lucullus himself, the ob- 
 ject of astonishment to the Romans, who on one occasion 
 lent five thousand of his dresses for a public spectacle, 
 would have appeared miserably poor to this Saxon minis- 
 ter. ' ' Were it not for my profusion," said Bruhl, ' ' the 
 king would leave me destitute of even necessaries." The 
 pride of the monarch might indeed be gratified by the 
 service of so pompous a menial ; but he himself was 
 but the menial of the tsar, who ruled at Warsaw, not 
 indeed so despotically, but certainly with as much ef- 
 fect, as at St. Petersburg. 
 
 Nothing can more clearly prove this absolute depend- 
 
 * Rulhi^re, Histoire de P Anarchie de Pologne, i. 178. This is an excel- 
 lent work, but not wholly free from the defects of the French school. Its 
 continual aim at effect, and its consequent exaggerations, sometimes render 
 jt an unsafe guide. 
 
1745 FREDERIC AUGUSTUS II. C 2%9 
 
 ence of the republic on the northern empire,, than the 
 fact, that though Frederic Augustus, in virtue of his 
 rights over Courland, permitted his third son, Charles, 
 whom the states of that duchy had ventured to elect for 
 their sovereign, to accept the precarious dignity, his 
 timidity was absolutely ludicrous ; nor would he grant 
 the permission, until assured that the choice would be 
 agreeable to the empress Elizabeth. But Peter III., 
 the successor of that princess, refused to acknowledge 
 duke Charles, who, in fear of the consequences, pre- 
 cipitately fled from Courland to await the course of 
 events. In his contempt for the republic, the new tsar 
 would not even condescend to acquaint Frederic Au- 
 gustus with his accession. So completely did he con- 
 sider Poland within his grasp, and in reality a province 
 of his empire, however his policy might induce him to 
 permit a little longer the show of national independence, 
 that, in a treaty with the Prussian monarch, he insisted 
 on three great objects : 1. The election of a Piast, and 
 consequently a creature of his own, after the death of 
 Augustus ; 2. The protection of the dissidents against 
 the declared will of the diet ; and, 3. The possession of 
 Courland as a fief of the imperial crown. St. Peters- 
 burg, in short, was the great focus where the rays of 
 Polish intrigue were concentrated, and where the more 
 ambitious natives resorted to obtain, by flattering the 
 imperial confidants, the dignities of the republic. Every 
 intimation, however slight, from the northern metropo- 
 lis, was an imperious obligation on the feeble king and 
 his servile minister ; and not on them alone, but on 
 the great body of the nobles, who had lost all sense of 
 the national dishonour, and who transferred their ho- 
 mage from Warsaw to St. Petersburg without shame or 
 remorse. Among these unprincipled Poles, none was 
 more conspicuous than count Stanislas Poniatowski, who, 
 in the reign of Elizabeth, formed a criminal intrigue 
 with the grand duchess Catherine ; and who, by favour 
 of the connection, was taught to regard the Polish crown 
 as his own. The father of this adventurer had been 
 
230 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1745. 
 
 the confidant of Charles XII. in Turkey, and had been 
 singularly favoured by that monarch. " Charles/' wrote 
 the archduchess to the old count, "knew how to dis- 
 tinguish your merit : I also can distinguish that of your 
 son, whom I may one day raise, perhaps, above even 
 Charles himself." The confidants of the two lovers had 
 little doubt that, when the grand duchess was seated on 
 the imperial throne, she would contrive to set aside her 
 husband., and bestow both her hand and sceptre on one 
 whom she had resolved to place over the republic. Fi- 
 nally, the Muscovite armies traversed the kingdom, 
 whether to oppose the Germans or the Turks, or to 
 support the plots of their avowed adherents, with per- 
 fect impunity, and in contempt of the humble supplica- 
 tions of court and diet. 
 
 It must not, indeed, be concealed, that the republic 
 had a few true sons, who endeavoured to rouse the na- 
 tion to a sense of its humiliation, and to arm it against 
 the interference of its neighbours. At the head of these 
 was Branicki, grand general of the crown, who belonged 
 to no faction, and who aimed only at the redemption 
 of his country. But his efforts could avail little against 
 those of two rival factions, whose dissensions were es- 
 poused by the great body of Polish nobles. The court, 
 aided by the Radzivils and the Potockis, laboured to 
 preserve the ancient privileges of the republic, in other 
 words, the abuses which had brought that republic to 
 its present deplorable state ; and the Czartorinskis to 
 establish an hereditary monarchy, the trunk of which 
 should be, not Frederic Augustus, but their kinsman the 
 young count Poniatowski. The cause of the latter was 
 naturally more acceptable at the court of St. Petersburg, 
 especially after the elevation of Catherine ; and the 
 Muscovite generals were ordered to protect it, in op- 
 position to the king, and, if need were, to the whole 
 nation. 
 
 Catherine II. was no less decisive with respect to 
 Courland. She ordered 15,000 of her troops to take 
 
1763. FREDERIC AUGUSTUS II. 231 
 
 possession of the duchy in favour of Biron, who had heen 
 exiled by Peter and recalled by her. At a meeting of 
 the senate, indeed, over which the feeble king presided, 
 some members had the boldness to dispute the rights of 
 Biron, and to insist on the restoration of Charles ; and, 
 what is still stranger, they prevailed on a majority to 
 adopt the same sentiments. They even resolved to cite the 
 Muscovite governor before the tribunal of their king. 
 But this was no more than the empty menace of cowards, 
 who hoped to obtain by blustering what they dared not 
 attempt by open force. A thundering declaration of the 
 tsarina, and the movement of a few Muscovite troops 
 towards the frontiers, so appalled them that they sought 
 refuge in the obscurity of their sylvan abodes ; and the 
 king, with his minister Bruhl, precipitately abandoned 
 Poland, never to return. With no less speed did duke 
 Charles, who had stood a six months' siege by the Mus- 
 covite troops, follow that exemplary pair to Dresden. It 
 is true, indeed, that the empress arrested the march of 
 her troops in Lithuania ; that she found cause to fear 
 the determined opposition of the lesser nobles ; and that 
 she resolved to wait for the king's death before she pro- 
 ceeded to declare the throne vacant, and secure the eleva- 
 tion of her former lover : but her purpose was immutable ; 
 and if her moderation or policy induced her to delay its 
 execution, she knew her power too well to distrust its 
 eventual accomplishment. However, ef to make assur- 
 ance doubly sure," she sought the alliance of the Prus- 
 sian king, with whom she publicly arranged a portion of 
 the policy that was afterwards adopted in regard to this 
 doomed nation. 
 
 Nothing could be more mortifying to the Czarto- 
 rinskis than this stroke of policy on the part of the 
 tsarina. They had long planned the deposition of Fre- 
 deric Augustus, and the forcible elevation of their kins- 
 man ; and their vexation knew no bounds at the delay 
 thus opposed to their ambitious impatience. The young 
 count, in particular, who had traitorously boasted that 
 
 Q4 
 
232 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1763. 
 
 the last hour of the king was come ; that Poland was 
 about to enter on new destinies, behaved like a mad- 
 man on the occasion, but he became more tractable on 
 learning the indisposition of Frederic Augustus. The 
 death of that prince restored him to perfect equanimity. 
 Though, under Frederic Augustus, Poland entered on 
 no foreign war, his reign was the most disastrous in her 
 annals. While the Muscovite and Prussian armies 
 traversed her plains at pleasure, and extorted whatever 
 they pleased ; while one faction openly opposed an- 
 other, not merely in the diet but on the field ; while 
 every national assembly was immediately dissolved by 
 the veto ; the laws could not be expected to exercise 
 much authority. They were, in fact, utterly disre- 
 garded ; the tribunals were derided, or forcibly over- 
 turned ; and brute force prevailed on every side. The 
 miserable peasants vainly besought the protection of 
 their lords, who were either powerless, or indifferent to 
 their complaints: while thousands expired of hunger, a 
 far greater number sought to relieve their necessities by 
 open depredations. Bands of robbers, less formidable 
 only than the kindred masses congregated under the 
 name of soldiers, infested the country in every direc- 
 tion. Famine aided the devastations of both : the 
 population, no less than the wealth of the kingdom, 
 decreased with frightful rapidity.* 
 
 INTERREGNUM. STANISLAS AUGUSTUS. 
 17631795. 
 
 THOUGH Catherine had long determined on the elec- 
 tion of her former lover, she was at first prudent enough 
 
 * Rulhiere, liv. 4. et 5. torn. i. et ii. Proyart, i. passim. Malte-Brun, by 
 Chodzko, torn. ii. 89 92. Zielinski, ii. 342 364. Such is the meagreness 
 of this last writer, that his work appears to be a hasty compilation of notes 
 on which it was intended afterwards to dilate. Yet of this work the cele- 
 brated M. de Jouy writes thus to the author : " Vous avez, monsieur, leve 
 un monument durable a la gloire de votre patrie, et k la votre, dans un 
 ouvrage ou vous avez rempli toutes les conditions imposees & 1'historien 
 digne de ce nom." This novelist should mind the proverb, " Ne sutor,"&c. 
 
1763. INTERREGNUM. 233 
 
 to employ address in preference to open force. She 
 had no wish, by her example,, to procure the armed in- 
 terference of Austria ; a power which could not regard 
 without alarm the growing preponderance of her em- 
 pire ; and the great Frederic might possibly be no less 
 disposed to preserve Poland independent, as a barrier 
 against her progressive encroachments westward. Her 
 ambassador at Warsaw had orders to repeat her resolu- 
 tion to defend the integrity of the republic ; but he was 
 at the same time instructed to say, that a Piast only 
 would be agreeable to his sovereign. Who that Piast 
 was, there was no difficulty in surmising ; but the count, 
 from his unprincipled manoeuvres during the late 
 reign, and still more, perhaps, from the comparative 
 baseness of his extraction, was odious to the whole na- 
 tion.* Here was another obstacle, which required alike 
 great art and unflinching firmness to remove. En- 
 treaties were first to be tried, then remonstrances, next 
 menaces, but actual force only when other means should 
 fail. 
 
 In the dietines assembled in each palatinate, to choose 
 the members for the diet of convocation, and to draw 
 up such laws, regulations, and improvements, as it was 
 intended to propose in the general diet, the necessity of 
 a radical change in the constitution was very generally 
 expressed. But if the members agreed in this self- 
 evident proposition, they differed widely in every other 
 matter. While one party inclined to the establishment 
 of an hereditary monarchy, and the abolition of the 
 veto, another contended for the formation of a govern- 
 ment purely aristocratical ; a third, with equal zeal, in- 
 sisted that the constitution should only be slightly 
 modified, to meet the wants of a new and improved 
 society. All dispute, however, was soon cut short by 
 * 
 
 * When one of her emissaries told Catherine that the Poles were indig- 
 nant at the bare proposal of having a king whose grandfather had been a 
 steward on a small estate of the Sapiehas, she blushed for a moment to 
 think that one so base had been her lover ; but the news only confirmed her 
 purpose. " Were he a steward himself," she replied, " I wish him to become 
 a king j and a king he shall be ! " 
 
234 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1763. 
 
 the united declaration of the Prussian and Muscovite 
 ambassadors,, to the effect that their sovereigns would 
 not allow any change at all in the existing system. 
 The Poles now felt that they were slaves. 
 
 To a Piast in other words, a mean dependant on the 
 tsarina Austria opposed the young elector of Saxony, 
 son of the late king. A great number of nobles, on 
 the promise that the freedom of election should be 
 guaranteed by the forces of the empire, and the Mus- 
 covites taught to respect the republic, espoused the in- 
 terests of this candidate ; and probably his death was 
 the only event which averted from the country the 
 scourge of war. It was an event so favourable to the 
 views of Muscovy, that her triumph was secure. So 
 convinced of this was the sagacious Frederic, that he 
 hastened to confirm Catherine in her design, which he 
 offered to support with all his power ; and he thereby 
 acquired all the advantages he expected, a confirmation 
 of the favourable treaty he had before made with Peter 
 Til. Poniatowski received the riband of the black 
 eagle, which he regarded as an earnest of his approach- 
 ing elevation. 
 
 As the period appointed for opening the diet of con- 
 vocation drew near, the two allied powers took measures 
 to secure their common object. 40,000 Prussians were 
 stationed on the Silesian frontier; and 10,000 Musco- 
 vites, regardless alike of decency and justice, and actuated 
 by no other principle than a consciouness of their own 
 strength, quickly occupied the positions round Warsaw. 
 Their creatures, the Czartorinskis, were no less active 
 in distributing money with amazing prodigality, and in 
 promising places, pensions, and benefices, to all who pro- 
 moted the success of their kinsman. But on some nei- 
 ther fear nor seduction had any influence : twenty- two 
 senators and forty-five deputies, at the head of whom 
 were the grand hetman and Mokronowski, a Pole zeal- 
 ous for his country's cause, signed a declaration to the 
 effect that the diet of convocation could not be held so 
 long as foreign troops were present. On the "'th of 
 
1763. INTERREGNUM. 235 
 
 May, however, it was opened,, but under circumstances 
 deeply humiliating to the nation. The Muscovite 
 troops were posted in the squares, and at the ends of 
 the streets leading to the place of deliberation ; while the 
 armed adherents of the Czartorinskis, some thousands in 
 number, had the audacity to occupy not only the ave- 
 nues to the house, but the halls of the senators and the 
 deputies. Of the fifty senators then in Warsaw, only 
 eight proceeded to the diet, which was to be opened by 
 the aged count Malachowski, marshal on the occasion. 
 Instead of raising his staff the signal for the com- 
 mencement of proceedings this intrepid man resolutely 
 held it downwards, while his no less courageous com- 
 panion, Mokronowski, conjured him, in the name of the 
 members who had signed the declaration, not to elevate 
 it at all so long as the Muscovites controlled the free 
 exercise of deliberation. As the speaker concluded by his 
 veto, a multitude of soldiers, with drawn sabres, rushed 
 towards him. For a moment the tumult was hushed, 
 when the marshal of the diet declared his intention 
 of departing with the symbol of his office. Immediately 
 a hundred armed creatures of the Czartorinskis ex- 
 claimed, in a menacing tone, " Raise your staff!" 
 <f No," cried Mokronowski, in one still louder; " do 
 no such thing ! " Again the soldiers endeavoured to 
 pierce through the crowd of deputies, to lay their victim 
 low, while several voices exclaimed, (C Mokronowski, 
 retract your veto ; we are no longer masters ; you are 
 rushing on certain death ! " " Be it so ! " replied he, 
 as he folded his arms in expectation of the catastrophe ; 
 ff I will die free ! " The elevation of his purpose was 
 read in the energy of his look, and could not but strike 
 a deep awe into the assailants, who began to hesitate in 
 their design ; especially when they reflected that their 
 bloody deed must bring inevitable disgrace on their 
 cause, and, perhaps, rouse all Europe against them. 
 As the marshal refused to erect his staff, he was called 
 on to resign it into other hands. e< Never ! " replied 
 this noble octogenarian : " you may cut off my hand 3 or 
 
236 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1?63. 
 
 you may take my life ; but as I am a marshal elected 
 by a free people, so by a free people only can I be de- 
 posed. I wish to leave the place !" He was sur- 
 rounded on every side by ferocious soldiers and deputies 
 resolved to prevent his egress. Seeing him thus vio- 
 lently detained, Mokronowski exclaimed, " Gentlemen, 
 if a victim is wanted, behold me ; but respect age and 
 virtue \" At the same moment, the younger of 
 these heroic patriots forcibly opened a way for the 
 marshal, whom he succeeded in conducting to the 
 gate. The undaunted deportment of both seemed to 
 have made its due impression on the members, who 
 opposed no further obstacle to their departure. As they 
 passed through the streets, however, they were exposed 
 to new dangers ; and there is little doubt that Mokro- 
 nowski would have been sacrificed, had not a man, whose 
 name history conceals, closely followed his heels, ex- 
 claiming at every step, " Make way for general Ga- 
 domski ! " 
 
 But this admirable display of firmness led to no cor- 
 responding result. Though 200 members of the diet 
 had resolved to have no share in this lawless force, and 
 left Warsaw for their respective habitations, those who 
 remained the creatures of Muscovy and the Czarto- 
 rinskis, scarcely eighty in number were but the more 
 encouraged to betray the liberties of their country. 
 Another marshal was speedily elected, and measures 
 passed in this illegal assembly, alike injurious to free- 
 dom and tranquillity. The dissidents were deprived of 
 the few remaining rights left them by former persecu- 
 tors ; the Prussians were also forbidden to assemble at 
 the diets, otherwise than by deputies and these to be 
 few in number. (On its union with the crown, Prussia 
 had been guaranteed in its privileges of sending as 
 many nobles to the national assemblies as might be will- 
 ing to attend.) No folly, surely, ever equalled that of 
 men, who, in such a desperate situation, laboured to 
 alienate an important portion of the people from the 
 government, at a time when the most perfect harmony 
 
176?. STANISLAS AUGUSTUS. 237 
 
 and the closest union were required to avert the threat- 
 ened destruction of the republic. In some other things 
 they exhibited a little common sense. They abolished 
 the veto, making the success of the measures proposed 
 depend on the majority, not on the unanimity, of suf- 
 frages ; and they recognised in the elector or Branden- 
 burg the long- disputed title of the king of Prussia.* 
 Finally, the diet of election opened August 27. ; and on 
 the 7th of the following month, Stanislas Augustus 
 Poniatowski was declared king of Poland. 
 
 The first acts of Stanislas were almost sufficient to 
 efface the shame of his elevation. Not only was the 
 abolition of the veto confirmed, and the arbitrary powers 
 of the grand marshals and hetmans greatly restrained ; 
 but enlightened regulations were introduced into the 
 commerce of the country and the finances of the state ; 
 the arts and sciences were encouraged, especially such as 
 related to war. The dissidents, however, could not 
 obtain the rights which they claimed, notwithstanding 
 the representations of the Muscovite ambassador, whose 
 sovereign was ever on the alert to protect the discon- 
 tented and to urge their confederations. But the 
 tsarina was in no disposition to see her imperial will 
 thwarted ; her attachment to the king had long been 
 weakened by new favourites ; and she could not behold, 
 without anxiety, the changes introduced into the consti- 
 tution of the Poles, changes which, she was sagacious 
 enough to foresee, must, if permitted to take effect, en- 
 tirely frustrate her views on the republic. Her am- 
 bassador declared to the diet, that these innovations 
 must be abandoned, and the ancient usages restored. 
 The assembly was compelled to give way^, especially as 
 numerous confederations were formed by the small no- 
 bles, no doubt in the pay of Catherine, for the same 
 object. The conviction felt by the humblest member of 
 the equestrian order, that he by his single protest could 
 
 * They also recognised the sovereign of Muscovy as " empress of all the 
 Russias," thereby supporting the claim of the tsarina to the dominion ovey 
 Red Russia, and the other Russian provinces possessed by Poland. 
 
238 HISTORY OP POLAND. 
 
 arrest the whole machine of government, was a privilege 
 too gratifying to self-love to be abandoned without re- 
 luctance. Hence Muscovy had little difficulty in nul- 
 lifying measures,, which,, however advantageous, and 
 even necessary to the republic, were less prized by the 
 majority of the nobles than their own monstrous immu- 
 nities. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that this dictatorial 
 interference of Muscovy was admitted without opposi- 
 tion. In the diet of 1767-8, it was courageously de- 
 nounced by several senators, especially by two bishops 
 and two temporal barons : but the fate of these men 
 was intended to deter all others from following the ex- 
 ample : they were arrested by night, and conveyed into 
 the heart of Muscovy. Liberty of discussion had long 
 been forbidden by the haughty foreigners ; but as mere 
 menaces had produced little effect, to the astonishment 
 of all Europe, unblushing violence, and that too of 
 the most odious description, was hereafter to be em- 
 ployed. It was now evident that nothing less than the 
 entire subjugation of Poland, than its reduction to a pro- 
 vince of the empire, was resolved. The forcible removal 
 of these heroic champions of independence was to se- 
 cure the triumph of the ancient anarchy. 
 
 But however appalling the fate of these men, it 
 had not the effect designed by its framers : it roused 
 the patriotic and the bold to a more determined and 
 effectual opposition. A confederation of a few influ- 
 ential nobles was formed at Bar, a little town in Po- 
 dolia, of which the avowed object was to free the country 
 from foreign influence, and to dethrone the poor creature 
 who so dishonoured the nation. At the same time the 
 Turks declared war on the tsarina. A memorable 
 Struggle ensued, which during four years desolated the 
 fairest provinces of the republic. But unassisted pa- 
 triotism, however determined, could do little with the 
 veteran armies of Russia : the small bands of the na- 
 tives were annihilated one by one. An attempt of the 
 confederates to carry off the king by violence did no 
 
1772. STANISLAS AUGUSTUS. 239 
 
 good to their cause. Finally, the Turks were unsuc- 
 cessful ,, the Muscovites every where triumphant ; circum- 
 stances which led to a result hitherto unprecedented in 
 history, the partition of the republic by the three 
 neighbouring powers. 
 
 It is not difficult to fix the period when this abomi- 
 .nable project was first entertained, or with what power 
 it originated. Notwithstanding the cautious language 
 of the king of Prussia in his Memoirs, there is reason 
 enough for inferring that he was its author, and that the 
 subject was first introduced to Catherine, in 1770, by his 
 brother prince Henry. More than twelve months, how- 
 ever, elapsed before the two potentates finally arranged 
 the limits of their respective pretensions ; and although 
 they agreed, without difficulty, on guaranteeing each 
 other's claims, would Austria calmly witness the usurp- 
 ation ? If the Poles themselves were not easy to reduce, 
 what hope of their subjugation would remain, should 
 they be supported by the troops of the empire? that 
 power must be permitted to share the spoil. Unscru- 
 pulous, however, as Catherine often was, she refused 
 to be the first to mention such a project to the court 
 of Vienna. Frederic had less shame. After some he- 
 sitation, the Austrian court acceded to the alliance. 
 The treaty of partition was signed at St. Petersburg, 
 August 5. 1772. 
 
 By this treaty Prussia acquired the palatinates of Mal- 
 borg, Pomerania, and Warmia, Culm, except Dantzic 
 and Thorn, and a part of Great Poland. Austria had 
 Red Russia, or Galicia, with a part of Podolia, Sendomir, 
 and Cracow. Muscovy had Polotsk, Witepsk, Micislaf, 
 and Polish Livonia. 
 
 It must not be supposed that these monstrous usurp- 
 ations were made without some show of justice. Both 
 Austria and Prussia published elaborate expositions of 
 their claims on the countries invaded ; claims which, as 
 they would require a volume to state and confute, can have 
 no place in the present compendium*?^ J$k J that c; 
 
 * For the exposure of these pretended claimsy tbe^curious reader may con. 
 *ult " Les Droits des trois Puissances AlliKs sables Provinces df ' 
 
240 HISTORY OF POLAND. 17? 3 
 
 here observed on the subject is, that Austria claimed in 
 virtue of rights said to have been once possessed by the 
 Hungarian crown, and Prussia in virtue of the con- 
 nection between the electors of Brandenburg and the 
 dukes of Pomerania. In neither case have these claims 
 either justice or reason to support them ; but if they 
 had both if their force were as convincing as their, 
 weakness they had been annulled by subsequent treaties. 
 If, in contempt of the whole course of diplomatic in- 
 tercourse between nations, claims drawn from the depths 
 of antiquity are to be advanced, what throne would be 
 safe ? England might assert her right to Normandy 
 with far greater appearance of reason than either of the 
 powers in question to the countries they usurped. As 
 to Muscovy, she had no treaties to mystify; and she 
 claimed the vast provinces on which she seized in con- 
 sideration of sacrifices pretended to have been made, and 
 expense to which she alleged herself to have been 
 put, in so long endeavouring to serve her ally, in pre- 
 serving the republic from foreign invasion, and from utter 
 destruction by the native confederations. A claim at once 
 so ludicrous and so impudent could be advanced only 
 by a power conscious of its own overbearing might. 
 
 The powers thus allied in iniquity were not satisfied 
 with the success of their violence ; they resolved to add 
 insult, by forcing a diet to sanction the dismemberment 
 of the country. The great body of the deputies, how- 
 ever, refused to attend this diet of 1773 ; the few who 
 did were chiefly creatures of Russia, the mercenary be- 
 trayers of the national independence. But among these 
 few, nine or ten showed considerable intrepidity in de- 
 fence of their privileges; none so much as Thaddeus 
 Rey ten, deputy of Nowogrodek, who, from incorruptible, 
 
 lique de Pologne, avec 1'Exposition de 1'Insuffisance et de la Nullit de leurs 
 Droits," 2 vols. 8vo. ; and Malte-Brun, " Tableau de Pologne," by Chodzko, 
 torn. i. passim. The mere English reader will find the said claims suffici- 
 ently exposed in "Letters concerning the Present State of Poland,"(London, 
 8vo. 1773,) which proves from historic evidence, and from the treaties pre- 
 served in Dumont (Corps Diplomatique), that the manifestos published 
 by the usurping powers are a tissue of sophistry, of perverted facts, of state- 
 ments at variance with the whole course of history, and that they are fur- 
 ther disgraced by artful omissions. 
 
1773. STANISLAS AUGUSTUS. 241 
 
 daring integrity has been surnamed the Polish Cato. As 
 unanimity could not be expected, wherever one true 
 patriot was to be found, the foreigners laboured to change 
 the diet into a confederation, where the great question 
 might be decided by a majority of votes. To prevent 
 this was the great end of the patriots : each party en- 
 deavoured to produce the election of a marshal from 
 among themselves; since the powers with which that 
 officer was invested, made his support or opposition no 
 slight object. Corrupted as were a great number of the 
 members, they could not tamely see one Poninski, a 
 creature of Russia, forced on them ; and they exclaimed 
 that Reyten should be their marshal. Poninski imme- 
 diately adjourned the diet to the following day, and re- 
 tired into the king's apartments. Reyten also, after 
 exhorting his countrymen to firmness, declared the 
 sitting adjourned. Thus passed the first day. Through- 
 out the night, the gold of the three ambassadors was 
 lavishly distributed, and more traitors made. The fol- 
 lowing day both marshals resorted to the hall of assem- 
 bly ; but as neither would give way, nothing was done, 
 and the sitting was again adjourned. Seeing no prospect 
 of unanimity, Poninski drew up the act of confederation 
 at his own hotel, and sent it to Stanislas to be signed. 
 The king replied that he could not legally sign it with- 
 out the consent of his ministers and senators. The 
 menaces of the ambassadors, however, soon compelled 
 the weak creature to accede to the confederation; but 
 that illegal body was debarred from the hall of de- 
 liberations by the intrepid Reyten, who, with four com- 
 panions, persisted in keeping possession of this sanctuary 
 until he saw the confederation held in the open air. As 
 longer opposition, where the very shadow of law was 
 disregarded, would be useless, he returned to his own 
 residence, with the melancholy consolation of reflecting 
 that he was almost the only one who had withstood the 
 torrent of intimidation or corruption.* After his de- 
 
 * This great patriot became soon afterwards insane, the effects of his 
 country's dishonour. His death was singular. In a paroxysm of his dis- 
 order he broke a wine glass with his teeth, and swallowed the pieces. 
 R 
 
242 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1773. 
 
 parture the partition treaty was ratified, and a perma- 
 nent council was established, which, under the influence 
 of the Russian ambassador, governed king and republic. 
 
 During the few following years, Poland presented the 
 spectacle of a country exhausted alike by its own dis- 
 sensions and the arms of its enemies. The calm was 
 unusual, and would have been a blessing could any 
 salutary laws have been adopted by the diets. Many 
 such; indeed, were proposed, the most signal of which 
 was the emancipation of the serfs ; but the very pro- 
 position was received with such indignation by the selfish 
 nobles, that Russian gold was not wanted to defeat the 
 other measures with which it was accompanied, the 
 suppression of the veto, and the establishment of an 
 hereditary monarchy. The enlightened Zamoyski, who 
 had drawn up a code of laws which involved this ob- 
 noxious provision, was near falling a sacrifice to his 
 patriotic zeal. 
 
 But what no consideration of justice or policy could 
 effect, was at length brought about by the example of 
 the French. In the memorable diet which opened in 
 1788, and which, like the French constitutional assem- 
 bly, declared itself permanent, a new constitution was 
 promulgated, was solemnly sanctioned by king and no- 
 bles, and was enthusiastically received by the whole 
 nation. It reformed the vices of the old constitution 
 offered a new existence to the burghers and peasants 
 destroyed all confederations, with the fatal veto, and 
 declared the throne hereditary in the house of Saxony. 
 It had, however, two great faults ; it limited the royal 
 authority, so as to make the king a mere cipher * ; and 
 it came too late to save the nation. The elector of 
 Saxony refused to accept the crown, unless the royal 
 
 * We need not be surprised that such enemies to thrones as Tom Paine 
 and Volney, or that such hot-headed zealots for popular immunities as 
 Fox, should have praised the Polish constitution of May 3. (1791) ; but, 
 the rhetorical praises of Burke must surprise us. Surely that celebrated 
 man coirld not have read the articles. If the reader will be at the pains to 
 consult them, (they are to be found in Oginski, " Memoires sur la Pologne 
 et les Polonnais, depuis 1788 jusqu'a la fin de 1815," torn. i. p 130.) he will 
 perceive that they are inconsistent with the due powers of the crown, so 
 essential not merely to the welfare, but to the existence, of a nation. 
 
1793. STANISLAS AUGUSTUS. 243 
 
 prerogatives were amplified ; and Catherine resolved to 
 destroy both it and the republic. The king of Prussia, 
 indeed^ announced his entire satisfaction with the whole- 
 some changes which had been introduced ; and pre- 
 tended that he had nothing so much at heart as the 
 welfare of the nation, and the preservation of a good 
 understanding with it : but with his usual contempt of 
 oaths, with his wonted duplicity and perfidy, he re- 
 newed his alliance with the tsarina, the basis of which 
 was a second partition of the republic ! 
 
 The first object of Catherine was to form the leading 
 discontented Poles into a confederation to destroy the 
 new constitution, and to cah 1 in her assistance to re- 
 establish the ancient laws. The confederation of Tar- 
 gowitz struck the nation with terror, but inspired the 
 bold with more ardour. Resistance was unanimously 
 decreed, and the king was invested with dictatorial 
 powers for the national defence. He even promised to 
 take the field in person, and triumph or fall with his 
 people. Yet, in August 1792, a very few weeks after 
 this ebullition of patriotism, he acceded to the infamous 
 confederation ; ordered his armies to retreat, and to leave 
 the country open to the domination of the Russian 
 troops. His example constrained ah 1 who had property 
 to lose; since all preferred the enjoyment of their sub- 
 stance under arbitrary government, to independence 
 with poverty or exile. The Russian troops entered the 
 kingdom, and restored the ancient chains ; the perfidious 
 Prussian followed the example, and began his second 
 career of spoliation by the reduction of Dantzic. A 
 diet was assembled at Grodno ; but none were admitted 
 as members except such as had opposed the constitution 
 of 1791 ; none, in fact, but the slaves of the tsarina. 
 The feeble Stanislas was compelled to attend it. It was 
 converted into a diet of confederation, the better to at- 
 tain the ends for which it was convoked : yet some of 
 the members were intrepid enough to protest against 
 the meditated encroachments on the territories of the 
 republic ; nor did they desist until several were arrested, 
 B 2 
 
244 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1793. 
 
 and the remainder threatened with Siberia. The Rus- 
 sian troops which had hitherto occupied the approaches 
 to the hall of assembly, and had exercised a strict sur- 
 veillance over every suspected person, were now intro- 
 duced into this sanctuary of the laws. Another treaty 
 of partition was violently signed, by which Prussia ac- 
 quired the remainder of Great and a part of Little Po- 
 land ; and the Russian boundary was advanced to the 
 centre of Lithuania and Volhynia. The territory of the 
 republic was now reduced to little more than four thou- 
 sand square miles ; and its army, by the menaces of the 
 tsarina, to 15,000 men. The previous manifestos of 
 the two powers (Austria had nothing to do with this 
 second iniquity) on the forcible occupation by their 
 troops of the provinces to be dismembered, are not worth 
 attention. Their attempts to justify the violence were 
 too absurd to be received; they exhibit nothing but 
 insulting unmitigated violence. 
 
 No one acquainted with the warlike character of the 
 Poles,, and their fierce spirit of independence, could 
 suppose that such unprincipled aggressions would be 
 tamely borne by the great bulk of the nation. An in- 
 surrection was organised ; and Thaddeus Kosciusko was 
 placed at the head of the native army. The general 
 was every way worthy of the choice ; combining great 
 firmness of purpose with moderation of manner, a cool 
 judgment with the most ardent bravery, he devoted 
 himself heart and hand to the redemption of his beloved 
 country. Cracow and Warsaw caught the flame of 
 patriotism, and opened their gates to him. Wiina, with 
 all the grand duchy, rose in the same cause. Detached 
 bands of the Russians were exterminated ; and even an 
 advantage gained over them in two considerable engage- 
 ments. Finally, Great Poland adhered to the national 
 cause ; and an army of Prussians, under the king in 
 person, was obliged to raise the siege of Warsaw, which 
 he had hastened to invest. But here was the term of 
 Kosciusko's success. The inhabitants of Warsaw, by 
 imitating the bloody scenes of Paris, by slaughtering, 
 
1795. STANISLAS AUGUSTUS. 24o 
 
 without the appearance of trial, such as they merely 
 suspected unfavourable to Jacobinism, and the similar 
 atrocities committed in Wilna and other places, con- 
 vinced the sounder portion of the Poles, that the hellish 
 doctrines of the French revolution had made fearful 
 progress among their countrymen. They, and the whole 
 body of the clergy, stood aloof from the insurgents: 
 especially when they found that the latter had sent 
 deputies to the national convention of Paris, and had 
 made proposals of fraternising with the French people. 
 Besides, the insurgent armies had no organisation, no 
 discipline, no supplies ; and the state had no head ex- 
 cept a tribunal of terror. (As for Stanislas, though he 
 remained in Warsaw, no one thought of him. Had 
 success attended the popular cause, his head would pro- 
 bably have fallen, notwithstanding the moderation of 
 the general in chief, who, though a republican, exerted 
 . himself ably to prevent the excesses of the mob.*) Such 
 a case, aided by such narrow means, could not be ex- 
 pected to succeed. Wilna was retaken ; Lithuania again 
 subjected; Suwaroff arrived from the Ukraine, where he 
 had obtained a high reputation in the Turkish war, and 
 commenced his resistless career. Two decisive victo- 
 ries, in the latter of which the Polish Generalissimo, 
 the only hope of his country, was taken prisoner, en- 
 abled him to march on the capital (Cracow had fallen 
 some weeks before). The last remains of the national 
 army were concentrated at Praga, on the right bank of 
 the Vistula, immediately opposite to Warsaw ; but in a 
 few minutes they were broken by the furious charges 
 of the Russian general, who sullied his reputation by a 
 frightful carnage. The fate of Poland was now de- 
 cided ; Warsaw capitulated, and the remaining portion 
 of the territory was divided among the three invading 
 powers. Austria had Cracow, with the country between 
 
 * The lamentations of this chief to Oginski on the bloody scenes which 
 had been committed in the capital before his eyes, proves how impossible 
 it is for the hest-intentioned men to prevent popular excesses, Man, alas ! 
 is to be governed only by fear. 
 
 R 3 
 
246 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1795. 
 
 the Pilitsa, the Vistula, and the Bug. Prussia had the 
 capital, with the territory as far as the Niemen. The 
 lion's share,, as usual, fell to Russia. As to the feeble 
 despicable Stanislas, his lot was such as had long been 
 foreseen ; but such as, with an infatuated confidence in 
 the magnanimity of the ejnpress, he would never con- 
 template as possible, until it was actually consummated. 
 Being ordered to resign a dignity which he had so un- 
 worthily filled, he retired to Grodno ; and on the death 
 of Catherine, in 1796, to St. Petersburg, where he ended 
 his days in 1798. 
 
 The republic was thus erased from the list of nations 
 after an existence of near ten centuries. Perhaps no 
 people on earth have shown so much personal bravery 
 as the Poles : their history is full of wonderful victo- 
 ries. But how little the most chivalrous valour, or the 
 most splended military successes, could avail with such 
 a vicious frame of society, has been but too well seen. 
 That a country without government (for Poland had 
 none, properly so called, after the extinction of the 
 Jagellos), without finances, without army, and depending 
 for its existence year after year on tumultuous levies, 
 ill disciplined, ill armed, and worse paid, should so long 
 have preserved its independence, in defiance, too, of the 
 powerful nations around, and with a great portion of 
 its own inhabitants, whom ages of tyranny had exaspe- 
 rated, hostile to its success, is the most astonishing fact 
 in all history. What valour must that have been, which 
 could enable one hundred thousand men to trample on a 
 whole nation naturally prone to revolt, and bid defiance 
 to Europe and Asia, to Christian and Mussulman, both 
 ever ready to invade the republic ! But valour, though 
 almost super-human, could not enforce obedience to the 
 laws ; it could not preserve domestic tranquillity ; it 
 could not restrain the violence of petty feuds and in- 
 testine commotions ; it could not preserve the proud 
 nobles from unbounded dissipation, nor, consequently, 
 from temptation to corruption, from receiving bribes 
 to repair their shattered fortunes ; it could not prevent 
 
1795. STANISLAS AUGUSTUS. 247 
 
 the powers which lavished this means of corruptions 
 from interference in the affairs of the kingdom ; it could 
 not dissolve the union of these powers with the discon- 
 tented parties at home ; it could not inspire the slow- 
 moving machine of government with vigour, when the 
 humblest partisan, corrupted by foreign money, could 
 arrest it with a word ; it could not avert the entrance 
 of foreign armies to support the factious and rebellious ; 
 it could not, while divided in itself, uphold the national 
 independence against the combined effects of foreign 
 and domestic treason ; finally, it could not effect im- 
 possibilities, nor, therefore, for ever turn aside the 
 destroying sword which had so long impended over it.* 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 POLAND PARTIALLY RESTORED. 
 
 17961831. 
 
 GRAND DUCHY OF WARSAW. KINGDOM OF POLAND. REPUBLIC 
 
 OF CRACOW. 
 
 THE extinction of the Polish republic afforded ample 
 scope for the exercise of political declamation : the tri- 
 bunes of France, the parliament of England, and the 
 press of both countries, abounded with eloquent invec- 
 tives against the perfidious violence of the partitioning 
 powers ; and a widely spread, if not deep, sympathy was 
 called forth in favour of a people who, whatever might 
 have been their errors, or even crimes, were entitled to 
 admiration from their great deeds, and to pity from their 
 fate. The troubled state of affairs, however, throughout 
 
 * Rulhiere, i. 2, 3, 4. Malte Brun, by Chodzko, xi. 93134. Ferrand, 
 " Histoire des Trois Demembremens de la Pologne, pour faire suite Sl'His- 
 toire de Ru\hiere,"passim. Oginski, " M^moires sur la Pologne et les Po- 
 lonnais, depuis 1788 jusqu'a la fin de 1815," i. ii. Zielinski, ii. 364391. 
 
 R 4 
 
248 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1797- 
 
 Europe did not permit any power to interfere in behalf 
 of the oppressed. Every prince was too intent on se- 
 curing his own preservation to dream of breaking a lance 
 for another. Hence the impunity with which the three 
 potentates proceeded to perfect their common wickedness; 
 to repress the indignant efforts of the sufferers; and 
 to fill their prisons with, not only those who had dis- 
 tinguished themselves during the recent struggle, but 
 with such as either ventured to complain, or were even 
 suspected of dissatisfaction at the new state of things. 
 The inhabitants of the great towns, especially of the 
 three most influential (Warsaw, Cracow, and Wilna), 
 were rigorously disarmed, and formidable garrisons of 
 foreign troops were every where ready to crush all at- 
 tempts at insurrection. 
 
 But if the cry of vengeance was smothered where the 
 conquerors were present,, other countries were soon made 
 to resound with it. If Turkey and Sweden, two powers 
 equally alarmed at the aggrandisement of Russia, Austria,, 
 and Prussia, felt their own feebleness too sensibly to op- 
 pose it by arms, France and the countries which French 
 influence pervaded, were ready to combine in any measure 
 that might distract, the enemies of ' the revolution. To 
 France and Italy, therefore, the eyes of the Poles were 
 now turned for aid, both to recover their independence 
 and to gratify their resistless feeling of revenge. A secret 
 confederation was formed at Cracow, the members of 
 which offered to the French directory to sacrifice their 
 fortunes and lives at the first call of the republic. This 
 was not a vain offer : hundreds of the warlike nobles 
 continued,, notwithstanding the strict surveillance ob- 
 served by their new masters, to escape from their bondage, 
 and proceed to Venice or to Paris. In pursuance of 
 the compact made between their leader, Dombrowski, and 
 the directory, Polish legions were formed in aid of the 
 new Italian republics, and ready to act wherever the 
 French government might require. Their pay and sub- 
 sistence were to be furnished by the Italian states : that 
 of Lombardy was the first to hire their services. They 
 
1801. POLAND RESTORED. 249 
 
 preserved their native uniform and arms, but assumed 
 the revolutionary cockade ; and their motto, of " Gli 
 uomini libcri sono fratelli" showed how completely they 
 harmonised with the fearful spirit which shook Europe 
 to its centre. That both the directors and Bonaparte 
 held out to them the prospect of their country's re- 
 storation, is well known ; but their credulity must have 
 been equal at least to their hopes, or they would never 
 have placed the shadow of reliance on the promises of a 
 people by whom they had been so often betrayed. Their 
 martial prowess confined chiefly to Italy contributed 
 greatly to the success of the republican cause. Their 
 number amounted to some thousands, and their valour 
 was unabated. But they were soon taught to distrust 
 the fair professions of the republican hero. When 
 anxious to preserve, by his influence, an entrance to the 
 congress of Rastadt for a Polish representative, they 
 were coolly answered, " that the hearts of all friends of 
 liberty were for the brave Poles ; but time and destiny 
 alone could restore them as a nation." Hope seldom 
 reasons well ; if the time of regeneration was deferred, 
 might it not arrive perhaps at no distant period, when 
 a more favourable conjuncture of circumstances would 
 render it impossible that the French government should 
 refuse to urge their claims ? So thought the Poles, who 
 still continued under the banners of the republic. 
 
 The same unvaried picture of services performed, and 
 of hopes deceived, is exhibited throughout the connexion 
 of the Polish legions with France. Their adherence to 
 a foreign cause, for in no sense could it be called their 
 own, so stedfastly and devotedly maintained, can be 
 explained only by the resistless passion of the Poles for 
 military fame : to them the battle-field is as much a 
 home as the deep to the Englishman. Though, during 
 the absence of Bonaparte in Egypt, they were literally 
 exterminated by the Austrians and Russians, they re- 
 paired their losses with astonishing promptitude : in 
 1801 they amounted to 15,000. Their blood flowed 
 in vain : in every treaty which their valour had been so 
 
250 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1803. 
 
 instrumental in winning, themselves and country were 
 forgotten. However dishonourable this fact may render 
 their ally and protector,, their fate in this case is scarcely 
 to be pitied : they were at all times the willing, unscru- 
 pulous instruments of the most unprincipled of govern- 
 ments. They hesitated at no breach of faith ; they re- 
 volted at no atrocity : with them obedience to orders the 
 most unjustifiable was a point of honour; and their 
 movements were every where perceptible by the sanguinary 
 traces left behind them. But, seeing the disappointment 
 of their hopes, many of them, after the peace of Lune- 
 ville (1801), bade adieu to the French service, and re- 
 turned to their own country, where an amnesty had been 
 recently proclaimed. A considerable number, indeed, 
 remained : some entered into the service of the king of 
 Etruria ; others departed on the ill-starred expedition to 
 St. Domingo; and the few who survived returned to their 
 country after the formation of the grand duchy.* 
 
 While the Polish soldiers were thus exhibiting a use- 
 less valour in foreign climes, their countrymen at home 
 must not be overlooked. 
 
 The condition of the inhabitants varied according to 
 the characters of the sovereigns under whom they were 
 placed. The aim of Prussia and Austria was to Ger- 
 manise their respective portions, and gradually to obli- 
 terate every trace of nationality. Each, accordingly, 
 introduced German laws and usages ; the language of 
 the public schools and of the public acts was German ; 
 Germans alone were intrusted with public employments. 
 Russia pursued a more politic or a more generous po- 
 licy : with the view, perhaps, of one day extending her 
 Polish possessions, she strove to attach the inhabitants to 
 
 * Will the reader believe that the French bulletins, during the wars of 
 Italy, Russia, &c. passed over in silence the valiant deeds of their Polish 
 allies, and attributed the whole glory of success to their countrymen alone ? 
 Such, however, is the truth. The same mean, despicable policy was adopted 
 with respect to the Italians : it has been sufficiently exposed by the authors 
 of " Gli Italiani in Russia, Memorie d'un Ufiziale Italiano, per servire 
 alia Storia della Russia, della Polonia, e della Italia nel 1812; " and of " La 
 Storia delle Campagne edelle Assedj degli Italian! in Ispagna." A history 
 poorly written, but containing some interesting facts of the Polish le- 
 gions in Italy under the command of Dombrowski has been recently pub. 
 lished by Chodzko, Paris, 2 torn, en 8vo. 
 
1806. POLAND RESTORED. 251 
 
 her government. The preservation of the Lithuanian 
 statutes, the influence in the general administration 
 possessed by the native marshals elected in the dietines 
 of the nobles, the publication of the acts of government 
 in the native tongue, and the admission of the people to 
 the highest dignities, rendered the condition of Rus- 
 sian Poland much less galling than that of the portion 
 subjected to either of the two other powers. Since the 
 accession of Alexander, especially, great encouragement 
 had been given both to the great branches of national 
 industry, and to the diffusion of education. An impe- 
 rial ukase of April 4. 1803, had conferred extraordinary 
 privileges on the university of Wilna ; and in no case 
 had the tsar neglected any opportunity of improving the 
 temporal or moral condition of his new subjects. The 
 conduct of Austria in this respect was less liberal. Under 
 the plea, a true one no doubt, but not sufficient to 
 justify so arbitrary a measure, that the spirit of the 
 students of Cracow was too revolutionary to consist with 
 a monarchical government, she destroyed that vene- 
 rable seat of learning, which during more than four 
 centuries had supported the religion and the civilisation 
 of Poland ; and though in lieu of it she founded a col- 
 lege at Leopol, the jealous regulations and vigorous sur- 
 veillance introduced into that seminary were not likely to 
 fill its halls with native students. Nor were the circum- 
 stances of the people in other respects more enviable. 
 Galicia, which had served as a granary to Austria in her 
 endless wars with the French, and where her losses of 
 men had been repaired, was now exhausted ; so that the 
 nobles of this province the richest, perhaps, in Poland 
 have not even yet been able to recover from the 
 misery into which they were plunged by the exactions of 
 the government. Those of Polish Prussia were scarcely 
 treated with more indulgence : but though the state was 
 rapacious, their enterprising spirit, and the superior 
 facilities they enjoyed for commerce, neutralised the 
 severity of their imposts, and rendered their condition 
 one of comparative comfort. In all the three, the 
 
252 HISTORY OP POLAND. 1805. 
 
 minds of the inhabitants were freed from all apprehen- 
 sion on political accounts ; government prosecutions had 
 long ceased ; the general amnesty had covered all ante- 
 rior events with the veil of oblivion. 
 
 Such was the condition of the Poles when the French 
 emperor endeavoured to attach them to his interests by 
 loudly proclaiming himself their restorer, the breaker 
 of the yoke under which they groaned. That sickness 
 of heart occasioned by hope deferred,, caused many to 
 turn a deaf ear to his summons ; but the majority, elec- 
 trified at the promise of approaching freedom, flew 
 eagerly to arms, and devoted themselves, with heart and 
 hand, to the will of Napoleon. The brilliant campaign 
 of 1806, the victory of Jena, and the advance of the 
 French into Poland to oppose the formidable masses of 
 Russians, who appeared as the allies of Prussia, 
 seemed an earnest of future success ; a sure pledge of 
 approaching restoration. Polish regiments were organ- 
 ised with amazing rapidity. To increase the general 
 enthusiasm, Napoleon was unscrupulous enough to pro- 
 claim the near approach of Kosciuszko; though, but a few 
 months before, that general, who knew his character, had 
 refused to espouse his views, in other words, to de- 
 ceive the still confiding Poles. On the 27th of Novem- 
 ber he entered Posen in triumph ; the following month 
 Warsaw received him with no less enthusiasm. The 
 inhabitants of the latter were still more overjoyed when 
 he proceeded to organise a supreme commission of go- 
 vernment, a measure which they hailed as the disse- 
 vering of the last link that bound them to Prussia. His 
 purpose was announced ; his armies were recruited by 
 thousands of the bravest troops in Europe ; Friedland 
 bore witness to the talents and valour of Dombrowski 
 and the heroes he commanded ; and the opening of ne- 
 gotiations at Tilsit was hailed by the Poles as the dawn- 
 ing of a bright futurity. Will posterity readily believe 
 that this very man, in his celebrated interview on the 
 Niemen with the emperor Alexander, seriously proposed 
 to unite Warsaw, and the conquests which the Poles had 
 
180?. POLAND RESTORED. 253 
 
 assisted him to wrest from Prussia, with the Russian 
 empire; and that the tsar refused to accept them not 
 so much through consideration for the Poles, as from an 
 unwillingness to profit by the misfortunes of an ally ? 
 Yes; this very man proposed thus infamously to betray 
 his warm, confiding,, staunch adherents, to betray them 
 too beyond the possibility of redemption ; and it was 
 only when he found the tsar too moderate or too con- 
 scientious to receive the infernal overture that he began 
 to make a parade of generosity, arid to form a small 
 portion of his conquests into the grand duchy of War- 
 saw, which he united with Saxony ! * 
 
 The duchy of Warsaw consisted of six departments, 
 Posen, Kalisch, Plock, Warsaw, Lomza, and Byd- 
 goszez : its population somewhat exceeded two millions. 
 The Poles were highly dissatisfied with ee this mockery 
 of a country," as they called it. They had been taught 
 to regard the ancient kingdom, if not Lithuania itself, as 
 about to become inevitably their own ; and their mor- 
 tification may be conceived on finding not only that 
 Prussia was allowed to retain several palatinates ; that 
 Austria was guaranteed in her Polish possessions ; that 
 the provinces east of the Bug were to remain in the 
 power of Russia ; but that a considerable portion of the 
 ancient republic on this side that river was ceded, as the 
 department of Bialystok, in perpetual sovereignty to the 
 tsar. The peace of Tilsit they regarded as the grave of 
 their hopes. 
 
 According to the new constitution granted by Napo- 
 leon, the virtual master of the duchy, the Catholic religion 
 was properly declared the religion of the state; but ample 
 toleration, and even a community of civil rights, were 
 wisely allowed to the dissidents. Serfage was abolished. 
 The power of the Saxon king, as grand duke of Warsaw, 
 
 * With their usual unfairness, the French writers have affected to doubt 
 the fact above recorded. Hear Oginski, who had opportunities enough of 
 learning the truth : " Quoique tous les partisans de Napoleon aient rvo- 
 que et mis en doute cette proposition, il n'est pas moins vrai qu'elle a t 
 faite, et j'en ai eu depuis les tmoignages les plus authentiques sous les 
 yeux." Tom. ii. p. 344. 
 
 Dantzig was also wrested from Prussia, and made an independent re- 
 public. 
 
254 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1809. 
 
 was more extensive than had been enjoyed by his royal 
 predecessors since the time of the Jagellos. With him 
 rested the initiative of all projects of law ; the nomi- 
 nation, not only of the senators, but the presidents of 
 the dietines, and of the communal assemblies ; and the 
 appointment of all officers, civil and military. The code 
 Napoleon was subsequently admitted as the basis of 
 judicial proceedings. 
 
 The duchy soon felt the might of its new existence. 
 The exertions of the government of Napoleon, who re- 
 tained military possession of the country, and whose 
 infamous lieutenant, Davoust, occupied Warsaw as head- 
 quarters, added to the inevitable expenses of the civil list, 
 impoverished the small proprietors. Many, wisely pre- 
 ferring easy circumstances under an absolute but paternal 
 government, to ruin with nominal freedom, removed 
 into the Polish provinces subjected to Russia or Austria; 
 for, even in the latter, rapacity was yielding to modera- 
 tion and mildness. Those who remained consoled 
 themselves with the belief, that eventually Poland would 
 be recalled into existence, and her independence re- 
 established on sure foundations. That they should have 
 been made dupes to the emissaries of a man who had 
 never promised but to betray them, can be only explained 
 by the well-known truth, how easily do we believe 
 what we hope ! For this reason many native regiments 
 continued in the alliance of France. In the Austrian 
 war of 1809, they covered themselves with renown, and 
 rendered the greatest benefits to the cause of their impe- 
 rial ally. They conquered Galicia without the smallest 
 aid from France, while the emperor was proceeding else- 
 where in his splendid career of victory. They reduced 
 Cracow and the adjacent territory; and though for forty 
 days days during which the Polish leaders were ar- 
 rayed in mourning they were compelled to abandon 
 Warsaw to the archduke Ferdinand, they regained triumph- 
 ant possession of that capital, and humbled their enemies 
 on every side. They considered that what their own arms 
 had won, they had a right to retain ; and they regarded 
 
1812. POLAND RESTORED. 255 
 
 as inevitable the incorporation of these conquests with 
 their infant state. They were soon undeceived : they 
 were not allowed to retain a foot of Galicia ; and half of 
 their other conquests, between Warsaw and the Austrian 
 frontier, was wrested from them. Four departments, 
 Cracow, Radom, Lublin, and Siedlec, were in- 
 deed incorporated with the grand duchy ; but this ad- 
 vantage was a poor compensation for the immense 
 sacrifices which had been made, for the loans which had 
 been forcibly raised, for the lives which had been wasted,, 
 and for the misery which afflicted every class of the 
 inhabitants. Military conscription had depopulated their 
 towns; the stern agents of despotism the despotism, 
 not of the Saxon king, but of Napoleon had carried 
 away the produce of the soil, and hostile armies had laid 
 waste their plains. So utterly exhausted was the coun- 
 try, that the state could not reckon on the usual contri- 
 butions ; and a royal decree exempted from them the 
 agricultural and mechanical classes. 
 
 Such were the benefits which the grand duchy de- 
 rived from her connection with Bonaparte ! His policy 
 with regard to the Poles was not even judicious, much 
 less generous. 
 
 Previous to opening the Russian campaign, Napoleon, 
 in the view of interesting the Poles in his behalf, had 
 resource to his usual arts, and, strange to say, with his 
 usual success. The reflecting portion, indeed, but, 
 alas ! how few are they in any nation ! scorned to 
 be deluded again. " We are flattered," said a rough 
 old soldier, ' ' when our services are required : is 
 Poland always to be fed on hope alone ?" But the 
 mob, such as do not think, be they high or low, were 
 persuaded, from the representations of the imperial 
 agents, that their ancient republic was speedily to be 
 restored in all its glory ; that Lithuania was to be 
 wrested from the tsar, and Galicia exchanged by 
 Austria for Illyria. Who could refuse to arm for a 
 potentate so regardless of his own interests, and so eager 
 to avenge the wrongs of the oppressed? Yet, while 
 
256 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1812 
 
 the deluded people were meeting at Warsaw to prepare 
 for their approaching high destinies ; while the French 
 emperor was enthusiastically hailed as their regenerator; 
 while the abbs de Pradt, by his authority, added fuel 
 to the patriotic flame, a secret treaty with the emperor 
 Francis had again guaranteed the integrity of the 
 Austrian possessions in Poland. But it was secret, and 
 his purpose was realised : at his voice more than 
 80,000 Poles took the field, while a general confeder- 
 ation of the nobles declared the republic restored, the 
 act of declaration being signed by the Saxon king, in 
 whose house the hereditary monarchy was to be vested. 
 At the same time, all Poles in the Russian service were 
 recalled to participate in the joyful event, and, if need 
 were, to seal their new liberties with their blood. This 
 intoxication, however, was of short duration ; the reply 
 of Napoleon to the Polish deputation, which had fol- 
 lowed him to Wilna, left them no room to hope for 
 his aid : he exhorted them to fight for their own inde- 
 pendence ; assured them that if all the palatinates com- 
 bined, they might reasonably expect to attain their 
 object; and insultingly added, " I must, however, in- 
 form you that I have guaranteed to the Austrian em- 
 peror the integrity of his states, and that I cannot 
 sanction any project or movement tending to disturb 
 him in the possession of the Polish provinces which 
 remain to him." So much for Galicia : as to Lithuania, 
 which he was expected to treat as an ally, and to unite 
 with the ancient republic, he not only considered it, but 
 proclaimed it, an hostile country, and ravaged it with 
 perfect impunity. Thus the Lithuanians received an 
 avowedly open enemy, instead of an ally and a friend. 
 Both people had abundant reason to curse their blind 
 credulity. This insulting perfidy was unknown to the 
 Polish troops, who were advancing on the ancient 
 frontiers of Muscovy, or they would surely have for- 
 saken the cause of one whom no services could affect, 
 no promises bind. 
 
 It is useless to dwell on the valour displayed by the 
 
1814. POLAND RESTORED. 257 
 
 deluded Poles in this disastrous expedition, of which 
 the details are in the memory of every reader. The 
 work of Bonaparte the formation of the grand duchy 
 was destroyed; the king of Saxony, who had ad- 
 hered to his cause with extraordinary fidelity, was 
 stripped at once both of it and^a .portion of his here- 
 ditary dominions; the three powers again took pos- 
 session of the towns which they had held previous to 
 the invasions of Bonaparte, until a congress of all the 
 sovereigns who had taken a prominent part in the war 
 against the common enemy of Europe should assemble, 
 to decide, among other matters, on the fate of the 
 country. 
 
 After the fall of Bonaparte, the attention of the allied 
 sovereigns was powerfully demanded by the state of 
 Poland. The re-establishment of the kingdom in all 
 its ancient integrity was not merely an act of justice 
 to a people whose fall is one of the darkest pages in the 
 history of the world, but it was, of all objects, the one 
 most desirable towards the security of central Europe 
 against the ambition of the tsars. But for Poland, a 
 great portion of Christendom might have been subject 
 to the misbelievers ; but for her, the northern emperors 
 would probably long ago have poured their wild hordes 
 into the very heart of Germany : the nation which had 
 been, and might again become, the bulwark alike of 
 civil and religious freedom, could not fail to be invested 
 with interest of the very highest order. Public opinion, 
 the interest of rulers, and the sympathy of the governed, 
 called for the restoration of injured Sarmatia. The 
 side of humanity, of justice, and of policy, was power- 
 fully advocated by France and England : their able 
 plenipotentiaries, Talleyrand and. Castlereagh, did all 
 that could be done, short of having recourse to actual hosti- 
 lities, to attain this European object. But neither power, 
 nor both combined, could contend with success against 
 those which were interested in the partition. France was 
 exhausted by her long wars, and weakened by a restriction 
 
258 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1815. 
 
 within her ancient limits : England could have furnished 
 no more than a handful of troops; rior could all her 
 wealth have hired mercenaries sufficiently numerous or 
 brave to justify her in throwing down the gauntlet of 
 defiance to two such military nations as Prussia and 
 Muscovy. To the honour of the Austrian emperor, he 
 not only disapproved the projected union of the late 
 duchy with Russia, but he expressed his desire for Po- 
 lish independence, and even his willingness to surrender 
 a portion of his own territories to make the new king- 
 dom more respectable. At this juncture, however, 
 Napoleon escaped from Elba; and Alexander, finding 
 that his aid was indispensable in the approaching contest, 
 was able, not indeed to make his own terms, but to 
 insist on a measure he had long meditated, the union of 
 the grand duchy, as a separate kingdom, with his em- 
 pire. Not less effectual was his policy with the Poles 
 themselves. By persuading them that his great object was 
 to confer on them a national existence and liberal institu- 
 tions, he interested them so far in his views, that they 
 would willingly have armed to support those views as they 
 had so often done those of Napoleon.* In this state of 
 things, all that France and England could do was to 
 claim a national existence for the whole body of Poles, 
 and to stipulate for their political freedom. Their re- 
 presentations were powerfully supported by the emperor 
 Francis, who again expressed regret that Poland could 
 not be re-established as an independent state with a 
 national representation of its own.t Owing to these 
 energetic appeals to his liberality, and to the influence 
 of public opinion so widely diffused by the political 
 
 * In a proclamation addressed by the archduke Constantine to the Polish 
 army, December 11. (O. S.) 1814, he invites them to arm in defence of their 
 national existence^ to aid, if need were, the efforts of their powerful pro- 
 tector, who was zealously labouring for their good alone. The proceedings 
 of the congress three members of which were decidedly favourable to the 
 restoration of Poland were thus artfully rendered suspicious to the Poles 
 themselves. 
 
 f Throughout this affair the conduct of the emperor Francis was as ho- 
 nourable as it was politic. Austria was the last to join the coalition against 
 Poland; she was the first to propose the reversal of that iniquity. 
 
1815. POLAND RESTORED. 25Q 
 
 press, the autocrat showed no reluctance to make the 
 concessions required. Prussia was no less willing. The 
 result was a solemn engagement formed by the three 
 partitioning powers in concert to confer on their respec- 
 tive Polish subjects a national representation, and na- 
 tional institutions regulated after the form of political 
 existence which each of the respective governments 
 might think proper to grant them.* 
 
 By the celebrated treaty of Vienna the following 
 bases were solemnly sanctioned : 
 
 1. Galicia and the salt mines of Wieliczka were 
 restored to Austria. 
 
 2. The grand duchy of Posen, forming the western 
 palatinates bordering on Silesia, and containing a po- 
 pulation of about 800,000 souls, was surrendered to 
 Prussia. This power was also confirmed in its con- 
 quests made at the period of the first partition. 
 
 3. The city and district of Cracow was to belong to 
 none of the three powers, but to be formed into a free 
 and independent republic, under the guarantee of the 
 three. Its extent is 19i geographical miles, inhabited 
 at that time by a population of 61,000 souls. t 
 
 4. The remainder of ancient Poland, comprising the 
 chief part of the recent grand duchy of Warsaw (em- 
 bracing a country bounded by a line drawn from Thorn 
 to near Cracow in the west, to the Bug and the Niemen in 
 the east J), reverted to Russia, and was to form a king- 
 dom for ever subject to the tsars. Population about 
 4,000,000. 
 
 The new kingdom of Poland was proclaimed June 20. 
 1.815; and on December 24. in the same year, a con- 
 stitutional charter was granted to the Poles. 
 
 The articles of this charter (in number 165) were of 
 
 ijujue u cAisieuue pujuiqut: quc unauuu ucS gouvernemens auxquels : 
 partiennent jugera utile et convenable de leur accorder. 
 
 f The population has since greatly increased. 
 
 j The district of Bialystock is not included. 
 8 2 
 
26'0 HISTORY OP POLAND. 1815 
 
 so liberal a description as to astonish all Europe. They 
 abundantly prove, that at the time of their promulga- 
 tion Alexander was no enemy of liberal institutions. He 
 seems, indeed, from the lessons of his tutor Laharpe, 
 frc-m his acquaintance with the political literature of 
 Europe, and from his frequent intercourse with liberal 
 society, to have imbibed notions free enough for the at- 
 mosphere of Paris or London. He was certainly a most 
 extraordinary autocrat. Though the charter in question 
 has probably for ever passed away, the nature of the 
 dispute between the Poles and their monarch cannot 
 be understood without adverting to some of its pro- 
 visions. 
 
 Though the Catholic religion was declared the reli- 
 gion of the state, all dissidents were placed on a footing 
 of perfect equality, as to civil rights, with the professors 
 of the established faith (Art. 11.). The liberty of the 
 press was recognised in its fullest extent (16.). No 
 subject could be arrested prior to judicial conviction 
 (18.). The inviolability of person and property, in the 
 strictest sense, was guaranteed (23. to 26.). All public 
 business to be transacted in the Polish language (28.) ; 
 and all offices, civil or military, to be held by natives 
 alone (29-).* The national representation to be vested 
 in two chambers, senators and deputies (31.). The 
 power of the crown (35. to 47.) was not more than suffi- 
 cient to give due weight to the executive : all kings to 
 be crowned at Warsaw, after swearing to the observance 
 of the charter : during his absence, the chief authority 
 to be vested in a lieutenant and council of state (63. to 
 75.). The great public departments to be presided by 
 responsible ministers (76. to 82.). The legislative 
 power to rest with the king and the two chambers : an 
 ordinary diet to be held every two years, and sit thirty 
 days ; an extraordinary diet whenever judged necessary 
 
 * Strangers, however, might be naturalised and admissible to public em- 
 ployments after five years' residence, if in the interim they should acquire 
 the Polish language (33.) ; and the king reserved to himself the privilege of 
 appointing distinguished foreigners to certain employments (34.). 
 
1815. POLAND RESTORED. 26l 
 
 by the king (86. to 88.). No member could be arrested 
 during a session, except for great offences ; and not even 
 then, without the consent of the assembly (89-)- The 
 deliberations of the diet extended to all projects sub- 
 mitted to it by the ministry, affecting the laws and the 
 whole routine of internal administration (90. to 9^.). 
 All deliberations to be public, except when committees 
 were sitting (95.). All projects of law to originate with 
 the council of state, and to be laid before the chambers 
 by command of the king ; such projects, however, being 
 previously examined by committees of both houses (96'. 
 to 98.). All measures to be passed by a majority of 
 votes (102.). The senators to be nominated by the 
 king, and to exercise their functions for life (110.). 
 The deputies (128 in number, or about double that ci 
 the senators) were 77 for districts (one for each), and 
 51 for so many communes (118. and 119-)' To become 
 a member of this chamber the qualifications were, citi- 
 zenship ; the age of thirty ; possession of some portion, 
 however small, of landed property ; and the payment, 
 in annual contributions, of 100 Polish florins* (121.). 
 No public functionary eligible to sit without the consent 
 of the head of his department (122.). The nobles of 
 each district to meet in dietines, for the purpose of 
 electing one of their body to the general diet, and of re- 
 turning two members to the palatine assemblies-)* (125.), 
 all dietines being convoked by the king (126.). The 
 class of electors was numerous ; comprising 1 . All 
 landowners, however small, who paid any contribution 
 whatever towards the support of the state ; 2. Every 
 manufacturer or shopkeeper possessing a capital of 
 10,000 florins; 3. All rectors and vicars ; 4. All pro- 
 fessors and teachers ; 5. All artists or mechanics distin- 
 guished for talent (131.). Every elector to be enrolled, 
 
 * The Polish florin is about sixpence. The qualifications for a senator 
 were, 85 years, and a contribution of 2000 florins. 
 
 f These assemblies were held in every palatinate, and were somewhat 
 similar to our county courts, only the nobles had the choice of advocates 
 and certain judges for the despatch of local business. 
 
 s 3 
 
262 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1818. 
 
 and to have reached twenty-one years (132.). The 
 tribunals to be filled with judges, part nominated by the 
 king, and part elected by the palatinates (140.) ; the 
 former being appointed for life, and unremovable (141.). 
 
 Such were the chief provisions of this remarkable 
 charter, which left only two things to be desired, the 
 trial by jury, and the competency of either chamber to 
 propose laws : the initiative was confined to the exe- 
 cutive, consisting of the king and the council of state. 
 
 The enthusiasm of the Poles towards their sovereign, 
 for some time after the promulgation of this charter, was 
 almost boundless. His lieutenant, Zayonczek, imitated 
 his example, and strove with success to attach the Poles 
 to his sway. Prosperity, the result of a settled and an 
 enlightened government, followed in the train of peace. 
 Innumerable improvements introduced into the public 
 education ; the establishment of a university at Warsaw, 
 and of an agricultural society at Mount Maria ; the rapid 
 increase of trade ; the diffusion of wealth, and the con- 
 sequent advance towards happiness by the nation at 
 large; might well render his government popular. That 
 prosperity, indeed, is his noblest monument. On taking 
 possession of the country, he found nothing but desola- 
 tion and misery. So enormous had been the force which 
 the grand duchy had been compelled to maintain, so 
 heavy the exactions of the treasury, that no country 
 could have borne them, much less one whose two chief 
 outlets for her produce, Dantzig and Odessa, were long 
 closed by the continental system of Napoleon, and by 
 the Turkish war. The finances of the duchy, indeed, 
 were unable to pay more than an insignificant portion 
 of the troops; either the remainder was raised by forced 
 loans, or the men went unpaid. Twelve millions of 
 francs, in addition, were borrowed at Paris, on the se- 
 curity of the mines of Wieliczka. Still all would not 
 do : the revenue did not reach one half of the expendi- 
 ture : in time, no functionary, civil or ecclesiastical, and 
 scarcely any soldier, was paid. The contractors fled; 
 
1818. POLAND RESTORED. 263 
 
 troops traversed the country at pleasure, plundering in- 
 discriminately all who fell in their way. In short, there 
 was little money or food any where, and a total stop 
 was put to all branches of industry. To repair these 
 evils was the emperor's first object. By opening the 
 country to foreign merchants ; by providing the hus- 
 bandmen with oxen and horses; by suspending the pay- 
 ment of some taxes and suppressing others, and by pro- 
 viding for the support of his army from his hereditary 
 dominions; he recalled industry and the means of sub- 
 sistence, and laid the foundation of that prosperity which 
 went on increasing until the breaking out of the present 
 insurrection.* 
 
 So satisfied was the Polish nation with its new situ- 
 ation in the year 1818 near three years after its union 
 with Russia that the opposition to ministers in the 
 chamber of deputies was utterly insignificant. The 
 benefits of the government had disarmed the prejudices 
 and antipathies of the people. The emperor himself 
 appears, at this time, to have been no less satisfied : he 
 congratulated himself on the liberal policy he had 
 adopted towards his new subjects ; and declared in full 
 senate at Warsaw, that he was only waiting to try the 
 effect of the free institutions he had given them, to ex- 
 tend those institutions over all the regions which Provi- 
 dence had confided to his care. 
 
 HavJng now reached the term of the good under- 
 standing between the Poles and their monarch ; it is 
 necessary to advert to the causes which led first to 
 mistrust, then to hatred, and lastly to open hostility be- 
 tween the two parties. 
 
 On the first view of the case, it could not rationally 
 be expected that any considerable degree of harmony 
 could subsist between people who, during eight centu- 
 ries, had been at war with each other, and between 
 
 * For an account of the deplorable state of the grand duchy under the 
 Saxon reign or rather under Napoleon see the abb de Pradt, Histoire 
 de rAmbassade en Pologne, p. 86. &c. : the Discourse of count Mostowski 
 on opening the diet of 1818 ; and the Mmoires de Oginski, torn. iv. 
 
 Q * 
 
264? HISTORY OF POLAND. 1818 
 
 whom, consequently, a strong national antipathy had 
 been long fostered. And even had they always lived in 
 peace, they were too dissimilar in manners, habits, sen- 
 timents, and religion, ever cordially to coalesce. For 
 ages the Pole had idolised a liberty unexampled in any 
 country under heaven : the Muscovite had no will of 
 his own, but depended entirely on God and the tsar : 
 the one was the maker and master of kings ; the other 
 obeyed, as implicitly as the voice of fate, the most 
 arbitrary orders of his monarch, whom he considered 
 Heaven's favourite vicegerent. The one was enlight- 
 ened by education, and by intercourse with the polished 
 nations of Europe ; the other, who long thought it a 
 crime to leave home, was brutified by superstition and 
 ignorance : each cursed the other as schismatic, as 
 out of the pale of God's visible church, and doomed to 
 perdition. The antipathy which ages had nourished, 
 had been intensely aggravated by late events. The 
 unprovoked violence of Catharine; the haughtiness of 
 her troops ; the excesses accompanying the elevation 
 and fall of Stanislas ; the keen sense of humiliation 
 so keen as to become intolerable to a proud people, 
 were causes more than sufficient to neutralise the 
 greatest benefits conferred by the tsars. 
 
 Another and, if possible, weightier consideration 
 arises : How could the most arbitrary monarch in 
 Europe one whose will had never been trammelled 
 by either the spirit or the forms of freedom ; whose 
 nod was all but omnipotent, be expected to guide the 
 delicately complicated machine of a popular government ? 
 Would he be very likely to pay much regard to the 
 apparently insignificant, however necessary, springs which 
 kept it in motion ? Would the lord of fifty legions, whose 
 empire extended over half the old world, be likely to hear 
 with patience the bold voice of freedom in a distant and 
 (as to territory) insignificant corner of his vast heritage ? 
 
 Under no state of things, however, would the Poles, 
 as long as they were subject to foreign ascendency, have 
 
1818. POLA.N 7 D RESTORED. 2&5 
 
 remained satisfied. The recollections of their ancient 
 glory would give a more bitter pang to the conscious- 
 ness of present degradation. Alexander, indeed, had 
 held out to them the hope of uniting Lithuania under 
 the same form of government: but even in this case, 
 would either Poles or Lithuanians be less subject to the 
 autocrat ? Besides, what guarantee had they that even 
 their present advantages would be continued to them ? 
 None, surely, but the personal character of the autocrat, 
 who, with the best intentions, was somewhat fickle, and 
 who might any day abandon the reins of empire to a 
 more rigorous, or less scrupulous hand. ec What have 
 we to hope," exclaimed the celebrated Dombrowski at the 
 period at which this compendium is arrived ; fc what 
 have we not to fear 9 This very day might we not 
 tremble for the fate which may await us to-morrow ? " 
 The general expressed his conviction that if the Poles, 
 instead of being disunited, would cordially combine, 
 they would recover their lost greatness. cc Let them," 
 added he, " retrieve their ancient nationality ; let them 
 combine their opinions, their desires, their wishes ! " In 
 other words, he meant that the whole nation should 
 enter into an understanding to permit the existence of the 
 .present order of things no longer than they could help. 
 (( If the same fortune/' he concluded, (f which has 
 given us a sovereign, should one day turn round on 
 him, Poland may recover her liberty and independ- 
 ence, and acknowledge no king but the one of her own 
 choice." 
 
 Words like these, and from such a quarter, could 
 not fail to produce their effect. They flew from mouth 
 to mouth ; the press began to echo them. The op- 
 position in the chamber of deputies assumed a more 
 formidable appearance. The success, however transient, 
 of the liberal party in Spain and Italy, was hailed with 
 transport. Were the Poles, the bravest of the brave, to 
 despond at such a crisis? The anti-Russian party, 
 comprising the army, the students in the public schools, 
 the populace of the capital, began to act with greater 
 
266 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1819- 
 
 boldness and decision : no very obscure hints were 
 tbrown out that the glorious example of other countries 
 would not be lost nearer home. The newspapers, 
 which followed the current of public opinion, how- 
 ever changing, as inevitably as the shadow does the 
 substance, adopted the same resolute if not menacing 
 tone. It was evident that a revolution was medi- 
 tated, and that the minds of the people, not merely 
 of the kingdom, but of* the countries under the sway of 
 Austria and Prussia, as well as those of the grand duchy, 
 were to be prepared for it by sure though apparently 
 insensible degrees. Privileges were now claimed, and 
 principles promulgated, of a tendency too democratic to 
 consort with the existing frame of society. That 
 Russia should take alarm at the fearless activity of the 
 press, an engine which, however powerless over the 
 few who venture to think for themselves, will always 
 have tremendous influence over the multitude, was 
 naturally to be expected. Accordingly, by an ordinance 
 of July 31. 1819, the censorship was established, in vio- 
 lation of art. 16. 
 
 If men have no opportunity of expressing their opinions 
 publicly, they will do so privately. When the journals, 
 the legitimate outlets of popular feeling, were thus arbi- 
 trarily and impoliticly closed, secret societies began to 
 multiply. A sort of political freemasonry connected the 
 leaders of the meditated movement, and its ramifications 
 extended as far as Wilna. Their avowed object was not 
 merely to free their country and the grand duchy from 
 the Russian yoke, but to unite their brethren of Gallicia 
 and Posen in one common cause, and then openly to 
 strike a blow for their dearest rights. But however 
 secret their meetings and purposes, neither could long 
 escape the vigilance of the police, which, since the arrival 
 of Constantine as commander in chief of the Polish army, 
 had acquired alarming activity. Why this personage 
 should have interfered in a branch of administration 
 beyond his province why he should have stepped out 
 of his own peculiar sphere to hire spies, to collect inform- 
 
1820. POLAND RESTORED. 26? 
 
 ation, and to influence the proceedings of the tribunals 
 against the suspected or the accused has been matter 
 of much conjecture. Perhaps he proposed to render 
 himself necessary to his imperial brother ; perhaps he 
 could not live without some bustle to excite him ; per- 
 haps his mind was congenially occupied in the discovery 
 and punishment of treason. However this be, he acted 
 with amazing impolicy. His wisest course and the 
 Poles themselves once hoped that he would adopt it 
 was to cultivate the attachment of the people among 
 whom he resided, and thereby prepare their minds for 
 one day seconding his views on the crown. Instead of 
 this, he conducted himself towards all whom he suspected 
 of liberal opinions and few there were who did not 
 entertain them with violence, often with brutality. 
 At his instigation, the secret police pursued its fatal 
 career : arbitrary arrests, hidden condemnations, the ba- 
 nishment of many, the imprisonment of more, signalised 
 his baneful activity. That amidst so many sentences, 
 some should be passed on individuals wholly innocent, 
 need not surprise us. Where spies are hired to mix 
 with society for the purpose of detecting the disaffected, 
 if they do not find treason, they will make it : private 
 malignity, and a desire of being thought useful, if not 
 indispensable, to their employers, and of enjoying the 
 rewards due to success in procuring informations, would 
 make them vigilant enough. As this is a profession 
 which none but the basest and most unprincipled of men 
 would follow, we cannot expect that they would always 
 exercise it with much regard to justice. In such men, 
 revenge or avarice would be all-powerful. 
 
 The university of Wilna was visited with some seve- 
 rity by the agents of this dreaded institution. Twenty 
 of its students were seized and sentenced to different 
 punishments none, however, very rigorous. Those of 
 Warsaw were not used more indulgently. A state prison 
 was erected in the capital, and its dungeons were soon 
 crowded with inmates many, no doubt, not undeserving 
 their fate, but not a few the victims of an execrable 
 
26'8 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1824. 
 
 system. The proceedings, however, which are dark, 
 must always be suspected: of the hundreds who were 
 dragged from the bosom of their families, and consigned 
 to various fortresses, all would be thought innocent, 
 since none had been legally convicted. 
 
 By art. 10. of the constitutional charter, the Rus- 
 sian troops, when required to pass through Poland, were 
 to be at the entire charge of the tsar's treasury : for 
 years, however, they were stationed at Warsaw evi- 
 dently to overawe the population at the expense of the 
 inhabitants. Then the violations of individual liberty 
 (in opposition to art. 18. to 21.) ; the difficulty of pro- 
 curing passports ; the misapplication of the revenue to 
 objects other than those to which it was raised, to the 
 reimbursement of the secret police, for instance; the 
 nomination of men as senators without the necessary 
 qualifications, and who had no other merit than that of 
 being creatures of the government; were infractions of the 
 charter, as wanton as they were intended to be humiliating. 
 
 The army was as much dissatisfied as the nation. 
 The ungovernable temper, and the consequent excesses, 
 of Constantine ; the useless but vexatious manoeuvres 
 which he introduced; his rigorous mode of exercise, 
 fitted for no other than frames of adamant; and, above 
 all, his overbearing manner towards the best and highest 
 officers in the service; raised him enemies on every 
 side. His good qualities and he has many were 
 wholly overlooked amidst his ebullitions of fury, and the 
 unjustifiable, often cruel, acts he committed while under 
 their influence. On ordinary occasions, when his temper 
 is not ruffled, no man can make himself more agreeable : 
 no man can exhibit more not of courtesy, for he is 
 too rough for it but of warmheartedness ; and his gene- 
 rosity in pecuniary matters is almost boundless. 
 
 But the worst remains yet to be told. Russian money 
 and influence were unblushingly employed in the dietines, 
 to procure the return to the general diet of such members 
 only as were known to care less for their country than for 
 their own fortunes. Then, instead of a diet b'eing held 
 
1825, POLAND RESTORED. 269 
 
 every two years (in accordance with art. 87-)., none was 
 convoked from 1820 to 1825, and only one aftei the ac- 
 cession of Nicholas. Finally, an ordinance (issued in 
 1825) abolished the publicity of the debates in the two 
 chambers ; and the most distinguished members of op- 
 position were forcibly removed from Warsaw the night 
 preceding the opening of the diet.* 
 
 In examining these and a few minor complaints urged 
 with much force by the Polish organs, no one will he- 
 sitate to admit that, however the colouring in this painful 
 picture may be overcharged, and overcharged it un- 
 questionably is, the nation had but too much cause 
 for discontent. No wonder that the government and 
 the people should regard each other first with distrust, 
 then with hatred ; that the former could not behold with 
 much favour institutions which, however liberal, were 
 not considered sufficiently so by those on whom they had 
 been conferred; or that the latter should have much con- 
 fidence in a power which had violated the most solemn 
 engagements, and might violate them again. The 
 conflict long a moral one between the two, was too 
 stormy to be hushed. It was vain to whisper peace : to 
 remind the one party, that if wrongs had been endured, 
 they had not been wholly unprovoked ; or the other, that 
 necessary caution had degenerated into an intolerable, in- 
 quisitorial surveillance, and justice into revenge. 
 
 Yet with all this irritation, it may be doubted whether 
 the majority of the nation were at any time inclined to 
 proceed to extremities. The condition of the country 
 had continued to improve beyond all precedent : at no 
 former period of her history was the public wealth so 
 great, or so generally diffused. Bridges and public 
 roads constructed at an enormous expense, frequently 
 at the expense of the tsar's treasury ; the multitude of 
 new habitations, remarkable for a neatness and a regard 
 to domestic comfort never before observed ; the em- 
 
 * To the preceding recapitulation of national grievances, individual ones 
 need not be added. Some of the latter have been laboriously exaggerated 
 in this country. But the cause of the Poles stands in no need of exagger- 
 ation : it is strong in its own righteous justice. 
 
270 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1825. 
 
 bellishments introduced into the buildings, not merely 
 of the rich, but of tradesmen and mechanics ; the en- 
 couragement afforded, and eagerly afforded, by the go- 
 vernment to every useful branch of industry ; the 
 progress made by agriculture in particular, the found- 
 ation of Polish prosperity ; the accumulation on all sides 
 of national and individual wealth ; and, above all, the 
 happy countenances of the inferior classes of society; 
 exhibited a wonderful contrast to what had lately been. 
 The most immense of markets, Russia a market all but 
 closed to the rest of Europe afforded constant activity 
 to the manufacturer. To prove this astonishing pro- 
 gress from deplorable, hopeless poverty, to successful 
 enterprise, let one fact suffice. In 1815 there were 
 scarcely one hundred looms for coarse woollen cloths : 
 at the commencement of the present insurrection there 
 were six thousand.* . 
 
 In contemplating the recent history of Poland, it 
 cannot but be matter of regret to the philanthropic mind 
 that the nation should, so soon after its union with 
 Russia, have brought on itself the ill-will of that power. 
 Though some slight infractions were made on the spirit 
 rather than the letter of the charter, during the four first 
 years of the connection, these might have been remedied 
 by an appeal to the emperor. On the part neither of 
 Alexander nor of his lieutenant did there exist the 
 slightest wish to violate its provisions, until experience 
 had taught both that individual freedom was not so 
 much the object in pursuit, as a total separation from 
 the empire. Then it was that liberal institutions became 
 odious in the cabinet of St. Petersburgh that the tsar 
 resolved to prevent their extension, on the plea a mis- 
 taken but not unnatural plea that they were incon- 
 sistent with a settled monarchy, and consequently with 
 long continued social security : then it was that the im- 
 perial ministers and their underlings commenced their 
 unwise system, a system but partially known to the 
 tsar, and one that would never have been approved by 
 * See Appendix C. 
 
1830. POLAND RESTORED. 2?1 
 
 him, of exasperating the Poles, first by petty annoy- 
 ances, next by depriving them of privileges to which 
 they had a sacred right, of adding fuel to a fire already 
 too intense to continue long harmless. 
 
 The seeds of hatred, thus unfortunately sown, germi- 
 nated with silent but fatal rapidity. A vast number of 
 soldiers (especially of unemployed officers) ; of ardent 
 patriots and students ; of all whom Russian haughtiness 
 had provoked, or Russian liberality had failed to visit; and 
 more than all, of that fickle and numerically speaking im- 
 posing class so prone to change; were gradually initiated 
 into the great plot destined to concentrate the scattered ele- 
 ments of resistance to imperial violence, and to sweep its 
 framers and abettors from the face of the kingdom. The 
 society, numerous as were its ramifications, was well or- 
 ganised, and its proceedings were wrapt in more than ma- 
 sonic mystery. That not a few of its members were 
 implicated in the conspiracy which exploded on the acces- 
 sion of Nicholas utterly unknown at present as were the 
 subjects and nature of that conspiracy appears both 
 from the numerous arrests on that occasion (no fewer 
 than two hundred took place in Poland and Lithuania), 
 and from the very admission of their organs. Though 
 the commission of enquiry, consisting chiefly of Poles, 
 failed to discover the clue to that dark transaction, evi- 
 dence enough was adduced to prove the existence of a 
 formidable national association. Two years afterwards 
 (in 1828), that association gained over the great body 
 of Polish officers, and silently waited the progress of 
 events to watch for an opportunity of striking the blow. 
 
 It has often been matter of surprise to most thinking 
 foreigners, that the Poles did not take advantage of the 
 Turkish war to erect the standard of independence. 
 Evidently, however, their plan was not at that period 
 sufficiently matured. That it was so even in 1830 may 
 be reasonably doubted. But the French insurrection 
 which appears not to have been wholly unexpected in 
 the Polish capital its daring character, its splendid 
 success, had an electric effect on the whole nation, and 
 
2?2 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1830. 
 
 disposed the initiated to anticipate the time of their 
 rising. It is well known it has, indeed, been ad- 
 mitted by both Poles and Frenchmen, including the 
 political organs of the latter that emissaries from 
 Warsaw held confidential meetings with the leaders of 
 the revolution of July, and were instigated to rouse 
 their countrymen by the promise of immediate aid from 
 the government of the citizen king. That such aid was 
 relied on with the fullest confidence, by the Polish 
 patriots themselves, must be known to all who have re- 
 cently mixed with Polish society, or who hold any cor- 
 respondence with the country. The best authority for 
 such a fact is to be found in the universal impression of 
 the people. At this moment no feeling is more preva- 
 lent at Warsaw, no complaint more bitter, than that the 
 Poles, on this occasion, have been betrayed. 
 
 Two other circumstances powerfully contributed tc 
 hasten the long-meditated catastrophe. The army began 
 to entertain the notion whether justly founded or not 
 cannot yet be determined that it was to be removed to 
 the south of Europe to assist in extirpating the alarming 
 doctrines of the French politicians, and that its place 
 was to be supplied by an army of Russians. The youths 
 of the military school, too, found or fancied excuse for 
 apprehension. That their design of rising was not un- 
 known to the authorities, appears from the eagerness 
 with which one of the hired agents of police endeavoured 
 to win their confidence, professing his devotion to their 
 cause, and imploring permission to share in the execu- 
 tion of their project. Though this fellow overshot his 
 mark ; though his eagerness caused him to be suspected 
 and shunned; he learned enough to be convinced, net 
 only that an insurrection was resolved on, but that it 
 was actually at hand. 
 
 The apprehensions of the army and the students, 
 of whom the latter had every thing to fear from the 
 grand duke, should he, as he was believed to have 
 threatened, arrest and try them by martial law the 
 conviction that the whole populace of the capital were 
 
1830. POLAND RESTORED. 2?3 
 
 friendly to the project ; the secret encouragement of 
 France ; the eagerness of the enterprising to court dan- 
 ger for its very sake ; the assumed approbation of the 
 free towards the cause at least,, if not towards the time 
 and circumstances, of the insurrection, hastened the 
 opening of the great tragedy. The first object of its 
 actors was to seize on the person of the grand duke, 
 their most obnoxious enemy, to use him, perhaps, as 
 a hostage for their safety, should fortune prove unpropi- 
 tious. The students as the young and the rash will 
 always be in such cases were the authorised leaders of 
 "the movement." On the evening of November the 
 29th, one of them, in accordance with a preconcerted 
 plan, entered the school, and called his comrades to 
 arms. The call was instantly obeyed. On their way 
 to the residence of Con stan tine, which stands about two 
 miles from the city, their number was increased by the 
 students of the university and public schools. Two or 
 three companies not a regiment, as has been usually 
 stated of Russian cavalry, they furiously assailed and 
 overpowered. This first success they did not use with 
 much moderation : towards a few of the officers, who 
 appear to have been personally obnoxious, they exhibited 
 great animosity ; three or four were cruelly massacred 
 after the conflict was over. They forced the palace, 
 flew to the grand duke's apartments, but had the mor- 
 tification of finding their victim fled : the intrepid fide- 
 lity of a servant had first concealed, then assisted him to 
 escape. As their first object had thus unexpectedly 
 failed, the conspirators now resolved to gain the city. 
 Their retreat was opposed by the Russian guards ; but 
 such was the spirit which animated them, such were 
 the skill and courage they displayed, that, after a struggle 
 continued over a space of two miles, they accomplished 
 their purpose. 
 
 During this desperate affray, the efforts of another 
 party within the city were more successful. A consider- 
 able body of cadets and students paraded the streets, 
 calling on the inhabitants to arm for their country's 
 
 T 
 
HISTORY OF POLAND. 1830 
 
 freedom. They were joined, as had heen previously 
 arranged, not by hundreds, but by thousands, of native 
 troops ; and their force was augmented by several pieces 
 of cannon. The Russian posts, which were now- 
 attacked, were carried; the prison doors were opened^ 
 and criminals as well as debtors invited to swell the 
 assailants ; the theatre was speedily emptied of its spec- 
 tators; and the great body of citizens were provided with 
 arms from the public arsenal. In the excitement con- 
 sequent on this extraordinary commotion, every part of 
 which was conducted with a regularity that could only 
 be the result of a maturely formed design, no reader 
 will be surprised, how much soever he may lament, to 
 find that several excesses were committed. Many 
 Russians were massacred ; many Poles, known to have 
 been on terms of intimacy with the grand duke, shared 
 the same fate. But some dark deeds were done for 
 which no excitement can apologise, some which will 
 for ever disgrace this memorable night. While a num- 
 ber of Russian and a few Polish superior officers were 
 laudably exerting themselves to calm the ferocity of the 
 people; while they fearlessly rode among them, and 
 urged them to desist from their violent proceedings, to 
 lay their grievances before the emperor, who would 
 readily redress them, and, above all, to remember that 
 the Russians and themselves were fellow-subjects, and 
 refrain from bloodshed, these very peace-makers, 
 whose heroism should have commanded the respect, and 
 whose kind-hearted intentions should have won the 
 affections, of the populace, were barbarously massacred. 
 Some other officers of rank all Russians, except one 
 were made prisoners. 
 
 By the morning of the 30th, all the Polish troops, 
 with the exception of one regiment and a few com- 
 panies who held for Constantine, and remained with him, 
 had joined the insurgents. Near 30,000 armed citizens 
 swelled their dense ranks. To oppose so formidable a 
 mass would have been madness. In twelve hours the 
 revolution was begun and completed. In vain did the 
 
1830. POLAND RESTORED. 275 
 
 grand duke, who lay without the walls,, meditate the re- 
 covery of the intrenchments and fortifications. His 
 isolated though desperate efforts to re-enter the city 
 were repulsed with serious loss ; and when he became 
 acquainted with the number of his antagonists, he wisely 
 desisted from his purpose. He removed to a greater 
 distance from the walls, as if uncertain what steps to 
 take in so extraordinary an emergency. 
 
 In a few hours an administrative council was formed, 
 to preside over the destinies of the infant state. It was 
 composed of men distinguished for their talents, cha- 
 racter, or services. At first they evidently entertained 
 no intention of throwing off their allegiance to the tsar ; 
 all their proclamations were in his name, and all their 
 claims bounded to a due execution of the charter. As 
 their ambition or their patriotism rose with their success, 
 they insisted on an incorporation of Lithuania, and the 
 other Polish provinces subject to Russia, with the king- 
 dom. Some months after, they declared the throne 
 vacant, a declaration highly rash and impolitic. 
 
 The behaviour of Constantine in his retreat was not 
 without generosity. At the request of the provisional 
 government, he agreed to send back the Polish troops 
 who still remained faithful to him ; and proposed that, 
 if the people would submit, he would endeavour not only 
 to procure an amnesty for ah 1 , but the redress of their 
 alleged grievances. It was too late, however, to think 
 of such submission, or such security ; the die was irre- 
 vocably cast. If the Poles were guilty of rashness in 
 what they had just effected, they were not likely to com- 
 mit the folly of undoing it. On the 3d of December 
 his imperial highness evacuated the vicinity of the 
 capital ; about the middle of the month he crossed the 
 Bug. He was perfectly unmolested in his retreat. 
 
 As nothing less than unconditional submission will 
 satisfy the tsar, and as the Poles would rather perish 
 than make it, they are now fully and irrevocably em- 
 barked in the most fearful of contests. That they have 
 aright to vindicate their national independence, that 
 T 2 
 
276 HISTORY OF POLAND. 1830. 
 
 to do so is their highest duty, will not be denied on 
 this side the Berezina ; but whether they have chosen 
 the proper time for rising, is a very different consider- 
 ation. Their plans were evidently not matured. Nei- 
 ther from Lithuania, nor from any other of the provinces 
 incorporated with Russia, have they received the aid on 
 which they relied. So far, indeed, the honour of the 
 campaign has been theirs ; their efforts have been stu- 
 pendous ; their bravery worthy the age of their Boleslas 
 and Sobieskis : but even success has fearfully diminished 
 their numbers, and impaired their resources. It must 
 be clear to every unimpassioned observer, that Poland 
 has not the means to contend with her great antagonist. 
 Where the valour and discipline of two nations are about 
 equal, the weaker must in the end give way to the 
 stronger, unless there are countervailing circumstances 
 in favour of the former. Now, in Poland, where are 
 such circumstances to be found ? She has no moun- 
 tain fastnesses, like the Asturias, Scotland, or Wales, in 
 which her sons can take shelter when overpowered by 
 numbers, and emerge on the enemy's retreat : she has 
 no fortresses, like the Netherlands, capable of arresting 
 and breaking the force of her assailants. That she will 
 nobly perform her duty, as she has hitherto done, is un- 
 doubted ; that she will prefer annihilation to submission, 
 is not improbable. Nothing appears able to save her 
 but European interference. Is such interference pro- 
 bable ? Will Austria and Prussia, the only powers 
 which could have much weight on the occasion, inter- 
 fere ? With what face could they propose to Russia 
 the independence of her revolted subjects, unless they 
 were prepared to confer the same boon on their own, 
 on the inhabitants of Posen and Gallicia ? Whatever 
 may be said of Austria, the least criminal of the 
 powers concerned in the odious partition, Prussia 
 must greatly have changed, if she abandon one inch of 
 her territories without compulsion. As to the represent- 
 ations of England or France, they would probably be 
 disregarded. 
 
1831. POLAND RESTORED. 277 
 
 It is, however, useless to anticipate : time is on the 
 wing. Though the author of this compendium knows 
 that the result is regarded with apprehension by the 
 Poles themselves, he is not so little read in history as 
 to be ignorant that a " Providence rules in the affairs 
 of men/' and that a righteous cause is often made to 
 prosper against all human calculation, when even its 
 warmest friends despair of its success. May that of the 
 Poles be one of these ! 
 
 But if the Christian may faintly hope, the philan- 
 thropist must grieve at the contrast exhibited by 
 Poland during the last and present year. Her plains 
 are covered with ruins, or washed with blood j her 
 resources are exhausted, her industry destroyed; her 
 abundance has given way to wretchedness ; the coun- 
 tenances of her children, once so happy, are now 
 wan, squalid, and despairing ; her peasants, her land- 
 owners, and not a few of her chief nobles, now 
 curse the thoughtless precipitation which hurried the 
 nation into so awful a contest before her means of de- 
 fence were fully organised. The majority of the Poles 
 are heartily sick of the war, however anxious the army, 
 " the youths of the military schools," and " the stu- 
 dents of the university," may be to continue it. 
 
 Of the republic of Cracow, whose existence and in- 
 dependence are guaranteed by the congress of Vienna, 
 little need be said. From 1795 to 1809, the city had 
 belonged to Austria: by the peace of Schoenbrunn it 
 had been united with the grand duchy of Warsaw. A 
 charter of twenty-two articles, almost as liberal as those 
 of the Poles, was granted by the three powers most in- 
 terested. The government of the republic is vested in 
 a senate of twelve, and a president: nine (including 
 the president) are elected by the deputies, the remain- 
 ing four by the episcopal chapter and the academy. 
 Persons of landed property paying a contribution of 
 fifty Polish florins, priests, members of the academy, 
 distinguished artists, and merchants, may elect, or in 
 T 3 
 
278 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 certain cases become, senators. The deputies are chiefly 
 elected by the citizens : three prelates, six magistrates, 
 sit there in virtue of their offices ; three doctors in the 
 faculties of law, medicine, and divinity, and three 
 senators, are deputed by their respective bodies. The 
 law declares all citizens to be equal ; confers on the 
 deputies the power of controlling the finances, and of 
 inspecting public functionaries. All proceedings in the 
 courts are public : the judges are elected partly by the 
 people, partly by the senate and representatives ; ail are 
 independent, because unremovable.* 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 SOCIETY, CONSTITUTION, MANNERS, ETC. OF THE ANCIENT 
 POLES. 
 
 IN their infancy the Poles, like the other branches of 
 the great Slavonic family, were split into independent 
 tribes, each governed by its own kniaz, or judge, whom 
 age or reputed wisdom had raised to that dignity. His 
 attributes, however, were entirely of a civil nature, as 
 the command of the troops was confided to another 
 dignitary, the voivod, whose authority terminated with 
 the war. 
 
 Even after the establishment of a kingly government, 
 these judges and generals long continued the chief, if 
 not the only, officers in the monarchy. In the general 
 assemblies of the tribes, convoked to deliberate on peace 
 or war, their voices were the expressed organs of their 
 countrymen. Such assemblies, before the establishment 
 of a senate, and while the kings were limited in power, 
 were of frequent occurrence, and as they were attended 
 by all who bore arms (the cultivation of the soil was 
 
 * Memoires d'Oginski, torn. Hi. et iv. passim. Malte-Brun, Tableau de 
 ologne. Precis Historique, cinquifeme epoque, by Chodzko, ii. 135 230. 
 Annual Retrospect of Public Affairs," (in Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Library,) 
 
 ii. 289. I forbear to quote the French pamphlets, or the newspapers, which 
 are no authority at all. Much of the information in the last twenty pages 
 is derived from private sources. 
 
CONSTITUTION, MANNERS,, ETC. OF THE POLES. 279 
 
 abandoned wholly to slaves and captives), they were 
 necessarily numerous. 
 
 As the royal authority acquired strength, especially 
 after the division of the country into palatinates by 
 Miecislas II., these national meetings were discontinued. 
 The palatines, on their appearance at court, or wherever 
 they fell in with the king, and in all warlike expeditions, 
 were his privileged advisers. So, also, were the bishops, 
 who, after the introduction of Christianity, were joined 
 with the temporal barons in the exercise of this pri- 
 vilege. And when, from the natural progress of so- 
 ciety towards civilisation, he found it impossible to 
 decide on the cases submitted to his wandering tribunal, 
 when even the palatine courts were found insufficient 
 for the same purpose, he granted first to his leading 
 barons, and gradually to the great bulk of that military 
 body, the exercise of the jus ducale, or of the judicial 
 power, as hitherto held by the prince himself. Every 
 baronial residence thus became a tribunal of justice, 
 and, what is worse, was authorised to be held jure 
 hereditario. From these tribunals, the decisions of 
 which, in the absence of written law *, were founded on 
 natural equity and traditionary prescription, there was 
 long no appeal. Each of the palatines had an assistant 
 invested with the same judicial powers; and so pro- 
 bably had the other barons. The bishops had a similar 
 jurisdiction ; but as it was considered unbecoming in 
 a minister of peace to pass sentence of death on any 
 human creature, the painful duty devolved on a vicar, 
 who uniformly presided in the episcopal court. 
 
 Though each of these palatines, bishops, and barons, 
 could thus advise his sovereign, the formation of a 
 regular senate was slow, and completed only when ex- 
 perience had proved its utility. At first, the only sub- 
 jects on which the monarch deliberated with his barons 
 related to war: what he originally granted through 
 
 * Legum scriptarum nullus fuit usus apud Polonos vetustioribus tem- 
 
 poribus : nee ulke extant antiquiores iis, quas Cazimirus magnus rex con. 
 
 didit Polonia, sive de Situ, Populis, Moribus, Magistratibus, et Republic^ 
 
 Begni Polonici libri duo, by the historian Cromer, lib. ii. p. 105. 
 
 T 4 
 
280 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 courtesy, or through diffidence in himself, or with a 
 view to lessen his responsibility in case of failure, they 
 eventually claimed as a right. 
 
 But among a free, ferocious people, the decisions of 
 the king and senate were not permitted long to have the 
 force of absolute law. The barons and prelates, nay, 
 the whole body of the nobles or warriors, tenacious of 
 the privilege they had exercised in the infancy of their 
 society, often collected together to deliberate on affairs 
 more than usually momentous, and alike by their num- 
 bers and attitude imposed on the government. Abso- 
 lute as was the king's authority, he could not but quail 
 before this formidable body ; he could not but be un- 
 willing to undertake any thing likely to displease it; and 
 to know the sentiments of his people, he often convoked 
 them to lay before them his meditated designs, and, if 
 possible, to gain their sanction. This mark of confidence, 
 or of policy, at first flattered their pride ; but soon, as 
 in the case of the senators, it was regarded as a mere 
 act of justice towards themselves. Their will, thus 
 irresistibly pronounced, became the first and most ab- 
 solute law of the state. 
 
 While the three estates of the realm were thus gra- 
 dually acquiring organisation and strength, the mul- 
 tiplication of towns, and still more their increase in 
 population and riches, gave rise to another change in 
 the internal administration. These, finding the national 
 or feudal law no longer applicable to their circumstances, 
 procured, by petition or purchase, their exemption from 
 it, and adopted the Teutonic or burgher law, so much 
 more favourable to industrious communities. As the 
 new jurisprudence was less arbitrary in its character, as 
 well as less severe in its operation, the free peasants 
 and artisans resorted to these municipal abodes. They 
 gained much by an escape from the rude barbarous in- 
 stitutions of the Slavi, from torture, and the various 
 modes in which recourse was had to the judgment of 
 heaven, and by their incorporation into communities 
 where justice, however encumbered with interminable 
 
CONSTITUTION, MANNERS, ETC. OF THE POLES. 281 
 
 formalities, and obscured by an endless nomenclature 
 of technical terms, was more favourable to individual 
 liberty. Town after town procured, from tbe avarice or 
 the favour of the monarch, charters which empowered 
 them to change the feudal for the burgher law, which 
 transformed them from vassals to citizens; and many 
 of the great landowners were no less eager to encourage 
 a change that, while it hastened the acquisition of in- 
 dividual wealth, increased their own revenues. (At all 
 times a vast proportion of the Polish towns have be- 
 longed to the great barons.) Some communties, and 
 even districts, assimilated, as much as they could, the 
 native with the foreign jurisprudence. The result was 
 a strange mixture of the two, in many cases, a mass of 
 contradictions. In fact, uniformity of laws was unknown 
 until Casimir the Great introduced it.* 
 
 In the code of Wisliza, the place where Casimir held 
 this memorable legislative diet, we find mention made of 
 palatines, castellans, starosts, judges, &c., and a careful 
 limitation of the jurisdiction possessed by their respective 
 tribunals, as well as of the cases in which appeals could 
 be carried, either to the king and senate, or to the 
 supreme Teutonic tribunal established by that prince. 
 Criminal affairs lay within the cognizance of the starosts 
 and castellans ; the question of disputed boundaries, &c. 
 belonged to the succamerarii, or provincial chamberlains ; 
 more important disputes about property, affecting in- 
 heritance, partition, and redemption, and crimes of high 
 treason, were carried either before the palatinal or the 
 royal courts. The statute of Wisliza, which guaranteed 
 alike the jurisdiction of the feudal and Teutonic tribunals, 
 continued the basis of Polish legislation until the close 
 of the last century ; though some of its provisions were 
 modified, abrogated, or amended, and others added, by 
 succeeding diets. It must not, however, be forgotten, 
 that brute force, not law, held its empire over the re- 
 public ; that the peasants, or serfs, were judicially, though 
 unconstitutionally, subjected to their masters ; and that, 
 * See the reign of Casimir, p. 91. 
 
282 HISTORY OP POLAND. 
 
 while the nobles set all laws affecting themselves at 
 defiance, and enjoyed an unbounded licentiousness, the 
 rest of the nation was miserably enslaved, excepting 
 some of the more powerful municipalities, over which 
 these haughty tyrants could obtain no control. In no 
 European country has the peasant had to complain of 
 wrongs so revolting, yet so patiently borne. Down to 
 the destruction of the republic, his condition was in- 
 finitely more wretched than that of the Russian boor. 
 
 Of the three orders into which the state was divided, 
 the king, though his authority had been anciently des- 
 potic, was the least important. His dignity was un- 
 accompanied with power ; he was merely the president 
 of the senate, and the chief judge of the republic. His 
 station, however, was not without its influence, since he 
 alone could nominate to all dignities and benefices. As 
 he was thus the fountain of honour, and, to a considerable 
 extent, of wealth, his favour was eagerly sought by the 
 ambitious and the needy. But as, when offices were 
 once conferred, the holders were unremovable during life 
 (unless in cases of convicted delinquency), that in- 
 fluence usually continued no longer than while he had 
 them to bestow. 
 
 The senators, or counsellors of the king, were the most 
 respectable of the three orders of government j but, like 
 his, their power was bounded. They were indeed en- 
 trusted with the different branches of the executive, 
 (they were all judges within their respective districts), 
 with the control over the numerous offices of adminis- 
 tration ; and they served as a superior court of appeal 
 from the tribunals of the republic ; in concert with 
 the king, they could also ratify laws, and correspond with 
 foreign powers ; but their proceedings were subject to 
 the rigid supervision of the diet, which kept a keen 
 and steady eye upon them. Their number was 139*, 
 consisting of two archbishops, thirteen bishops, thirty- 
 five palatines (including three or four castellans who 
 
 * At one period the number amounted to one hundred and forty-four; 
 at another, it scarcely exceeded a hundred. The changes in the limits of 
 the republic will account for the difference. 
 
CONSTITUTION, MANNERS, ETC. OP THE POLES. 283 
 
 ranked as palatines), seventy-nine castellans, and ten 
 great officers of state. All these senators were nominated 
 by the king, and could not be displaced during life. 
 They were sworn to advise him with all sincerity and 
 boldness ; and they were seldom backward in so doing. 
 No one could be a senator except in virtue of some office, 
 nor except such as were of noble birth, and were land- 
 owners to a considerable extent, either in the provinces 
 of the crown or of the grand duchy. 
 
 Of the two archbishops, Gnesna and Leopol, the 
 former was primate of the kingdonr, and ex officio 
 apostolic legate. During the interregna he was also 
 the head of the republic, and invested with more powers 
 than were ever permitted to the monarch. In the se- 
 nate, the bishops took precedence of all the temporal 
 barons. 
 
 The palatines were the generals of the forces raised 
 in their respective palatinates during warlike expedi- 
 tions ; and in peace, they were the presidents of the 
 judicial tribunals and political assemblies of their pro- 
 vinces. They also determined the price of provisions 
 and merchandise ; regulated weights and measures ; 
 judged and protected the Jews. A vice-palatine was 
 associated with each of these great dignitaries. 
 
 The castellans were considered as the lieutenants or 
 deputies of the palatines, and were invested with the 
 same powers, though in an inferior degree. Like the 
 palatines, they held their tribunals, presided ever the 
 assembled nobility of their district, and headed them in 
 war. (The castellan of Cracow had no jurisdiction ; 
 but in rank he took precedence of all the palatines, 
 and of all the temporal dignitaries in the republic.) 
 Though all castellans were considered as members of 
 the senate, the least influential portion, amounting to 
 full one half, were seldom summoned to attend. The 
 ten great officers of state were, the grand marshal, the 
 chancellor, the vice-chancellor, the treasurer, and the 
 marshal of the court ; one of each for the kingdom and 
 for the grand duchy. 
 
284 HISTORY OP POLAND. 
 
 The starosts had no seat in the senate, yet many of 
 the,m had a civil jurisdiction ; they held a common 
 court every fortnight, and a great one every six weeks : 
 they were, besides, the collectors of the king's revenue, 
 one fourth of which they reserved to pay the expenses 
 of their bailiffs, secretaries, &c. The word starost sig- 
 nifies aged ; and the crown lands attached to each 
 starosty were originally intended as benefices to which 
 old and deserving servants of the republic might retire 
 to end their days in comfort, with few duties to be dis- 
 charged. Soon, however, they were conferred on the 
 young as well as the old, on such chiefly as had been 
 fortunate enough to obtain favour at court. 
 
 The diet consisted of the senators already mentioned, 
 and of the deputies returned by each of the palatinates and 
 districts of the republic ; the number of both amounted 
 to about four hundred. These deputies were chosen in 
 the dietines, or provincial assemblies of the nobles, (one 
 held in each palatinate,) to represent in the general diet 
 the interests and wishes of their constituents. Their 
 name of nuntii, or messengers, sufficiently denoted the 
 absence of all discretionary power in the discharge of 
 their function. They were so strictly bound down by the 
 instructions they received, that no individual deputy could 
 be said to have either will or power of his own, except 
 in so far as either concurred with the general interests of 
 his order. On the dissolution of the diet, he was required 
 to appear before his constituents, and give a strict ac- 
 count of the manner in which those instructions had 
 been followed. Woe to the poor wretch, whom fear or 
 favour had induced to deviate from them ! he was 
 almost sure to be massacred. As the choice of deputies 
 was so important to the nobles, who thus surrendered 
 their dearest privileges for a time into the hands of their 
 representatives, so it was often a subject of fierce dis- 
 pute. At these elections sabres were sure to clash, and 
 blood to flow, before that choice was ratified. 
 
 The diets were of two descriptions the ordinary, 
 
CONSTITUTION,, MANNERS, ETC. OF THE POLES. 285 
 
 which were held biennially, and the extraordinary, which 
 were summoned on any urgent occasion : the duration 
 of the former was about six weeks, of the latter, three. 
 The diets by deputies were termed the comitia togata, 
 because the members were to meet without arms or 
 horses ; but the comitia paludata, which assembled 
 during an interregnum, consisted of the whole body of 
 the nobles, who attended in the open plain, armed and 
 equipped as if for battle. It was seldom, indeed, that 
 such meetings were confined to mere deliberation : they 
 almost invariably ended in tumult and blood. All diets 
 (except those held during the interregna) were convoked 
 by the king, in writs addressed to the palatines, which 
 the latter communicated to the castellans, starosts, and 
 other officers, commanding them on a given day to as- 
 semble the nobles in dietines, for the election of de- 
 puties to the general diet. In these dietines, every gen- 
 tleman possessing an estate of three acres could vote ; 
 and every deputy was chosen by the majority of suf- 
 frages. 
 
 The necessity of unanimity in the general diets, and 
 the power possessed by any deputy, however humble, of 
 arresting their proceedings, was the great curse of these 
 representative assemblies. As the nuntii were impera- 
 tively enjoined to insist on certain given points, as they 
 were liable to so rigorous an examination of the way in 
 which they discharged their trust, they usually brought 
 obstinacy enough to these ill-regulated scenes. Hence 
 unanimity was found impossible ; and the baneful veto 
 not only paralysed the operations of government, but 
 often left the army without pay, and the state without 
 defence, at a time when vigour and promptitude were 
 alike necessary to save the national independence, 
 when hostile armies were ravaging the frontier provinces. 
 Another manoeuvre, scarcely less diabolical than the 
 veto itself, was the habit of wasting the time of the diet 
 in frivolous disputes, until the day of its dissolution ar- 
 rived. This was called drawing out the diet. If a few 
 members wished to oppose the passing of any particular 
 
286 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 resolution, and were yet afraid to do so openly, they had 
 only to propose something which they were sure would 
 be rejected, but which would have the effect of dividing 
 the members, and of causing them to lose their time in 
 acrimonious disputes. This was called blowing into 
 the nest to vex the flies. Apprehensive of such a re- 
 sult, or of the veto, or of both, the army, which could 
 receive no pay without an express vote of the diet, 
 would frequently approach the capital to keep the fac- 
 tions in awe. At other times a great body of the nobles, 
 distrustful of their delegates, would openly encamp in 
 the plain outside the walls of the city, and by this means 
 secure the fidelity of their representatives. But all 
 would not do ; diet after diet was dissolved, and the re- 
 public, as we have seen in the course of this history, re- 
 duced to the very brink of destruction. It must inevit- 
 ably have perished long before the last partition, but for 
 an experiment as singular as any other thing in this 
 most singular of constitutions. This was the confeder- 
 ations. 
 
 The confederations were meetings in which measures 
 were carried by the majority of suffrages, and in which, 
 consequently, the veto could have no place. When 
 successive diets were dissolved by this fatal privilege, 
 when the machine of the state was thereby completely 
 arrested, perhaps at some critical moment, a few lead- 
 ing nobles formed themselves into a body, and by their 
 manifestoes, addressed to the whole of their order, in- 
 vited all who valued the king, the constitution, or the 
 country, to unite with them in devising such means as 
 appeared necessary for the occasion. The nobles who 
 attended at the appointed time and place, and all who 
 failed so to do were menaced with the confiscation of 
 their property, were bound by oath to defend each 
 other's honour, possessions, and life, against all oppo- 
 nents. If a majority of the Poles attended it, it was 
 approved by the king, who presided at its sittings ; and 
 its proceedings were thus legalised. So jealous were 
 the people, however, of destroying their favourite law of 
 
CONSTITUTION, MANNERS, ETC. OF THE POLES. 287 
 
 unanimity, that the authority of the confederations could 
 not extend beyond the time of their actual existence : 
 the moment these bodies separated, their powers ceased ; 
 and their measures, how transient soever the purposes 
 for which they were devised, were always to be laid 
 before the next diet, for the approbation of that truly 
 constitutional assembly. 
 
 Of confederations there were various kinds. Those 
 which were formed with the consent of the senate, and 
 of the equestrian order, were called general. These 
 were always useful, often necessary. Another class 
 sprung from rebellion to lawful authority, or an extreme 
 zeal for measures which the regular diets could not be 
 persuaded to adopt. Sometimes several such confeder- 
 ations were sitting at the same time with views, of 
 course, directly opposite, and treating each other as 
 rebels and traitors. A third species of confederation 
 was that of the army, which often rose against its of- 
 ficers, or even against the king and diet : the most fre- 
 quent cause was want of pay. The Rokosz was the 
 last and most dreaded of these self-elected assemblies, 
 At its voice the nobles were obliged to have recourse to 
 arms, to obtain the object proposed by open force. 
 This was usually the last resource of a desperate minor- 
 ity ; and though the present evils occasioned by it might 
 be great, its influence was short-lived. None of these 
 confederations, it is evident, w,@re legal, none in strict 
 accordance with the spirit of the constitution, except 
 those which were denominated general. As their mea- 
 sures were clearly for the good of the state, usually, 
 indeed, for its salvation, there was no difficulty in pro- 
 curing their ratification by the following diet. Gene- 
 rally, however, such sanction was unnecessary. The 
 confederation did not separate until its objects were 
 attained : what had been done could not loe recalled ; 
 and it was not safe to blame proceedings which had been 
 adopted by an overwhelming majority of the nobles, 
 and such a majority was necessary to constitute a legal 
 general confederation. 
 
288 HISTORY OP POLAND. 
 
 The confederation had its marshal, in imitation of the 
 diet; but the authority of the former was usually more 
 extended than that of the latter ; it was almost equal to 
 that possessed by the ancient dictators. 
 
 The dietines, or little diets, were, as before observed, 
 assemblies of the nobles in each palatinate, where nuntii 
 were elected to the general diet. Most of the local busi- 
 ness of the palatinate was also transacted at these meet- 
 ings. As unanimity was not here necessary, as the 
 partisans of different candidates were often nearly ba- 
 lanced in number, and as all who attended were armed, 
 they seldom separated without bloodshed. To the an- 
 cient Poles, as to the modern Irish, nothing could be 
 more agreeable than a bloody affray. 
 
 Such were the more remarkable institutions of the 
 ancient Poles. It now remains to say something o* 
 their manners* 
 
 Before the seventh century of the Christian era, the 
 Slavi led a nomadic life. The fathers of the Sarma- 
 tians, living, if we may thus express it, in the primitive 
 state of nature, possessed their territory in common. 
 But this state could not continue for ever. As early as 
 the sixth century, the Slavi began to live in society. 
 " They do not," says Procopius, " obey one master ; 
 they live in democracy ; they continue isolated, and lead 
 a nomadic life. The god of thunder is their chief 
 divinity ; they sacrifice to him oxen and other beasts ; 
 they also honour the rivers and the nymphs. When 
 they proceed to battle, their only arms are a lance and 
 shield." C( They all speak the same barbarous language, 
 and resemble each other in conformation of body ; all 
 are tall and strong; their complexion is brown, their 
 hair light ; their character is not wicked or perfidious : 
 in many respects they remind us of the simple manners 
 of the Huns." To the democratic habits of this people 
 the same testimony is borne by the imperial historian 
 Constantine Porphyrogenitus. 
 
 * Much of what follows is abridged or altered from Malte-Brun's 
 Tableau de Pologne, by Chodzko, i. 76. 
 
CONSTITUTION, MANNERS, ETC. OF THE POLES. 289 
 
 " Anciently/' says Dlugoss, te the Poles had no in- 
 tercouse with other nations either by land or sea. Their 
 clothing was rude, and fabricated by their own hands. 
 Their food was flesh, fish, and milk : they had no 
 riches, and were not therefore envied by their neighbours. 
 After their incorporation into a people, the contributions 
 they paid to their ruler were the skins of such animals as 
 they found in their forests ; sometimes fish, cattle, and 
 corn were added. The orders of the chief had all the 
 force of law. Their huts were thatched with straw. 
 Free and tranquil, they lived at peace both with their 
 neighbours and with one another. This was the golden 
 age the age of simplicity and happiness to our 
 fathers." 
 
 The good Dlugoss, in this short but graphic sketch of 
 ancient simplicity and happiness, drawn wholly from 
 imagination, has only fallen into the universal error. 
 What nation is there which does not boast of its golden 
 age ? yet in what nation did it ever exist ? 
 
 After the first union of Chrobatia with Poland by 
 Ziemowit, the manners of the Poles began to change, 
 to follow the impulse given them by the opening of an 
 intercourse with the west, and by the introduction of 
 Christianity. At that time the pagan deities of these 
 people, such as Jessa (Jupiter), Liada (Mars), Dziez- 
 lia (Venus), Nia (Pluto), who had a temple at 
 Gnesna, Dzievana (Diana), Zyvia Marzana (Ceres), 
 and others, were put to flight by the holy sign of man's 
 redemption. The temples of Cracow, and the altars of 
 Lelum Polelum (Castor and Pollux)^ gave way to the 
 Christian altars erected by Miecislas I., which were 
 farther multiplied by his son, the great Boleslas.* This 
 last prince was the true founder and legislator of the 
 Poles. By him justice and civilisation were diffused 
 over the country. He introduced the Benedictines, 
 who rendered immense services to Poland ; many cities 
 were then built; the equestrian order was then in- 
 stituted, whose valour was destined to exalt to such a 
 * See the reign of Boleslas I. 
 U 
 
290 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 pitch the greatness of the country, before the abuse of 
 their privileges brought anarchy and disorder. 
 
 The manners of this period are thus described by 
 Dlugoss : " The Polish nobles thirst for military 
 fame ; dangers, and even death, they despise ; they are 
 lavish of their revenues, faithful to their sovereign, taking 
 pleasure in agricultural pursuits and the breeding of 
 cattle. They are open towards strangers, and afford to 
 other nations the finest example of hospitality and bene- 
 ficence; but they oppress their peasants. The country 
 people are much addicted to drunkenness; hence quar- 
 rels, wounds, sometimes murder. They are, however, 
 patient, and accustomed to the most rigorous labours ; 
 they support, without complaining, hunger, cold, and 
 every other privation ; they believe in magic, are fond 
 of novelty, and never scruple at robbery or plunder. 
 They care little about comfort in their dwellings." 
 
 After the fortunate issue of the war with the Teutonic 
 knights (1466), the re-union of Pomerania with Poland 
 made commerce flourish : from this time, as the national 
 writers justly observe, may be dated the introduction of 
 luxury, and the first inroads on the severe manners of 
 the ancient Sarmatians. Seventy years after the time 
 of Dlugoss, Decius, secretary of Sigismund I., bears 
 witness to the change which was in progress in the 
 habits of the people. (( Luxury and indulgence," says 
 he, " succeeded to the severity of the warlike virtues." 
 This author, however, rather praises the change, since 
 it was transforming savage ferocity into something like 
 humanity. Under Albert, things remained in the same 
 state ; under Alexander, the luxury of the table was 
 carried to an enormous height ; every body was impo- 
 verished by foolish expenses, especially in dress. But 
 amidst all this, something good may be discovered ; 
 the sanctity in which promises were held, and the in- 
 clination of all classes for reading, were characteristic of 
 the times. Under Sigismund I., instruction flourished 
 beyond example : few gentlemen were to be found who 
 could not speak three or four languages; all, without 
 
CONSTITUTION, MANNERS, ETC. OF THE POLES. 291 
 
 exception, spoke Latin, which was as much the language 
 of the court and of diplomacy as French is at the present 
 day. When the Polish deputation arrived at Paris, to 
 offer the crown to Henry, what most astonished the 
 French, says De Thou, " was the facility with which 
 they expressed themselves in Latin, French, German, 
 and Italian. These four languages were as familiar to 
 them as their native tongue/' Their superior inform- 
 ation was humiliating to the Gallic nobility, of whom 
 no more than two could converse in Latin, and these had 
 to be brought from their estates in the country for the 
 purpose of upholding the honour of the French nobility. 
 ff They spoke our language with so much purity, that 
 they might have been taken for men educated on the 
 banks of the Seine or the Loire, rather than in countries 
 watered by the Vistula and the Dnieper. Our courtiers, 
 who know nothing, and who are declared enemies of 
 every thing called learning, were sadly humbled ; when 
 spoken to, they could only blush, or answer by signs." 
 Muretus bears the same honourable testimony to the 
 acquirements of the Poles of his day, whom he contrasts 
 with the Italians. 
 
 In the time of Cromer (the l6th century), the Poles 
 are represented, but some allowance must be made for 
 the favourable colouring of a native, as free and open ; 
 as preferring to be the dupes of deception rather than 
 deceivers ; as inclined to peace even more than to war 
 (the reverse, however, is notoriously the fact) ; as di- 
 rected by mildness and magnanimity ; as devoted to 
 their king and leaders (untrue) ; as hospitable and warm- 
 hearted (most true) ; as strongly inclined to imitate the 
 modes of other people ; as fond of literature, but averse 
 to the mechanical arts ; as still more fond of pomp. 
 
 There is a singular conversation, in MS., preserved 
 by Minucci, in the account of the journey he undertook, 
 in 1659, to negotiate for his master, the duke of Tus- 
 cany, the succession to the Polish crown ; a conver- 
 sation characteristic enough of the Polish rustics, 
 (< What think you of this country ? " enquired the 
 u 2 
 
292 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 Polish queen of the envoy. " What surprises me most, 
 madam," was the reply, " is to see that,, notwithstand- 
 ing the war which has brought such desolation on the 
 country, I find fertility on every side : every where 
 do I see the peasants actively employed in repairing 
 them." " Know," said the queen, " that these are peo- 
 ple who complain of the present without remembering 
 the past, or caring for the future. Whenever the enemy 
 sacks a town and departs, the inhabitants of that town 
 return the following day to rebuild it. This you have 
 seen in the case of Wratislaw, which has been rebuilt in 
 so short a time, and within sight too of the enemy sta- 
 tioned on the opposite side of the Vistula." Her majesty 
 spoke the real truth : no people on earth so soon forget 
 their misfortunes as the Polish peasantry ; they were, 
 and are now, as light-hearted as the French. 
 
 Under succeeding princes, the Poles, the most imi- 
 tative of human beings, conformed to the fashion of 
 the court, whether that fashion was German or French ; 
 but the former they merely tolerated, while in the 
 latter their souls were wrapt. As foreign kings, and 
 still more as foreign queens, thenceforth presided over 
 the festivities of the capital, the national manners were 
 confounded with the novelties introduced. In the 
 country, however, amidst nature's everlasting forests, 
 ancient usages remained in all their vigour, until the 
 Russian and French troops, who overran or were quar- 
 in every part, by their intercourse with the people 
 greatly weakened the nationality which had hitherto 
 prevailed. That nationality is every where decaying 
 more and more. The partition of the people under 
 three different governments has done more to produce 
 this effect than any other cause, or all other causes com- 
 bined. The citizens of Warsaw are already French or 
 Russian, while the inhabitants of Posen and Galicia 
 find no difficulty in assimilating in manners with their 
 Prussian and Austrian fellow-subjects. 
 
 In contemplating the state of society in Poland during 
 the progress of ages, to omit all mention of the Jews, 
 
CONSTITUTION, MANNERS,, ETC. OF THE POLES. 2 93 
 
 a people more numerous here than in any other country 
 of the same extent under heaven, and bearing so great 
 a proportion to the whole population, would be unpar- 
 donable. The influence of these people is to be found 
 in every thing, in the laws, the history, and the con- 
 dition of the Poles. 
 
 In the tenth century, a great number of Jews, at- 
 tracted by the fertility of the soil, the abundance of 
 minerals, and the facilities for commerce, afforded by 
 Poland, removed into that country from various parts of 
 Germany. Their example was followed by their brethren 
 of Bohemia (which at that time could scarcely be called 
 a part of Germany) ; there they found protection and 
 repose. Probably a few of that nation had long been 
 settled in various parts of the country, as we know they 
 had been in Russia; but we have no historic account of the 
 circumstance, unless the Jewish traditions are admitted as 
 history, prior to the period under consideration. 
 
 The first charter granted to the Polish Jews was by 
 Boleslas II. in 126'4. It was renewed and greatly am- 
 plified by Casimir the Great, whose celebrated mistress, 
 the Jewess Esther, knew how to interest him in behalf 
 of her nation. Witold, of Lithuania, also encouraged 
 them : by Lewis king of Poland and Hungary, how- 
 ever, they were persecuted. Under some princes they 
 were not allowed to have any intimate connection with 
 Christians. As they certainly gave unwonted activity to 
 commerce, they appear to have been suffered as a neces- 
 sary evil. They were treated with rigour under Sigis- 
 mund : they were accused probably not unjustly 
 of being concerned in a plot for the occupation of the 
 eastern provinces by the Turks ; but their money, it is 
 believed, turned aside the gathering storm. Their riches 
 must indeed have been considerable, if any estimate is 
 to be drawn from the fact, that nearly all the trade of the 
 country was in their hands. In 1540 they boasted that, 
 while the Christians could number only 600 dealers, 
 they had 3200 ; and that they gave employment to near 
 10,000 mechanics, artisans, and manufacturers. 
 u 3 
 
294 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 Though the wealth of the Jews often exposed them to 
 the avarice of the great,, there can be no doubt that the 
 hatred with which they were always regarded in Poland, as 
 every where else, was to a certain extent deserved. By 
 practising usury, and dealing in contraband commodi- 
 ties, both forbidden by the ancient church of Poland, 
 by lending money on the most iniquitous terms to the 
 heirs of the rich, they rendered themselves obnoxious to 
 the people. But habituated to insults ; accustomed to 
 proceed straitforward to their end the accumulation 
 of wealth, no matter the road which led them to it ; 
 industrious beyond all precedent ; always sober, and 
 pressed by few wants, they seldom failed to grow rich. 
 Nothing can more fully expose their exceptionable mode 
 of dealing, than the fact, that by the Polish laws they 
 have at all times been forbidden to keep wine shops, to 
 sell brandy, or to traffic with the peasantry, lest they 
 should not only impoverish, but corrupt that thoughtless 
 class. Subsequently they were prohibited from dealing 
 in horses. 
 
 The numerical increase of this people has long sur- 
 prised the Poles ; the ratio of that increase, compared 
 with that of the Christians, being usually as two, or 
 even three, to one. Sigismund Augustus was astonished 
 at the fact : perhaps, too, he began to be alarmed lest in 
 time they should outnumber the Christian population. 
 He subjected them to a capitation tax, from which, at a 
 florin per head, he calculated on receiving about 
 200,000 florins. His surprise, and that of his court, 
 was extreme on finding that the roll did not contain 
 17,000 names, though both sexes, old and young, were 
 included. Of course, not one tenth of their actual 
 number had been given in by the Israelites, who have 
 always entertained a particular aversion to such a census. 
 Sigismund complained of this to his intimate friend, the 
 bishop of Cracow, a prelate famous for a tolerant spirit, 
 and in that age a more remarkable proof of under- 
 standing for an utter disbelief in magic. f< Bishop," 
 said the king, " you who do not believe that the devil 
 
CONSTITUTION,, MANNERS, ETC. OF THE POLES. 2Q5 
 
 has any thing to do with human affairs, and who have 
 no faith in witchcraft, tell me, I beseech you, how the 
 Jews, who yesterday were 200,000, have been able 
 to conceal themselves under ground, so as to reckon 
 scarcely 17,000 to-day, when the capitation tax is 
 wanted." " Your majesty must be aware," replied 
 the prelate, ff that the Jews do not want the devil's 
 help to become wizards." 
 
 Under Sigismund III. this people had increased so 
 much in number and riches, that they instituted a little 
 state in the country. They printed works, in which 
 they had the boldness to ridicule some ceremonies of the 
 church, and to propose that the whole nation should fol- 
 low the Mosaic law : they promised to make Poland a 
 second Idumea, if the proposal were accepted. A decree 
 by the diet that whoever spake with disrespect of the 
 Christian rites should be banished, silenced them for 
 this time. Ere long, however, they engaged in a con- 
 troversial war with the other party, and published an 
 incredible number of pamphlets in support of their civil 
 and religious rights j nor did the contest end until both 
 parties were tired of conducting it. 
 
 Mention has already been made, in the course of this 
 history *, of the rapacious tyranny of the Jewish agents 
 over the Cossacks of the Ukraine. Though, however, 
 they were among the prime causes of Bogdan's rebellion, 
 they appear to have been too formidable for punishment, 
 at least by the state; but the Cossack chief massacred 
 them wherever he found them. They were generally 
 attached to the government which left them unmolested 
 to the acquisition of wealth ; but their feeling, when 
 persecuted, was vindictive enough. Under Michael they 
 entered into a treasonable correspondence with their old 
 friends, the Turks : under Sobieski they were remarkable 
 for loyalty. They were, indeed, special favourites of 
 the latter prince, whose elevation to the throne they 
 are said to have predicted (they might have done so 
 without much knowledge of the occult sciences). In 
 
 * See the reigns of Uladislas V. and John Casimir. 
 
 u 4 
 
296 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 1682, the senate remonstrated with him for his indul- 
 gence towards them. Their condition under the three sue- 
 ceeding sovereigns was not materially altered. 
 
 The Polish Jews have sometimes had to contend with 
 greater enemies than the Christians, with one another. 
 Messiahs have not been wanting to sow division among 
 them. One of these, Sabatayzavi, drew after him 
 nine tenths of his nation, and at one time seemed .dis- 
 posed to dispute the possession of the country with the 
 Poles themselves. An armed force, however, at length 
 expelled him from the republic, and obliged him to seek 
 refuge among the Turks, by whom for reasons not ex- 
 plained he was arrested. But, even in his disgrace, he 
 was not without consideration; for thousands of the sons 
 of Israel resorted to Constantinople to honour him. To 
 expose his impositions, a Polish Jew, of great learning 
 and courage, undertook the same journey : whether, as 
 he purposed, he convinced the divan that the fellow was 
 more of a knave than of an enthusiast, does not appear. 
 
 In 1750, one Frank, a neophyte of Wallachia, formed 
 a new sect. He maintained the essentials of the Jewish 
 doctrines, but preserved the Roman ritual. Arriving in 
 Poland, his preaching soon brought him into contact 
 with the tribunals of the country, and consigned him to 
 a fortress. Being released by the Muscovite troops, he 
 went to Vienna, and from thence into Moravia, actively 
 disseminating his new opinions as he passed along. 
 Joseph II. expelled him from Austria. He then pro- 
 ceeded to Offenbach, where he soon collected a con- 
 siderable number of followers. He at length encountered 
 a rival in a Jewish rabbi, Israel Hirszowicz, who founded 
 a new sect after the doctrines of Maimonides. To secure 
 his influence, he now formed his disciples into a sort of 
 politic association, of which he constituted himself the 
 hereditary chief. When this man died, he was interred 
 with royal honours. His daughter is now the sovereign 
 of the faithful. 
 
 The chief maxim of this sect is, that a Jew must of 
 necessity always be a Jew, and observe the law of Moses ; 
 
CONSTITUTION, MANNERS, ETC. OF THE POLES. 297 
 
 but that he may publicly follow the profession of the 
 dominant religion : he has only to observe the Mosaic 
 rites in secret. In the fear that this strange tenet should 
 be made known, and lead, as it inevitably must have 
 done, to the destruction of those convicted of entertain- 
 ing it, all marriages with orthodox Jews as well as with 
 Gentiles are prohibited. The members of this sect 
 are believed to be exceedingly numerous, and to fill im- 
 portant posts in the administration of the countries they 
 inhabit. Their chief place is Appenheim ; but they 
 assume so much mystery, that they have hitherto eluded 
 the investigation of the police. 
 
 Since the occupation of Poland by the three powers, 
 the Jews have been placed on the same footing of equa- 
 lity as the Christian inhabitants. They do not trouble 
 themselves with the tribunals of the country, so long as 
 disputes happen among themselves; their elders are 
 their judges. But between Jews and Christians law- 
 suits are common enough : out of every ten cases brought 
 before the courts, a Jew is said to be concerned in nine. 
 In many cases, however, they are merely the agents of 
 others. At this day, as in the seventeenth century, they 
 are the stewards, or managers, or agents of the great 
 landed proprietors, to whom they have made themselves 
 indispensable. Almost all the coin of the kingdom is 
 in their hands ; and they are ever ready to advance it 
 to spendthrifts and such are most of the Polish no- 
 bles who have any thing in the shape of security to 
 offer. 
 
 There is no trade too vile, or even too dangerous, for 
 a Polish Jew, if he can profit by it. In 1 806 and 1 8 1 2, 
 they were the hired spies of the French and Polish 
 armies ; but they are charged, probably on good grounds, 
 with betraying their employers whenever they found it 
 their interest to do so. They are said on these occasions 
 to have rendered far more signal services to the Russians, 
 whom they were hired to watch, than to either French 
 or Poles ; and their perversity in this respect is viewed 
 as having occasioned no light disasters in the last fearful 
 
298 HISTORY OP POLAND. 
 
 expedition. They are now, however, much less attached 
 to Russia, since Nicholas, by an ukase of April, 1827, 
 has rendered them liable to the military conscription. 
 Those which live under his yoke now curse both him 
 and his cause, and heartily wish success to the Poles. 
 Two regiments of Jews now swell the forces of the 
 brave republic. To their conduct on this occasion, 
 as in 1794, when they raised and supported a regiment 
 of their own nation, it is impossible for their worst ene- 
 mies to deny the meed of praise. Then they exhibited 
 as much bravery as the most patriotic of the Polish 
 chivalry ; now, they will do no less honour to themselves 
 and cause. 
 
 The amazing fecundity of the Jews has been charged 
 to their early marriages : most of them are parents at a 
 very early age, and grandfathers before many English 
 gentlemen even think of marrying. It may, however, 
 be reasonably doubted, whether such marriages are 
 favourable to population. But one thing is certain, that 
 the proportion they bear to the Christians is alarming.* 
 As they are not producers, but live on the produce raised 
 by others, their existence in no state at least in any 
 considerable numbers can be other than a national in- 
 jury. That they have been a curse to Poland, is loudly 
 proclaimed by all the native writers. Besides their 
 usurious dealings and general unfairness, they are re- 
 proached with always contriving to fail when their chil- 
 dren are full grown, and of previously consigning their 
 property to them, to the prejudice of their creditors. 
 
 The Polish Jews acknowledge one universal head, 
 whom they call the Prince of Bondage, and who con- 
 stantly leads a wandering life in Western Asia. He is 
 evidently waiting the redemption of his people. 
 
 * See Appendix C, where the number of Polish Jews is computed. The 
 real number much exceeds it 
 
299 
 APPENDIX A. Page 10. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF POPIEL. 
 
 THE substance of the following extract having appeared in 
 the text, there is no necessity for translating it. It is here ex- 
 hibited as a specimen of the style of an author not very 
 common in this country. 
 
 " De cadaveribus siquidem patruorum et procerum quae 
 tyrannus abjici jusserat inhumata, insolitae quantitatis murium 
 multitude ebulliens, sedentem in convivio et voluptate 
 dantem operam Pompilium non sine aliorum stupore, in 
 unum duntaxat tyrannum Pompilium, et suam consortem, 
 duosque filios Pompilium, et Leszkonem ccepit continuatis 
 et rabidis morsibus infestare desaevireque. Quos etsi militum 
 servorumque sedula cura abigeret, recentesque succederent 
 fatigatis : Vincebat tamen perseverans murium, et noctu 
 et interdiu, nullo spatio ad quietum concesso, multitudo 
 omnium suffragiis aut defatigatis, aut se ab ejus tutela sub 
 ducentibus. Cum et in defensores rabies saepius murium ver- 
 teretur, nova remedia praeparantur, extruuntur frequentes et 
 ardentes foci, et in medio eorum Pompilius cum uxore et filiis 
 consistit, si forte incendiis mures arcerentur, sed et ignes 
 quantumcunque flammantes, muribus pervii nullum praesta- 
 bant Pompilio auxilium. Sic ad aliud elementum reversus, 
 in late patentia stagna deportatur per naves Pompilius cum 
 consorte et liberis, et turri locatur lignea, undis undique ambita, 
 sed nihilo plus undae tulerunt remedii, quam ignes. Singulos 
 enim gurgites, in quos se Popiel contulerat, mures natando 
 variis itineribus ilium persequebantur, consecutique navem 
 assiduis corrosionibus infestabant : Milites autem et nautae, 
 ne simul navi a muribus perforata aquarum sufFocatione in- 
 terirent, ipso etiam Pompilio mandante, in litus navem redu- 
 cunt. Cui e navi egredienti, nova murium caterva occurrit, 
 
300 APPENDIX A. 
 
 et cum his qui ilium in stagna consecuti fuerant, simul con- 
 juncta tyrannum vehementius infestant. His itaque et aliis 
 pluribus remediis, ne quicquam proficientibus, virtutem divi- 
 nam universi agnoscentes, ab eo difFugiunt. Qui videns se 
 ab omnibus desertum, in turrim castri Crusviciensis excel] en- 
 tiorem cum conjuge et duobus filiis conscendit, ubi a super- 
 abundante murium multitudine, a quibus sine intervallo 
 oppugnabantur, duo primum filii, eo et infelice matre inspec- 
 tante, nullamque ferre valentibus opem, deinde crudelissima 
 conjux, et ipse ad extremum tyrannus Popiel adeo lacerati et 
 corrosi, et cum singulis partibus artubusque devorati sunt, ut 
 neque, alicujus ossis vel nervi vestigium reliquerent. In 
 hunc modum scelestus et impius Popiel cum suggestrice iniqua, 
 altera Jesabel et filiis, ultione divina deletus et insolito novoque 
 genere mortis consumptus, manibus necatorum patruorum 
 et procerum justas poenas dedit." Dlugoss, lib. i. col. 76 
 et?7. 
 
301 
 
 APPENDIX B. Page 221. 
 
 ESCAPE OF STANISLAS LECSZINSKI. 
 
 The escape of this prince from, Dantzic is one of the most 
 romantic incidents in either history or biography ; if possible, it 
 exceeds in interest that of the equally unfortunate Prince Charles 
 after the battle of Culloden. The following account is abridged 
 from one drawn up by the king himself: I preserve as much as 
 possible the very words of the royal relater. 
 
 THE king, having procured a peasant's dress, left his hotel in 
 Dantzic, in which he had been so long and so closely invested 
 by the Muscovite troops, about ten o'clock in the evening of 
 June 27. 1734, just as the city resolved to capitulate. After 
 passing the ditch surrounding the rampart, he and his com- 
 panions, all peasants, except one of his generals, proceeded in a 
 boat, (the whole country was then inundated by the waters of 
 the Vistula,) to seek the bed of that river, in the hope that by 
 dawn of day they would have gained the bank opposite to the 
 posts held by the Russians. But daylight surprised them before 
 they had sailed an English mile, and they were compelled to 
 pass the day in a mean cabin within sight of the city, and in 
 momentary risk of being surprised by the enemy. At nightfall 
 they resumed their precarious voyage ; and at midnight the 
 general and two companions left the others to sail over the marsh, 
 while they endeavoured to find a more practicable route by 
 land. He saw the general no more. He was now left with 
 two guides only, on whose discretion he could not place much 
 reliance, and whose fidelity appears to have been more than 
 once, though, as the result proves, unjustly, suspected by him. 
 
 At daybreak, the little party were again anxious to procure 
 some hiding-place until night ; but as the houses were likely 
 to be filled with Cossacks, there was great peril in the attempt. 
 They found a hut belonging to an acquaintance of the two 
 countrymen. Here the king was ushered into a small chamber 
 
302 APPENDIX B. 
 
 the only one in the house ; and left to his reflections, on a 
 bundle of straw, while his conductors went out to reconnoitre ; 
 and, if possible, to discover some trace of the general and their 
 companions. These reflections were not of the most pleasing 
 description : every moment he feared to be taken, by the arrival 
 of the Russians, or through the treachery of his guides. He could 
 not sleep. " I rose up, and on looking out at a loop-hole, per- 
 ceived a Russian officer gravely pacing the meadow, and two 
 soldiers watching their horses graze. The sight stopped my 
 breath. The thoughtful air of the man, who seemed intent on 
 something, the horses, which he continually approached, as if 
 impatient to make use of them, the armed soldiers, and their 
 appearance in a place so far distant from their camp, all made 
 me apprehensive that I had fallen into the net I had been 
 so careful to avoid. There is something more valuable than 
 courage, something which I was near losing, I mean hope-, 
 by which that courage is often inspired and supported. My 
 alarm was still further increased on perceiving, about a hundred 
 paces behind, several Cossacks galloping along the fields : they 
 were approaching the wretched shelter in which I had expected 
 to find more security than any where else. The unexpected 
 sight made me draw back from my window to my straw pallet. 
 I thought of nothing but how to escape the pursuit of the 
 men who surrounded me. I expected to see the house invested 
 in a moment : more than this was done ; it was not blockaded, 
 but instantly occupied ; and steps were heard on the stair as- 
 cending to my loft." 
 
 This, however, was a false alarm : the Cossacks, indeed, were 
 in the house, but only to take refreshment ; and the steps on 
 the stairs were those of the hostess, whom his conductors, just 
 arrived, had sent to desire him to lie quiet. In about two hours 
 the Cossacks departed ; but he had great difficulty in satisfying 
 the inquisitiveness of his hostess, who, though simple enough, 
 could easily perceive he was no peasant. 
 
 " Towards night, being heartily tired of my situation in the 
 loft, I descended to converse with my conductors. They knew, 
 they said, that the general was only a quarter of a league off, 
 and that he purposed to join us at night on the border of the 
 Vistula, where a boat was ready to take us over ; but they 
 
ESCAPE OF STANISLAS LECSZINSKI. 303 
 
 doubted whether the passage could be made in the high wind 
 then blowing, and in a boat so small, and so unfit for the ob- 
 ject, as the one they had procured. * Let us try, at any rate,' 
 said I : * I see no danger so great as remaining longer where 
 we are. * 1 could no longer distrust men who, having eat and 
 drunk with my enemies, had preferred my safety to their own 
 interests ; who, amidst the smoke of tobacco, and with a kind 
 of beer well fitted to muddle their senses, had courage and 
 honesty enough to preserve the fidelity they had promised me. 
 My resolution was opposed by them. At nightfall we re- 
 entered the boat, which, however, we left a short distance from 
 the hut, on the verge of the inundation. We now travelled some 
 miles on foot : the ground was so soft and muddy that we 
 were often knee-deep in it, and were constantly obliged to aid 
 each other in getting out of it : sometimes our efforts to do so 
 only plunged us the more deeply into the mire. 
 
 " At length we gained the brink of the Vistula. Here 
 one of my conductors desired me to wait a moment, while he 
 went to see if the boa| was ready at the place appointed. He 
 kept us in suspense a full hour ; and when he returned, we 
 learned that no boat was in sight, and that the Russians had 
 probably taken it away. All that we could now do, was to 
 re-enter the marsh we had just left. We followed another 
 route, and after walking a league, as painful a walk as the 
 one we had just supported, we arrived at a house in which 
 I was instantly recognised. " What do I see ! " exclaimed 
 my host, the moment he saw me. " One of our comrades to 
 be sure ! " replied one of the conductors : " dost thou see any 
 thing extraordinary in him ?" " I am not deceived," rejoined 
 the man : " it is king Stanislas ! " " Yes, friend !" said I, in 
 a firm tone, " I am he ; but if I may judge from your coun- 
 tenance, you are too civil to refuse me the aid I want in my 
 present situation." This simple confession had the best pos- 
 sible effect : I understood my man at once. His free and 
 decided manner announced to me either an enemy, perhaps 
 a dangerous one, if I refused him my confidence ; or a man 
 prompt to undertake any thing or every thing, if I testified as 
 much openness as himself. He promised to provide me with 
 a boat for passing the Vistula ; and he fulfilled the promise. 
 
304< APPENDIX B. 
 
 Full of zeal, he left his house to seek one, and to ascertain in 
 what part the passage could be made with the least danger." 
 
 In the meantime the fugitive king was unexpectedly joined 
 by the peasant the leader, indeed, of the rest from whom 
 he had separated the night following his escape from the city, 
 and to whom his safety had been intrusted by the French 
 ambassador in that place. He learned that the Cossacks were 
 every where beating the bushes in search of him ; and that the 
 general, with another companion, had with difficulty escaped 
 from them the preceding night, while waiting for him on the 
 borders of the Vistula. These active emissaries of the 
 enemy stopped and strictly examined every person they met. 
 The trusty host now returned, with the news that he had 
 engaged a boat ; but as two Muscovites lodged in the boat- 
 man's house, and as many of the same nation were in the 
 immediate vicinity, he advised the king to defer the passage 
 awhile longer. It was accordingly decided that the latter 
 should remain that night and the following day in the house of 
 his kind-hearted host. * 
 
 " The following day, Thursday, July 1., I assembled my 
 people, to hear their opinion on this important passage of the 
 Vistula, which lay so near my heart. We examined all the 
 places where it might be attempted with any success. The 
 counsels of my conductors were more or less bold, their views 
 more or less feasible, according to the state of a brandy-bottle 
 which lay before them : it was the bottle which presided, and 
 regulated their deliberations. At first I heard nothing but 
 timid proposals : there was no hope of passing over undis- 
 covered ; the promised recompence, great as it was, lost all its 
 attraction ; and prisons, tortures, gibbets, were the only things 
 present to their imaginations. A new supply of the liquor 
 insensibly raised their dejected courage, and I saw the moment 
 would soon come when they would have faced the whole 
 Russian camp, and led me, without fear, through a thousand 
 batteries. I kept things in a sort of medium .by the care 
 which I took of the bottle, and by dealing out to each the dose 
 of courage which each required." 
 
 But spirits thus raised, were not likely to remain long ex- 
 cited ; they were sure to sink with the stimulant which had 
 
ESCAPE OF STANISLAS LECSZINSKI. 305 
 
 occasioned them. The little party set out ; the host first, next 
 Stanislas, and the doughty conductors brought up the rear. 
 On both sides, appeared in the distance the fires of the enemy's 
 flying camps, which thus lighted the royal fugitive on his way. 
 The sight was by no means cheering to the peasants. Their 
 fright was increased on the host's riding back to say, that he 
 perceived troops of Cossacks before them, and that he was near 
 being intercepted by them. They now held a consultation 
 without the king's permission, and insisted in the end on re- 
 turning. He strenuously opposed it, and so did the host ; all 
 however would have been vain but for the threat, that if they 
 were so base as to abandon one whom they had so solemnly en- 
 gaged to protect, he would himself call on the Cossacks to seize 
 both him and them, and would thereby have the satisfaction of 
 knowing that their situation would be no better than his own. 
 As the Cossacks moved away, the party proceeded onwards ; 
 but the heroes of the preceding day kept a respectful dis- 
 tance in the rear, resolved, no doubt, to run away should they 
 behold their charge in jeopardy. At length they reached the 
 river, embarked, and made the long desired passage. 
 
 " We were about to land, when taking my host aside, and 
 affectionately thanking him for all he had done for me, I put 
 into his hand as many ducats, drawn from my pocket, as mine 
 could hold. This was an opportunity of relieving myself of 
 a weight of money which inconvenienced me. Besides, I was 
 discharging, as I thought, a debt, not conferring a favour. 
 The honest peasant, surprised and ashamed, drew back, and 
 endeavoured to escape me. < No, no,' said I, it is in vain ; 
 you must receive this present.' As I urged him more strongly, 
 and as he renewed his attempts to escape, the others supposed 
 that I was quarrelling with him, and advanced to appease me. 
 Perceiving this movement on their part, he hastily said, that 
 to satisfy me he would accept two ducats, which he would 
 always keep as a remembrance of the happiness he had had in 
 knowing me. This noble disinterestedness charmed me the 
 more, as I had no reason to expect it from a man in his con- 
 dition. He took two ducats from my hand ; but made such 
 faces that I cannot express them." 
 
 But the king's dangers were not yet ended. At a short dis- 
 x 
 
S06 APPENDIX B. 
 
 tance from the other bank of the Vistula, the party (the host 
 had returned) entered a considerable village, which they had 
 the consolation of learning was often visited by advanced 
 posts of the Russians. The three peasants, fancying that no- 
 thing was to be feared, threw themselves on a bed and were 
 instantly asleep, while the poor fugitive kept watch. One 
 of them he at length awakened, whom he despatched to hire 
 or purchase a vehicle of some description. In about two 
 hours the fellow returned, so drunk as to be unable to stand, 
 with a man who had one to sell. The bargain was struck ; 
 when the sot, perceiving Stanislas return some ducats into a 
 purse, began to extol his fidelity, the services he had performed, 
 the risks he had run, and insisted on knowing on the spot 
 what reward he was to have for all this. His vociferations 
 soon assembled round him a considerable number of villagers, 
 who listened in mute silence, or with marks of sympathy. 
 All began to wonder how a peasant, as Stanislas seemed, could 
 have collected twenty-five ducats (the price of the vehicle), 
 and still more how he came to be attended by so many ser- 
 vants. Their suspicions were roused, and the result might 
 have proved serious, had not the leader of the conductors ex- 
 claimed to the people " Take no notice of this fellow. In 
 his cups he always speaks as if he were in the company of 
 kings and princes, instead of sinful peasants like me. If you 
 listen to him, he will make me into some great personage or 
 other." The fellow was ridiculed or hissed by most; by 
 some he was supposed to have some " method in his madness ;" 
 but the party removed with all possible expedition, laying the 
 bacchanalian at the bottom of the vehicle. They passed several 
 villages occupied by Muscovite and Sax on soldiers; but luckily 
 they escaped unobserved, until they arrived on the banks of 
 the Nogat. How to cross it was the main point. There was 
 no boat in sight, and none of the conductors were willing to 
 run the risk of detection by enquiring for a boat at any of the 
 scattered huts in sight. They insisted that the only point was 
 to proceed to Marienburg which would have been certain 
 destruction and cross the bridge of that fortress. Indignant 
 at their opposition, the king resolved to approach a neighbour- 
 ing house himself, for the purpose of giving information : 
 
ESCAPE OF STANISLAS LECSZINSKI. SO? 
 
 " At the same time I prepared to alight from the vehicle 
 but with my people this was a day of contradictions : they op- 
 posed my design, apprehensive that my speech would betray 
 me. I ridiculed their fear, alighted, and went on. They 
 threw themselves before me, muttering that they would rather 
 die than suffer me to advance a step further. This impudence 
 I could not stand, and ran towards them as if resolved to leap 
 over them. A moment afterwards I smiled at my own viva- 
 city; but how could I restrain it in the first heat of my re- 
 sentment ? My firmness made them open before me. * Well,' 
 said they, * since it is your wish to hang us, we leave you !' 
 With all my heart!' was my reply: 'go as soon as you 
 please. A good journey !' 
 
 " I entered the house ; and in tones as polished as my rustic 
 garb would permit (which I dared not contradict), I informed 
 the hostess that I wanted to pass the Nogat to purchase cattle, 
 and that I should be glad if she would point out the best place 
 for the passage. * Oh !' she replied, ' you come at an ex- 
 cellent time : you need not be at the trouble of passing the 
 river no pleasant or easy thing at any time. I have cattle 
 to sell you ; and from your manner I see that we shall easily 
 agree as to the price. ' I replied, that I could not purchase it 
 until my return, because I was compelled to pass the river to 
 receive a sum of money due to me, of which I would willingly 
 devote a portion to conclude the bargain with her. * But 
 there is no boat in ; what will you do ?' * Just as you 
 advise me,' was my answer, in an open, free tone : ' I prefer 
 receiving a favour from you rather than from any body else 
 " I know the country," added I, " and that it is impossible for 
 you, who are obliged to maintain a constant intercourse with 
 the other bank, not to have some means of crossing in spite of 
 the Muscovites.' * I see you are a good fellow,' she replied. 
 4 Stay ! I will send my son with you : he will take you about 
 a quarter of a league from here. A friend of his, a fisherman, 
 who has a boat, lives on the opposite bank ; and on a signal 
 being given, the man will cross over to take you in : you could 
 not have a safer or easier way of crossing !' I thanked the 
 woman in the most ardent terms, and left the house with her 
 son." 
 
 x 2 
 
308 APPENDIX B. 
 
 The king arrived at the place appointed, the signal was 
 given, the fisherman appeared with the boat, and the illustrious 
 fugitive was immediately landed in the Prussian dominions, 
 where he was happily free from danger. He found that orders 
 had been given by the king to afford him every assistance, and 
 show him every respect, in the towns through which he passed. 
 At Itonigsberg, he was royally entertained in the king's 
 palace. From thence he proceeded to France, to enjoy in his 
 duchy of Lorraine, which his son-in-law the French king 
 had conferred on him, a happiness which no throne could have 
 sustained. 
 
 This Christian philosopher died in 1766. His death was 
 occasioned by fire accidentally catching his dressing gown, 
 when no page was near to assist him. The feeble old man 
 (he was 89) was at length extricated from his immediate 
 agony, but he did not long survive the accident : the wounds 
 mortified and carried him off, to the regret of his subjects and 
 of humanity. 
 
309 
 
 APPENDIX C. Page 270. 
 
 STATISTICAL VIEW OF POLAND. 
 
 " THE kingdom of Poland is divided into eight palatinates ; 
 viz. Masovia, Cracow, Sandomir, Kalisz, Lublin, Plotsk, and 
 Augustowa. The population, according to the last census in 
 1829, was (exclusive of the army) 4,088,290, which may be 
 thus classed * : 
 
 " By their several races : 
 The real Poles - - 3,000,000 
 
 By their religion : 
 Roman Catholics - 
 
 - 3,400,000 
 
 Rusini, or Rusniacks, from 
 the eastern parts of an- 
 cient Poland - - 100,000 
 
 Greek Church 
 Lutherans 
 Calvinists 
 
 - 100,000 
 - 150,000 
 5,000 
 
 Lithuanians - - 200,000 
 
 Jews 
 
 . 400,000 
 
 Germans ... 300,000 
 Jews - - 400 000 
 
 Other Sects 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 4 060 000 
 
 4,000,000 
 
 
 
 " The population of the towns is to that of the country as 
 
 one to five. 
 
 Employed in agriculture, there are house- 
 holders - - 1,871,259 
 Their families and servants - 2,221,188 
 Manufactures - 140,377 
 Their families - 358,035 
 Tradesmen - 49,888 
 Their families - - 131,331 
 Landed proprietors 4,205 
 Copyholders - 1,886 
 Freeholders in towns - 41,654 
 Persons employed under government 8,414 
 Patients in the 592 public hospitals 5,376 
 Prisoners in the 76 prisons - - 7,926 
 " The proportion between the nobles and the plebeians is as 
 
 one to thirteen. 
 
 " According to a verification made by the senate in 1 824, 
 
 there were in the kingdom 12 princes, 74 counts, and 20 
 
 barons, besides the inferior or untitled nobility. 
 
 * See No. XIV. of the Foreign Quarterly Review. 
 
 x 3 
 
310 APPENDIX C. 
 
 " The city of Warsaw reckoned, in 1815, only 80,000 in- 
 habitants ; it now amounts to 140,000, besides the garrison. 
 The provincial towns are Lublin, having 13,400; Kalisch, 
 12,100; Plotsk, 9,200, &c. The population of the kingdom 
 has been increasing since 1815, at the rate of 100,000 indivi- 
 duals every year. 
 
 " It appears from Dr. Rodecki's statistical tables, published 
 at Warsaw, in 1830, that there are Jews in almost every town 
 of the kingdom of Poland ; that in 14 of these, their number 
 is equal to that of the Christians, while in 114 it is greater: 
 in three, the inhabitants are either all Jews, or almost entirely 
 so. In Warsaw alone they muster 30,000. Their number 
 is fast increasing. They monopolise almost all trade, to the 
 exclusion of the Christian population. The government has 
 endeavoured to check this evil, but with little success; and 
 with this view Professor Chiarini has been employed in trans- 
 lating the Thalmud, and in laying down a plan of reform for 
 that singular people. 
 
 " The Catholic religion being that of the great majority of 
 the kingdom, is under the special protection of the government, 
 without infringing, however, on the public freedom of other 
 forms of worship, and on the equality of individuals of every 
 communion in the enjoyment of civil rights. The Catholic 
 hierarchy consists of the archbishop of Warsaw, primate of 
 the kingdom, and eight bishops, one for each palatinate. 
 There are 1638 parish churches, 117 auxiliary ones, 6 colleges, 
 11 seminaries, 151 male convents, and 29 female. In 1819, 
 Pope Pius VII. suppressed by a bull 31 male convents and 
 13 female. The number of the clergy of the Latin Catholic 
 Church is 2740. The Greek Catholics have a bishop at 
 Chelm, 287 parish churches, one seminary, and five male con- 
 vents. Their priests amount to 354. There are, besides, six 
 churches of the Russo- Greek communion under the jurisdic- 
 tion of the bishop of Minsk, 29 Lutheran and 9 Calvinist 
 churches, having their respective consistories, 2 of the sect of 
 Philippines, 274 synagogues, and 2 Mahomedan mosques with 
 their imams ! 
 
 " The University of Warsaw was founded in 1816, in lieu 
 of that of Cracow, and it consists of five faculties, having 48 
 
STATISTICAL VIEW OF POLAND. 311 
 
 professors, and about 750 students. There are besides at 
 Warsaw four lyceums, besides other schools, Sunday schools 
 for mechanics, and girls' school. In the provinces are 11 
 palatine schools and 14 district ones. In all the kingdom there 
 are 1756 professors or teachers, nearly 30,000 students, and 
 about 11,000 female pupils. 
 
 " In all chief towns of palatinates there are civil and cri- 
 minal courts, besides commissions of peace in every district. 
 The two courts of appeal and the supreme court assemble 
 at Warsaw. The senate takes cognisance of offences against 
 the state ; there are also a court of commerce and a territorial 
 court. 
 
 " The army consisted, in 1830, of 8 regiments of infantry 
 of the line, besides the guards, 4 regiments of light infantry, 
 8 regiments of cavalry, besides the yagers of the guard, 2 
 brigades of foot artillery, and 2 ditto of horse, a corps of engi- 
 neers, &c., in all 36,000 men. The arsenal and foundery are at 
 Warsaw. There are two fortresses in the kingdom, Zamosk 
 and Modlin. Every individual from 20 to 30 years of age is 
 subject to military service, except in cases of exemption pro- 
 vided by the law. The two new military schools, formed in 
 1825, near Warsaw, have educated already 7000 pupils. 
 " The budget of 1827 consisted as follows : 
 
 Receipt* Florins. * 
 
 Direct taxes - - 17,646,652 
 
 Indirect ditto - - 40,685,630 
 
 Income of national lands and forests - 7,048,265 
 
 Income from tolls and rates on bridges, 
 
 roads, &c. - - 3,769,955 
 
 Receipt from mines, mint, prisoners' labour, 
 
 &c. 2,837,600 
 
 Total - 71,988,102 
 
 Expences. Florins, 
 
 Civil list reduced in 1822, from 2,324,705 to 1,508,150 
 Viceroy, senate, council of state - - 924,609 
 
 * The Polish florin is about sixpence sterling. It is divided into 30 
 groschet. 
 
 x 4 
 
312 APPENDIX C. 
 
 Ministry of public instruction and religious 
 
 worship - - 3,831,821 
 Ditto of justice - 2,528,301 
 Ditto of interior or home department - 3,178,909 
 Ditto of war - - 30,927,795 
 Ditto of finances - - 5,155,936 
 Secretaryship of state - - 223,000 
 Superior central authorities - - 944,965 
 Commissions of administration in the pala- 
 tinates - 3,666,526 
 Pensions, repair of roads, public buildings - 1 1 ,422,007 
 Extraordinaries - 1,866,410 
 Charges on separate administrations - 2,837,600 
 
 Total - - 69,016,030 
 
 " There are in the kingdom, especially about Kielce, mines 
 of iron, zinc, coals, and also copper and lead. 
 
 " Of the 451 towns in the kingdom 353 consist more than 
 half of wooden houses ; 83 are entirely of wood ; 6 have half 
 their houses made of brick ; and 9 consist of more brick 
 than wooden houses. Warsaw contains 1540 brick and 1421 
 wooden houses. 
 
 " Besides the towns, of which 214 are national property, 
 and 237 belong to private families, there are in the kingdom 
 22,365 villages, 5373 of which are national, and 16,992 pri- 
 vate property. 
 
 " The communications have been extensively improved since 
 1815. Two fine substantial roads cross the whole kingdom, 
 one from Kalisz to Brzesk Litewski, another from Cracow to 
 the Niemen, both passing through Warsaw. Diligences have 
 been established; inns and post-houses erected; 523 bridges 
 have been constructed or repaired. Embankments, in great 
 part of stone, have been raised to restrain the waters of the 
 Vistula. The other rivers have been cleansed, and a canal has 
 been cut to join the Narew to the Niemen. 
 
 " The city of Warsaw has wonderfully improved since the 
 peace. New streets, squares, palaces, gardens, private and 
 public buildings have been constructed either by government 
 
STATISTICAL VIEW OF POLAND. 313 
 
 or by individuals, assisted, in many instances, by the public 
 treasury. The streets are well lighted, several of them have 
 been Macadamized. The management of prisons has been 
 ameliorated ; the convicts are employed in the public works ; 
 mendicity has been suppressed. A society of beneficence has 
 been formed at Warsaw, as well as a society of the friends of 
 science. A new exchange, a new theatre, the new church of 
 St. Alexander, new barracks, and a monument to Copernicus 
 by Thorwaldsen, have been raised. 
 
 " The exports of the kingdom consist chiefly in corn and 
 cattle, besides honey, wax, timber, wool, hides, and tallow. 
 The imports are wines, tobacco, colonial produce, and articles 
 of luxury and fashion. 
 
 " The manufactures of woollen cloth, linen, carpets, and 
 leather, have thriven since the peace. While in 1815 there 
 were hardly 100 looms for coarse woollen cloths, there are 
 now above 6000, which supply the whole kingdom, in- 
 cluding the army. More than 10,000 families of foreign 
 workmen, chiefly German and Swiss, have expatriated to 
 Poland, where they have built new towns and peopled districts 
 formerly deserted. There are numerous distilleries of spirits, 
 and the brewing trade is also very extensive ; they brew porter 
 and ale equal to those of England, By the former laws of 
 Poland commerce was depressed, and no noble, however poor, 
 could, without degradation, resort to it, whilst he often served 
 in a menial capacity a richer nobleman. 
 
 " The balance of trade between the kingdom of Poland and 
 the neighbouring states in 1827 stood as follows: 
 
 Florins. 
 
 Imports from Russia - 11,079,683 
 
 Exports to ditto - - - 1 4,548,522 
 
 Imports from Prussia - 20,318,433 
 
 Exports to ditto ... 15,544,730 
 
 Imports from Austria . 8,527,480 
 
 Exports to ditto ... 91,967 
 
 Imports from the republic of Cracow - 748,857 
 Exports to ditto ... 2,880,265 
 
314 APPENDIX C 
 
 ** Agriculture, which is still the principal occupation of the 
 population, suffers under a depression of prices. In 1827, 
 they reaped 4,439,399 korzecs* of rye, 3,183,023 of oats, 
 1,506,062 of barley, and 751,076 of wheat, besides 4,288,185 
 korzecs of potatoes, and hay, flax, hemp, and honey. The 
 cattle are improving both in quantity and quality. 
 
 "In 1827, there were in the kingdom 694,728 cows; 
 475,946 oxen ; 259,990 calves ; 703,207 pigs ; about 2,500,000 
 sheep ; 192,841 horses ; 8771 stallions ; 167,901 mares. 
 About one half of the extent of the territory of the kingdom 
 may be reckoned to be cultivated, one fourth of the remainder 
 is occupied by forests, and the rest by marshes and uncultivated 
 lands. 
 
 " Since the establishment of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 
 the peasantry of that part of Poland have been emancipated ; 
 they live on the estates of the great landlords, each family 
 having a cabin and thirteen acres of ground, on condition of 
 working for the owner three days in the week. They may 
 remove themselves, by giving up their tenements. Several 
 proprietors have adopted the system of free labour and wages." 
 
 * A korzec is nearly two hundred weight. It is divided into 3:2 garniecs, 
 of four kwartz each, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ACHMET SHAH, in pursuance of his 
 treaty, advances on the confines 
 of the Ukraine ; receives no aid 
 from the Polish king ; assailed by 
 the rival chief ; flies for safety into 
 the states of his allies, 126. After 
 wandering through vast deserts, 
 demands protection from his 
 allies ; seized by the palatin of 
 Kiow, 128. Conducted to Wilna 
 to wait the pleasure of the king; 
 kept a prisoner for three years; 
 appears before a diet at Radomski ; 
 reception of, by the king; his dig- 
 nified complaints; detained at 
 Troki, and obliged to promise 
 that he would not escape; the 
 khan of the Crimea urges his per- 
 petual imprisonment ; breaks his 
 parole ; flies from Troki ; over- 
 taken and brought back, and con- 
 fined in the fortress of Kowno in 
 Samogitia, 129. 
 
 Adelaide, a German princess, mar- j 
 riage of, with Casimir III. ; her 
 jealousy ; banished to a fortress, 
 97. 
 Adolphus, Gustavus, successor to 
 
 Charles, 177. Death of, 178. 
 Agnes, wife of Uladislas II., causes 
 count Peter to be seized at an 
 entertainment, thrown into pri- 
 son, and deprived of his tongue 
 and eyes, 61. Becomes the cap- 
 tive of the princes whose ruin 
 she had all but effected; con- 
 ducted to the frontier of the 
 duchy, and desired to rejoin her 
 kindred ; excommunicated by the 
 pope, 62. 
 Albert, emperor, wars of the, in 
 
 Moravia, 83. 
 
 Albert, formerly Sigismund, esta- 
 blished king of Bohemia and Hun- 
 gary ; death of, 113. 
 Albert, John, son of Casimir, at the 
 head of the Poles, frees Lithuania 
 from the Tatars, 120. 
 Albert, John, third son of Casimir 
 
 IV., elected king of Hungary; 
 taken prisoner ; renounces all 
 claim to the Hungarian crown ; 
 set at liberty, 121. Succeeds his 
 father Casimir IV., 124. At the 
 head of a considerable force of 
 Poles, of Lithuanian and Teu- 
 tonic auxiliaries, invades Wal- 
 lachia ; the sequel of this inglo- 
 rious expedition ; returns home ; 
 becomes more dear to the nation 
 from his disasters, 125. Prevails 
 on a Bulgarian khan to assist him 
 in making head against the Mus- 
 covites and the other khan, 126. 
 Makes peace with Ivan, and 
 abandons his ally to his fate ; his 
 death and character, 127. 
 
 Albert of Brandenburg, grand 
 master of the Teutonic knights, 
 lays siege to some Pomeranian 
 fortresses ; opposed by Firley, pa- 
 latine of Sandomir ; sues for 
 peace ; his perfidy ; again com- 
 pelled to invoke the magnani- 
 mity of his uncle, 133. Embraces 
 the doctrine of Luther ; resigns 
 his dignity; created prince of 
 Eastern Prussia ; marriage of, 134. 
 
 Albert, duke of Prussia, 144. 
 
 Alencon, the duke of, 156. 
 
 Alexander III., pope, at the en- 
 treaty of Casimir II. abolishes 
 the law of Boleslas Wrymouth ; 
 declares the sovereignty of Poland 
 hereditary in the descendants of 
 the reigning grand dukes, 66. 
 
 Alexander, son of Casimir IV., 
 elected grand duke of Lithuania, 
 124. Coronation of, by his bro- 
 ther, archbishop of Gnesna, 127. 
 Death of, 129. 
 
 Alexander Komecpolski, grand en- 
 sign of the crown, 183. 
 
 Alexander, emperor, interview of, 
 with Napoleon, 253. His manoeu- 
 vres with the Poles, 258. Po- 
 pular in Poland, 262. Promises to 
 unite Lithuania with Poland, 265. 
 
 Alexis, tsar, father of Peter the 
 Great, 185 ; acquires vast terri- 
 
316 
 
 tories at the expense of the re- 
 public, 191. 
 
 Ali, pacha, punished wi f h death by 
 the sultan, 181. 
 
 Amurath II., offers to raise the siege 
 of Belgrade, on condition that 
 Hungary would become tribu- 
 tary; it is indignantly rejected by 
 Uladislas, 114. Exasperated at 
 the perfidy of the Christians, re- 
 turns with a mighty force to the 
 theatre of war, 115. 
 
 Amurath IV., sultan, disavows the 
 hostilities of his pachas, 181. 
 
 Andrew, brother of Zborowski, con- 
 victed of high treason, 166. 
 
 Anhalt, the margrave of, assas- 
 sinates Prezemislas. king of Po- 
 land, 82. 
 
 Anne, princess, wife of Casimir the 
 Great, death of, 97. 
 
 Anne, princess, niece of Casimir 
 the Great, marriage of, with Ula- 
 dislas IV., 11]. 
 
 Anne, princess, sister of Sigismund, 
 Augustus, 159. 
 
 Anne, grand duchess, her troops 
 enter Courland, expel Maurice; 
 soon after called to the imperial 
 throne ; invests Birou with the 
 fief of Courland, 222. 
 
 Attila, 2. 
 
 Austria, willing to restore Poland. 
 256. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bar, a little town of Podolia, a con- 
 federation formed at, for the 
 avowed purpose of treeing the 
 country from foreign influence, 
 238. 
 
 Barbarossa, Frederick, successor to 
 Conrad, emperor of Germany, 
 62. 
 
 Batory, voivode of Transylvania, 
 158. 166. 
 
 Bautzen, the peace of, 22. 
 
 Bela, prince of Hungary, crowned 
 king by Boleslas 111., 35. 
 
 Benedict, pope, refuses to erect 
 Poland into a kingdom, in conse- 
 quence of its vices, 18. 
 
 Benedict IX., 31. 
 
 Bessarabia, 185. 
 
 Biron, banishment of, by Peter j 
 recalled by Catherine II., 231. 
 
 Bogdan, a Wallachian chief, lays 
 siege to Halitz, and next to Leo- 
 pol ; retreats at the approach of 
 Sigismund ; pursued by the cas- 
 tellan of Cracow, who vanquishes 
 him in an action on the banks of 
 the Dniester, 132 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bogdan Chmielnicki, a veteran Cos- 
 sack, summoned before Alexander 
 Koniecpolski, grand ensign of the 
 crown ; cast into prison, 183. Ap- 
 peals to the diet at Warsaw for 
 redress; his wife murdered; his ha- 
 bitation burned, in the flames of 
 which his infant son perishes, 184. 
 Seizes on the whole of theUkraine ; 
 wreaks his vengeance on the Je- 
 suits and Jews : joined by vast 
 hordes of Tatars, 185. Advances 
 into Red Russia ; Leopol opens 
 its gates to him ; the whole palati- 
 nate acknowledges his power, 186. 
 Indignant at the perh'dy of the 
 Poles, prepares for a new cam- 
 paign; obtains a powerful ally, 
 the Tatar khan Islaf, 188. De- 
 serted by his ally the khan, is 
 induced to accept the terms 
 proposed by the king ; scarcely 
 reaches the Ukraine when he is 
 obliged to prepare for another 
 war ; applies to the sultan for 
 aid, but in vain ; Greeks, Luther, 
 ans, Arians, and anabaptists 
 flock to his standard, 189. His 
 forces routed with great slaughter; 
 retreats towards the Borysthenes, 
 189. Applies for aid to the tsar 
 Alexis ; oilers to become his vas- 
 sal, 190. Invests Kaminiec; his son 
 killed, 190. Death of; stigmatised 
 by the Polish writers as a traitor 
 and rebel ; a review of his life and 
 actions, 194. 
 
 Bohemian garrisons, their victory 
 over the combined Russians, Ta- 
 tars, and Lithuanians, near Lub- 
 lin, 83. 
 
 Bohemians, revolt of the, 26. Their 
 chief assassinated in the tent oi! 
 Henry V. of Germany ; insist on 
 returning to their homes, 55. 
 
 Boleslas, duke of Bohemia, 19. 
 
 Boleslas, son of Judith and Uladislas 
 Herman I., birth of, 45. Reduces 
 the Pomeranians in the fortress 
 in Silesia, 48. 
 
 Boleslas, duke of Breslaw (son of 
 Uladislas and Agnes), 66. 
 
 Boleslas, duke of Masovia, obtains 
 the crown of Poland ; deprived of 
 it by Henry duke of Breslaw, 79. 
 
 BoJeslas I., surnamed Chrobri, or 
 Lion-hearted, son of Miecislas and 
 Dombrowka, ascends the ducal 
 throne; his immoderate ambi- 
 tion ; his reception of Otho III., 
 who elevates his duchy into a 
 kingdom ; is solemnly anointed 
 by the archbishop of Gnesna ; 
 and the royal crown placed on his 
 head by imperial hands, 20. His 
 
triumphs over the Bohemians ; 
 takes their duke, and his eldest 
 son, prisoner ; restores the ducal 
 throne to Ulric, second son of the 
 fallen chief; returns to Bohemia 
 to espouse the interests of Ulric j 
 driven from Bohemia, 21. Pene- 
 trates as far as Holstein ; reduces 
 the towns and fortresses in his 
 way, filling all Germany with 
 consternation ; falls back on Si- 
 lesia, to repair the disasters sus- 
 tained by the arms of his son 
 Miecislas, 22. Espouses the cause 
 of Swiatopelk ; marches against 
 Yaroslaf, who had seized on the 
 dominions of his fugitive brother ; 
 encounters him on the banks of 
 the Bug ; obtains the victory ; 
 pursues the fugitives to the walls 
 of Kiow, which he invests and 
 takes ; gains another victory over 
 the Russians on the banks of the 
 Bug ; defeats the Russians in a 
 third battle on the Bug ; returns 
 to his capital, 23. The last six 
 years' of his reign he spent in 
 endeavouring to repair the evils 
 which his ambition had occa- 
 sioned ; convokes an assembly at 
 Gnesna, in which his son is no- 
 minated his successor ; his advice 
 to his son ; his death ; the true 
 founder of his country's great- 
 ness, 24. 
 
 Boleslas II., surnamed the Bold, 
 succeeds his father Casimir, 34. 
 Expedition of, in favour of Bela, 
 prince of Hungary, who aspires 
 to the throne of his brother An- 
 drew, 35. Again invades Hun- 
 giry, to espouse the interest of 
 eysa the son of Bela, 35. His 
 expeditions into Russia, to espouse 
 the cause of Isislaf; marches 
 against Ucheslaf the son of Ya- 
 roslaf; subdues Volhynia; sub- 
 dues Prezemysl ; returns to Rus- 
 sia, 37. His generosity to the 
 Kiovians, 38. His followers se- 
 ven years absent from home (in 
 Hungary and Russia) ; the con- 
 sequence attending this absence, 
 39. His followers leave him, and 
 return home ; he also returns 
 and inflicts vengeance on his sol- 
 diers and their guilty wives, 40. 
 His cruelty ; his character under- 
 goes a complete change; Stanislas, 
 bishop of Cracow, expostulates 
 with him on his excesses ; he is 
 excommunicated,41. Assassinates 
 Stanislas, bishop of Cracow ; is 
 deposed by pope Gregory VII.; 
 liis subjects absolved from their 
 
 EX. 317 
 
 oath of allegiance, 42. An inter- 
 dict placed on his kingdom ; dis- 
 dains submission to the church ; 
 endeavours to resist the execution 
 of its mandates ; is regarded with 
 horror by the clergy and people ; 
 in daily fear of assassination by 
 his own people ; flies to Hungary, 
 accompanied by his son Miecislas; 
 his end is wrapt in great obscu- 
 rity ; various accounts as to 
 what became of him; his cha- 
 racter, 43. 
 
 Boleslas III., marriage of, to a Rus- 
 sian princess, 51. Hastens to 
 humble the presumption of the 
 Bohemians, who fly before him, 
 
 51. Raises the siege of Colberg, 
 
 52. His second expedition against 
 the Pomeranians; makes a third 
 expedition against them, and his 
 rebellious brother Sbigniew; his 
 expedition against theBohemians, 
 the cause of whose exiled duke 
 he had espoused; marches into 
 Pomerania, and furiously assails 
 Belgard, 52. Intrepidity of, exhi- 
 bited, 53. Requests the aid of 
 his brother's troops, who refuses 
 with expressions of insult and 
 defiance; invades the territories 
 of his brother; reduces his strong- 
 est places with rapidity, 53. En- 
 gages in a war against the Bohe- 
 mians and with Henry V. empe- 
 ror of Germany, who espouses 
 their interest ; is victorious; 
 marches to reduce the town of 
 Wollin, in Pomerania, that had 
 revolted; invests the place; takes 
 several prisoners, one of whom is 
 his brother, 54. Exhorts the in- 
 habitants of Glogaw to hold out ; 
 procures the assassination of the 
 Bohemian chief, 55. Marriage 
 of, with Adelaide, sister of 
 Henry V. of Germany, 55. His 
 ambition ; recalls his exiled bro- 
 ther; yields to the incessant 
 arguments of his courtiers, and 
 agrees to the assassination of 
 Sbigniew; his remorse; quells 
 the insurrections in Pomerania; 
 undertakes to convert it to the 
 true iaith, 56. Visits the shrines 
 of several saints ; imposes severe 
 austerities on himself, 57. His 
 defeat on the banks of the Niester 
 by the Hungarians and Russians ; 
 divides his dominions among his 
 sons ; his death, 58. 
 
 Boleslas, prince, second son of Bo- 
 leslas, 59. 
 
 Boleslas IV. confirms his brothers 
 in their respective appanages, 62. 
 
318 
 
 Summoned by Barbarossa to sur- 
 render his throne to Uladislas; 
 aided by his brothers and his sub- 
 jects, prepares to defend his own 
 dignity and the national inde- 
 pendence, 63. In one expedition 
 reduces the Prussians ; in a se- 
 cond expedition, his troops sur- 
 prised and almost annihilated, 
 63. 
 
 Boleslas V., surnamed the Chaste, 
 son of Lesko the White, a struggle 
 for the guardianship of his per- 
 son between his uncle Conrad, 
 and his cousin Henry, duke of 
 Breslaw, 72. Espouses Cunegund, 
 daughter of Bela, king of Hun- 
 gary, 74. Kept a close prisoner 
 by his uncle and guardian, Con. 
 rad ; his escape ; claims the aid 
 of Henry, duke of Breslaw, 74. 
 Flees to Hungary ; retreats to a 
 monastery in the heart of Mora- 
 via; his pusillanimous desertion 
 of his people draws on him the 
 execration of those who survive, 
 75. Recal of; again flies into 
 Hungary, 76. Subdues and 
 nearly annihilates the Jadvingi ; 
 compels the few who survived to 
 receive baptism ; overthrows the 
 Russians, 77. 
 
 Bonaparte deceives the Poles, 247. 
 252. 256. 
 
 Boris, marshal of the court of 
 Moscow ; his sister married to 
 the tsar Feodor ; ascends the 
 imperial throne ; makes an al- 
 liance with Sigismund, 172. Sud- 
 den death of, 173. 
 
 Brandenburg, marquis of, invests 
 Dantzic, the chief city of Pome- 
 rani a, 85. 
 
 Brandenburg, the elector of, be- 
 sieges and takes the city of El- 
 bing; assumes the title of king, 
 219. Recognised king of Prussia, 
 237. 
 
 Branicki, grand general of the 
 crown, 230. 
 
 Breslaw, bishop of, son of Sigis- 
 mund III., 186. 
 
 Bretislas, duke of Bohemia, invades 
 Silesia, 48. 
 
 Bruhl, count, minister of Frederic 
 Augustus, resembles his master 
 in idle pomp and dissipation ; his 
 ascendancy over the king, 228. 
 
 Budchaz, the peace of, 203. 
 
 Bug, banks of the, a battle fought 
 on the,between the Poles and Rus- 
 sians, in which the former were 
 victorious ; another battle fought 
 between the Russians and Poles, 
 in which the latter were vic- 
 
 torious ; a third battle fought on 
 the, 23. 
 
 Caplan Pacha, 203. Retreat of, 
 beyond the Danube, 204. 
 
 Calvin dedicates a book to Sigis- 
 mund II., 142. 
 
 Carlowitz, peace of, 219. 
 
 Casimir, prince, waited on by Po- 
 lish deputies in the abbey of 
 Clugni ; is absolved from his mo- 
 nastic vows ; his reception by his 
 people, 31. 
 
 Casimir I. (the Restorer) conciliates 
 Yaroslaf by marrying a Russian 
 princess, 32. His success at home 
 and abroad, 33, 34. 
 
 Casimir, prince, no portion left him 
 by his father, 59. His honourable 
 moderation 64 He at length ac- 
 cepts the ducal crown, 65. 
 
 Casimir II., procures the abolition 
 of a great abuse, 65. Peculiar 
 mildness of, 66. Triumphs over 
 the Hungarians, Russians, and 
 Prussians, 67. Clemency, death, 
 and character of, 68. 
 
 Casimir, son of Uladislas III., made 
 governor of Great Poland, 87. 
 Marriage of, with a Lithuanian 
 princess, 89. 
 
 Casimir III. (the Great\ makes 
 peace with the Teutonic knights ; 
 reforms abuses, makes laws, &c., 
 91, 92. The patron of industry, 
 
 95. His taste in building ; pro- 
 cures the recognition of Lewis 
 king of Hungary as his successor, 
 
 96. His great qualities sullied by 
 excesses ; he marries and repu- 
 diates the princess Adelaide, 97. 
 Other excesses ; age only tames 
 him, 98. Death and character of, 
 98. 
 
 Casimir, prince, elected king of 
 Bohemia; made grand duke of 
 Lithuania, 113. 
 
 Casimir IV., refuses to swear to 
 the pacta conventa ; flees into 
 Lithuania to escape his new sub- 
 jects, 117. Transactions of, with 
 the Russians, 118. Partiality of, 
 towards the Lithuanians, 119. 
 Death and character of, 123: 
 
 Castlereagh, lord, transaction of, 
 at Vienna, 257. 
 
 Catherine (widow of Peter the 
 Great), death of, 222. 
 
 Catherine II. orders her troops to 
 take possession of Courland, 250. 
 Seeks an alliance with Prussia, 
 231. Manoeuvres of, 243. 
 
 Celestine III., pope, sends cardinal 
 
319 
 
 Peter into Poland, 72. Approves 
 the order of Teutonic knights, 73. 
 
 Cesarini, cardinal, 115. 
 
 Charles VII. of France, 115. 
 
 Charles IX., 152. 
 
 Charles Gustavus, accession of, 191. 
 Proclaims himself the champion 
 of protestantism, 192. Invades 
 Poland ; his success ; invests John 
 Casimir in Dantzig, 193. Re- 
 called to the defence of his here- 
 ditary states ; death of, 194. 
 
 Charles of Lorraine, 199. 
 
 Charles XII. of Sweden, 220. In. 
 vades Poland ; procures the eleva- 
 tion of Stanislas, 221. 
 
 Charles, prince, elected duke of 
 Courland : flies from thence, 
 229 
 
 Chodkiewicz, general, 170. Inflicts 
 a terrible defeat on the Swedes, 
 172. Other exploits and death 
 of, 179. 
 
 Christianity introduced into Po- 
 land, 16. 
 
 Christina, queen, abdication of, 
 191. 
 
 Clement V., pope, 85. 
 
 Colberg, 52. 
 
 Commendoni, the papal legate, 149. 
 
 Commerce flourishes, 55. 
 
 Conde, prince of, 199. 
 
 Conrad, emperor, 29. 62. 
 
 Conrad, brother of Lesko the 
 White, 71. His exploits, 73. 
 Aims at the life and throne of his 
 nephew, 74. kindles the flame of 
 civil war ; death of, 75. 
 
 Constance, council of, condemns 
 the doctrines of Huss, 109. 
 
 Constantine, grand duke, 266. His 
 flight, 273. 
 
 Cossacks, their origin, religion, and 
 habits, 162. Their fidelity, 164. 
 Their first insurrection and fail- 
 ure, 183. Their harassing incur- 
 sions, 184. Their second general 
 insurrection, 184. Their suc- 
 cesses, 191. 
 
 Courland, duchy of, 220. 222. 
 
 Cracow, city of, founded, 5. Fall 
 of, 62. Throws off its allegiance 
 to Miecislas III., 66. Battle 
 fought near, 68. Council held at, 
 68. Besieged ; its gallant de- 
 fence, 78. Tribunal of, 164. 
 Bishop of, his dissolute habits, 
 and rebellion. Republic of, 
 founded, 259. University of, 
 suppressed, 251. 
 
 Cracus, the founder of Cracow, 5. 
 
 Crimea, 185. 
 
 Cujavia, bishop of, his condemna- 
 tion of a married priest, 139. 
 
 Cunegund, princess of Hungary, 75. 
 
 Czarniecki, victory of, at Polouka, 
 
 155. 
 Czartorinskis, intrigues of the, 230. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dantzic, city of, its siege, 85. Re- 
 fuses to acknowledge Stephen, 159. 
 Among the first converts to the 
 Christian faith, 143. War of, 
 with Stephen, 160. Invested by 
 Charles Gustavus, 193. Port of, 
 closed, 262. 
 
 Daskiewitz, Ostafi, disciplines the 
 Cossacks, 163. 
 
 Decius, testimony of, 290. 
 
 Demetrius, a Russian prince, assas- 
 sinated by Boris, 172. 
 
 Demetrius, the adventurer, appears 
 in Poland, 172. Ascends the 
 throne of the tsars, 173. Assas- 
 sination of, 173. 
 
 Demetrius, another impostor, ex- 
 ploits of, 174. 
 
 De Thou, testimony of, 290. 
 
 Dissidents, the, 149. Persecution 
 
 - of, 223. 
 
 Dlugoss, testimony of, 289. 
 
 Dombrowska, princess of Hun- 
 gary, marriage of, 16. 
 
 Dombrowki, general-in-chief of 
 the Polish legions in Italy, 246. 
 Advice of, to the Poles, 265. 
 
 Dulceans, heretics, 90. Quartered 
 and burnt, 91. 
 
 Elbing city, of, besieged and taken, 
 219. 
 
 Eleanor, Austrian princess, 201. 
 
 Elizabeth, regent of Poland, 100. 
 Accepts the crown for her daugh- 
 ter Hedwig, 102. 
 
 Elizabeth, widow of Albert, her in- 
 trepidity, and transactions with 
 Uladislas V., 111. 
 
 Ernest, archduke of Austria, 152. 
 
 Esther the Jewess, 97. 
 
 Eudoxia, a Russian princess, mar- 
 riage of, 46. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fratricelli, a religious sect, 90. 
 Ferdinand, 222. 
 
 Firley, general of Sigismund, 133. 
 Firley, marshal, 148. 
 Flagellants, austerities of the, 99. 
 Franciscans labour to convert the 
 
 Jadvingi, 77. 
 Frederic, cardinal, 127. 
 Frederic of Saxony, grand master, 
 
 his death, 132. 
 
320 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Frederic Augustus, abjures the Lu- 
 theran religion; is crowned at 
 Cracow, 218. Treaty of, with 
 the tsar Peter, 220. Deposition 
 of, by Charles XII. ; restoration 
 of, 221. 
 
 Frederic Augustus II., 227. Aban- 
 dons himself to hunting and 
 smoking ; resides chiefly in Sax- 
 ony, 228. Abandons Poland never 
 to return, 231. 
 
 French revolution of 1830, sensa- 
 tion of, in Poland, 272. 
 
 G. 
 
 Galicia restored to Austria, 250. 
 Gedeon, archbishop of Cracow, 65. 
 Gedymin, duke of Lithuania, 89. 
 Gerlivius restored to Austria, 259. 
 Germany, passim. 
 George, son of Bogdan, recognised 
 
 beyond the Borysthenes, 195. 
 Glinski, 129. 131. 
 
 Glogaw,city of, its heroic defence,54. 
 Gnesna, once the capital of Poland, 
 
 4. Assembly at, recalls Casimir I., 
 
 31. Espouses the cause of the 
 
 son of Boleslas Wrymouth, 61. 
 
 Archbishop of, his dignity, 283. 
 Gnievomir, a powerful Pomeranian 
 
 chief, 54. 
 
 G^ttard, duke of Courland, 161. 
 Gratiani, voivode of Moldavia, 175. 
 Gregory VII., pope, 42. 
 Griffina, widow of Lesko, will forged 
 
 by her, 79. 
 Grodno, diet at, 222. 
 Guzaw, engagement at, 170. 
 
 H. 
 
 Halitz, province of, rendered de- 
 pendent on Poland byCasimirI.,71. 
 
 Hedwig, daughter of Lewis of 
 Hungary, queen of Poland, 102. 
 Her suitors, 103. Romantic at- 
 tachment to duke William, but 
 her wise marriage with Jagello, 
 104. Her unhappiness and death, 
 111. 
 
 Helen, princess, her credulity and 
 disappointments, 59. 
 
 Henry of Bavaria, emperor, wars 
 of, with Boleslas 1., 24. 
 
 Henry V-, emperor, attacks Glogaw, 
 54. Retreats, is defeated, and 
 makes peace with Boleslas, 55. 
 Approves the order of Teutonic 
 knights, 73. 
 
 Henry, prince. 59. Expedition of, 
 against the Russians, 63. 
 
 Henry, duke of Breslaw, 73. In- 
 vades Poland j his success and 
 death, 74. 
 
 Hem y (another of the name) ti 
 vades Poland : the result, 79. 
 
 Henry of Waelfort, first grand mas- 
 ter of the Teutonic knights, 73. 
 
 Henry de Valois, duke of Anjou, 
 150 ; proclaimed king of Poland, 
 152. Crowned, 154. Unpopu- 
 larity of, 155. Becomes heir to the 
 French throne, 156. Flight of, 157. 
 
 Herman of Salsa, fourth grand mas- 
 ter of the Teutonic knights, 74. 
 
 Hirsowicz, Israel, founds a sect, 
 296. 
 
 Hungary erected into a kingdom, 
 18. Troops of, invade Poland, 6. 
 
 Huniades, general, his heroism 
 against the Turks, 114, 115. 
 
 Huss, doctrines of, 109. Their pro- 
 gress in Pomerania, &c., 136. 
 
 Hussites, 113. And Calvinists, union 
 of, 143. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ibrahim, pacha of Damascus, si:r- 
 named Shaitan, or the devil, 2U8. 
 Contest of, with Sobieski, 209. 
 
 Isislaf, gratitude of, towards BoJes- 
 las, 38. 
 
 Islaf, khan, 188. 
 
 Ivan, tsar, invades Lithuania, 126 
 
 Ivan, the Terrible, cruelties of, 145. 
 
 J. 
 
 Jablonowski, palatine, 206. 
 
 Jadvingi, inhabitants of Podlasia, 
 their extraordinary strength and 
 ferocity, 77. 
 
 Jagello, duke of Lithuania, united 
 to Hedwig, 103 Baptism, corona- 
 tion and marriage of, as Uladis- 
 las IV., 104. 
 
 Jeremy, prince, surprises the camp 
 of Bogdan, 187. Is invested, 188. 
 
 Jews, 182. Condition and conduct 
 of, in Poland, 292. 296. 
 
 John XIII., pope, 16. 
 
 John of Bohemia aspires to the 
 Polish crown, 87 ; acquires the 
 sovereignty of Silesia, 88. 
 
 John Casimir exchanges the dig- 
 nity of cardinal for the title of 
 king of Sweden, 186. Election and 
 marriage of,187. Intrigues of,with 
 a Polish lady: the result, 189. Im- 
 policy of, with respect to Sweden, 
 191. Flight of, into Silesia, 192. 
 Transactions of, with Sweden, 
 194. Proposes a successor, 196. 
 Grief of, for the death of his 
 queen, 197. Abdication of, 198. 
 
 John Sobieski, castellan of Cracow, 
 triumphs of, 201. As John 111., 
 
321 
 
 proclaimed king of Poland, 206. 
 His splendid success, 207. Ex- 
 ploits of, at Zuranow, 208. Alii- 
 ance of, eagerly sought, 210. 
 Exploits of, in the campaign of 
 Vienna, 212. Expedition of, into 
 Wallachia ; pursues the aggran- 
 disement of his family; uxorious, 
 ness of, 213. Last years and death 
 of, 215. 
 
 Joseph II., emperor, banishes Frank 
 the Jew, 296. 
 
 Judith, duchess of Poland; death 
 of, 43. 
 
 Julius, pope, complaints of, against 
 the Teutonic knights, 86. Hosti- 
 lity of, towards the Turks, 135. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kaminiec invested by Bogdan, 190. 
 By the Turks and Tatars ; it falls, 
 195. Recovered by Frederic Au- 
 gustus I., 219. 
 
 Kara Mustapha, vizier and general, 
 issimo of the Turks, 212. 
 
 Kettler, grand master of the Livo- 
 nian knights, 145. Resigns his 
 dignity, and is declared hereditary 
 duke of Courland and Semigallia, 
 146. 
 
 Kettler, duke of Courland (a de- 
 scendant of the former), marriage 
 of, to the archduchess Anne, 222. 
 
 Kiow, city of, invested and taken 
 by Boleslas 1., 23. Again invested, 
 and subjected to the authority ot' 
 Isislaf, 37. Ceded finally to Rus- 
 sia by John 111., 213. 
 
 Kiow, duke of, father-in-law to Bo- 
 leslas 111,53. 
 
 Kosciuszko, generalissimo of the 
 Poles ; his patriotic exploits, 244. 
 Is made prisoner by the Russians, 
 245. Name of, unwarrantably 
 used by Bonaparte, 252. 
 
 Kotzim, the fortress of, capitulates, 
 204. Is retaken by the Turks, 
 209. 
 
 Ladislas, king of Bohemia and Hun- 
 gary, death of, 120. 
 
 Laws of Casimir the Great, com- 
 prised in two books, 92. 
 
 Lech I., 4. 
 
 Lech II., 5. 
 
 Lechia, a name sometimes given to 
 Poland, 4. 
 
 Lenszysa, legislative diet at, 66. 
 
 Leopol, school of, 1/9. Assembly 
 of, 221. College of, instituted by 
 Austria, 25,1. 
 
 Leopold, emperor, cowardice and 
 ingratitude of, 211, 212. 
 
 Lesko 1., 6. 
 
 Lesko II., 9. 
 
 Lesko 111,9. 
 
 Lesko IV., 14. 
 
 Lesko, duke of Mazovia, 66. 
 
 Lesko the White declared duke of 
 Poland, 68. Resigns the throne at 
 the instigation of his mother, 69. 
 Victory and second elevation of, 
 70. Wants vigour, 71. Assassin- 
 ation of, 72. 
 
 Lesko the Black, accession of; tri- 
 umphs over the bishop of Cracow, 
 78. Conduct and death of, 79. 
 
 Lesczynski, Raphael, hostile to the 
 catholic hierarchy, 1S9. Speech 
 of, at the diet, HO. 
 
 Lesczynski, Stanislas, made king of 
 Poland by Charles XII.; fall of, 
 221. Re-election of; narrow es- 
 cape of, from Dantzic, 227. 
 
 Lewis, king of Hungary, elected 
 successor to Casimir 111., 96. Is 
 unpopular in Poland, 99. Confides 
 the regency to his mother Eliza- 
 beth ; is recalled by the insubor- 
 dination of his Polish subjects; 
 moderate and prudent conduct of, 
 after his return, 100. Death and 
 character of, 101. 
 
 Lismanini, the Franciscan, 142. 
 
 Lithuania, 106. 187. 220, &c. 
 
 Lubomirski, grand marshal, an ex- 
 traordinary man, 196. 
 
 Luther, the doctrines of, their pro- 
 gress in Poland, 136. Dedicates 
 a translation of the Bible to Sigis- 
 mund II., 141. 
 
 Lutherans join Gustavus, 155. Se. 
 vere law against the, 225. 
 
 M. 
 
 Mahomet IV., sultan, takes the 
 
 field, 202. Further exploits of, 
 
 207. 
 Malachowski, count, boldness of, 
 
 236. 
 
 Maria Louisa, queen, 185. 196, 197. 
 Margaret, lady, anecdote of, 3P. 
 Marina, lady, elevation of, 173. 
 
 Transferred from a palace to a 
 
 dungeon, 174. Drowned, 175. 
 Martin V., pope, 120. 
 Masos, the unsuccessful rebel, 29. 
 Matthias, king of Hungary, 121. 
 Maurice of Saxe, 222. 
 Maximilian, emperor, 131. 159. 16U 
 Melancthon, 142. 
 Michael, tsar, I7- r >. 180. 
 Michael Koributh made king 
 
 against his will, 200. Trausac. 
 
 tions and death of, 203, 204. 
 
322 IN; 
 
 Miecislas I., accession and conver- 
 sion of, 16. Causes every Polish 
 pagan to be baptised, 17. Trans- 
 actions with Germany, &c., 19. 
 Death of, 20. 
 
 Miecislas II., indolence of, 25. 
 engages in war with reluctance ; 
 forced to leave for a time his 
 sensual pleasures, 26. Other acts 
 of, 28. 
 
 Miecislas III., the Old, character of, 
 64. Distressed and expelled, 65. 
 Invades Poland, 68. Stratagem 
 and success of, 69. Deprived of 
 his usurped powers,69. 
 
 Miecislas, prince, called from Hun- 
 gary, 46. 
 
 Miecislas, prince, son of Boleslas 
 III., 59. 
 
 Minucci, conversation of, 291. 
 
 Mofo, assembly held at, 36. 
 
 Mokranowski, 234. 
 
 Monluc, duplicity of, 151. 
 
 Moravia, a dependency of Bohemia, 
 48. Inhabitants of, revolt, 26. 
 
 Moscow, city of, burnt, 175. 
 
 Muscovites, passim. 
 
 N. 
 
 Napoleon. See Bonaparte. 
 
 Narva, battle of, 220. 
 
 Natolia overrun by Huniades, 114. 
 
 Neuberg, prince of, 199. 
 
 Nicholas, emperor, conspiracy at 
 his accession, 27 1. Determination 
 of, to put down the Poles in the 
 
 E resent insurrection, 277. Dis- 
 ked by the Jews, 298. 
 Notez, battle fought on the banks 
 
 of, 47. 
 Novogorod, 161. 
 
 O. 
 
 Oginskis, the, 222. 
 
 Oliva, peace of, 194. 
 
 Oppelen, duke of, 101. 
 
 Orzechowski, canon, 141. 
 
 Osman, sultan, 177. 
 
 Otho I., emperor, 19. 
 
 Otho II., 19. 
 
 Otho III., 19,20, 21. 
 
 Otho, bishop of Bamberg, 56. 
 
 Otho, duke of Posnania, 66. 
 
 P. 
 
 Pacta Conventa, 152. et passim. 
 Palatines, the twelve, unpopularity 
 
 of, 6. Privileges of, 283. 
 Pttz, the Lithuanian, 201. 
 
 Peter, count, fate of, 61. 
 
 Peter, cardinal, severity of, 72. 
 
 Peter I., tsar, treaty of, 219. 
 
 Peter 1 1 1., 229. 
 
 Piast, celebrated as the founder oi 
 
 a great race of princes, 12. 
 Podiebraski, 120, 121. 
 Podolia, 129. et passim. 
 Poland, Pole, passim. 
 Polska, 2. 
 Polotsk, 37. 
 
 Pomerania, 26. 76. et passim. 
 Poniatowski, 229. 
 Popiel I., 9. 
 Popielll, 9. 
 Posen, 82. 259. et passim. 
 Potocki, 193. 195. 230. 
 Philip of Burgundy, 115. 
 Prasinowski, primate, 201. 
 Predislas, 30. 
 Prezemislas, exploits of, rewarded 
 
 by (he sceptre, 8. 
 Prezemislas, duke of Great Poland, 
 
 76. Assumes the title of king. 81. 
 
 Assassination of, 82, 
 Prussia, Prussians, 46, 47. 65. 71. 73. 
 
 et passim. 
 Pultowa, 221. 
 
 R. 
 
 Radzechowski, chancellor, 191. 
 
 Radzivil, 205. 230. 
 
 Ragotski, duke of Transylvania, 
 
 185. 193. 
 Red Russia (now Galicia), 189. 202. 
 
 et passim. 
 
 Reformation, progress of, 139. 
 Riga, archbishop of, 144. 
 Rixa, queen regent, abandon* 
 
 Poland with her son Casimir, 28. 
 Rixa, princess, 21. 82. 
 Rudiger, the lover of Wenda, 6L 
 Ruric, 172. 
 Russia, Russians, passim. 
 
 S. 
 
 Sabatayzavi, the Jew, 296. 
 
 Salomon, king of Hungary, 36. 
 
 Samatulski, 87. 
 
 Sapiohas, the, 220. 
 
 Sbigniew, natural son of Uladislas 
 I., neglected, 48. Drawn from 
 his retirement by the Bohemian 
 ruler, 49. Depravity and restless- 
 ness of, 53, 54. Recalled, and 
 assassinated, 56. 
 
 Scanderbeg of Epirus, 115 
 
 Schonenberg, general, 133. 
 
 Sehin, general of the tsar, 180. 
 
 Sieciech, Polish general, 46. Vic- 
 tory of, 47. 1 nfluence of j tyranny 
 
S23 
 
 and unpopularity of, 48. Banish- 
 ment of, 50. 
 
 Sigismund, emperor, 109. 
 
 Sigismund I., king, orders the trial 
 of Glinski, 130. Victory of, over 
 the Muscovites, 132. Legislative 
 measures of, 135. Severity of, to- 
 wards the Lutherans, 136. Death 
 and character of, 137. 
 
 Sigismund II., disputes of, with his 
 subjects concerning his clandes- 
 tine marriage, 137. His queen 
 crowned, 139. Weak policy of, 
 with respect to religion, 142. Re- 
 ception of, at Dantzic ; ceases to 
 interfere with the faith of his 
 people, 143. Warlike actions of, 
 144. Death and character of, 146. 
 
 Sigismund III., coronation of, 168. 
 Generosity of, towards his rival ; 
 prejudice, obstinacy, and bigotry 
 of, 169. Transactions of, with 
 Sweden, 172. With Russia, 1/4. 
 Death and character of, 178. 
 
 Silesia, 20. 48. 51. 63. 88. &c. 
 
 Skirgeano, governor of Lithuania, 
 105. Rebellion of, 106. 
 
 Slavonian tribes, 2. 
 
 Smolensko, 180. et passim. 
 
 Sobieski, John, hetman, 195. 202, 
 203, 204. 206, &c. See John 
 III.) 
 
 Sophia, empress, 213. 
 
 St. Adalbert, 17. Remains of, re- 
 moved from Prussia to Gnesna, 
 20. 
 
 Stanislas, bishop of Cracow, murder 
 of, 42. 
 
 Stanislas Leszcynski, 221. 227. 
 
 Stanislas Augustus, 237. Good in- 
 tentions but weakness of, 243. 
 &c. Deposition and death of, 
 245. 
 
 Starodubski, 108. 113. 
 
 Stephen Batory, marriage and co- 
 ronation of, 159. Warlike deeds 
 of, 161, 162. &c. Wise policy of, 
 towards the Cossacks, 162. &c. 
 Establishes a superior tribunal at 
 Cracow, 164. Death and charac- 
 ter of, 166. 
 
 Suwarrow, genera], 245. 
 
 Swantopelk, governor of Pomera- 
 nia, 71, 72. 76. 
 
 Swedes, 146. 193., et passim. 
 
 Swiatopelk, a Russian prince, 22, 
 
 Swidrigal, governor of Lithuania. 
 '17, 108. 
 
 107, 
 
 T. 
 
 Talleyrand, prince, advocates th< 
 
 restoration of Poland, 257. 
 Targowitz, confederation of, 243. 
 
 Tarnowski, castellan of Cracow. 
 140. 
 
 Tatars, the, invade Poland, 75, 76. 
 Polish Russia, 119. Are defeated, 
 181. 
 
 Tenczyn, count, 155. 
 
 Teutonic knights, transactions of 
 and with, 73, 74.85,86, 87, 88. 94. 
 118, 119. 134. 
 
 Thorn, affray at, between the Lu- 
 therans and Jesuits, 223. &c. 
 
 Trembowla, 207. 
 
 Trychtymircw, 164. 
 
 Turks, the, passim. 
 
 Tynieck, abbot of, 97. 
 
 U. 
 
 Uchanski, primate, 159. 
 
 Ucheslaf, 37. 
 
 Uladimir the Great, 19. 22. 
 
 Uladislas I., 44, 45, 46. 49. &c. 
 
 Uladislas II., 6063. 
 
 Uladislas III. elected, 69. Resigns, 
 
 70. 
 
 Uladislas IV. the Short, 84. 90. 
 Uladislas V., Jagello, 105. 112. 
 Uladislas VI., 112. 116. 
 Uladislas (princes of that name), 
 
 50. 56. 59. 80. 83. 175. 
 Uladislas, king of Bohemia, son of 
 
 Casimir IV., 121. 
 Ulric, a Bohemian prince, 21. 
 Uszebor, palatin of Sendomir, 61, 
 
 V. 
 
 Vasil Shouiski, tsar, 174, 175. 
 Vasil, tsar, subjugates Livonia, 131. 
 Vasilevitch, Ivan, success of, 119. 
 Veto, the, 130. 2;>7. &c. 
 Vienna invested by the Turks and 
 
 Tatars, 211 } celebrated treaty 
 
 of, 259. 
 Volhynia, passim. 
 
 W. 
 
 Wallachia, invasion of, by John Al- 
 bert; reprisals by the voivode 
 of, 125. Invaded by John III., 
 213. et passim. 
 
 Wapowski, assassination of, 155. 
 
 Warsaw, diets held at, 230. et pas- 
 sim. Occupied by Suwaroff, 245. 
 Grand duchy of, formed, 253. 
 Destroyed, 257. University of, 
 established, 262. Erection of 
 state prisons at, 267. Emissa- 
 ries of, in France, 272. Insurrec- 
 tion of, 273. 
 
 y 2 
 
324 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Wenceslas, king of Bohemia, claims 
 the Polish crown, 79. Crowned 
 at Craqow, 82. Subjects of, dis- 
 contented ; departure of, for 
 Prague; called to the throne of 
 Hungary, which he resigns to 
 his son, 83. Death and character 
 of, 84. 
 
 Wenda, his refusal of Rudiger, 5. 
 Tragic end of, 6. 
 
 William, duke of Austria, attach, 
 ment of, to Hedvvig, 104. 
 
 William de Furstenberg, grand 
 master of the Livonian knights, 
 does homage to Sigismund, 144. 
 
 Wieliczka, mines of, 259. 262. 
 
 Wilna, diets held at, 145 et passim. 
 Bishopric of, established, 106. 
 University of, enlarged, 251. Stu- 
 dents of, punished, 267. 
 
 Wisliza, code of, 92. 281. 
 
 Witold, intrigues of, in Lithuania, 
 106. War of, with the Tatars j 
 death of, 107. 
 
 Wratislas, duke of Bohemia, 35. 
 
 Wyhowski, Cossack chief, 195. 
 
 Y. 
 
 Yaroslaf, duke of Kiow, 23. 25. 
 
 Zaluski, bishop, relation of, 214. 
 
 Zamosk, 186. 
 
 Zamo\ski, starost of Beltz, 159. 
 Obtains the chancellor's seal and 
 marshal's staff', Itil. Makes Maxi- 
 milian prisoner, whom he treats 
 nobly, 169. Exploits of, in Tran- 
 sylvania, Wallachia, &c., 170. Is 
 enthusiastically cheered by the 
 diet, 171. Defeats Charles, uncle 
 of Sigismund, 172. 
 
 Zayonozek, lieutenant of Alex, 
 ander, 262. 
 
 Zborowski, ambassador, 154. 
 
 Zborowski, Samuel, affray and ba- 
 nishment of, 155. Returns from 
 exile without permission, and is 
 arrested, 165. Implicates two 
 brothers in a charge of high 
 treason : is beheaded at Cracow 
 165. 
 
 Zemomysl succeeds Lesko IV., 14 
 
 Ziemowit (Semovitus), disciplines 
 the armies of Poland, 13. 
 
 Zolkiew, 217. 
 
 Zolkiewski, marshal, routs Shouis- 
 ki, and joins Demetrius, 174. Re- 
 turn of, to Warsaw, 174. Cut off 
 by the Turks, near the banks of 
 the Dniester (Borysthenes) ; his 
 head sent to Constantinople, 176. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SPOTTISWOODES and SHAW, 
 New -street- Square. 
 
? AN INITIAL PINE OP 25 CENTS 
 
$SS 
 
 YA 07536 
 
 
 r vj ; : 
 
 y. UV