Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/305

Rh 1573-1586.] POLAND 293 ing to a more probable account to the royal stables, where a rendezvous had been appointed. Here horses had been prepared ; and with a few chosen attendants he rode pre cipitately from his kingdom, reaching the frontiers of Silesia early on the following day. Great was the consternation in Cracow when it was known that he had fled, and hot the pursuit of the authorities. The probability of the king s flight, gathered perhaps from his ill-concealed uneasiness, had caused it to be suspected before it was known as an actual fact. The grand chamberlain, anxious to calm the universal excitement, returned to the palace to which by virtue of his office he had general access. At first he knocked at the king s door, but no answer was forthcom ing ; he then tried the chambers of the gentlemen -in- waiting ; there equally he foilnd a dead silence. Again, he returned to the king s bedroom, and, not being able to force the door, entered by the window for even in matters of etiquette they seem in Poland to have treated their kings somewhat roughly. The candles were burning as usual in the room ; the two pages were near the bed ; the curtains of the bed were drawn, but there was no Henry to be found. The grand chamberlain, amazed, rushed in pursuit, attended by five hundred cavaliers. Probably such a ludicrous sight had never been seen before as a monarch flying from his kingdom and subjects without being driven out by them. Owing to his ignorance of the route the horsemen were soon on his track, and many of his com panions, to save themselves, deserted him. One of them named Pibrac hid himself in a bog, and was even obliged to make several dives to escape the infuriated peasants, who pelted him with stones, unconscious of what he had done, but satisfied, from his efforts at concealment, that he must be flying from justice. In vain did Henry cause the bridges to be broken down behind him ; the Slavs on his track forded the rivers on horseback, and the king was at last overtaken on the very boundaries of the German em pire. There Tenczyn, the grand chamberlain, and five horsemen came up with the fugitives and shouted after the king, &quot; Serenissima Majestas, cur fugis?&quot; Finding that he was quite safe, Henry admitted Tnczyn to an audience, who remonstrated with him on account of the manner in which he was leaving the kingdom, and recommended him to return and convoke a diet so that with the consent of his subjects he might take possession of his new kingdom. But he refused to be influenced by their entreaties, and merely promised in a vague manner that he would return as soon as he had placed France in a state of tranquillity a promise which, it need hardly be said, he had no inten tion whatever of carrying out. Nor did the king show any special alacrity in repairing to France, for before reaching that country he lingered a considerable time at Vienna and Venice, trifling with the highest interests of his country, and devoted only to frivolous amusement. The Poles, how ever, were well rid of one of the most corrupt sovereigns of a corrupt house. In 1589 the knife of the Dominican friar terminated his life, and with it the line of the Valois. The Poles, piqued at the contempt with which their crown had been treated, assembled at Ste, zyca and resolved to declare the throne vacant if the king did not return by the 12th May 1575. During the interregnum the Mon gols made incursions into Podolia and Volhynia, and griev ously devastated those countries. The appointed period having elapsed, Stephen Batory, prince of Transylvania, was elected, having previously stipulated to marry the princess Anne, sister of Sigismund Augustus. There were some difficulties, however, before he succeeded in obtaining the royal authority. The primate Ucharski nominated the emperor Maximilian king. This caused considerable opposition, and the city of Dantzic did not recognize the new sovereign till compelled. To conciliate the nobility Batory was obliged to consent to some serious diminutions of the royal prerogative. This king was a great soldier, successful against both Prussians and Russians, the latter of whom he compelled, in 1582, to evacuate Livonia, which was thus again annexed to Poland. He also did much to encourage letters, having founded the university of Vilna, which has, however, been suppressed in more recent times. His great fondness for the Latin language is said by Schafarik to have had a bad effect upon Polish ; for from this time may be dated the classical words and idioms which have been thrust upon the language, and have disfigured Polish more than her Slavonic sisters. It was Stephen Batory who first organized the regiments of Cossacks who play such an important part in Polish history. Before his death, foreseeing the constant anarchy which the system of elective sovereignty would cause, he in vain urged the nobility to make the crown hereditary. Sarnicki, the Polish historian, says of him &quot; Fuit vir tarn in pace quam in bello excelso et forti animo, judicii magni, praesertim ubi ab affectibus liber erat ; in victu et amictu parcus, et omni jactantia et ostentatione alienus, eruditione insigniter tinctus, sermonis Latini valde studiosus et prorsus Terentianus. &quot; It would naturally be concluded that before the election of Batory the royal power had been sufficiently curtailed, but it was to undergo further mutilations. Sixteen senators were now chosen at each diet to attend the king and give their opinion in important matters, and no decree could be issued without their consent. Besides this, in 1578 the right of final appeal to the king, which had always been a royal prerogative, was taken away. The king could now only give the ultimate decision in a small district within a certain radius of his residence. The courts exercising judgments within these narrow limits were called Assessoria Regni, and even these judicial powers, slight as they were, were gradually abandoned after the time of Augustus II., and were exercised by the high chancellor of the realm. The king was supposed to have some control of the courts which were governed by the Jus Magdeburgicum ; but, Batory being busy with foreign wars, these were generally managed by the chancellor also. The palatines had the right of electing their own judges in their dietines or petty diets, who formed supreme courts of justice called Tribunalia Regni; here the causes of the nobles, for the peasants had no voice in the matter, were decided finally and without option of any appeal. On the death of Batory in 1586, after many quarrels among the leading families, the throne was again brought into the market. The candidates were, among others, the archduke Maximilian of Austria ; Feodore Ivanovich, the feeble Russian czar ; and Sigismund, a Swedish prince, son of Catherine, sister of Sigismund Augustus. The last of the three was finally elected, although not without con siderable opposition from Maximilian, who was only driven from his candidature by main force. The Zborowskis, a very powerful family always in opposition to Zamoiski, the chancellor of the kingdom, invited him. But Zamoiski defeated him at Byczyna in Silesia, and he was there made prisoner, and was only released on the promise of desisting from being a candidate. The Austrians, how ever, were always interfering in the affairs of Poland, and, if they could not procure the admission of any of their family to the headship of the republic, we shall observe that during four generations the house of Hapsburg furnished queens to Poland. A very serious riot occurred at the election on this occasion, as Lengnich tells us in his Jus PuUicum Regni Poloni ; the booths erected for the senators were burnt to the ground. Such proceedings were only to be expected in a country where each noble might keep as many armed retainers as he pleased.