Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/307

Rh 1587-1674.] POLAND 295 had broken up the diet. It was not finally abolished till 1791. The reasons why it was popular have already been spoken of. Among other causes may be mentioned the anxiety of the great officers of the realm the commander- in-chief, treasurer, marshal, and others to be free from the control of the diet. These important functionaries held their appointments for life, and were under no super vision during the intervals between the sessions of the diet. Again, it was only before the diet that a noble accused of capital crimes could be brought to trial, for the nobility exercised, as has already been said, supreme judicial powers in their own palatinates. If, therefore, as was frequently the case, a criminal of this rank happened to be brought forward, it was very convenient for him to be able to pro cure a dissolution of the only tribunal by which he could be convicted. Again, it was an admirable way to oppose the levying of taxes, which could only be raised by the consent of the diet ; and taxes, owing to the constant wars in which she was engaged, were very heavy in Poland. There were emissaries of foreign powers, too, who fomented these internal discords and profited by fomenting them. The ill effects of the liberum veto soon began to be felt. In 1670 the members of the diet bound themselves by an oath not to make use of the privilege. In spite, however, of this resolution that very diet was brought to an end by the appeal of Zabokrzycki, the nuntius from Braclaw in ll us lost to Russia Smolensk, Vitebsk, Polotsk, and other towns, the Dnieper now becoming the boundary ; Kieff, the inter esting old historical city, was to go two years later. In the midst of all these misfortunes the exhausted country was attacked by a new enemy, Sweden, in consequence of the Polish monarch asserting a right to the Swedish crown, as the heir of the house of Vasa a claim which he had no possibility of enforcing. Hampered as he was by a war with Russia, John could effect nothing against his new enemies, who took both Warsaw and Cracow, and ended by entirely subjugating the country, while the wretched king fled to Silesia. Although these new enemies were afterwards expelled, yet the war was pro tracted for some years, and ended disastrously for Poland. Charles Gustavus, the Swedish king, is said to have pro posed the partition of the country ; he offered Great Poland to the elector of Brandenburg, Little Poland to the duke of Transylvania, and a part of Lithuania to a Polish nobleman named Radziwitt. But Poland s hour had not yet come. The elector of Brandenburg procured the release of East Prussia from all seignorial rights in 1657. Livonia was also another loss, having been ceded to Sweden in 1660. An army of Cossacks and Mongols, which had invaded Podolia, was defeated by the celebrated John Sobieski, who now first appears in history and was made commander-in-chief of the Polish troops. Worn out with age, and disgusted with his repeated failures, the king abdicated in 1668. At a previous diet he had warned his turbulent subjects that the partition of the kingdom must be the inevitable consequence of their dissensions. John Casimir had already been an ecclesiastic ; he had been absolved from his vows by the pope when he became a candidate for the throne. He now resolved to betake him self again to the cloister, his wife, Louise Marie, daughter of the duke of Nevers, a woman of beauty and spirit, being dead. He took his leave of the Poles in an affectionate and dignified address, which is still preserved, and has been pronounced by Coxe to be &quot;the finest piece of pathetic eloquence that history has ever recorded.&quot; There was something very touching in the fact that Jan Kazimierz represented the last of the Jagieltos and Vasas, the former of whom had so long ruled over Poland. He was son, as previously mentioned, of Sigismund III., and great-grand son of Sigismund I., whose daughter Catherine had married John, king of Sweden. Connor says, &quot;While 1 was at Warsaw I spoke with several old gentlemen, who told me that Casimir, the day after his resignation, observing the people hardly paid him the respect due to a gentleman, much less to a king, seemed to have repented heartily of the folly he had committed&quot; (i. 135). He now returned to France, a country in which some years previously he had suffered a strange captivity, having been detained in the reign of Louis XIII. while passing its coasts ; but the story is too long to be narrated in these pages. Here he became abb4 of St Germain and St Martin, and drew his means of subsistence from these ecclesiastical foundations ; for the Poles, although to all appearance abundantly moved by his melancholy rhetoric, refused to continue his pension. Nor does he appear to have spent the short remainder of his life entirely in the cloister, as we are told that he contracted a secret marriage with an amiable widow who had formerly been a laundress. He, however, sur vived only four years, dying in 1672, forgotten by the world but not forgetting it, his disease, according to some accounts, being greatly aggravated by his receiving the intelligence that Kamenets in Podolia had been ceded to the Turks. His body was afterwards brought to Cracow and buried in the cathedral. The diet, which met on his abdication, passed a decree that for the future no Polish king should be allowed to abdicate. During this reign, in the year 1658, the Socinians were banished from Poland, in consequence of which Pope Alexander II. gave to the king and his successors on the Polish throne the title Rex Orthodox^^s. In due time three candidates for the vacant throne made their appearance the prince of Conde, the prince of Neuburg, supported by Louis XIV., and Charles of Lorraine, who was put forward by Austria. The first of these could rely upon the cooperation of the great Sobieski, but eventually none of the three was chosen. The election fell upon a native Pole Prince Michael Korybut AVisniowiecki, of a noble family indeed, but so impoverished that he may be said to have had regal honours thrust upon him against his will, and we are even told that he was offered the crown half in derision. A graphic picture of this extraordinary scene is given in Pasek s contemporary memoirs. Michael soon became a mere puppet in the hands of his turbulent subjects. His reign, however, was rendered illustrious by the great suc cesses of Sobieski against the Turks, although the Poles suffered the loss of the important town of Kamenets, and Michael, powerless to make head against them, concluded the treaty of Buczacz, by which he even stipulated to pay them tribute. By the great victory of Khotin in 1673, Sobieski did much to repair these losses, and was about to follow up his glorious campaign when he heard of the death of Wisniowiecki at Lemberg in Galicia ; so sudden was the end of Michael that some have even supposed that he was poisoned, &quot; by a Frenchman,&quot; says Connor. The diet met at Warsaw ; there were several candidates ; and among others Charles of Lorraine and Philip of Neuburg again put forward their claims. While the nobles were still in session, Sobieski, fresh from his glorious victory, entered and proposed the prince of Conde&quot;. A stormy discussion ensued, and in the midst of it one of the nobles, Jablonowski, was heard to say, &quot;Let a Pole rule over Poland.&quot; The cry found a magic echo among those who were present, and the gallant Sobieski, the greatest of Polish generals, and one of the first soldiers of his time, was appointed king under the title of John III., although not without con siderable opposition from Michael Pac, the general-in-chief of Lithuania, who was, however, ultimately induced to withdraw his protest. This king signed the same jxicta conventa as the preceding monarchs ; there was, however, Michael Wisnio wiecki (1669- 73). John III. (1674- 96).
 * -y of Podolia. In 1667, by the treaty of Andruszowo, Poland