LITHUANIA

Sigismund I (1506-1548)

Sigismund I the Old of the Jagiellon dynasty reigned as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1506 to his death at age 81 in 1548. Before that, Sigismund had already been invested as Duke of Silesia. Sigismund I owed allegiance to the Imperial Habsburgs as a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The son of King Casimir IV Jagiellon and Elisabeth of Austria Habsburg, Sigismund followed his brothers John I of Poland and Alexander I of Poland to the Polish throne. Their elder brother Ladislaus II of Hungary and Bohemia became king of Hungary and Bohemia. Sigismund was christened the namesake of his mother's maternal grandfather, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, who had died in 1437.

Sigismund faced the challenge of consolidating internal power in order to face external threats to the country. During Alexander's reign, the law Nihil novi had been instituted, which forbade Kings of Poland from enacting laws without the consent of the Sejm. This proved crippling to Sigismund's dealings with the szlachta and magnates. Despite this Achilles heel, he established (1527) a conscription army and the bureaucracy needed to finance it. Intermittently at war with Vasily III of Muscovy, starting in 1507 (before his army was fully under his command), 1514 marked the fall of Smolensk (under Polish domination) to the Muscovite forces (which lent force to his arguments for the necessity of a standing army). Those conflicts formed part of the Muscovite wars. 1515 he entered an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. In return for Maximilian lending weight to the provisions of the Second Peace of Thorn, Sigismund consented to the marriage of the children of Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary, his brother, to the grandchildren of Maximilian. Through this double marriage contract, Bohemia and Hungary passed to the House of Habsburg in 1526, on the death of Sigismund's nephew, Louis II. The Polish wars against the Teutonic Knights ended in 1525, when Albert of Brandenburg, their marshal (and Sigismund's nephew), converted to Lutheranism, secularized the order, and paid homage to Sigismund. In return, he was given the domains of the Order, as the First Duke of Prussia. This was called the Prussian Homage.

In other matters of policy, Sigismund sought peaceful coexistence with the Khanate of Crimea, but was unable to completely end border skirmishes. Sigismund was a Humanist. He and his third consort, Bona Sforza, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Sforza of Milan, were both patrons of Renaissance culture, which under them began to flourish in Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

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Sigismund II Augustus (1548-1572)

Sigismund II Augustus (Polish: Zygmunt II August, Ruthenian: Zygimont III Awgust, Lithuanian: Žygimantas III Augustas; 1 August 1520 — 7 July 1572) was the only son of Sigismund I the Old, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, whom Sigismund II succeeded in 1548. Besides very close family connections, Sigismund II was especially allied to the Imperial Habsburgs by his pledge as member of the Order of the Golden Fleece. From the outset of his reign, Sigismund came into collision with the country's szlachta (gentry), who had already begun curtailing the power of the great families. The ostensible cause of the szlachta's animosity to the King was his second marriage, secretly contracted before his accession to the throne, with the beautiful Lithuanian Calvinist, Barbara Radziwill, daughter of Hetman Jerzy Radziwill. But the real forces behind the movement seem to have been the Austrian court and Sigismund's own mother, Bona Sforza, and so violent was the agitation at Sigismund's first sejm (October 31, 1548) that the deputies threatened to renounce their allegiance unless the King repudiated his wife Barbara. He refused, and his moral courage and political dexterity won the day.

By 1550, when Sigismund summoned his second sejm, a reaction had begun in his favor, and the szlachta was rebuked by Piotr Kmita, Marshal of the Sejm, who accused them of attempting to unduly diminish the legislative prerogatives of the crown. The death of Queen Barbara, five months after her coronation (December 7, 1550), under distressing circumstances which led to a suspicion that she had been poisoned by Bona Sforza, compelled Sigismund to contract a third, purely political union with his first cousin, the Austrian archduchess Catherine, also the sister of his first wife, Elisabeth, who had died within a year of her marriage to him, while he was still only crown prince. The third bride was sickly and unsympathetic, and Sigismund soon lost all hope of children by her — to his despair, for as he was the last male Jagiellon in the direct line, the dynasty was threatened with extinction. He sought to remedy this by liaisons with two of the most beautiful of his countrywomen, Barbara Gizanka and Anna Zajaczkowska. The sejm was willing to legitimatize, and acknowledge as Sigismund's successor, any male heir who might be born to him; however, the King was to die childless. The King's marriage was a matter of great political import to Protestants and Catholics alike. Had Sigismund not been so good a Catholic, he might have imitated Henry VIII of England by pleading that his detested third wife was the sister of his first wife, and that consequently the union was uncanonical. The Polish Protestants hoped that he would do so and thus bring about a breach with Rome at the very crisis of the religious struggle in Poland; while the Habsburgs, who coveted the Polish throne, raised every obstacle to the childless King's remarriage. Not till Queen Catherine's death (February 28, 1572) was Sigismund set free, but less than six months later he would follow her to the grave.

Sigismund's reign was a period of internal turmoil and external expansion. He saw the invasion of Poland by the Reformation, and the democratic upheaval that placed all political power in the hands of the szlachta; he saw the collapse of the Knights of the Sword in the north (which led to the Republic's acquisition of Livonia) and the consolidation of Turkey's power in the south. Throughout this perilous transitional period, Sigismund successfully steered the ship of state amid the whirlpools that constantly threatened to engulf it. A less imposing figure than his father, the elegant and refined Sigismund II Augustus was nevertheless an even greater statesman than the stern and majestic Sigismund I the Old. Sigismund II possessed to a high degree the tenacity and patience that seem to have characterized all the Jagiellons, and he added to these qualities a dexterity and diplomatic finesse which he may have inherited from his Italian mother. No other Polish king seems to have so thoroughly understood the nature of the Polish sejm. Both the Austrian ambassadors and the papal legates testify to the care with which he controlled his nation. Everything went as he wished, they said, because he seemed to know everything in advance. He managed to get more money than his father ever could, and at one of his sejms he won the hearts of the assembly by unexpectedly appearing before them in the simple grey coat of a Masovian squire. Like his father, a pro-Austrian by conviction, he contrived even in this respect to carry with him the nation, always distrustful of the Germans, and thus avoided serious complications with the dangerous Turks.

Sigismund II mediated for twenty years between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants without alienating the sympathies of either. His most striking memorial, however, may have been the Union of Lublin, which finally made of Poland and Lithuania one body politic, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth — the "Republic of the Two Nations" (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów, Lithuanian: Abieju Tautu Respublika). This achievement might well have been impossible without Sigismund. Sigismund died at his beloved Knyszyn on July 6, 1572, aged 52. In 1573, Henry III of Valois was elected as King of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth for a few months, but then returned to France where he was coronated as King Henry III of France. Shortly thereafter, Sigismund's sister Anna of Poland married Stefan Batory, and they ruled as King and Queen of Poland.

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Stefan Bathory (1575-1586)

Stefan Bat(h)ory was born September 27, 1533, in Somlyo, Transylvania, to the local branch of the ancient Bathory family, now extinct, but originally almost coeval with the Hungarian monarchy. Istvan Bathory spent his early years at the court of the emperor Ferdinand I, subsequently attached himself to John Zapolya, and won equal renown as a valiant lord-marcher, and as a skillful diplomat at the imperial court. Zapolya rewarded him with the voivodeship of Transylvania, and as the loyal defender of the rights of his patrons' son, John Sigismund, he incurred the animosity of the emperor Maximilian II of Austria, who kept him in prison for two years. On May 25, 1571, on the death of John Sigismund, Bathory was elected prince of Transylvania by the Hungarian estates, despite the opposition of the court of Vienna and contrary to the wishes of the late prince, who had appointed Gaspar Bekesy his successor. Bekesy insisting on his claims, a civil war ensued in which Bathory ultimately won by driving his rival out of the country the following year.

After the heirless death of King Sigismund II of Poland in 1572, his spinster sister Anna Jagiellonka became the sole heir to the Crown of Poland. Due to the conflict with her late brother (over his marriage with Barbara Radziwillówna), she remained single and became one of the most influential personalities in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Sejm of April of 1573, she strongly supported the election of a French candidate. She convinced almost 50,000 members of the szlachta and finally Henri de Valois was elected King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, under the name of Henryk III Walezy. The couple was to become married, which was to further strengthen the legitimisation of Henry's rule. However, in less than a year after his coronation, Henry fled to Paris where he was crowned king of France. The period of interregnum lasted for roughly one and a half years. It was not until December 12, 1575 that the Sejm, convinced by the Papal nuncio agreed to elect a new monarch. Although at first Maximilian Habsburg was elected, mostly due to strong support of the Catholic church and the Pope himself, after three days the szlachta threatened the senate with civil war and demanded a Piast king, that is a king of Polish ethnicity. After a heated discussion, it was decided that Anna Jagiellonka be elected king of Poland. The same day the Sejm chose Stefan Bathory as her husband and de facto successor of Henry III. Among the strongest supporters of his candidacy were the Protestants (Socinians, Arians, Lutherans and Calvinists alike), who feared that an ultra-Catholic monarch like a Habsburg could overthrow the principles of the Warsaw Confederation and support Counter-Reformation. On the other hand, Bathory had the merit of being a ruler of Transylvania, a state where freedom of religion was introduced already in 1568. On May 1, 1576 Batory married Anna Jagiellonka and became the ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, at the time the largest and one of the most populous states in Europe. Upon coronation, his official titles were Stefan, by the grace of God King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Duke of Ruthenia, Prussia, Masovia, Samogitia, Kiev Land, Volhynia, Podlachia and Livonia, as well as Prince of Transylvania.

Stefan Bathory proved to be a wise king, despite the fact that the country he became a ruler of was badly damaged by the troubles of the interregnum. At first his position was extremely difficult mostly because of internal opposition, financed by Maximilian Habsburg and Muscovy. However, the sudden death of the emperor Maximilian at the very moment when that potentate, in league with Muscovy, was about to defend his election as king of Poland by military action in the Commomwealth, completely changed the face of things. Though Stefan's distrust of the Habsburgs remained invincible, he consented at last to enter into a defensive alliance with the Holy Roman Empire which was carried through by the papal nuncio on his return to Rome in 1578. All armed opposition collapsed with the surrender of the Hanseatic city of Danzig (Gdansk). The city, encouraged by its immense wealth and almost impregnable fortifications, as well as by the secret support of Denmark and the emperor, had backed Emperor Maximilian II and shut her gates against Bathory. The opposition of the city was reduced only after a six months siege and a fierce battle of December 16, 1577, in which its army of 5,000 mercenaries was utterly defeated in open field. Nevertheless, Bathory's armies were too weak to take the city by force and a compromise was reached. Bathory had to accept somewhat special Danzig's status and its privileges granted by earlier Polish kings. Thus the city recognised him as ruler of Poland and paid an enormous sum of 200,000 guldens in gold as ("apology") payoff. Báthory confirmed the privileges of Danzig in 1577. Danzig later served the Kingdom during the war with Sweden and Muscovy, providing help when requested. This victory gave Bathory a chance to devote himself to foreign affairs and a strong position at home. With the help of his chancellor Jan Zamoyski, Stefan Bathory managed to completely reorganise the Polish Army. Among his genuine inventions was the piechota wybraniecka semi-professional infantry formation, composed of peasants trained in both infantry warfare and engineering. Bathory also reorganised the judiciary branch of power by formation of legal tribunals and also founded the Academy of Vilna, the third university in the Commonwealth and a predecessor of the modern Vilnius University. Both Bathory and Zamoyski were skilled politicians who were able to win several factions of the Polish gentry for strengthening of the royal authority. This was done mostly by means of better taxation of crown lands and royal property leased to the gentry. He was also notable as the monarch to order Samuel Zborowski to be executed for treason and murder, a verdict that could not be carried out for roughly a decade.

In external relations, Bathory sought peace through strong alliances. The difficulties with the Ottoman Empire were temporarily adjusted by a truce signed on November 5, 1577. The Sejm gathered in Warsaw was persuaded to grant Stefan subsidies for the inevitable war against Muscovy. Two campaigns of wearing marches, and still more exhausting sieges ensued, in which Bathory, although repeatedly hampered by the parsimony of the Sejm, was uniformly successful, his skilful diplomacy at the same time allaying the suspicions of the Ottomans and the emperor. Bathory, with his chancellor Jan Zamoyski, led the army of the Commonwealth in a brilliant decisive campaign against the invading forces of Ivan the Terrible during the Livonian War (which formed part of the Muscovite wars between Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy). The Russians had invaded Livonia and took Dorpat Duchy of Courland, which a few years earlier had become a vassal of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth army under Bathory routed the Russian force at Velikiye Luki. In 1581 Stefan penetrated to the very heart of Muscovy and, on August 22, laid siege to the city of Pskov, whose vast size and imposing fortifications filled the little Commonwealth army with dismay. But the king, despite the murmurs of his own officers, and the protestations of the papal nuncio, Possevino, whom the curia, deluded by the mirage of a union of the churches, had sent expressly from Rome to mediate between the tsar and the king of Poland, closely besieged the city throughout a winter of arctic severity, till, on the December 13, 1581, Ivan the Terrible, alarmed for the safety of the third city in his empire, concluded a peace treaty in Jam Zapolski (January 15, 1582), thereby ceding Polatsk and the whole of Livonia back to the Commonwealth.

With the problems at the eastern borders settled, Stefan Bathory planned a Christian alliance against the Ottomans. He proposed an anti-Ottoman alliance with Muscovy, which he considered a necessary step for his anti-Ottoman crusade. However, Russia was on its way to the Time of Troubles, so he could not find a partner there. The project of a Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovite Commonwealth was dissipated by his sudden death, on December 12, 1586 in Hrodna (His necropsy there was the first such act in the Eastern Europe). When Stefan Bathory died, there was a one year interregnum. Emperor Maximilian's brother Maximilian III was elected and while trying to claim the Polish-Lithuanian throne he was defeated at the Byczyna and Bathory was succeeded by the Swedish Sigismund III Vasa.

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