Treaty with Muscovy.By a treaty with Muscovy in this year (1686) he gave up Kiow and Smolensko, which had been long in her possession, for a large indemnity, and obtained promises of co-operation in his schemes of conquest. Posterity has blamed him for these concessions; but in his time such was the national contempt for the Muscovites that no danger was apprehended on their side.
Campaign of 1686.His chances of success were excellent. The Emperor promised his aid on the side of Hungary; and a great army of Muscovites was to push forward to the Black Sea. After arranging his plans with the Imperial generals, John assembled his forces at the Dniester, but he found all alike, officers and men, indisposed to a campaign beyond the borders of Poland. But he could not now draw back. He advanced through the deserts of Moldavia to the Pruth, passing on his way the fatal spot where Zolkiewski met with a hero’s death. Descending the river he entered Yassy, the capital, on the 15th of August, and found that the hospodar had fled with his troops, but had left provisions for the invading force, thinking by this means to secure his immunity from punishment, whatever might be the result of the campaign. After two days of rest John pushed on towards the Black Sea. But the heat, the scarcity of water, and the terrible solitude[125] broke the spirit of his army, and suddenly the Tartars appeared in his front. News also arrived that the Turks were within a march of him, and there was no sign either of Muscovite or Austrian succours. Leopold had again deceived him, and had profited by John’s demonstration to capture the city of Buda. There was nothing left but to retreat, and this the king successfully accomplished, through a most difficult country, in the face of the enemy. The Tartars poisoned the rivers and springs, and set fire to the vegetation, while searching clouds of dust and ashes distressed the retiring Poles. At length they reached the frontiers of Poland; and the only person who had reaped any benefit from their sufferings was the Emperor Leopold.
Deposition of the Sultan.In the following year a revolution at Constantinople, provoked by continued disasters, deprived Mahomet IV. of his throne; and had there been a complete accord between the members of the Christian league, the Ottoman empire might have tottered to its fall. No soldier of the Church had laboured more steadily towards this end than John Sobieski; and if it was not realised, the fault lay not with him but with his more powerful allies.
Polish anarchy.As his reign drew near its close, the internal disorders of his kingdom increased. The Emperor never ceased to intrigue with the Lithuanian grandees against his faithful ally, and the French party opposed him for this fidelity to the league. The lesser nobility was devoted to him; but the Senate was now the hotbed of faction. All the grandees wished for the end of his reign, the French party because they disliked his policy, and the Lithuanians because they hated his person. Besides this, every ambitious senator looked to an interregnum as a means of realising his dreams of power.
Diet of Grodno.In the Diet of Grodno in 1688 the king was assailed on all sides. The senators[126] in the pay of France clamoured for peace with the Porte; the Lithuanians, at a hint from the Emperor, accused him of personal aims in his attempt upon Moldavia. Before any subsidy could be voted the Diet was dissolved by the veto; and when the king assembled a convocation he met with the same stormy opposition. Hastily dismissing the assembly, he submitted to a period of inaction; but he had the consolation of finding, on a visit to Wilna in the same year, that even in the Grand Duchy he was regarded by the people with admiration.
John refuses peace with the Turks.A fresh outburst from the French party occurred in the same summer, when he refused to make peace with the Sultan, although he was offered the restoration of Kaminiec. He had bound himself by oath never to make a separate peace without the consent of his allies; but to keep strictly to this article was detrimental to the republic, so sorely in need of reforms, and he had abundant excuse for breaking it in the conduct of the Emperor.
Tries to establish hereditary succession.His scruples were not suggested by a desire for further glory, or by a blindness to the true interests of Poland. His days of warfare were past for ever. He saw only too clearly the failure of the old constitution, and he was anxious before his death to witness the establishment of hereditary monarchy. In striving to have his son declared his successor he was not actuated by merely selfish motives, for when a subject he had held the same principles.[127] But the grandees considered such a proposal as a direct infringement of their privileges; and they were encouraged by Leopold, who found it his interest to preserve Poland in a state of fermentation.
Affecting scene in the senate.The king intended to ask this of the republic at the Diet of Grodno; but his intention becoming known, he was assailed with the utmost virulence in the senate. The Grand Treasurer termed him despot, tyrant, and destructor of the public liberty; a palatine spoke of him as the enemy of his country. At length the king rose and addressed the senate. He recalled the patriotism and services of his ancestors, and protested his devotion to the cause of liberty. But he begged his hearers to pause, and reflect on the consequences of intestine strife. “Oh, what will be one day the sad surprise of posterity to see that at the summit of our glory, when the name of Poland was filling the universe, we have allowed our country to fall in ruins, to fall, alas! for ever! For myself I have now and then gained you a few battles; but I confess myself deprived of all power to save you. It only remains for me to resign, not to destiny, for I am a Christian, but to the great and mighty God, the future of my beloved country.... I seem to hear already resounding over our heads the cry of the prophet: ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed.’ Your most illustrious Dominations know that I do not believe in auguries. I do not search out oracles; I give no credence to dreams; it is not an oracle, it is faith which teaches me that the decrees of Providence cannot fail to be accomplished.”
During this prophetic speech the voice of the old king trembled with emotion, and the senate was deeply touched. The primate knelt at the foot of the throne, and assured him of the loyalty of Poland; and a cry of assent arose from all present. The subsidies were voted by acclamation; but it was only a transient gleam of concord. Continued disturbances.Next year there were rumours of a conspiracy to dethrone the king; and amid the storms of the Diet a bishop named Opalinski said to him haughtily, “Be equitable, or cease to reign!” The insult was soon followed by an apology; but the tumult continued in the assembly, and sabres were freely used before the veto terminated the disgraceful scene.[128] Intended abdication of Sobieski.The king felt himself unable to cope with these terrible disorders, and he instructed his chancellor to prepare an act of abdication (1689); but the unfeigned sorrow of all classes persuaded him to withdraw it. There was little improvement, however, in the temper of future Diets; and the veto was employed as freely as before.
Discord in his family.John was not more happy in his domestic than in his public life. His imperious queen was ever his evil genius. Not content with diminishing his popularity by mixing too freely in public affairs,[129] she sowed dissension round his own fireside. The king evidently designed for his successor his eldest son James; for, besides giving him a high command in the army, he allowed him to sit by his side in the senate. But the queen favoured Alexander, her second son, who was more handsome and popular[130] than his brother, and her open partiality produced a fierce hatred between the two brothers. When the Emperor, reminded of the value of John’s friendship by the victories of Mustapha Köprili, gave the Princess of Neuberg in marriage to Prince James[131] (1690), the queen took a violent dislike to her daughter-in-law; and the family breach was widened.