In the Polish camp disease attacked the men, and a distemper broke out among the horses. Food failed. German knights declared war, and invaded northern provinces. These calamities caused the king to offer peace. The Grand Prince accepted, and concluded a truce without consulting the Germans. Svidrigello retained what he had when the war broke out, that is Eastern Podolia, and Volynia entire. He had vindicated independence for the lands under him, but beyond that the result of the war was merely plunder and bloodshed.
At the head of Polish affairs was Olesnitski, the chancellor, at that time cardinal. On meeting failure in the field he sought other means to subject Svidrigello. A rival was selected, Sigismund, Vitold’s youngest brother. Sigismund was to claim the Grand Principality; and in various ways a party was created to support him. A revolt was brought about and Svidrigello, being careless and improvident, was surprised and very nearly captured by his rival. He escaped by desperate speed, but his wife was seized. Vilna and Troki surrendered. Soon Lithuania acknowledged Sigismund, while Russia adhered to Svidrigello.
Sigismund was crowned in Vilna, where a papal bull was read freeing Lithuania from its oath to Svidrigello. In Grodno, somewhat earlier, before senators and Olesnitski, Sigismund had surrendered the regions of Lutsk, and its lands, as well as Podolia and Goróden.
Meanwhile Svidrigello had no intention of yielding to Sigismund broad regions which were still in his possession. Help was coming to him from the Tver prince. His Russian voevodas were successful. Alexander Nos defended Kief lands, and Prince Ostrogski, Volynia. Especially distinguished was Fedko, who, with help of Wallachians and Mongols, not only repulsed the Poles in Podolia, but seized Kamenyets, luring Butchatski from the fortress, and taking him captive.
During this war Yagello died at the age of eighty-six. Thus ended a reign of fifty years, a reign memorable in Eastern Europe. The two great results of his life were the union of Lithuania and Poland, and the reduction of the royal power till it was a mere shadow. Now the nobles, with Olesnitski at the head of them, became all-powerful. Instead of combining his provinces, and [[441]]organizing an army, Svidrigello sought alliances, treated with Sigismund, with the Germans, with the Khan, and with the Pope. All this proved his unfitness, and weakened the attachment of the Orthodox party. Besides he was passionate, given to anger, and cruel. He sometimes punished with death those adherents of Sigismund whom he captured. For example, he had one of the princes, Olshanski, sewn up in a bag and drowned in the Dvina. Worse than all of his evil deeds, he burned at the stake the metropolitan Gerásim, for an unknown reason, but presumably for communicating with Sigismund.
A decisive battle was fought near Vilkomir, in which Sigismund was victor. Svidrigello fled to Kief, and found refuge there, while Smolensk, Polotsk and Vitebsk received lieutenants from Sigismund. Svidrigello had still a part of Podolia, much of Volynia and the whole of the Kief principality, in which Yursha, his brave voevoda, was commanding, but feeling that he had not sufficient power to continue the struggle, he went to Cracow and offered to become a feudatory of Poland.
Sigismund was active against him, and spared nothing in bribery. He demanded for himself all that Svidrigello had held, and his side succeeded. Svidrigello, fearing to fall into Sigismund’s clutches, withdrew to Wallachia, and Kief and Volynia were given to Sigismund, on condition that after he died Lithuania and Russia should be given to Poland.
So the war ended with victory for Sigismund, but he had little profit from his triumph. The humiliating position in which the new prince had put his own office roused opposition among Lithuanians and Russians. Especially active were Olgerd’s descendants in fighting against this son of Keistut, who had seized power unjustly, as it seemed to them. Their indignation was increased by the cruelty with which Sigismund hunted down every opponent. Men of the highest distinction were imprisoned and deprived of their property, while others were put to death without cause.
When Sigismund summoned a Diet, the report went out quickly that that was only a trap to ruin princes and boyars. Unable to cast down the tyrant, for he was surrounded by Polish defenders, they formed a conspiracy, at the head of which stood a Russian, Prince Chartoriski, Dovgerd, voevoda of Vilna, and Lelyush, [[442]]who commanded in Troki. The conspirators used the hay tribute to carry out their stratagem.
In the night before Palm Sunday, March, 1440, three hundred sleighs bringing hay were drawn into Troki. In each sleigh two or three armed men were secreted, and with each went a driver,—in all a thousand men or more. The following morning Sigismund’s son, Michael, went, accompanied by his father’s attendants, to early mass in the cathedral. During mass the men hidden in the hay came out, shut the gates of the fortress, and were led into the castle by Chartoriski. Sigismund, without leaving his bed, was hearing mass offered up by a priest in a chapel adjoining his chamber. He had a tame bear which served as a guard near his person; when the beast wished to enter he scratched at the door for admission. Chartoriski, seeing the bear in the courtyard, and knowing its habit, scratched on the door in imitation. The door was opened, and the conspirators entered. Skobeiko, equerry to Sigismund, but now false to him, seized an iron poker from the fireplace, and struck the prince on the head with such violence that his blood and brains stained the walls of the chamber. Slavko, a favorite and intimate of the Grand Prince, tried to shield his master; but he was hurled through the window and instantly killed. The body of the dead prince was conveyed in a sleigh to the lake, and left on the ice there; later it was buried, near Vitold’s grave, in the Cathedral of Vilna.