The American Quarterly Review, No. 18, June 1831 (Vol 9)

by Various

But the seeds of evil were also planted by him. According to his desire, Lewis, the king of Hungary, was elected his successor. The consent of the nobles could be purchased only by concessions; and in order to secure the royal dignity in his family to one of his daughters, he was compelled to enter into terms with the oligarchy. Freedom from taxation was the great point demanded and promised. All towns, castles, and estates, belonging to the nobles, were freed from taxation forever; and no services of any kind were to be required. In case of war, the nobles were to take the field on horseback, for the defence of the country; but if necessity required the employment of troops abroad, it was to be at the charge of the king. Thus the paternal ambition of the king, uniting with the avarice of the nobles, laid the foundation of anarchy and weakness, by concessions wholly at variance with the existence of an equitable liberty. The people, having no means of making their rights heard, were abandoned entirely to the tyranny of their immediate masters. Such was the origin of the pacta conventa, and such the first venal bargain, by which the energies of Poland were bartered away, and aristocratic tyranny made the basis of the constitution.

Fatal as was this arrangement for the political progress of Poland, it was yet favourable for the extension of its territory. Hedwiga, the daughter of Lewis, succeeded to the throne; and by accepting for her husband Jagellon, the grand duke of Lithuania, she annexed that dutchy to Poland, and was the means of converting its inhabitants from paganism. It was in 1386 that the grand duke was baptized, and with him the celebrated family of the Jagellons obtained the Polish crown.

The Lithuanians were converted to Christianity, not by fire and sword, nor by any process of argument. It was the will of their prince; and besides, excellent woollen coats and leather shoes, were distributed to the neophytes. He who could repeat the pater noster and the decalogue, was received as a Christian. They were a barbarous race,—yet, like the Poles, formed a part of the Slavonian family, and had gradually become an independent nation. The complete union of the two countries did not take place for nearly two centuries.

The family of the Jagellons, for seven successive reigns, extending through 186 years, obtained the throne. The praises of that period form the theme of eulogy among the patriotic writers of Poland. It was the period of the greatest harmony between the kings and the nation. They were admired for the fidelity with which they maintained their covenants; the crown of Sweden was repeatedly proffered to them,—and they had conferred on Poland, the lasting benefit of uniting to it a country, which before had been the theatre of constant hostilities. But yet so far as the sovereigns themselves are observed, not one of them displayed the highest excellence of a ruler. They were abundantly distinguished for the virtues which constitute personal worth; but they were not of the persevering energy, or prudent discernment, which could alone have given a sure foundation to the Polish government.

The first in the line, to secure the accession of his son, confirmed the privileges of the nobles. The peasantry was forgotten; the class of citizens hardly remembered, but the personal rights and the property of the nobles was sacredly assured. It was further stipulated, that none but natives should be appointed to the high offices of the state. A stipulation of that sort, would have rendered the genius of Peter the Great inadequate to the reforms which he planned and executed; the limitation in Poland undoubtedly retarded the progress of culture.

The second in the series, a minor at his accession, was elected king of Hungary also; and he had hardly begun to exercise his power and display his valour, before he fell in the famous battle of Varna, in the effort to save the Greek empire from the Turks. His brother and successor, Casimir IV., had two powerful enemies, the Teutonic knights, and the Polish nobility. The latter war was the more formidable,—for, as the power of his foreign adversaries compelled him to resort frequently to the diets, of which he convoked no less than forty-five, it is not strange, that the nobles wrung some new privilege from every occurrence, which rendered their co-operation necessary. At length it was established, that no new law should be enacted, nor any levy of troops be made, without the consent of the general diet. The custom of sending deputies now became prevalent, because the frequency of the diet rendered a general attendance troublesome. The number of delegates was at first fixed by no rule, and the whole form grew up as chance, as gradual usage prescribed; but, as the excessive power of the nobility increased, the rights of the peasantry were impaired. The code of Casimir the Great, had left the labourer the choice of his residence; it was now decreed, that the peasant should be considered as attached to the soil, and the fugitive might be pursued and recovered as a run-a-way slave. A third estate was hardly known; and, if the deputies of cities sometimes appeared in a convention, their chief privilege was to kiss the new king's hand, or sign decrees, on which they were not invited to deliberate. Polish politics established the rule, that none but nobles were citizens.

While the general diet thus received its character as the representation of the nobility, elected in the provincial assemblies, another body now gradually assumed an active existence. The highest civil and religious officers of the kingdom formed a senate; and they were constituted members, not because they were great proprietors, but in consequence of the office, to which they had been named by the king.

Casimir was succeeded by his three sons. Under the first, John Albert, the power of the oligarchy was confirmed, and not a semblance of an independent prerogative remained to the crown. Under Alexander, it was further decreed by the diet, that nothing should in future be transacted, except communi consensu. The nobility had already usurped all the sovereign authority; they now in their zeal to confirm their usurpations, introduced the ambiguous clause, which was afterwards to be perverted to their own ruin. A dismal inadvertence failed to insert, that the will of the majority should be binding; and hence it became possible at a later day to interpret the law, as investing each deputy with a tribunicial authority. Under Sigismund, the third son of Casimir, all attempts to restore the royal authority were futile. The equality of the nobles was established by law;—yet a portion of them already began to look with contempt on their less wealthy peers, and would gladly have separated themselves from the great mass of "the plebeian nobility."

With Sigismund Augustus, the son of Sigismund, the race of the Jagellons expired. At that time, Poland was still powerful; the Prince of Stettin and the Prince of Prussia were its vassals; the palatines of Wallachia and Moldavia owed allegiance to it; the Duke of Courland did it homage; Livonia was incorporated among its territories. Nothing but a government was wanting to render it one of the most brilliant states of Europe. Copernicus had already rendered it illustrious in science; and, in no part of Europe was the knowledge of the Latin language so generally diffused.

Now that the royal dynasty was at an end, the succession to the throne, which had hitherto been in part hereditary, became necessarily elective. But no forms had been prescribed for the occasion. It was not known who were the rightful depositaries of power during the interregnum, nor who were possessed of a voice in the election of king. At length the right of convoking the diet was assigned to the primate, and the elective franchise was decided to appertain in an equal degree to each of the nobles, without the intervention of electors.