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EXPLANATION OF THE DOUBLE PLATE OVERLEAF

After the death of Sigismund III, the first Vasa, a stormy interregnum was followed by the accession of Vladislav IV, Sigismund's son, to the throne of Poland (1632-1648). In 1633 he sent an embassy to Rome; the entry of the ambassadors was drawn and etched by Stefano della Bella (1610-1664). The first two leaves of the series are reproduced overleaf. The etching is dedicated to Prince Lorenzo de' Medici.

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(From the original etching in the royal cabinet of engravings in Dresden.)

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EIN 1633. ETCHING BY STEFANO DELLA BELLA Dresden Cabinet of Engravings)

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The Slachta, when it met after the death of Sigismund in 1632 to elect his son Wladislaus IV Sigismund (died 1648), restricted still more the power of the crown. The king was in the future not to be allowed to begin a war without the consent of the imperial diet, or to enlist soldiers out of his privy purse; he was required to confer the vacant offices within six weeks after the diet, to cede to the country the profits of coinage, to build a fleet on the Baltic, and to contribute two quarters instead of one quarter of the royal revenues to the war with Moscow. Besides this, the old tax of two groschen from the hide of land was abolished as "a survival of the old serfdom." According to these provisos the king was more restricted in his liberty than the ordinary noble, since the latter might keep troops; Zamojski Wisneovecki and others were able to put ten thousand men into the field. Wladislaus was compelled to accept these stipulations, and in the course of his reign had to submit to still further curtailment of his freedom. As he once went to Baden to take the waters, the diet of 1639 passed a resolution that the king could not leave the country without the consent of Parliament. Later the king was prohibited, and this time with more justice, from incurring debts in imperial affairs.

Wladislaus was obviously forced to try and improve this untenable position of the crown in regard to the estates, and to strengthen the central power. His whole reign is a covert struggle against the existing constitution. Above all, he wished to withdraw himself from the excessive influence of the Catholic Church, which had already inflicted deep wounds upon the country. The Church, dominated by Jesuits, encouraged men to enter their community, conceded no privileges to the Uniates, and thus rendered the whole work of the union void. The Jesuits in Poland, as in other countries, searched for Protestant and other heretical books and destroyed them. The schools came gradually into their hands; they founded their own academy in Cracow, in order to enter into rivalry with the one already existing (see pp. 488 and 502). They accumulated immense fortunes, and finally watched every step which the king took. Wladislaus, who in May, 1624, at his father's instructions, had undertaken a long journey to several courts, and finally to Rome, at last ventured to take up a bold attitude against the predominance of the Church. He, like Casimir IV, previously (p. 509) endeavoured to make the influence of the crown felt in the election of the bishops, and negotiated with Rome on the subject with some success (see the accompanying plate, “The Polish Embassy which visited Rome in the Year 1633"). He wished that the papal consent to the founding of the Jesuit academy in Cracow should be recalled. He instituted in Thorn, certainly to the indignation of the Catholics, a discussion between the different confessions, which, however, like others previously, remained unsuccessful. He protected the non-united, and, disregarding the union at Brest, left them their own bishoprics in Lemberg, Przemyšl, Luzk, Mohilev, and the archbishopric in Kiev, without troubling himself about the protest of Rome; in fact, he actually permitted the return of Uniates to Orthodoxy, and treated the Greek Orthodox with justice. The success of his exertions was considerable. In consequence of this the eastern provinces, and above all the Cossacks, the champions of Orthodoxy, remained true to the king, although they were aware that they could not expect any just treatment from their enemy the Slachta.

In an equally decisive manner he broke away from the foreign policy of his father. He strove for an alliance of Poland with Russia, carried on war with

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