arms.

of the age.

Charles never doubted that he must begin a war, the only point for deliberation was against what country he should first direct his Denmark seemed to offer an easy prey. Ruled by a turbulent and powerful oligarchy, who applied to their own purposes the resources of the State, and opposed even the wisest and most useful measures of the King, that country seemed fast drifting to ruin. It was moreover totally destitute of any permanent and well-organised military force that could be opposed to the Swedish veterans trained in the Thirty Years' War by the greatest captains But an attack upon Denmark was feasible at any time, and a more important project seemed first to claim the attention of Charles. He contemplated seizing those provinces on the Baltic, held by the Elector of Brandenburg and the King of Poland, that interrupted the communication between Livonia and Pomerania, provinces of which he was already in possession. The Dukes of Courland and Prussia, who were vassals of Poland, were to be compelled to acknowledge the sovereignty of Sweden; the mouths of the Vistula were to be seized, as well as Polish Prussia and Dantzic; and the House of Brandenburg was to be offered in Poland a compensation for ceding Eastern Pomerania, which would connect together all these conquests. When these plans had been accomplished, the subjugation of Denmark would complete Charles's empire in the Baltic, and render that sea a Swedish lake."

While Charles was still in suspense, he was decided by a step taken by John Casimir II. of Poland. That monarch, annoyed at seeing the Swedish crown, formerly worn by his father, pass into a foreign house, yet without the power to assert his claim to it by arms, was foolish enough to afford Charles a pretext for war by protesting against his accession. Under the circumstances of Poland at that time, nothing could have been more imprudent than such a step. Since the accession of John Casimir in 1648, Poland, which under the rule of his brother and predecessor, Ladislaus IV., had still enjoyed some reputation, had fallen into a state of decay and almost of dissolution. It was with difficulty that John Casimir could defend his frontiers against the Cossacks his subjects, and the Tartars his neighbours; while the internal factions with which Poland was rent scarcely allowed him to maintain himself upon the throne.

The kingdom, or as the Poles themselves called it, the Republic, of Poland, required, from its peculiar constitution, the greatest vigour and ability in the prince who governed it. The only class Puffendorf, De Rebus a Carolo Gust. gestis, t. i. p. 39 sqq..

40

POLAND UNDER CASIMIR II.

[Book V. of Poles that enjoyed any political rights was the nobles, comprising some 100,000 families. The rest of the population was composed either of serfs, who were entirely at the disposal of their masters, or the inhabitants of towns, who, though free, could neither hold public office nor exercise any legislative power. Hence the nobles alone composed the State; but these were themselves divided into four very different classes. The first class, consisting of a few princely families, who possessed whole provinces, enjoyed large revenues, and had the privilege of maintaining troops, were often at deadly feud with one another, and carried on their quarrels with the aid of foreign mercenaries and foreign gold. Under them were the Voyvodes, Starosts, and Bishops, who administered the higher temporal and spiritual offices. These two classes alone were properly the rulers of the State. The third class consisted of holders of prebends, and castellanies. The nobles of the fourth and last class, by far the most numerous, were poor, and for the most part depended on those above them for employment and subsistence.

The Diet, chosen only by the nobles, possessed the whole power of the Government; it elected the king, made the laws, and even took a part in the executive administration. For although the King was nominally the head of the State, yet he had so little real power that the three greatest officers, namely, the Grand Chancellor, who administered the law, the Grand Treasurer, who presided over the finances, and the Grand Marshal, who directed the political affairs of the kingdom, were not responsible to him for the discharge of their functions. Notwithstanding, however, that the Diet possessed such extensive powers, it lay at the mercy of any single member, who, by virtue of what was called the Liberum Veto, might annul its proceedings. The nobles had also the right of forming Confederations, which raised troops and decided by arms contested political questions. When the anarchy thus created became too intolerable to be endured, recourse was had to a General Confederation; a sort of military dictatorship, whose leader usurped all the functions of government. Enrolment in such a confederation was compulsory on every noble, on pain of forfeiting his privileges.

Poland was also exposed to anarchy through the religious parties into which it was divided; for though most of the nobles were Roman Catholics, a considerable number belonged to the Protestant, and some to the Greek confession. These were called Dissidents, or dissenters. They enjoyed the same political privileges as the other nobles; of which, however, the priests and

Jesuits were continually seeking to deprive them; an object in which, in the following century, they at length succeeded.

Bred as a monk and imbued with all the bigotry of the cloister, John Casimir was wholly unfitted to rule a kingdom like Poland. He was himself governed by his Queen, Louisa Maria di Gongaza; which circumstance, together with the preference which he showed for French manners, caused a large party to regard him as unworthy to reign over a warlike nobility. In the year 1652, the opposition to his government had been displayed in the strongest manner. The Liberum Veto was then first used, and whole provinces seemed inclined to place themselves under foreign protection. In the same year, Jerome Radzejowski, Vice-chancellor of Poland, and one of the principal leaders of the malcontents, fled his country and took refuge at the Court of Sweden; where he incited Charles, by the promise of his assistance, to deliver the Poles from the domination of a pusillanimous king and an imperious woman. Charles might also expect to find a strong party in the Protestant malcontents, among whom was prince Radzivill, grand general of Lithuania.

8

All these circumstances seemed to favour an attack on Poland, and more than all these, the war in which that country was then engaged with Russia. The Czar Michael, the founder of the House of Romanoff, had died in July 1645, and was succeeded by his son Alexis, then sixteen years of age. Russia had now recovered from her domestic troubles, and began to feel her strength. Alexis had commenced those plans for civilising the Russians, and enabling them to play a part in the affairs of Europe, which were afterwards carried out by his son, Peter the Great; he had partly organised his army on the European model, and had introduced foreign artisans to instruct his people in handicrafts and manufactures. To this ambitious and enterprising prince, the disputes between the Poles and the Cossacks of the Ukraine seemed to offer a favourable opportunity for extending his dominions.

9

These Cossacks, who must be distinguished from those of the Don, inhabited a country lying on the Dnieper about forty leagues broad, and situated between the 50th and 53rd degrees of N. latitude. The Sclavonic name of Ukraine is identical with the German Mark, and the French Marche, and signifies a boundary or frontier; for anciently the Ukraine formed a boundary between four states: Russia, Poland, Turkey, and Little Tartary. From See Vol. II. p. 521. Engel, Gesch. der Ukraine und der Cosacken.

For the history of this people see

42

THE COSSACKS OF THE UKRAINE.

[Book V. its being governed by the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, it also obtained the name of Little Russia, in contradistinction to the Russia governed by the Muscovite Sovereigns; and hence when Jagellon, Grand Duke of Lithuania, was elected to the throne of Poland in 1386, the Ukraine became united under the same prince with Poland. In 1569, when Lithuania was regularly incorporated with Poland, the Palatine and Castellan of Kiev, in the Ukraine, took their places among the senators of the Republic. A few years afterwards, Stephen Bathori gave the Cossacks a more regular organisation. He divided them into regiments of 1000 men, distributed under Sotnas (banners) or companies, each of which had a permanent chief. All the regiments were under a sole commander, called Hetman, whom the King invested in his command with the flag, a horsetail, a bâton, and a mirror. But Sigismund III. Augustus, who succeeded Bathori on the Polish throne, quite alienated the Cossacks by his impolitic measures. He reduced their military force from 40,000 men to 6000; forbade their marauding expeditions, and made their Hetman subordinate to the general of the Crown. Sigismund was also imprudent enough to shock their religious prejudices; and being governed by the priests, did all that lay in his power to bring the Cossacks, who belonged to the Greek communion, under the dominion of the Pope. These innovations excited a discontent which broke out more than once into open rebellion, and produced a series of wars, which were prolonged with varying success through the reigns of Sigismund and his successor Ladislaus. At length an imprudent step on the part of the latter monarch prepared the events which for ever separated the Ukraine from Poland.

The Diet having refused Ladislaus a corps of foreign troops for the war which he meditated against the Turks, that monarch resolved to gain the affection and assistance of the Cossacks by restoring to them their ancient privileges. But this he endeavoured to effect by engaging their leader, Chmelnicki, in a sort of sham conspiracy against his own kingdom. The Tartars were to be secretly induced to attack Poland in conjunction with the Cossacks; and when the Diet should have provided Ladislaus with troops and money to repel the invasion, the Cossacks were to make common cause with him, and, after driving out the enemy, to establish the King's authority on a solid basis. The plan was carried out. In 1647 the Cossacks rose; in May 1648, with the assistance of the Khan of the Tartars, they defeated a Polish army; and Chmelnicki, as had been arranged, addressed a letter to the

Polish King, demanding for the Cossacks a redress of grievances and the re-establishment of their ancient constitution.

Unfortunately, however, for the success of this project Ladislaus had expired before the letter was delivered; and the Diet which assembled in July, after some stormy debates, resolved to use force against the Cossacks: but the Polish army disbanded itself on their approach. John Casimir, therefore, when elected to the Polish crown, had no alternative but to conclude an armistice with them, and in the following year he restored to them most of their privileges. This agreement, however, was not observed; the Cossacks again rose, but, with their allies the Tartars, were defeated by the Poles, July 1651; when they were compelled to accept a convention much less favourable than the former one. The strength of their army was reduced to 20,000 men, and they were obliged to admit, as collectors and agents of the King, the Jews who had been formerly banished. Such a state of things was in the highest degree unpalatable to a warlike people accustomed to treat with arms in their hands. Their leader, Chmelnicki, who had three or four years before sought the aid of the Russians, with whom the Cossacks were connected by a common origin and a conformity of language and religion, persuaded them, in 1654, to place themselves by a formal treaty under the protection of the Czar Alexis; 10 who eagerly seized the occasion to reunite to his empire provinces which had been separated from it since the 14th century. This step involved Alexis in a war with Poland; which he strove to justify with foreign Powers by the most childish complaints of errors committed by the Poles in the titles given by them to himself and his father; the authors of which errors, he said, he had in vain required to be capitally punished."1 The Czar in person laid siege to and captured Smolensko, Sept. 10th 1654, and soon after Vitepsk and other towns; another Russian army entered Lithuania and took several places, while a third occupied Kiev and all the Ukraine. The Poles, who did not take the field till late in the year, being reinforced by 18,000 Tatars, blockaded Chmelnicki in his fortified camp at Ochmatoff till February 1655; when that intrepid chieftain cut his way through their ranks sword in hand and rejoined the Russians.

Such was the state of Poland at the time of Charles X.'s contemplated expedition against that kingdom. In vain had John Casimir despatched ambassadors to Stockholm to avert it; who

10 Engel, S. 191.

11 "Ipsum Czarem missis Legatis sæpius postulasse, ut qui tales errores admiserint

capite plecterentur." Puffendorf, De Rebus Suec., lib. xxvi. § 8.