Monarch Profile: King Augustus III of Poland

The history of the last of the Polish monarchs is generally a tragic one and the reign of Augustus III, the penultimate King of Poland, was an example of this. He, like others of this period, often comes under considerable criticism and yet, there should be room to have some sympathy for these monarchs in the last years of life of the old Kingdom of Poland. They were given a heavy responsibility, ruling a fractious country with no defensible borders surrounded by three powerful monarchies, Romanov Russia, Hohenzollern Prussia and Habsburg Austria, which all sought the elimination of Poland as an unnecessary complication to their ambitions. Yet, the Polish kings were given no tools with which to deal with this dangerous state of affairs, occupying a position in which they had no incentive to make long-term plans since the kings of Poland were elected and someone of another house would likely succeed them, their powers were curtailed and their populace was extremely divided.

The position of the Polish monarchs, at this late stage, was not entirely dissimilar from that of the Roman Pontiffs prior to the unification of Italy. They could, at times, achieve a degree of national unity in pursuit of a common goal, but there were always nobles who were willing to align themselves with the Austrians, Prussians or Russians in order to further their own aims and thus undercut the cohesion of the country overall. The kings themselves, because their position was so insecure, were also invariably forced in this period to align themselves with foreign powers, again, rather like the Roman Pontiffs shifted back and forth in alliances with the French or Germans in order to maintain their position and block the moves of other competing states. King Augustus III of Poland was no different, he too had to have foreign support and, like others, found this foreign support to quite often be as unpleasant as it was necessary.

Augustus III was born on October 17, 1696 in Dresden in the Electorate of Saxony, a member of the House of Wettin which once reigned over many countries and still reigns today over Belgium, the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth Realms. His father was Augustus II, nicknamed “Augustus the Strong” who is today most remembered for his huge number of illegitimate children, some putting the number of his offspring in the hundreds. Augustus III, however, was his only legitimate son and would, like his father, one day become Prince-Elector of Saxony, Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. He was brought up for this purpose and, as his father had done earlier, this required his conversion to Catholicism in 1712. The Electors of Saxony had been Protestants all the way back to the days of Martin Luther and this caused considerable outrage among the Saxon aristocracy as well as an effort by Prussia and Hanover (whose Elector was also the British monarch) to deprive Saxony of its leadership of the Protestant caucus in the Reichstag (the princely upper house of the Imperial Diet or parliament of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation) but the Prussians and Hanoverians were unsuccessful.

In 1733 King Augustus II died and Augustus III succeeded his father as Prince-Elector of Saxony (as Friedrich Augustus II). His election as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania was expected but not a forgone conclusion. For that, he would require foreign support. The Russians backed Augustus III as King of Poland, which was not too surprising but the Austrians did as well. Of course, the German Reic
h (HRE) as a whole did as well, which was also not surprising, favoring a German monarch on the Polish throne but the specific backing of the Austrians, which is to say the House of Habsburg, was a matter of political bargaining. The Habsburgs were anxious to secure their own position which was endangered by the fact that the last Emperor had only a daughter, Maria Theresa, to succeed him and tried everything from backroom deals to outright bribery to gain support for his “Pragmatic Sanction” by which the German princes pledged to support Maria Theresa.

The danger, of course, was that the German lands would fall into the same pattern of civil war and dynastic infighting which later befell Spain during the Carlist Wars in a similar situation. Augustus III agreed to support the Pragmatic Sanction and thus won the support of Emperor Charles VI for his election to the Polish throne. Likewise, his promise to support the Russian claim to Courland by the Empress Anna, ensured that he had Russian support for his election as well. It also helped that he had, in 1719, married Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, daughter of Emperor Joseph I which also helped win over the Habsburgs. On October 5, 1733 the Polish electors gathered and Augustus III was elected King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. However, he was still faced with a problem as there was already a King of Poland to deal with and a Polish one at that in the person of Stanislaw Leszczynski (King Stanislaus I). He had widespread support in Poland and had fought Augustus II for control of the country. When Augustus II died, he returned with French support to reassert his rule. The Russians and Austrians feared an alliance between the French, Poles and Swedes and so backed Augustus III against him.

King Augustus III was crowned in Krakow early in 1734 but, though he had basically won the War of the Polish Succession by 1736, still had to deal with pro-Stanislaus insurgents until 1738. Obviously, all of this made Poland a rather unattractive place to King Augustus III and it is estimated that he spent no more than about three years of his entire reign actually in the country. The local government was usually deadlocked by feuding between the Czartoryski and Potocki families and the King delegated most of his duties to his viceroy in Poland, Heinrich von Bruehl. However, unlike many other monarchs, King Augustus III was true to his word in agreeing to the Pragmatic Sanction with the House of Habsburg and when Maria Theresa came to the throne of the Habsburg lands, he backed her in the War of the Austrian Succession in 1742 (King George’s War in America) though Poland was not heavily involved. He also remained loyal to the Austrian Empress in the Seven Years’ War of 1756 (the French & Indian War in America) though, again, Poland was not heavily involved.

In his personal life, no one could accuse King Augustus III of not doing his duty to secure the succession, at least in Saxony, as he and his wife produced sixteen children which included daughters who would be married to the future King of Spain, Dauphin of France and Elector of Bavaria. However, on the whole, history has not been kind to King Augustus III and not always fairly so. His reign over Poland is usually described as one of an absent monarch who impoverished the country in order to enrich Saxony and who was far too deferential to Empress Elizabeth of Russia. Not all of the accusations against Augustus are unfounded, Poland certainly had happier periods in her history, but the factions in Poland who opposed him often smeared his reputation with falsehoods or exaggerations. A notably example being the oft-repeated story that the King could not speak Polish which is certainly untrue. We know for a fact that the King could speak Polish, as well as French, Latin and possibly Russian along with, obviously, German.

King Augustus III was noted in his own time for making Polish food popular in German and then wider parts of Europe, for introducing coffee to Poland and for furthering education of the Polish elite by bringing them to Saxony to attend university there. Unfortunately, (as a matter of opinion) this resulted in a whole crop of powerful, young Poles soaking up the latest fashionable trends of the so-called “Enlightenment” which they eagerly brought back to Poland with them when they returned. He was also a noted patron of the arts, nonetheless, his reign saw an increase in civil unrest within Poland and increased the trend of Poland, with its many feuding factions, being ever more at the mercy of Austria, Prussia and Russia. King Augustus III died in Dresden at the age of 66 on October 15, 1763, leaving behind a still fractured Kingdom of Poland which was not long to survive.

Royal Profile: Archduke Karl Stefan of Austria-Hungary

Archduke Charles Stephen of Austria, one of those ‘monarchs who might have been’ of the First World War, was born on September 5, 1860 in what is now the Czech Republic. His parents were the Archduke Charles Ferdinand (son of the famous Duke of Teschen who so bedeviled Napoleon) and Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska, Princess of Hungary and Bohemia. Despite being born in a very land-locked region Archduke Charles Stephen took an early and avid interest in the sea. In 1879 he was commissioned as an officer-cadet in the Imperial-Royal Navy, starting what would be a very long and distinguished naval career. In 1886, at the Hofburg, he married Archduchess Maria Theresia, Princess of Tuscany by whom, over the years, he had six children. In 1896 he retired from active service in the navy but continued to hold rank and undertake special duties for the navy. In 1901 he was raised to the rank of admiral and in 1911 was appointed Grand Admiral and Inspector of the Imperial-Royal Navy, making him the highest ranking naval officer of Austria-Hungary though others held operational command. The Archduke was also a yachting enthusiast, owned several vessels and visiting England a number of times for yachting events.

During World War I, after German and Austrian forces drove the Russians out of Poland, the German and Austrian Kaisers agreed to the creation of a new Kingdom of Poland in 1916. There were many Poles in the Austro-Hungarian forces and some independence activists worked with the Germans and Austrians to see this new state created (others opposed both the Russians and the Central Powers). Exactly who would become the new King of Poland was never finally decided. However, one of the leading candidates was Archduke Charles Stephen. According to some reports he was chosen as regent as a prelude to becoming king but others dispute this. The Germans had plans to make independent or semi-independent monarchies in Finland and the Baltic with German royals leading them. There were also reports that Emperor Charles I of Austria-Hungary wanted to be King of Poland in a sort of personal union with the rest of his dominions but the Germans and many Hungarians opposed this measure. There were also disputes over German desires for territory and questions about whether the new state would include ethnically Polish areas of Austria-Hungary.

Despite these difficulties, Archduke Charles Stephen had many factors in his favor that could have made him a successful King of Poland. He lived in the Polish area of Austria-Hungary (Galicia) and spoke Polish fluently. His daughters had married into the Polish aristocracy and his son, Archduke Charles Albert, was very close to the Polish people and, in later years, would join the Polish army and fight to defend the country during World War II. However, some opposed the idea of a Kingdom of Poland altogether, preferring to partition the former Russian territory between Germany and Austria or simply Germany with members of the Bavarian and Saxon Royal Families expressing an interest in claiming the Polish crown. Yet, Archduke Charles Stephen has been most associated with the idea of a Kingdom of Poland during World War I because probably no other candidate was as close to the Polish people as he was. However, very little progress was made and that was painfully slow. A provisional government was established with a ruling council but Germany and Austria-Hungary never agreed on the details of the Kingdom of Poland and the main Polish exile group in France opposed any effort to establish a monarchy allied with the Central Powers.

Some newspapers of the period spoke of Archduke Charles Stephen as the only serious candidate and that it was only a matter of time before he became King of Poland. However, the German military became increasingly annoyed with the issue and less tolerant of Austrian ideas as the Austro-Hungarian war effort became weaker and weaker. It also did not help that the Archduke’s own in-laws continued to support the cause of Russia or that his son, Archduke Wilhelm, became a champion of the cause of Ukrainian independence as there were long-standing territorial disputes between Poland and the Ukraine. In the end, the efforts came to nothing and would have been in vain in any event as it is unthinkable that the victorious Allies would have allowed a Kingdom of Poland with an Austrian or German monarch to continue to exist.

With Austria-Hungary carved up into successor states and the Hapsburgs sent into exile, Archduke Charles Stephen remained as attached to the Polish people as he always had been. He remained on his home estate, with his wife, in what became the Republic of Poland and he supported the new state even if he did not consider it ideal. He died there in 1933, followed by his wife only a month later.

Consort Profile: Queen Bona Sforza

One of the fascinating figures in Polish history is Bona Sforza, as one might tell, not a Polish lady but an Italian one who by marriage became Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania and a consort that had quite an impact. Those familiar with the tumultuous political history of Renaissance Italy will recognize the Sforza family name, a powerhouse in Milan and a long-time force in Italian politics. As the rulers of Milan the Sforza family had at one time or another Lord Jean I of Monaco and Leonardo da Vinci and eventually had marriage times with numerous royal and papal families. Bona Sforza was born on February 2, 1494 the third child out of four of Gian Galeazzo Sforza (sixth Duke of Milan) and his wife Isabella of Naples (daughter of King Alfonso II) -thought by some to be the inspiration for the Mona Lisa. The real power at the time though was her great uncle Ludovico Sforza, a patron of the arts and Renaissance man responsible for starting the Italian Wars and who later got himself into a great deal of trouble with the King of France for trying to assassinate Jean II of Monaco. Despite such powerful family ties, Bona Sforza had a rather tragic youth, being the only one of her siblings to survive childhood.

For any high-born girl of her day the subject of marriage was never far away. However, the tendency of her great uncle to make enemies made it difficult for Isabella to secure a marriage alliance for her daughter. Ludovico had set himself against the Pope and the King of France so options in Italy, Spain or France were pretty scarce. However, he had, by the marriage of another niece, secured an alliance with the grand and powerful Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. It was the House of Hapsburg which helped arrange the marriage of Bona Sforza to another Austrian ally, the widowed King Sigismund I of Poland. She was about 24, not extremely young by the standards of the day, but her husband, known as “King Sigismund the Old” was 51. The two were married and Bona was crowned Queen of Poland in Krakow on April 18, 1518. The may have looked the odd couple; the delicate Milanese young lady and the rugged, bearded Polish king, but both were made of tough stuff and Bona was determined to succeed as Queen consort. She possessed admirable qualities for the job, having been taught by a member of the powerful Colonna family of the Roman nobility and she was perceptive, resourceful and never wasteful or frivolous.

The Queen built her own base of support, winning allies among the powerful Polish nobility and gaining favorable clerical appointments from the Medici Pope Leo X. Her position was also strengthened in 1524, when her mother died, as Bona became Princess of Rossano and Duchess of Bari in her own right as well as the holder of the Brienne claim to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. She was also kept fairly busy in the bedroom and gave the King six children; 1 son and 4 daughters surviving. All went on to illustrious titles when they grew up; Queen Isabella of Hungary, King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland, Duchess Sophia of Brunswick-Lüneberg, Queen Anna I of Poland and Queen Catherine of Sweden, Duchess of Finland. As Queen of Poland she sought to support her husband who, like most Polish monarchs, was constantly having to fight to maintain his position. Frugal by nature, the rise of her own family in Italy had taught her that power comes from independence and independence comes from wealth. With that in mind she set herself to expanding the fortune of the Jagiellon dynasty as much as she could.

The mortgaged estates of the Polish Crown were redeemed but the nobility proved intransigent on submitting to permanent taxation or to a standing army which would have increased the power of the monarchy and been a help to the King in his constant struggles against Wallachia, the Russians and the Tatars. Making the Polish monarchy, and the Jagiellon dynasty, as strong as possible was the overriding goal of Queen Bona and the acquisition of new territories in Lithuania helped, gaining the King of Poland the additional title of Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1536-1546. This brought in a good deal of revenue but having more than one heir would have helped as well but this was not possible. The Queen lost her sixth child after falling off a horse and was never able to have any more children so securing the succession of her son Sigismund II Augustus was her top priority. The boy was created Grand Duke of Lithuania and finally crowned King of Poland in 1529 alongside his father which greatly upset some of the Polish nobles who demanded that no successor to the boy-king be chosen without their consent.

When it came to dealing with enemy nobles and foreign relations, Queen Bona was no push-over, this woman did come out of Renaissance Italy after all and she was not untouched by rumors of having some enemies poisoned, though, there is of course no evidence for such accusations. On the European stage, despite them being responsible for her marriage, the Queen opposed the Hapsburgs and favored an alliance with France. She viewed the Hapsburgs as a threat to Poland and was willing to be friendly with any power that would keep their attention elsewhere. So, she supported the Hungarians against the Hapsburgs and even corresponded with the famous Roxelana, wife of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. She offered to give up the titles she had inherited from her mother in return for Silesia but the King opposed this and the negotiations collapsed. It was during this time that Protestantism began to arrive in Poland. The Teutonic Knights secularized but Prussia remained symbolically subordinate to the Polish King. Queen Bona took actions against Protestants for heresy but was not an intolerant person and had no problem with Protestant views being discussed. In any event, Protestantism was never able to take root in Poland.

Queen Bona did have some problems with her husband, clashing over a potential bride for the boy (a famously gorgeous Lithuanian Calvinist being the choice the Queen opposed) and his being sent to Lithuania which lessened her influence at court. However, that all came to an end in 1548 when King Sigismund died, leaving his son as sole King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. When his lovely Lithuanian consort, Queen Barbara, died many suspected the Queen mother of being involved since she had always opposed the marriage and it definitely led to an even cooler relationship between mother and son. The Queen finally retired to her Duchy of Bari where she died under somewhat suspicious circumstances on November 19, 1557.

Monarchist Military: The Polish Winged Hussars

Poland has long been famous for their cavalry. In the last couple centuries it was the Polish lancers, with their flat-topped Czapka headgear, that were copied by militaries far and wide. Before that though, no Polish horsemen were so famous as the fearsome “Winged Hussars”. The Hussars have long been famous as the elite light cavalry of the Kingdom of Hungary and they too have been widely copied around the world. Poland was influenced as well and in the XVI Century developed their own hussars, heavily armored and adding some uniquely Polish innovations. Originally these were modeled after the Serbian and Hungarian heavy hussars who fought in the employ of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the dominant Eastern European power of their day. It was HM Stephan Bathory, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania who reformed the Polish hussars and made them the preeminent elite unit of the Polish-Lithuanian army, first as part of his royal guard and then expanding them further throughout the army.

Their most famous attribute was their “wings”, wooden frames affixed first to their saddles and later to the back of their armor and decorated with feathers. These gave the Polish cavalry a very distinctive appearance and they quickly gained a great deal of notoriety, both by their appearance and their heroic record of success, proving critical in one victorious battle after another. Aside from the psychological impact of their intimidating appearance, the “wings” had a more practical benefit. When a mass of cavalry charged the “wings” would cause a loud clattering noise that caused the enemy to exaggerate their number and thus, combined with their appearance, greatly lowered the morale of their enemies. In battle after battle the Winged Hussars proved so successful, often defeating superior enemy forces, that the cavalry became the backbone of the Polish-Lithuanian army, outnumbered the less costly infantry by a considerable margin. Probably their most famous engagement was at the siege of Vienna when the Polish army arrived, the Winged Hussars leading the way, descending on the battlefield like a heavenly host to break the seemingly invincible Ottoman siege and probably saving Europe from Turkish domination.

The Polish hussars were heavily armored and carried a lance (the only equipment provided by the King), a stabbing sword, a traditional cavalry saber and sometimes firearms. Their primary tactic was, of course, the charge, starting in a rather open formation (which helped cut down casualties to enemy projectiles) and then concentrating as they approached the enemy line to strengthen their impact when they came crashing through. Their horses were a special breed, mixing Polish and eastern bloodlines to create a very sturdy and nimble animal and they were very practical in their equipment, adopting what worked best from any source. Eventually, the day of armored cavalry came to an end but, as stated earlier, Polish lancers continued to be the standard by which other cavalry forces were judged and the legacy of the Winged Hussars remained strong, even being used as the symbol for the First Polish Armored Division of World War II. They remain a source of pride for the Polish people, and justly so.

Consort Profile: Queen Marie Leszczyńska of Poland

His Most Christian Majesty King Louis XV of France probably does not have the reputation of being the greatest husband in history but he did have a few years as a devoted spouse and he had an admirable queen consort in the person of his Polish wife Marie Leszczynska of Poland. She was born in Trzebnica, Poland on June 23, 1703 the second daughter of King Stanislaw I of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and his wife Queen Catherine Opalinska. Her early years were spent being swept along by the political turmoil swirling around her father. Polish politics was never for the faint of heart and it was a constant struggle for King Stanislaw to keep, retain or re-take his throne depending on the situation. Her father had been placed on the throne by the warrior-King Charles XII of Sweden and there were rivalries within and the threat of another partition from without on the part of Prussia, Russia and Austria. Because of this situation Marie spent much of her childhood outside of Poland, in Sweden or in France. While in France she was even proposed to by the Prince of Conde, but nothing came of it.

However, the idea of a marriage with the Bourbons of France did not go away. The King of Poland was in need of any sort of political support and individuals in France began to consider Princess Marie a possibility too. The young King Louis XV was in need of a wife and yet every possibility seemed to bring too much political baggage to the table. Poland, however, had very few friends and thus a marriage with a Polish princess would not bring with it any unwanted entanglements. The Prince of Conde had no hard feelings and supported the match as did Cardinal Fleury who had replaced the prince as prime minister to Louis XV. She was young, pretty, good natured and politically neutral, in short, she came to be seen as the ideal choice. She was older than the King (22 years to his 15) but not excessively so and could be expected on to fulfill her duty to secure the succession right away. So, on August 15, 1725 the two were married by proxy at the cathedral of Strasbourg with the Duke of Orleans standing in for the King. The couple did not actually meet in person until the day before their face-to-face ceremony on September 5, 1725.

As is often the case, the new Queen Marie faced her share of difficulties after coming to France and marrying the King. Some of the more elitist elements at court thought a marriage to a Polish princess whose father only briefly and intermittently held a throne beneath the dignity of a Bourbon monarch of France. Ugly rumors were spread about the new Queen but, as hurtful as these must have been, Marie never showed any sign in public that such was the case. The common people of France were impressed with her from the start as she gave out alms to the poor on the way to her wedding. Nor were their any complaints from King Louis who fell instantly in love with the young Polish princess and she with him. Their initial life together seemed idyllic and so it was. They were infatuated with each other and in no time at all the new Queen consort was pregnant with twins. In 1727 she gave birth to two girls; Princess Louise Elisabeth and Princess Henriette Anne at Versailles. A son, of course, was what was hoped for, but the twins were healthy, the couple still young and in love and there was no great worry that more children would follow and France would have a son and heir.

The snobs at court still smirk at their Polish queen but she proved them all wrong by keeping the affection of her husband and did indeed give birth to eight more children; six girls and two boys including the sought-after Dauphin Louis Ferdinand. Despite all the negativity directed at the Queen, she was not lacking in intelligence nor in diligence. The elaborate protocol of Versailles frustrated many a royal consort but the Queen worked hard to master it and if the gossiping bothered her she certainly never let it show but carried herself always with grace and dignity. However, her many pregnancies caused the age difference between her and her husband to become more evident and the lustful King Louis began to wander. Her feelings had not changed and she was hurt by the string of mistresses Louis XV began to take but, to her credit, she never made a scene over his affairs, always remaining polite and friendly.

The Queen was a good natured woman, not at all extravagant and concerned about the plight of the least of the French people. She was very artistically inclined and loved to paint and take singing lessons. Her passion for music caused her to bring Polish choral music to the chapel of Versailles and she was quite impressed with meeting an up-and-coming young composer named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. She was sufficiently liberal in her thinking to secure a pension for the “Enlightenment” writer Voltaire, but she certainly did not share all of his views. Queen Marie was, for instance, sincerely religious and turned her back on the more licentious members of the court and, for the most part, stuck to her own little circle of friends who shared her commitment to the faith. Madame Pompadour, most famous of the mistresses of Louis XV, may have eclipsed her at court but Queen Marie never cared about the favor of such people of whose behavior she disapproved. She also had the comfort of knowing, which she did, that outside the confines of Versailles she was the most popular member of the French Royal Family. It therefore came as a great blow to the people of France when Queen Marie died on June 24, 1768 at the age of 65. She had been the longest-serving Queen consort in French history and still managed to outlive Madame Pompadour. Her children were heartbroken as they had all been very close to their mother and even King Louis, for all his philandering, was not unmoved. Under quite difficult circumstances she had been a model queen consort, a credit to France and Poland.

MM Video: Monarchs of Poland

Royal Response to Polish Tragedy

It is a sad fact of history that the nation of Poland seems to have a long record of tragedy and heartache and recently this was seen again with the plane crash at Smolensk, Russia which took the lives of all 96 people on board including the President of the Polish Republic Lech Kaczynski. Among those royals who have expressed their sorrow over the event to the Polish government are Queen Elizabeth II, King Harald V, Grand Duke Henri, Queen Beatrix and King Juan Carlos. As regular readers will know HRH the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall only recently toured Eastern Europe and spent quite a bit of time in Poland with the President and First Lady. The Prince said that he and the Duchess were "shocked and deeply upset". The Mad Monarchist sends prayers and condolences to families involved and all the people of the long suffering nation of Poland. May all those who died be granted eternal rest and may they rest in peace.

Monarch Profile: King Stanislas II August of Poland

The last King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania in the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was Stanislas II August. He was born Count Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski in 1732 in Belarus. Politics came naturally to him with his family connections and powerful oratory and he was a famous member of the Chamber of Deputies by the time he was 20. In 1755 he went to work for the British ambassador in St Petersburg. The future Empress Catherine the Great was hopelessly smitten by him and he made enough of an impression on the Empress Elizabeth that she made him the Russian ambassador to the King of Saxony. When King Augustus III died in 1763 Poland fell into the usual squabbles over who would succeed him and following a coup and the intervention of Russia the young Count Poniatowski was elected King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, taking the name Stanislaw II Augustus. He was crowned in Warsaw on November 25, 1764.

As King of Poland he instituted several reforms but when rebel forces rose up against him and even took him prisoner for a time. They declared him deposed but Russian imperial troops came to the rescue and restored Stanislas to his throne. However, the Kingdom of Poland had effectively become a Russian protectorate. When the first partition of Poland was enacted in 1772 there was nothing he could do about it and his position only became further dependent on Russia as the radical revolutionary ideas breaking out in France began to spread across the nations of Europe, infecting Poland as well. In 1783 he married his longtime mistress by whom he already had a son. He attempted to strengthen his position as monarch by embracing the call for reform and encouraging a healthy sort of Polish nationalism. This culminated in the enactment of the Constitution of 1791.

However, although the people were deeply moved by the King's embrace of the new constitution a great many nobles were against it and declared against the monarch in their effort to see it abolished. Warfare erupted between the confederation of nobles backed up by the Russians on one side and the King and those Poles loyal to the constitution on the other. The King's troops performed bravely with some excellent hard-fighting generals (including Tadeusz Kosciuszko who had fought in the Continental Army in the American War for Independence) but in the end King Stanislas, on the advice of all of his ministers, finally gave in to the nobles and surrendered himself to the Russians. The result was the second partition of Poland between Russia and Prussia in 1793. Only two years later Austria joined in the last partition of Poland which finally divided up the last of the country between the three powers. Stanislas II August was forced to abdicate on November 25, 1795. He was then taken to St Petersburg where he lived out the rest of his life on a pension granted by the Empress. He died lonely and deeply in debt in 1798 and was buried in St Catherine's Catholic Church in St Petersburg.

Some look with sympathy on the last King of Poland and point to the many undeniably great contributions he made to Polish society throughout his reign in the arts and education and so on. Yet others see him as a monarch who danced too close to dangerous forces, who did little to encourage the support of traditional supporters like the Church and who was too weak to set a course and stick to it. Some view his final capitulation to the confederation of nobles as downright treasonous and yet given all that came after it, many could also not help to look back on the Poland he represented as a better time when the country was at least nominally independent and at least existed. In 1938 his remains were moved to his birthplace in Belarus and in 1995 finally to Warsaw where he now rests in St John's Cathedral.

Monarch Profile: King Sigismund III of Poland

The reign of King Sigismund III of Poland is often spoken of as the beginning of the end of Polish greatness. In terms of worldly success he certainly met with many defeats and setbacks. Yet, he was also one of the great Catholic champions of Europe and his reign can also be seen as one of many opportunities for an even greater Poland had things gone just a little differently. He was also a man of principle who would follow the hard but upright path rather than compromise his values for a more sure chance at success. As a monarch who reigned during the Catholic Reformation (also called the counterreformation) he constantly worked to see the restoration of all of his subjects to the true faith embodied in the Church of Rome. Oddly enough for such a staunchly Catholic monarch his story begins in the staunchly Protestant Kingdom of Sweden.

Sigismund was born on June 20, 1566 to Katarzyna (Catherine) Jagiellonka and King John III of Sweden at Gripsholm. His parents, at the time, were being held prisoner by King Eric XIV but despite the Protestant domination of Sweden young Sigismund was raised as a Catholic. Regaining the throne of Sweden would be one of the primary driving forces in his life. His Polish connection came through his mother who was the daughter of Sigismund the Old and the Jagiellonka family had been the royal family of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth since King Wladyslaw II obtained the crown in 1386 through his Angevin wife. In 1587 Sigismund stood for election to the Polish throne after the death of King Stefan Batory. He was supported by Chancellor Jan Zamoyski, the dowager Queen Anna and the nobles loyal to the Zborowski family. With this network behind him he was duly elected King of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth on August 19, 1587 with the blessings of the primate of Poland Stanislaw Karnkowski. From that time his official name and title became Sigismund III, by the grace of God, king of Poland, grand duke of Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Masovia, Samogitia, Livonia and also hereditary king of the Swedes, Goths and Wends; the later titles being in reference to the claims of his father to the Swedish throne.

However, as was often the case with the Polish electoral monarchy, the outcome was strongly contested by the losers who backed the Emperor Maximilian III for King of Poland. Upon hearing of his election King Sigismund slipped through the clutches of the Protestants in Sweden and landed in Poland on October 7 and quickly agreed to give up some royal powers to the parliament of the commonwealth in the hope of wining over some of his enemies and settling the disputed election. He was proclaimed by the Lesser Prussian Treasurer Jan Dulski as king on behalf of the Crown Marshal Andrzej Opalinski and after journeying to Krakow he was crowned on December 27. It would have seemed that the issue of who would be King of Poland had been settled by Emperor Maximilian III invaded at the head of his army to claim his crown. Thankfully, hostilities did not last too long as hetman Jan Zamojski at the head of a Polish army loyal to King Sigismund met and defeated the Austrians at the battle of Byczyna and took Maximilian III prisoner. However, at the request of Pope Sixtus V, King Sigismund III released Maximilian who surrendered his claim to the Polish commonwealth in 1589. King Sigismund also tried to maintain peace with his powerful neighbor by marrying Archduchess Anna of Austria in 1592. His was always his intention to be allied with Catholic Austria against the Protestant forces that were tearing Christendom apart.

When his father died King Sigismund III requested from his parliament that he be allowed to claim his inheritance as the rightful King of Sweden. The Poles had no objection and when he promised to respect Lutheranism as the official religion of Sweden the Swedes went along with the idea as well and Sigismund was crowned King of Sweden in 1594. He appointed his uncle, Duke Charles, to rule as regent on his behalf in Sweden while he remained in Poland since the Swedes and the Commonwealth were not united politically but simply had a personal union by sharing one monarch. However, tensions grew quickly with Sweden as despite the legal guarantees, King Sigismund was a devout Catholic and this made the Swedes nervous. The Protestant firebrands warned that Sigismund had the ultimate goal of making Sweden Catholic again. As proof they pointed to the Union of Brest Sigismund set up in 1596 which brought many Eastern Orthodox into the Catholic fold and led to the modern day Ukrainian Catholic Church, to his friendship with Catholic Austria and his support for the Catholic Reformation, particularly the Jesuit order, which was spreading out to refute Protestantism and regain lost spiritual ground for Rome.

Combating heresy and giving Poland, long a politically chaotic country, a strong and stable government were the primary goals of King Sigismund. Toward this end he moved the royal palace from Krakow to Warsaw and oversaw the arrival of the Jesuits who set up many schools throughout Poland and became chaplains and confessors to many families. The Catholic Church in Poland rebounded strongly during the early years of the reign of King Sigismund III. Their preaching was very well received by the public and along with their staunch defense of the faith they also reminded Poles of their crucial role as the first line of defense for Catholic Christendom against the Russians and the Turks. However, trouble was never far away for King Sigismund and 1598 was a particularly painful year. His wife Anna died (he later married her sister Constance of Austria in 1605) and he saw the outbreak of rebellion in Sweden led by his own uncle and regent who portrayed himself as the Protestant champion of Sweden fighting against their Polish Catholic monarch. King Sigismund moved against him which a combined Swedish and Polish army. He won some early victories but the climax came at the battle of Stangebro in which his 8,000 strong army was defeated by the 12,000 men of Duke Charles. The Swedish loyalists were executed by the Protestant government and after the King returned to Poland he was declared deposed and his uncle was proclaimed King Charles IX of Sweden in 1600. A number of Swedish Polish wars resulted but the personal union was never to be recovered despite the many persistent efforts of King Sigismund.

Trouble was also plentiful on the southern border where Poland was drawn into the wars of local nobles and the Austrian Hapsburgs against the Muslim Tartars and Turks. King Sigismund was anxious to help Austria and was promised territorial gains for Poland in return for his assistance. He sent in a mercenary army fresh from the wars in Russia to Moldavia but in 1620 the Polish forces were defeated and Sigismund was forced to renounce his claim to the principality. It was a setback but resulted in a negotiated peace and was no stunning victory for the Muslims who had vowed to destroy the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and in this aim they certainly failed. Almost at the same time as these troubles, and those with Sweden, Sigismund was fighting a war with Russia. Those who remember the World War II era of Polish wars against Germany and Russia should set any preconceptions aside because in the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth it was the Poles that were a force to be reckoned with, especially their elite heavy, winged, hussars. The Russians had been fighting amongst themselves and King Sigismund got involved, as did Sweden though they were never firmly on one side or the other. At one point the Russians invited the son of King Sigismund to become their Tsar but Sigismund would not allow it. He though he himself might become the master of Russia and though this did not happen the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did win a number of victories and gained more territory. At one point Polish troops even captured Moscow as astounding as that might seem today. On the downside the whole conflict meant that any lasting union between the Commonwealth and Russia was out of the question.

Throughout all of these constant wars King Sigismund also tried to stabilize and streamline the Commonwealth government. The electoral monarchy in Poland had created a nobility with rather too extensive powers and a great deal of division. Sigismund worked to gain more power for the king as well as to allow government business to pass with a majority of votes of the parliament rather than unanimity which was extremely hard to achieve and men that things often did not get done. All these actions led to a rebellion but the King was ultimately victorious and despite what his many detractors might say his reign marked a period of Polish greatness the likes of which has not often been seen. He made the Commonwealth very much the dominant power of Eastern Europe and just as importantly ensured that Poland remained a solidly Catholic country in the face of Protestant incursions. He was a brave man, a talented monarch and something of a renaissance man as is evidenced by his devout faith and his artistic talent as a painter and goldsmith. Had things gone just a little bit different he might have been the father of a Catholic dynasty that stretched across Sweden, Poland-Lithuania, Moldavia and Russia. It did not happen, but that should not detract from his greatness as one of the royal champions of the Catholic Reformation period. King Sigismund III died on April 30, 1632 at the age of 65 in his castle at Warsaw and was succeeded by his son King Wladyslaw IV.