In 1587, Prince Sigismund III Vasa
of Sweden became a candidate for election to the throne of the massive Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth that had grown up out of the empire carved out by the Teutonic
Knights centuries before. Twenty-three-year-old Sigismund won the
election, defeating his competitor Maximilian III of Austria first politically
for favor of the Polish nobles, the szlachta, and then
militarily on the field. It was a great boon to Sweden, who grew in power
as Austria waned. Sigismund married Austrian archduchess Anna in 1592,
healing old wounds and establishing a diplomatic sphere of influence that
stretched throughout Eastern Europe.
Sigismund's uncle, Duke Charles,
led a rebellion of Lutheran nobles to eject the Catholic king. Sigismund
created an army of his few supporters along with thousands of mercenaries to
establish his rule, while Charles united the Swedes under him. At the
Battle of Stångebro in 1598, Charles' troops seized the high ground and
eventually drove Sigismund's army into retreat with hundreds of men drowning in
rivers as they attempted to escape. Sigismund called for a truce, which
was agreed upon by Charles with conditions that Sigismund turn himself and the
nobles loyal to him for imprisonment. Sigismund would be forced to attend
the Swedish parliament, the Riksens stander. While Sigismund initially agreed, he again reneged
on his vow and attempted to escape.
Charles' men recaptured him and placed him under close guard, where
Sigismund continually made threats to escape, raise another army, and crush who
stood in his way.
Even with Sigismund captured, there
were fortresses in Finland still loyal to the Polish king, which required
Charles to spend a season campaigning against them. His policies became stricter, and he began
conducting public mass executions known as "bloodbaths", such as that
in Abo in November of 1599, where fourteen nobles who supported Sigismund were
beheaded. The next year, Charles carried
out the last major trial in Linkoping, where he himself served as
prosecutor. Sigismund scoffed at the
trial as illegal and treacherous, causing ill feeling among the Swedes, and the
judges suggested death for the mad king Sigismund. Along with five of his advisors, Sigismund
was beheaded on Maundy Thursday in 1600.
Charles later became King Charles
IX of Sweden, while Sigismund's son Wladyslaw IV Vasa was elected King of
Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania at only five years old. The szlachta enjoyed greater power as a
governing body and increased the potency of the magnates, the most powerful
nobles who held nearly royal status.
These magnates began to encroach on the surrounding areas, influencing Moldavia
and Muscovy. In the latter, the Time of
Troubles had ground on as Russian noble boyars and the weakened tsar battled
for supremacy following the death of the tyrannical Ivan the Terrible. At the suggestion and pressure by some
members of the szlachta, the ruling Seven Boyars elected Wladyslaw as tsar in
1610, creating a new personal union. As
Wladyslaw came of age, he was leader of a state rivaling Habsburgs and the
Ottomans. He proved an excellent
moderate and advocated religious freedom to maintain peace in a land of
Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox.
Sweden was able to prey on the
Commonwealth's ports in the north since the diverse szlachta was unable to
agree upon funding for a navy (which, many felt, would be an expense to all to
protect only some). Wladyslaw himself
witnessed the problems of military autonomy for the individual commanders of
forces funded by their own magnates. At
the Battle of Chocim in 1621, Wladyslaw had to overcome his own illness and
convince his fellow leaders to stay and fight, winning the battle and the title
of "defender of the Christian faith" for himself.
While the Commonwealth busied
itself with wars against the Ottomans, the rest of Europe descended into the
Thirty Years War. Wladyslaw learned the
importance of neutrality from his friend, George William Elector of Bradenburg,
but wished to join the war in his defense when Gustavus Adolphus, King of
Sweden, impressed Bradenburg onto the Protestant side. The szlachta refused to become part of a
religious war that might tear their own lands apart. Wladyslaw found satisfaction when Adolphus
was killed at the Battle of Lutzen in 1632.
Adolphus' six-year-old daughter Christina became queen, and Wladyslaw began
to dote on his young cousin, with whom he felt kinship as a young ruler. He weighed upon her the importance of
leadership with examples of his own struggles with cowardly commanders and the
unruly szlachta, and the brilliant girl noted that, despite her misgivings
about rule and courtly manners, her intellect was needed. When Wladyslaw fell ill in 1648, he
recommended Christina be elected his successor rather than his brother John,
who was happy to endorse her as well.
The recommendation proved good, and Christina became ruler of the new
Greater Commonwealth of the North, including Sweden, Finland, Poland, Lithuania,
and Russia.
Christina ruled effectively,
increasing the wealth of the country through peaceful religious negotiation and
embracing art and science. Having never
married, she carefully chose her successor, seventeen-year-old Russian noble Peter
Romanov, who had excelled in her academies and found a place at her court. By the end of Peter's reign in 1725, the
Greater Commonwealth was a center of wealth, science, and industry, attracting
many Huguenots and Jews as a land of religious freedom.
It came into rivalry with the British
Empire, where colonies in North America and Asia began to overlap, as well as border
issues with Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. During the bitter Seven Years' War, the
Commonwealth wrested rule of the Holy Roman Empire away from Austria, but at
the cost of its overseas colonies. Republicanism
seized Europe after France's autocracy fell, but the Greater Commonwealth stood
well into the nineteenth century, when Nationalism broke apart its sense of
unity and created numerous nation-state republics where the massive federation
once stood. Trade unions in the twentieth
century rebuilt much of the international connection, but the golden age of the
Commonwealth had long passed.
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In reality, Duke Charles did not
imprison Sigismund, only the nobles who advised him. Charles demanded
that the ousted king attend the Riksens ständer, but Sigismund instead chose to
retreat to Poland-Lithiuania instead. There, Sigismund continually raised
up armies in hopes of retaking the Swedish crown in the Polish-Swedish Wars. When Wladyslaw was elected tsar, Sigismund
stepped in to usurp his son, sparking another series of wars between Poland and
Muscovy. For centuries, war after war
whittled away at strength in Northern Europe.
The Commonwealth eventually was broken up by its powerful neighbors, Sweden,
Prussia, Austro-Hungary, and, particularly, Russia.
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