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WLADISLAUS IV

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 767 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WLADISLAUS IV . (1595-1648), See also:king of See also:Poland, son of See also:Sigismund III., king of Poland, and See also:Anne of See also:Austria, succeeded his See also:father on the See also:throne in 1632. From his See also:early youth he gave promise of See also:great military See also:talent, and served his See also:apprenticeship in the See also:science of See also:war under See also:Zolkiewski in the See also:Muscovite See also:campaigns of 1610-1612, and under See also:Chodkiewicz in 1617-1618. Wladislaus's first See also:official See also:act was to See also:march against the Muscovites, who had declared war against Poland immediately after the See also:death of Sigismund, and were besieging See also:Smolensk, the See also:key of Poland's eastern frontier. After a See also:series of bloody engagements (Aug. 7-22, 1632) Wladislaus compelled the See also:tsar's See also:general to abandon the See also:siege, and eventually to surrender (March 1, 1634) with his whole See also:army. Meanwhile the See also:Turks were threatening in the See also:south, and Wladislaus found it expedient to secure his Muscovite conquests. See also:Peace was concluded at the See also:river Polyankova on the 28th of May. 1634, the Poles conceding the See also:title of tsar to See also:Michael See also:Romanov, who renounced all his claims upon See also:Livonia, See also:Esthonia and See also:Courland, besides paying a war See also:indemnity of 200,000 rubles. These tidings profoundly impressed See also:Sultan See also:Murad, and when the victorious Wladislaus appeared at See also:Lemberg, the usual starting-point for See also:Turkish expeditions, the See also:Porte offered terms which were accepted in See also:October, each See also:power engaging to keep their borderers, the See also:Cossacks and See also:Tatars, in See also:order, and See also:divide between them the See also:suzerainty of See also:Moldavia and See also:Walachia, the sultan binding himself always to See also:place See also:philo-See also:Polish hospodars on those slippery thrones. In the following See also:year the See also:long-pending See also:differences with See also:Sweden were settled, very much to the See also:advantage of Poland, by the truce of Stumdorf, which was to last for twenty-six years from the 12th See also:September 1635. Thus externally Poland was everywhere triumphant.

Internally, however, things were in their usually deplorable See also:

state owing to the suspicion, See also:jealousy and See also:parsimony of the estates of the See also:realm. They had See also:double See also:reason to be grateful to Wladislaus for defeating the enemies of the See also:republic, for he had also paid for the expenses of his campaigns out of his own See also:pocket, yet he could not obtain See also:payment of the See also:debt due to him from the state till 1643. He was See also:bound by the pacta conventa which he signed on his See also:accession to maintain a See also:fleet on the Baltic. He proposed to do so by levying tolls on all imports and exports passing through the Prussian ports which had been regained by the truce of Stumdorf. Sweden during her temporary occupation of these ports had derived from them an See also:annual income of 3,600,000 gulden. But when Wladislaus, their lawful possessor, imposed similar tolls in the interests of the republic, See also:Danzig See also:pro-tested and appealed to the Scandinavian See also:powers. Wladislaus's little fleet attempted to See also:blockade the See also:port of the rebellious See also:city, whereupon a Danish See also:admiral See also:broke the blockade and practically destroyed the Polish flotilla. Yet the sejm, so sensitive to its own privileges, allowed the insult to the king and the injury to the state to pass unnoticed, conniving at the destruction of the See also:national See also:navy and the depletion of the See also:treasury, " lest warships should make the See also:crown too powerful." For some years after this humiliation, Wladislaus became indifferent to affairs and sank into a sort of apathy; but the See also:birth of his son Sigismund (by his first wife, See also:Cecilia Renata of Austria, in 164o) gave him fresh hopes, and he began with renewed See also:energy to labour for the See also:dynasty as well as for the nation. He saw that Poland, with her existing constitution, could not See also:hope for a long future, and he determined to bring about a royalist reaction and a reform along with it by every means in his power. He began by See also:founding the Order of the Immaculate Conception, consisting of 72 See also:young noblemen who swore a See also:special See also:oath of See also:allegiance to the crown, and were to See also:form the See also:nucleus cf a patriotic See also:movement antagonistic to the See also:constant usurpations of the See also:diet, but the sejm promptly intervened and quashed the See also:attempt. Then he conceived the See also:idea of using the Cossacks, who were deeply attached to him, as a means of chastising the szlachta, and at the same See also:time forcing a war with See also:Turkey, which would make his military See also:genius indispensable to the republic, and enable him if successful to carry out domestic reforms by force of arms. His See also:chief confidant in this still mysterious affair was the See also:veteran See also:grand See also:hetman of the crown, Stanislaw See also:Koniecpolski, who under-stood the Cossacks better than any See also:man then living, but differed from the king in preferring the See also:conquest of the See also:Crimea to an open war with Turkey.

Simultaneously Wladislaus contracted an offensive and defensive See also:

alliance with See also:Venice against the Porte, a treaty directly contrary indeed to the pacta conventa he had sworn to observe, but excusable in the desperate circumstances. The whole enterprise See also:fell through, owing partly to the death of Koniecpolski before it was matured, partly to the hastiness with which the king published his intentions, and partly to the careful avoidance by the Porte of the slightest occasion of a rupture. Frustrated in all his plans, broken-hearted by the death of his son (by his second wife, See also:Marie Ludwika of See also:Angouleme, Wladislaus had no issue), the king, worn out and disillusioned, died at Merecz on the loth of May 1648, in his 52nd year. After his See also:cousin Gustavus See also:Adolphus, whom in many respects he strikingly resembled, he was indubitably the most amiable and brilliant of all the princes of the See also:House of See also:Vasa. See Wiktor Czermak, The Plans of the Turkish See also:Wars of Wladislaus IV. (Pol.) (See also:Cracow, 1895); V. V. See also:Volk-Karachevsky, The Struggle of Poland with the Cossacks (See also:Ras.) (See also:Kiev, 1899); Letters and other Writings of Wladislaus IV. (Pol.) (Cracow, 1845). (R. N.

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