b> Viennese Victoria made Jan Sobieski enrolled in the pages of world history. He also earned the nickname "The Lion of Lechistan". However, not all of his actions were worthy of the title of statesman. A few years earlier, Sobieski sent gangs of armed soldiers to Warsaw and tried to overthrow the legally reigning king. He almost made it
The year 1672 began turbulently. In the south, the Turkish army was preparing to attack the Commonwealth, the first Sejm of March 1672 did not take place, and there were more and more divisions among the nobility themselves. The malcontents camp wanted to enthrone Prince Charles de Longueville; the court camp supported the not very successful, but still legally reigning king Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki.
It was supposed to be an ordinary Diet
Attempts to place the influential French on the Polish throne (which at the same time would mean the overthrow of Michał Korybut) were made practically from the beginning of the reign of the first elected king from the ranks of the native nobility. Malcontents organized secret meetings, conducted their own propaganda campaign among the nobility, and also contacted French ambassadors in Poland.
In 1672 it became clear that Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki got into a really big… problem.
However, until the Seym, which began on May 18, 1672, everything took place as a quiet conspiracy. The Seym began under good auspices, because the vast majority of deputies wanted to talk about the defense of the Republic of Poland. They even wanted, which was not obvious, that the Seym should pass resolutions quickly and without quarrels. But those were just good bad starts.
On June 9, Primate Mikołaj Prażmowski, one of the leading malcontents, officially entered the Seym in Warsaw. There were also rumors of the army approaching the capital, led by Jan Sobieski, who were in the Seym.
Sobieski was 43 years old at that time, he was a great hetman of the Crown, and above all an idol of the nobility, after he smashed a four times larger Cossack army near Pidhaitsi.
At the same time, he was a staunch opponent of Wiśniowiecki, and he was going to Warsaw with the intention of blackmailing and dethroning the king. By any means available.
Sobieski's soldiers rape Polish women, rob Warsaw houses
Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki could not count on a similar popularity as the hetman. He felt more and more alone. At that time, even his closest allies, such as Andrzej Olszowski, the author of his election of Deputy Chancellors, who left Warsaw during the Seym. Only bishops Krzysztof Żegocki and Stefan Wierzbowski remained faithful to him.
Nobody portrayed the embarrassing episode when the troops under Sobieski's command set off for their own capital. We can only imagine it looked something like this…. (Illustrated:The Battle of Vienna by Juliusz Kossak).
However, King Michael and his advisers had no plan of action in the event of a real crisis. This one just flared up.
Inspired by the court, on June 20, Stanisław Michał Ubysz, the ensign of Gostyń, left the room in protest. It is significant here that on the same day the Grand Hetman of the Crown, Jan Sobieski and others, officially entered.
On June 25, Primate Mikołaj Prażmowski went to the king for a private audience. During an hour and a half conversation, he proposed to the king that he should abdicate himself, otherwise it would be bad for him and it would end badly for Poland.
Mikołaj Prażmowski. Being a primate did not prevent him from blackmailing the king…
The exchange between them was recorded at the diarist Jan Antoni Chrapowicki, who quotes it from the letter he received:
- I know you have one crowned me, but not one. If everyone permits it and agrees, I will give very gladness to these hands, from whom I have taken the crown, so that at least I will escape tantam servitutem [such service] with my souls, ancient family, nor do you treat as an equal.
- It is Your Royal Grace that you want innocent blood to spill?
- You want it yourself and want to bathe priestly hands in innocent blood.
- It is a protestor before God that whatever happens will happen because of Your Royal Love.
- A thousand times before this God, it is protested that whatever was and will be bad, everything was, is and will be of you!
The next day, Jan Sobieski introduced 14 army banners into the capital, which did not avoid rapes and robberies. . The soldiers also attacked the royal guard, helpless in the face of such a large number of troops. Then the royal allies debated how to remedy the situation.
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The mediation between the malcontents and the court party was undertaken by bishop Kazimierz Florian Czartoryski, who proposed, in return for giving up abdication plans, discussing their demands. On June 30, a protest was carried to the castle. The Sejm broke up again this year without any resolutions.
Charles de Longueville. The French prince who started the whole row. In the painting he was still a boy, but he died not much older - at the age of 23.
The Hetman is preparing a coup?
On the same day in the evening, Jan Sobieski ordered the armory to be seized. One of the colonels, Jan Piwo, was securing the Vistula line at the same time so that, if necessary, Lithuanian troops loyal to the king could not cross it.
On July 1, the malcontents announced a manifesto signed by Sobieski and Prażmowski. They explained that they had come to Warsaw to remove or at least ease the lawlessness of the ruling king, and to deliberate on defense against the Turks.
Among the accusations of not extending boundaries he had in pactach conventach and for a royal marriage, there were also accusations about the royal dress, voracity, shamelessness, mistreatment of the queen, and also ... playing with boys.
At their own council, the malcontents passed the act of confederation signed by 38 senators. At the end of July, there were already 367 signatures. The action program was to put myself under the protection of the French king Louis XIV, to restore freedom and respect for rights in Poland.
Jan Sobieski had no qualms. To achieve his goals, he was prepared to accuse the king of debauchery, violence against his wife, and pedophile desires.
On July 7, 1672, the malcontents wrote an appropriate letter to the sun-king. They would most eagerly see Condeusz on the Polish throne, i.e. the aforementioned Charles de Longueville, who was still under the reign of John Casimir (he abdicated in 1668) to be crowned after the last king of the Vasas dynasty.
The plans of Jan Sobieski's party were interrupted only by the unexpected death of Karol de Longueville on June 12, 1672. The news reached the French agent, Paulmiers, on July 12, and he quickly left Poland via Gdańsk. The malcontents, on the other hand, found out about it later.
It was a blow so much more terrible that by then they had already put everything on one card. Primate Prażmowski was said to have said that " he would prefer half of my homeland to perish than one bachelor de Longueville ”.
The malcontents' projects were ruined. At this point, Sobieski could not have known it, but it was probably the best possible development for him. He soon became a king and a national hero. And history has forgotten about the shameful attempt to overthrow the ruler and about the excesses that the hetman allowed the soldiers to.