The former Republic became a noble nation. The lord brothers ruled and chose a king for themselves. It did not help a certain Samuel Zborowski. Along with his head falling from the stump of the executioner, the glory of the family ended, and Mr. Jan Zamoyski began drinking beer, which he brewed for himself. What did Mr. Zborowski paint over him that the nobility did not protect him? It all started with a certain lance stuck in the Wawel courtyard.
The king is dead, the election, long live the new king. And since everything has to be perfect, you need to add splendor to the coronation, preferably with a knight's tournament. Noble heads (with helmets) were supposed to stumble in the Wawel courtyard, which was poured with a thick layer of sand which would make it brightly illuminated ... four letters did not get broken too much when falling from a horse.
Mr. Samuel Zborowski - a royal captain, son of the castellan of Kraków and generally a man of excellent pedigree - could not forgive himself putting his copy with a challenge on the battlefield. He called to duel anyone equal to him in condition and bravery.
To insult the royal majesty on the occasion of the coronation? And it is at the very Wawel? It just had to end badly. ("Killing Wapowski ...").
Everything would be beautiful if Janusz the Croat had not picked up the weapon - not only a foreigner, but also a servant from the commune. The lord of the knight willing to fight was the castellan of Wojnica, Count Jan Tęczyński, and it was in his inspiration that Zborowski saw the reasons for the powerful affront that happened to him. He decided to challenge the count personally and appointed his own subordinate to the duel with the servant!
On avoidance duels
On February 24, 1574, Mr. Samuel went to the center of the Wawel courtyard and, calling Tęczyński from the senate meeting, started to challenge him. Only after one of the "invitations" to the duel the count agreed, he was only supposed to go get a weapon for a moment.
Zborowski waited. And waited. And he was still waiting, and there was no trace of Tęczyński. After a few hours, Mr. Samuel apparently realized that the Count had no intention of crossing copies with him and decided to look for him.
He found a reluctant duelist at the gate between the royal kitchens and the apartment of Anna Jagiellon adjacent to the Wawel cathedral (Quoted after J. M. Rymkiewicz, "Samuel Zborowski"). First, insults probably broke out, and when the gentlemen were at arm's length from each other, the guns set in motion.
Samuel inherited his ardor from his father, Marcin, who is described in historiography as a lunatic and even a murderer. Fragment of Jan Matejko's painting "Unia Lubelska" showing Marcin Zborowski (source:public domain).
Zborowski swung his pickaxe at Count Tęczyński, but he was extremely unlucky. The castellan of Przemyśl, Mr. Wapowski, who was riding in the retinue of his would-be victim, intervened in the struggle and the blow intended for the castellan of Wojnicz ... fell on his head. The real and would-be victim rushed to complain to the king.
When Zborowski reflected, he fled the castle, not knowing how badly he had damaged Wapowski. The murder case (the wounded man did not survive) was pending before the royal court. Samuel, fearing the consequences, did not appear at the trial, and his defensive speech, blaming Tęczyński for the incident, was read by the castellan of Międzyrzec, count Andrzej from Górka. Probably the defendant was not in town by then.
When Samuel Zborowski felt confident in the country, the starost of Kraków, Jan Zamoyski, remembered his exile and ordered the executioner to sharpen his sword. ("Samuel Zborowski led to death").
Opinions were divided. Half of the senators were for the acquittal, the other for the conviction. Henryk Walezy had no choice but to make a decision. Neither side was satisfied with his judgment.
It is true that Zborowski was not hailed as an infamous, but the king sentenced him to banishment covering the entire vast territory of the Republic and deprived him of all his property. The only surprise was the handing over of the seized goods ... to Zborowski's brother (who rewrote them to the sons of an outlaw). You can see Walezy had a weakness for the Zborowskis.
This is where the story might have ended had it not been for King Henry's escape. The Commonwealth had to have a monarch, so another tedious election began.
After great disputes (the civil war almost broke out), in 1576 the prince of Transylvania was invited to the Polish throne, at whose court ... Zborowski had been staying for two years. After election of Stefan Batory as king, Mr. Samuel managed to obtain safe papers from him allowing him to return to the bosom of his homeland, and with the new ruler he set off for the country.
It's best to keep your head on the back of your neck, although it's sometimes a difficult art
He remained quietly within the borders of the brightest Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1584. It was then that he decided to set off on a journey, first to Lesser Poland to settle property matters, and then to Italy. In the meantime, he organized a falcon-hunt in the Niepołomice Forest, and then went to his place of accommodation. He was going to rest in the mansion of his niece, Mrs. Włodowa, in Piekary.
Samuel Zborowski was able to return to Poland thanks to the protection of Stefan Batory. He did not expect what awaits him in the country ... In the painting by Jan Matejko we can see the royal couple:Stefan Batory and Anna Jagiellonka (source:public domain).
It was then that Zborowski was betrayed by one of his people. The local starost, Jan Zamoyski - who had too little a safe-guard for the newly elected king - found out about his resting place. At night, on May 11-12, the castellan's men surrounded the manor under the command of Mikołaj Urowiecki and Stanisław Żółkiewski, and the future great hetman of the crown personally chopped out the back door of Mrs. Włodkowa's manor with an ax .
Samuel did not want to be captured for goodness and searched for a weapon that some traitor had hidden. There are two versions of his surrender. One says that he only surrendered when one of the night attackers held the girdle to his son Alexander's chest. The second one claims that he stopped defending himself when he heard the words “God! Oleś was killed. " In fact, young Zborowski was only slightly injured.
Samuel was taken from the house of his niece, completely naked, and transported in a carriage with curtained windows straight to Wawel. He was imprisoned and tortured in the castle to obtain evidence against his brothers. The prisoner was silent as a charm, which enraged the Grand Chancellor of the Crown and the starost of Krakow Jan Zamoyski to such an extent that he even refused him the last ministry of a priest.
At dawn on May 26, 1584, on the orders of Jan Zamoyski, Samuel Zborowski was beheaded at the foot of Wawel. His execution caused anxiety and a lively reaction of the Małopolska nobility. The chancellor saw the beginnings of tyranny in the bold move, and the gentlemen did not intend to let that happen ...
... but the inspiration for its writing was a collection of short stories by Jacek Komuda entitled "Zborowski" (Fabryka Słow, 2012).
Zamoyski brewed a good beer with the bitterness of noble rebellion, and although the Seym decided in 1589 that he acted in accordance with the letter of the law, he had to drink this beer. But the fate of Chancellor Zamoyski is a topic for a separate article.
Source:
Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on:
- Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz, Samuel Zborowski , Sic !, Warsaw 2010.
We recommend:
- A collection of Jacek Komuda's short stories. "Zborowski" , dedicated to the alleged son of the unfortunate Samuel ...