Stefan Batory
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- This article is about Stefan Bat(h)ory, famous ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century. For information on his father, also named Stephen (István), see: István Báthory.
| Stefan Batory | ||
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| Born | September 27, 1533 | |
| in | Somlyo, Transylvania (modern Şimleu Silvaniei, Romania) | |
| Died | December 12, 1586 | |
| in | Hrodna, Grand Duchy of Lithuania (now Belarus) | |
| Buried | Wawel Cathedral, Saint Mary's Crypt (buried May 1588) | |
| Reign | December 9, 1575 to December 12, 1586 |
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| Coronation | May 1, 1576 in Wawel Cathedral, Kraków |
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| Family or dynasty | Bathory | |
| Coat of Arms | Zęby. | |
| Parents | István Báthory Catherine Telegdi |
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| Marriage and children | with Anna Jagiellonka: |
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Stefan Bat(h)ory, King of Poland, Prince of Transylvania, Grand Duke of Lithuania (27 September 1533–12 December 1586) was Prince of Transylvania (1571-1586), then King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania (1575-1586). Born István Báthory to a powerful Hungarian noble, likewise named István Báthory, the younger Batory succeeded John II Zapolya as Prince of Transylvania in 1571. In 1575 Batory became the ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, reigning as Stefan Batory. He left Transylvania for Poland and appointed his elder brother Christopher Bathory as viceroy (voivode) to that country. Many historians consider him to be one of the greatest of the elected Kings of Poland.
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[edit] Biography
Stefan Bat(h)ory was born September 27, 1533, in Somlyo, Transylvania, to the local branch of the ancient Bathory family, now extinct, but originally almost coeval with the Hungarian monarchy. Istvan Bathory spent his early years at the court of the emperor Ferdinand I, subsequently attached himself to John Zapolya, and won equal renown as a valiant lord-marcher, and as a skillful diplomat at the imperial court. Zapolya rewarded him with the voivodeship of Transylvania, and as the loyal defender of the rights of his patrons' son, John Sigismund, he incurred the animosity of the emperor Maximilian II of Austria, who kept him in prison for two years. On May 25, 1571, on the death of John Sigismund, Bathory was elected prince of Transylvania by the Hungarian estates, despite the opposition of the court of Vienna and contrary to the wishes of the late prince, who had appointed Gaspar Bekesy his successor. Bekesy insisting on his claims, a civil war ensued in which Bathory ultimately won by driving his rival out of the country the following year.
After the heirless death of King Sigismund II of Poland in 1572, his spinster sister Anna Jagiellonka became the sole heir to the Crown of Poland. Due to the conflict with her late brother (over his marriage with Barbara Radziwiłłówna), she remained single and became one of the most influential personalities in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Sejm of April of 1573, she strongly supported the election of a French candidate. She convinced almost 50,000 members of the szlachta and finally Henri de Valois was elected King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, under the name of Henryk III Walezy. The couple was to become married, which was to further strengthen the legitimisation of Henry's rule. However, in less than a year after his coronation, Henry fled to Paris where he was crowned king of France.
The period of interregnum lasted for roughly one and a half years. It was not until December 12, 1575 that the Sejm, convinced by the Papal nuncio agreed to elect a new monarch. Although at first Maximilian Habsburg was elected, mostly due to strong support of the Catholic church and the Pope himself, after three days the szlachta threatened the senate with civil war and demanded a Piast king, that is a king of Polish ethnicity. After a heated discussion, it was decided that Anna Jagiellonka be elected king of Poland. The same day the Sejm chose Stefan Bathory as her husband and de facto successor of Henry III. Among the strongest supporters of his candidacy were the Protestants (Socinians, Arians, Lutherans and Calvinists alike), who feared that an ultra-Catholic monarch like a Habsburg could overthrow the principles of the Warsaw Confederation and support Counter-Reformation. On the other hand, Bathory had the merit of being a ruler of Transylvania, a state where freedom of religion was introduced already in 1568. On May 1, 1576 Batory married Anna Jagiellonka and became the ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, at the time the largest and one of the most populous states in Europe. Upon coronation, his official titles were Stefan, by the grace of God King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Duke of Ruthenia, Prussia, Masovia, Samogitia, Kiev Land, Volhynia, Podlachia and Livonia, as well as Prince of Transylvania[1].
Stefan Bathory proved to be a wise king, despite the fact that the country he became a ruler of was badly damaged by the troubles of the interregnum. At first his position was extremely difficult mostly because of internal opposition, financed by Maximilian Habsburg and Muscovy. However, the sudden death of the emperor Maximilian at the very moment when that potentate, in league with Muscovy, was about to defend his election as king of Poland by military action in the Commomwealth, completely changed the face of things. Though Stefan's distrust of the Habsburgs remained invincible, he consented at last to enter into a defensive alliance with the Holy Roman Empire which was carried through by the papal nuncio on his return to Rome in 1578.
All armed opposition collapsed with the surrender of the Hanseatic city of Danzig (Gdańsk). The city, encouraged by its immense wealth and almost impregnable fortifications, as well as by the secret support of Denmark and the emperor, had backed Emperor Maximilian II and shut her gates against Bathory. The opposition of the city was reduced only after a six months siege and a fierce battle of December 16, 1577, in which its army of 5,000 mercenaries was utterly defeated in open field. Nevertheless, Bathory's armies were too weak to take the city by force and a compromise was reached. Bathory had to accept somewhat special Danzig's status and its privileges granted by earlier Polish kings. Thus the city recognised him as ruler of Poland and paid an enormous sum of 200,000 guldens in gold as ("apology") payoff. Báthory confirmed the privileges of Danzig in 1577. Danzig later served the Kingdom during the war with Sweden and Muscovy, providing help when requested.
This victory gave Bathory a chance to devote himself to foreign affairs and a strong position at home. With the help of his chancellor Jan Zamoyski, Stefan Bathory managed to completely reorganise the Polish Army. Among his genuine inventions was the piechota wybraniecka semi-professional infantry formation, composed of peasants trained in both infantry warfare and engineering. Bathory also reorganised the judiciary branch of power by formation of legal tribunals and also founded the Academy of Vilna, the third university in the Commonwealth and a predecessor of the modern Vilnius University. Both Bathory and Zamoyski were skilled politicians who were able to win several factions of the Polish gentry for strengthening of the royal authority. This was done mostly by means of better taxation of crown lands and royal property leased to the gentry. He was also notable as the monarch to order Samuel Zborowski to be executed for treason and murder, a verdict that could not be carried out for roughly a decade.
In external relations, Bathory sought peace through strong alliances. The difficulties with the Ottoman Empire were temporarily adjusted by a truce signed on November 5, 1577. The Sejm gathered in Warsaw was persuaded to grant Stefan subsidies for the inevitable war against Muscovy. Two campaigns of wearing marches, and still more exhausting sieges ensued, in which Bathory, although repeatedly hampered by the parsimony of the Sejm, was uniformly successful, his skilful diplomacy at the same time allaying the suspicions of the Ottomans and the emperor.
Bathory, with his chancellor Jan Zamoyski, led the army of the Commonwealth in a brilliant decisive campaign against the invading forces of Ivan the Terrible during the Livonian War (which formed part of the Muscovite wars between Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy). The Russians had invaded Livonia and took Dorpat Duchy of Courland, which a few years earlier had become a vassal of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth army under Bathory routed the Russian force at Velikiye Luki. In 1581 Stefan penetrated to the very heart of Muscovy and, on August 22, laid siege to the city of Pskov, whose vast size and imposing fortifications filled the little Commonwealth army with dismay. But the king, despite the murmurs of his own officers, and the protestations of the papal nuncio, Possevino, whom the curia, deluded by the mirage of a union of the churches, had sent expressly from Rome to mediate between the tsar and the king of Poland, closely besieged the city throughout a winter of arctic severity, till, on the December 13, 1581, Ivan the Terrible, alarmed for the safety of the third city in his empire, concluded a peace treaty in Jam Zapolski (January 15, 1582), thereby ceding Polatsk and the whole of Livonia back to the Commonwealth.
With the problems at the eastern borders settled, Stefan Bathory planned a Christian alliance against the Ottomans. He proposed an anti-Ottoman alliance with Muscovy, which he considered a necessary step for his anti-Ottoman crusade. However, Russia was on its way to the Time of Troubles, so he could not find a partner there. The project of a Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovite Commonwealth was dissipated by his sudden death, on December 12, 1586 in Hrodna (His necropsy there was the first such act in the Eastern Europe).
When Stefan Bathory died, there was a one year interregnum. Emperor Maximilian's brother Maximilian III was elected and while trying to claim the Polish-Lithuanian throne he was defeated at the Byczyna and Bathory was succeeded by the Swedish Sigismund III Vasa.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Stephanus Dei gratia rex Poloniae et magnus dux Lithuaniae, Russiae, Prussiae, Masoviae, Samogitiae, Kiioviae, Voliniae, Podlachiae, Livoniaeque, necnon. princeps Transylvaniae. in Latin.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
[edit] See also
| Preceded by John II Zapolya |
Prince of Transylvania 1571–1576 |
Succeeded by Christopher Bathory |
| Preceded by Henry III Walezy |
King of Poland together with Anna 1575–1586 |
Succeeded by Sigismund III Vasa |
