17

Resolution

Žygimantas’s murder caught the Poles by surprise. Apart from the problem of who—if anyone—was to succeed him as grand duke, Poland was itself experiencing a crisis of government. Albert’s death opened up an enticing prospect for the Jagiellonian dynasty. Two years earlier a significant body of opinion in Hungary, mindful of the historic links with Poland, favoured offering the crown of St Stephen to Władysław. It was not substantial enough to prevent Albert’s election, but when Albert died without a male heir, Władysław, who celebrated his fifteenth birthday four days later, again attracted attention. Albert’s widow Elizabeth was pregnant; although she tenaciously defended the rights of the unborn child she claimed was unquestionably a son, the Ottoman threat ensured that the Hungarians did not want a long minority. Albert’s humiliating defeat by the Ottomans shortly before his death reminded them that neither he nor Sigismund, distracted by events in Bohemia and the Empire, had effectively countered the threat. When the Hungarian diet assembled on 1 January 1440, only two candidates were discussed: Lazar, son of Durad Branković, despot of Serbia, and Władysław.¹

The proposal did not fall on stony ground in a Poland riven with dissent. The failure of the 1438 Bohemian adventure compromised the pro-Hussite opposition, which attracted much support among the szlachta during a bitter dispute with the church over tithes.² A challenge to the council from the iuniores came to grief when the impetuous Spytek of Melsztyn tried to seize and possibly to assassinate Oleśnicki and other dignitaries during an assembly in Korczyn in May 1439. On 3 May a confederation was formed, signed by 168 knights; the next day Spytek failed in an attempt to seize the city. Two days later, the royal army won a brief skirmish at Grotniki in which Spytek was killed.³

According to Długosz, Sonka was behind the plot; whatever the truth, its aftermath brought a rapprochement between her supporters and Oleśnicki.⁴ Oleśnicki’s position was strengthened, but he had been reminded of the power of szlachta opinion, and the dangers of divisions among the narrow elite that dominated Polish politics. The rapprochement with Sonka opened the way to an understanding over the Hungarian throne. The Hungarian offer was fiercely debated by the council. Władysław expressed concern at the prospect, and the proposal that he should marry Albert’s widow Elizabeth, who was twice his age. Nevertheless, according to Długosz ‘the greater and more sensible part’ of the council won and the offer was accepted.⁵

Długosz’s approval suggests that Oleśnicki supported the ‘more sensible part’ of the council, and Oleśnicki was later to pray for the successful union of Poland and Hungary. He was probably not the architect of the plan, however, or even its most powerful advocate, as was once supposed.⁶ Długosz considered that the union would be difficult because of the king’s long absences, and the problems of ruling two kingdoms.⁷ Hungary was still the richer and more powerful kingdom. Poland’s union with Lithuania and the relentless Ottoman pressure on Hungary’s exposed southern frontier had altered the balance of power; nevertheless it was inevitable that Władysław would spend more time in Hungary, where his new subjects expected him to wage vigorous war on the Ottomans.

The plot thickened in February 1440 when Elizabeth gave birth to a son, László, known as the Posthumous. She had already launched a campaign for recognition of his hereditary right to the throne: two days before the birth the crown of St Stephen was spirited away into her keeping. The Hungarian envoys in Cracow, however, had plenipotentiary powers to negotiate in the event that Elizabeth’s child was male; after an agreement in principle was reached, Władysław formally accepted the Hungarian throne in a ceremony on 8 March in the cathedral of St Stanisław. The congregation sang a Te Deum, and the Bogu Rodzica, the Marian hymn sung by the Polish army before Tannenberg.⁸ They had, after all, effectively decided to go to war against the might of the Ottoman empire.

The price was high. Władysław had to confirm all privileges granted by his predecessors on the Hungarian throne and promise to defend Hungary against the Ottomans. Spisz, pawned to Poland by Sigismund of Luxembourg in 1412, was to be returned to Hungary without compensation. In a clause that had implications for Lithuania, ownership of Red Ruthenia and Podolia, contested by Hungary, was to be determined by a Hungarian-Polish court of mediation. Władysław was to marry Elizabeth before the coronation; he also promised to help László secure his inheritance outside Hungary: the kingdom of Bohemia and his father’s Austrian lands.⁹ The treaty was never implemented, but its terms make an interesting contrast with the Krewo act agreed by Jagiełło with another Elizabeth, queen of Hungary, fifty-five years earlier. There was no talk of ‘applicare’: the two realms were to remain separate, united only in the person of their king.

The swift Polish response brought Władysław his prize. Elizabeth was supported initially by the primate, Dénes Szésci, who crowned László with the crown of St Stephen in Székesfehérvár on 15 May 1440. The rest of the royal regalia was missing, however, and the coronation had not been approved by the Hungarian diet. Władysław entered Hungary with a magnificent entourage on 23 April, and secured Buda, beating off an attempt by Elizabeth’s uncle to seize it. In June the diet declared László’s coronation invalid and confirmed the elective nature of the Hungarian crown. On 17 July, two months after he had crowned László, the unabashed Szésci, assisted by Oleśnicki and nine Hungarian bishops, crowned Władysław in Székesfehérvár cathedral. Although the crown had not been recovered, a replacement was taken from St Stephen’s reliquary, and the rest of the royal regalia was used to indicate divine approval. It was made clear, however, that Władysław’s elevation was dependent on the consent of the community of his new realm.¹⁰ In Hungary, as in Poland, the citizens, not God, decided who their king should be.

The eclipse of the Luxembourgs and the Hungarian union could have established the Jagiellons as the dominant dynasty in east central Europe. The obstacles they faced, however, were formidable. Elizabeth did not give up easily, and Władysław had to fight a two-year civil war before his new throne was secure. Thereafter he had to fulfil his promise to defend Hungary against the Ottoman threat. Two attacks were beaten off in 1442; in 1443 he led a successful campaign, although its actual commander was János Hunyadi, who took Sofia and won a spectacular victory at Kustinitza in November. Despite signing a ten-year peace with the Ottomans, who surrendered Bosnia and Serbia, Władysław was encouraged by papal diplomats against his councillors’ inclinations to mount a new Balkan campaign in 1444 in support of a joint Venetian, Genoan, and Burgundian fleet that was to strike at Constantinople through the Dardanelles. The reluctant Hunyadi was persuaded to lead it. This time there was no glorious outcome. Despite papal encouragement, other powers showed no inclination to rescue the pitiful remnants of the Byzantine empire, and Władysław’s army numbered barely 16,000. On 10 November, at Varna on the Black Sea coast, it was destroyed by a considerably larger Ottoman force. The impetuous Władysław, leading a rash charge of a few hundred knights, was cut down at a point when his army under Hunyadi’s skilful leadership was giving a good account of itself. Demoralized by the king’s death, it disintegrated.¹¹ The Hungarian intermezzo ended with László the Posthumous’s election to his father’s throne.

Poland’s second Hungarian union may have been even briefer than the first, but its effects on the Polish-Lithuanian union were considerable. Władysław’s long absence in Hungary left the government of Poland in the hands of the council; but without the monarch’s presence, its authority was weakened. Although only a few hundred Polish volunteers fought in Władysław’s Hungarian campaigns, his constant need of money to finance his military adventures drained his resources in both Poland and Hungary. By the time of his death Polish complaints were becoming ever louder at the increasing burdens, and at the growing chaos and anarchy that all remarked upon.

The Hungarian tragedy had a profound effect on Polish-Lithuanian relations, not least because Władysław’s absence and Poland’s internal problems weakened it in relation to Lithuania at the very moment that Žygimantas’s assassination, twelve days after Władysław formally accepted the Hungarian crown, destroyed the Hrodna system. Władysław had already crossed his Rubicon, and it is idle to speculate whether the Polish council would have decided differently had Žygimantas been assassinated earlier. Władysław’s acceptance of the Hungarian throne meant that for the first time the Lithuanians were in a position to define the relationship with Poland on terms that suited them.

As Władysław prepared to depart for Hungary, he faced a dilemma. Although Žygimantas had been abruptly removed from the scene, Švitrigaila was very much alive. Some of the plotters backed his return to power: the Chortoryskys had long supported him, having only recently gone over to Žygimantas.¹² Švitrigaila enjoyed some support among Ruthenians, though he had alienated many by his cruel execution of Herasym, appointed metropolitan of Kyiv and all Rus' in 1433 on Švitrigaila’s recommendation, but burned in Vitsebsk in July 1435 for allegedly plotting against him.¹³ The palatines of Vilnius and Trakai, Jonas Daugirdas and Petras Lėlius, initially backed Švitrigaila but former supporters such as Jonas Manvydaitis, his starosta of Podolia, opposed his return: as Łowmiański put it, the Lithuanians had not rid themselves of one aged despot to welcome back another whose caprices they remembered well enough.¹⁴ Švitrigaila had identified himself too closely with the Ruthenians, and memories of the cruelty shown by his forces on their raids into Lithuania remained vivid.¹⁵ There were few alternatives. Žygimantas’s son Mykolas had some adherents in Samogitia and his grandfather’s patrimony of Trakai, but Žygimantas’s assassins, fearing revenge, opposed his elevation.¹⁶

Instead, several Lithuanian dignitaries, including Motiejus, bishop of Vilnius, Kristinas Astikas, Jonas Goštautas, and Petras Mantigirdaitis, turned to Władysław. Długosz suggests that they wanted him to rule directly, but later writes that they merely wished him to come to Lithuania to sort out the mess.¹⁷ This was probably simple courtesy: they also suggested that Władysław send his brother, the thirteen-year-old Casimir, to Vilnius to be raised to the grand ducal throne.¹⁸ There is no reason to doubt Długosz’s testimony that Władysław hesitated before deciding that he could not breach the undertakings he had just given to the Hungarians. Instead he and his Polish advisers took a bold step, deciding that they would adopt a modified version of the Vytautan model, by sending Casimir to Vilnius not as grand duke, but as Władysław’s deputy and governor.¹⁹ As Władysław left for Hungary, Casimir set off for Vilnius with an entourage led by the Mazovian dukes Casimir and Bolesław and including Jan of Czyżów, castellan and starosta of Cracow, Dobiesław Olesnicki, palatine of Sandomierz, Jan Głowacz Oleśnicki, castellan of Sandomierz, and Jan Hryćko Kierdej, palatine of Podolia.

If the Poles hoped that this magnificent retinue would mollify the Lithuanians they were to be disappointed. To treat Lithuania as a mere province to be ruled by a governor was insensitive after the coronation tempest, when the issue of Lithuania’s status had almost destroyed the union, and ignored Hrodna, which confirmed Horodło by permitting the election of a grand duke on Žygimantas’s death.²⁰ The Poles again disregarded the spirit and the letter of the union treaties, which stressed the need for discussion and consensus over the succession. It was hardly surprising that after Casimir’s arrival in Vilnius the Lithuanians took matters into their own hands, as they had in 1430. Ignoring Władysław’s wishes, they elected Casimir grand duke of Lithuania on 29 June 1440.²¹ They were not to be fobbed off with a mere governor.

Lithuanian historians have tended to see Casimir’s election as an expression of Lithuanian sovereignty and a unilateral declaration of independence.²² Polish historians have tended to agree. Błaszczyk suggests it marked the ‘formal’ breaking of the union; a couple of pages later, he drops the reservation, writing that ‘one can simply state that the Polish-Lithuanian union was broken in 1440’. Łowmiański is more cautious, claiming that although Casimir became a ‘sovereign monarch’, all links to Poland were not broken.²³

The truth is rather more complex. Although Žygimantas’s assassins were led by the Ruthenian Chortoryskys, who favoured Švitrigaila’s return, the Lithuanians among them had been closely associated with Vytautas. For those who see Vytautas as the champion of Lithuanian independence and sovereignty, Žygimantas was murdered because he was too pro-Polish. This view, advanced by Matusas and Nikodem, depends on an assumption that Žygimantas was not the instigator of an anti-Polish alliance with Albert II and the Order in 1438–1439, which was, so it is argued, the work of Lithuanian ‘separatists’, who supported his assassination because of his overtly pro-Polish policies, supposedly confirmed by the 1439 reconfirmation of Hrodna.²⁴

Łowmiański criticized Halecki’s suggestion that the group of Vytautas’s former supporters, who were among the asassins, formed a ‘pro-Polish’ faction_. Nikodem cites Łowmiański in support of his case, yet Łowmiański’s view is more nuanced: these men were not ‘pro-Polish’, but pro-Jagiellonian, favouring cooperation with the Poles and the continuation of the union, because they feared Ruthenian irredentism led by Švitrigaila.²⁵ This is far more likely. Supporters of the coup were numerous: apart from Motiejus, bishop of Vilnius, Kristinas Astikas, Jonas Goštautas, and Petras Mantigirdaitis, they included the influential Valimuntaitis clan, led by Kęsgaila, whose brothers had been executed by Žygimantas.²⁶ They were either men who had long supported Vytautas—such as Astikas and Kęsgaila—or who had risen to prominence in the 1430s, many of them associated with Sonka’s court.²⁷

They were not ‘pro-Polish’ or ‘subservient to Poland’. They looked to the dynasty and the union that had brought stability to Lithuania between 1401 and 1429 and had transformed the position of the leading boyar families. As Długosz observes, their first inclination in 1440 was to turn to their supreme duke, Władysław, whom they would ‘take as their lord in accordance with the union treaties and their oaths’.²⁸ This invitation to Władysław and the emphasis on ‘written agreements and oaths’ is overlooked by historians anxious to present Casimir’s subsequent election as evidence of a desire to break the union. This group represented those families who had played a part in negotiating the agreements on which that union was based, and who had, as they stated, sworn oaths of loyalty to Jagiełło and his heirs.

If in 1440 anyone was acting in breach of those agreements it was Władysław. There was nothing in the treaties about the appointment of a governor, a step which baldly asserted the disputed Polish position that Lithuania had been incorporated. Even if Władysław and the Polish council wished simply to play for time as he secured his Hungarian throne, and Casimir’s appointment was only a stopgap until they could make more permanent arrangements, the decision was taken without consultation with the Lithuanians, who had every right to feel that—as in 1430—the agreements on which the Poles placed so much stress had simply been ignored.²⁹

Despite the magnificence of Casimir’s entourage, it had no powers to negotiate. Casimir was to be governor and that was that. It is hardly surprising that the Lithuanians should react badly. Horodło and Hrodna emphasized the need for bilateral assemblies to discuss matters of joint concern, yet the Poles had not offered one to discuss the single most important issue in Lithuanian political life: by whom, and how, they were to be governed. The Lithuanians therefore appealed to the union treaties: Długosz attests that they made every effort to persuade Casimir’s retinue that they should be allowed to elect him grand duke in accordance with Horodło. It was only the abrupt rejection of these approaches that persuaded them to take matters into their own hands. Early on the morning of 29 June 1440, while the Poles were still snoring in their beds, Casimir was elected grand duke.³⁰ He was not elected supreme duke; thus Władysław’s rights to Lithuania were respected.

This was no challenge to the union, let alone an assertion of independence. It was the Poles, not the Lithuanians, who had shown scant respect for the spirit of union; they now paid the price. As the Lithuanians observed, it was shameful for them to be deprived of their grand duke, and for Casimir’s title to depend on negotiations that were bound to take a long time since Władysław was far away in Hungary.³¹

The Lithuanians were challenging the Poles to live up to the rhetorical assertions of fraternity that pervaded the acts of union. In 1413 and 1432 they had been given to understand that they would have a say in who was to rule over them. Casimir’s election as grand duke was not at all comparable—as Halecki and Nikodem suggest—to the drunken acclamation of Vytautas at Salin in 1398, and there is no evidence to back Halecki’s assertion that it conferred on Casimir ‘full royal power’, or that the Lithuanians thought that it did: as he admits, Casimir immediately sent ambassadors to Hungary to ask Władysław to confirm his election, which suggests that neither he nor his Lithuanian advisors believed that he was an independent monarch.³² There was no talk of a crown. The Lithuanians had learned the lesson of the coronation tempest, even if the Poles had not.

If the union was to survive, it had to be based on negotiation and consent, not arbitrary decisions by one party to it. Jagiełło’s greatness lay in his recognition of this fact. Władysław was understandably nervous about his own authority, yet his decision did little to bolster it. In 1440 the Lithuanians were in a strong position. There was no appetite for reigniting the civil war. Mykolas Žygimantaitis’s exiguous support soon evaporated, and Casimir’s election was accepted by the Ruthenians.³³ Švitrigaila swore loyalty to Władysław on 6 June 1440, recognizing that he had no chance of reclaiming his throne. He had learned his lesson while tending sheep in his Moldavian exile and eventually received his reward: the Chortoryskys and other leading Ruthenians invited him to become governor of Lutsk in early 1442; in 1443 Casimir granted him an appanage duchy in two of Volhynia’s three districts, with Lithuania retaining direct rule over the other.³⁴ The deal ensured a common front over the future of Volhynia, where Švitrigaila peacefully lived out his days until his death in 1453.

By 1443 Casimir had ended the long civil war, demonstrating that he had inherited much of Jagiełło’s hard-headed political pragmatism. Initially his power was limited largely to Lithuania proper once he had secured the surrender of the upper castle in Trakai by a promise not to punish Ivan Chortorysky for Žygimantas’s murder. He did not control Smolensk, which had rebelled before his election, recognizing Algirdas’s grandson Iury Lengvinevich as its duke, or Samogitia, long a Kęstutid powerbase, which also rebelled in 1441, electing the pagan Daumuntas as its starosta. In 1440 Bolesław IV of Mazovia occupied the Podlasian territories of Drohichyn and Mielnik on the basis of Jagiełło’s 1390 grant of the former to Janusz I; Władysław approved the annexation just before his departure for Hungary in another move that outraged Lithuanian opinion and sparked a war with Mazovia.³⁵

Casimir quickly established his authority, albeit at a price. Iury Lengvinevich’s attempt to extend his control of Smolensk and Mstislau to Polatsk and Vitsebsk was defeated. After two sieges Smolensk was retaken and Iury escaped to Moscow. In Samogitia, where the Kęsgaila were among Casimir’s strongest supporters, a negotiated settlement was reached in 1442 when Casimir issued a privilege, known from its 1492 confirmation, that formed the basis for Samogitia’s special status until the end of the union.³⁶ In the annexed Ruthenian territories a different approach was adopted: Švitrigaila’s recognition as duke of Volhynia was matched by the return in 1441 of Kyiv to Olelko, son of Volodymyr, who had been stripped of it in 1394. Although he was granted it not as duke but as governor, Olelko remained loyal to Casimir.³⁷

These developments are often presented as a step backwards; a move away from Vytautas’s supposed system of strong centralized rule.³⁸ Yet they were pragmatic politics. Vytautas’s reforms brought many benefits to the grand duchy, but left it seriously divided on his death, and without a clear programme to maintain its unity. In rallying behind Casimir, Lithuanians and Ruthenians took an important step towards establishing their own community of the realm. The restoration of Švitrigaila to his Volhynian appanage and the appointment of a governor of Kyiv did not herald a return to the Gediminid dynastic condominium. Lithuania had all but fallen apart in the 1430s, and there were some in the annexed Ruthenian territories who felt that they might be better off joining their brethren in Red Ruthenia under the authority of the Polish crown. Here the ideal of the community of the realm had a different resonance, stirred by historical memories of the glories of Kievan Rus': the Nikiforovskaia chronicle, one of the redactions of what is known as the first Lithuanian chronicle, compiled in the mid fifteenth century, claimed that Švitrigaila was elected grand duke of Rus' and depicts the war as one in which Lithuanians and Poles fought against Ruthenians.³⁹ The danger that the grand duchy might splinter into two halves was clear.⁴⁰ Casimir’s grant of considerable autonomy under their own leaders to Volhynia and Kyiv recognized that for all Vytautas’s reforms, the grand duchy was still very much a composite polity. Švitrigaila was over seventy and had no heir; his rule over Volhynia gave Lithuania a breathing space to prepare for the inevitable Polish challenge to Lithuanian control when he died, while the restoration of limited autonomy to Kyiv under a Gediminid prince loyal to Casimir had considerable symbolic force. The extension of privileges to the Ruthenian nobility had changed their legal and political position, and confronted the major threat to the grand duchy’s political and social coherence. It had by no means solved the problem, but it had shown a way forward and provided a basis upon which Ruthenian loyalty to the grand duchy could develop. The consensual Polish model of decentralized elective monarchy, in which citizens of individual provinces had considerable responsibility for their own affairs was spreading its influence in the Ruthenian lands as well as in the core Lithuanian territories. It was an attractive model, regardless of attitudes towards the Poles themselves.

The balance of union had tilted. The Poles were now experiencing absentee monarchy and royal decisions were becoming harder to secure.⁴¹ With Poland likely to be dragged into war against the Ottomans, they had little appetite for enforcing their will on Lithuania. Władysław and the Polish council obstinately refused to recognize Casimir’s election or use his new title, but there was little they could do.⁴² When a joint Polish-Lithuanian assembly met at Parczew in November 1441 the Lithuanians stood firm, blithely rebuffing appeals from Mykolas Žygimantaitis, who had fled to Mazovia, for possession of the Kęstutid patrimony he had been promised. They blocked Polish attempts to mediate a settlement with Bolesław IV, duke of Mazovia, and their war with Mazovia over Podlasie continued until another assembly at Piotrków in August 1444, when Lithuanian military superiority persuaded the Poles to ignore Władysław’s orders and broker a settlement in which Lithuanian rule over Podlasie was recognized by the Mazovians in return for a modest payment. Significantly, Casimir sought to win over the Podlasians by granting them—with certain minor exceptions—Polish law, which was now used as a means of asserting Lithuanian authority.⁴³

Długosz claims that after the November 1441 Parczew assembly the Poles blustered about carving the grand duchy up into several principalities to curb Lithuanian pride, and it seems that Władysław and his councillors made overtures to Švitrigaila.⁴⁴ The assembly demonstrated that such gestures were empty. Despite Władysław’s order that it should offer Mazovia armed support, the assembly refused to countenance war with Lithuania.⁴⁵ For all the haughty insistence on Lithuania’s inferior status, the Polish programme of union was built round the conceit that the Lithuanian boyars had consented to it at all stages of its development. Now that Lithuanian consent could no longer be secured through princely authority, the Poles found themselves hoist with the petard they had themselves packed with gunpowder. Polish political culture was based on consent and negotiation; the Lithuanians were beginning to demonstrate an understanding of how it worked, and were using the union agreements to their own advantage. The union would never be the same again.

The extent to which the balance had shifted was revealed in the aftermath of Władysław’s heroic death at Varna. The fact that Casimir had by far the best claim to the Polish throne put both him and the Lithuanians in a powerful bargaining position; their exploitation of it launched a new stage in the union process. The strength of Casimir’s claim was recognized by Oleśnicki. He persuaded an assembly in Sieradz on 23 April 1445 that despite the lack of firm confirmation of Władysław’s death—his body had not been recovered, and many hoped that he was concealing himself somewhere in the Balkans—Casimir should be elected without delay. Another assembly was summoned to Piotrków for 24 August; Casimir was invited to attend to have his election confirmed.⁴⁶

It was a sensible decision. The Hungarians, in electing László, recognized that Władysław was dead, as did Sonka, who thanked Oleśnicki for his efforts.⁴⁷ In urging his election, Oleśnicki recognized the obligations the community of the realm had taken upon itself in the agreements made with Jagiełło before his death.⁴⁸ Casimir’s response surprised everyone. He refused to come to Piotrków, informing the startled Poles that, disturbed and dispirited by his brother’s misfortune, he lacked the strength to undertake any new public responsibilities. He stressed that he was by no means rejecting the offer, but considered that the time was not right to accept it.⁴⁹ He suggested that everyone should wait until firmer news of Władysław’s fate emerged, but this excuse, trotted out regularly in the months that followed, could not disguise his true intention: if the Poles wished him to accept what he regarded as his birthright they would have to negotiate. He did not intend to have terms dictated to him.⁵⁰

It seems that this was as much Casimir’s strategy as that of the Lithuanian council. He was nineteen days short of his seventeenth birthday when his brother was killed, but was already showing that he had inherited his father’s shrewd political instincts. It seems that by 1445 he was not dominated by the Lithuanian council, although it is unlikely that there was much disagreement with it over how to approach the matter.⁵¹ He was in a strong position. The Lithuanians and Ruthenians had demonstrated their respect for hereditary right; they already had their grand duke, even if his title was not recognized by the Poles, who had challenged the hereditary claims of Jagiełło’s sons and were now paying the price: given the shortage of plausible alternatives they had few cards in their hand. Time was on Casimir’s side.

Lewicki’s claim that the Poles were powerless is an exaggeration, but the long interregnum was frustrating after four years of absentee rule.⁵² In August 1445 an assembly in Sieradz appointed a high-level embassy led by primate Wincenty Kot and including Oleśnicki. It met Casimir in October in Hrodna, where he flatly rejected the Polish suggestion that he accept the throne in return for confirmation of the union treaties.⁵³ This offer, and the embassy’s lengthy, incorporationist account of the union in an audience with Casimir on 15 October, was neither tactful nor conducive to securing Lithuanian consent, especially since it ended with a polite threat: if Casimir failed to turn up to be crowned on December 5, the Poles would look elsewhere.⁵⁴ Sonka, afraid her son might throw away his Polish throne, travelled to Hrodna to mediate. Her efforts were in vain. According to Długosz, Casimir wished to accept, but after discussion with his Lithuanian advisors, rejected the terms: the Lithuanians argued that if Casimir departed for Poland, the terrible days of Vytautas and Žygimantas might return, while Mykolas Žygimantaitis would seize power and exact a dreadful revenge for his father’s murder.⁵⁵

The stress on the bad old days of Vytautas’s rule suggests that the Lithuanians—if not being downright mischievous—were displaying good tactical sense. Whatever Casimir’s personal views, it was clear that they were not going to accept any deal that saw him leave for Cracow without a settlement that took account of their grievances, and their conception of the union. The Poles could only suggest three options: that Casimir become king of Poland and that, on the Horodło model, a new grand duke acceptable to the Lithuanians be elected; that Casimir remain in control in Lithuania and someone else be elected king of Poland; or that Casimir should rule over both Poland and Lithuania. Neither Casimir nor the Lithuanians were inclined to accept any of them for the moment; only the intervention of Sonka, who travelled to Hrodna on her own initiative, persuaded the Poles to allow the Lithuanians more time. She secured a promise that the Lithuanians would consider the matter at an assembly of the Lithuanian, Samogitian, and Ruthenian lands, and would reply to the Polish assembly called to Piotrków for 6 January.⁵⁶

The Lithuanians had played their hand skilfully. The Poles had thought they could simply summon Casimir from Vilnius to rule over them; they discovered that they needed to persuade the Lithuanians to allow their grand duke to become king.⁵⁷ The Lithuanians were using Horodło against them: the insistence on securing the agreement of the Lithuanian community of the realm was shrewd. The Poles could scarcely complain at such an explicit appeal to the basic principles of their own political system. The Lithuanians assembled in Vilnius at the end of November; their gathering was pure political theatre, designed to put pressure on the Poles. It was well attended by both Lithuanians and Ruthenians. Olelko Volodymyrovych came with his brothers, and Švitrigaila dragged his aching bones up from Lutsk to swear homage to his nephew. The grand duchy’s elites rallied around the grand duke they had chosen, and Casimir’s hand was strengthened. The embassy it appointed contained two Ruthenian princes and four Lithuanian boyars, a subtle indication of the new unity of the political elites, and it was a Ruthenian, Vasily Krasny Ostrozky, who disabused the Poles of the notion that they could send Casimir to Lithuania then recall him at their own convenience. He maintained that Casimir ruled over Lithuania by hereditary right, as his forefathers had, and, like them, enjoyed full powers over it.⁵⁸ The Lithuanian position was entirely consistent with Horodło: Casimir had been elected grand duke in accordance with its terms—allowing for the lack of Polish consent—but Władysław’s death made him supreme duke by hereditary right. Since Władysław’s death was unconfirmed, Casimir could not yet ascend the Polish throne, but he asserted that he would allow nobody else to be chosen in his place.⁵⁹ The Polish bluff had been called.

For another eighteen months the Poles blustered and fumed, but they were stymied. Another assembly in Piotrków in March sought to seize the initiative by electing another candidate. The cupboard, however, was bare. Jadwiga, Jagiełło’s daughter, had died childless in 1431; Oleśnicki and Kot proposed Frederick von Hohenzollern, her one-time fiancé, who had spent part of his childhood in Poland. Despite the support of two other bishops there was considerable hostility to the prospect of a German king, even one who spoke Polish. Paweł Giżycki, bishop of Płock, suggested Bolesław IV of Mazovia, who carried the day. He was declared king-elect, though he would only ascend the throne if Casimir failed to accept the Polish offer by 26 June.⁶⁰ The election was half-hearted. Few believed that the elevation of an impoverished Mazovian duke and the sundering of the union would bring Poland much benefit. Like his great-uncle Siemowit IV in the 1380s, Bolesław only ruled part of Mazovia, and he had just been defeated by Casimir in the Podlasian war. Half of Mazovia would be scant recompense for all of Lithuania and the hostility of a Jagiellon who claimed to be the natural heir to the Polish throne.

The Poles knew it and the Lithuanians knew it. In the end, attachment to the Jagiellonian dynasty, to which both Poles and Lithuanians had sworn oaths of allegiance, and to the union was too strong. In Lithuania, Bolesław’s election concentrated minds, while Casimir worried about Mykolas.⁶¹ In Poland, Sonka gathered support for Casimir. Oleśnicki’s Małopolskan opponents met in April 1446 at Bełżyce, which belonged to Jan Pilecki, Jagiełło’s stepson. Most were from the younger generation excluded from power by the council oligarchs; through Sonka they were in contact with Casimir. It was their envoy, Piotr Kurowski, rather than the official embassy sent by another Piotrków assembly, who obtained a private promise from Casimir to accept the throne.⁶²

The stalemate was broken. When Oleśnicki proposed at a Małopolskan assembly in Cracow on 8 May that Bolesław’s election be confirmed, he was trumped by Kurowski, who produced Casimir’s promise. With no agreement possible, Oleśnicki proposed that a final decision should not be taken before an assembly of the Wielkopolskans in Koło in June. The envoy chosen by the Małopolskans to attend this assembly, however, was Jan Pilecki. On 13 June the Wielkopolskans chose Casimir, and proposed another embassy to meet him in Parczew in September, a decision accepted by the Małopolskans in August.⁶³

The terms still needed thrashing out. It was no easy matter. The Poles assembled in Parczew, but Casimir and the Lithuanians won an important symbolic victory by staying in Brest, just across the border in Lithuania. They refused to come to Parczew, insisting that the talks take place in Lithuania, a condition to which the Poles reluctantly agreed. According to Długosz, Casimir denied that he had agreed to accept the Polish crown or that he had promised Kurowski that he would come, saying he had only accepted Sonka’s pleas.⁶⁴ The Poles had few cards left to play. When Casimir said he would refuse the throne if the Lithuanian terms were not accepted, the Poles capitulated, though not without bitter complaints. Casimir finally agreed to accept the offer of the throne; his coronation was fixed for 24 June 1447.

Casimir and the Lithuanians had won. In his promise to uphold the union and to come to Cracow for his coronation, drawn up on 17 September, and the document issued two days later by the Polish envoys on behalf of the Polish community of the realm, Casimir was entitled: ‘Dei gratia electus rex regni Poloniae et magnus dux Lythwaniae’.⁶⁵ Thus the Poles were forced publicly to accept the legitimacy of Casimir’s 1440 election as grand duke; he had been previously been described in Polish documents merely as ‘dux Lithuaniae’, a title accorded to all Gediminid princes. Casimir promised to maintain Poland and Lithuania in unione caritatis, as his predecessors had done. In this renewal of the union, he stated that, with unanimous consent, he had joined the two polities together; the language was of consent and fraternal union, with none of Horodło’s incorporationist language.⁶⁶

The Poles had to swallow several bitter pills. They agreed that Casimir was free to maintain at his court individuals of ‘any language’ he chose, and to reside in either of his realms as and when he saw fit.⁶⁷ Thus the Lithuanians secured a right to a permanent presence at Casimir’s side, and therefore the possibility of influencing him and playing a role in decision-making. The documents were silent on the dispute over Volhynia and Podolia; resolution of the problem was postponed until Švitrigaila should die. Casimir had gained much. There was good reason for the clause concerning his freedom to have Lithuanians present at court: the Vytautan model, which the Lithuanians had defended for so long, had been quietly abandoned. There was to be no separate grand duke in Vilnius; Casimir was to rule both his realms himself.

The crisis was over and the union had been saved. Casimir’s coronation symbolized the reconciliation of the parties that had squabbled, fought, and disputed the nature of the union for nearly two decades. He was crowned by Kot in the presence of several Piasts, including both dukes of Mazovia and the Silesian dukes of Teschen, Ratibor, and Oświęcim. Representatives of the Order, which had studiously avoided interfering, also attended. Most telling was the presence of Švitrigaila, Algirdas’s only surviving son. He completed his public reconciliation with Casimir, who allowed him to retain the title of grand duke. The old man was no longer a threat. The peoples of the union were entering a new era.

1 Jan Dąbrowski, Władysław I Jagiellończyk na Węgrzech (1440–1444) (Warsaw, 1922), 14–18; Olejnik, Władysław III, 90–1.

2 Łowmiański, Polityka,191–4.

3 Annales, xi/xii, 202–6; Anna Sochacka, ‘Konfederacja Spytka z Melsztyna z 1439 r. Rozgrywka polityczna czy ruch ideologiczny?’, Rocznik Lubelski, 16 (1973), 41–65; Czwojdrak, ‘Kilka uwag’, 197–211; Zawitkowska, W służbie, 171–2.

4 Czwojdrak, ‘Zofia’, 149–50.

5 Annales, xi/xii, 212–13.

6 Krzysztof Baczkowski, ‘Zbigniew Oleśnicki wobec II unii polsko-węgierskiej 1440–1444’, in Kiryk and Noga (eds), Oleśnicki, 53–71; Tomasz Graff, ‘Zbigniew Oleśnicki i polski episkopat wobec unii personalnej z królestwem Węgier w latach 1440–1444’, in Janusz Smołucha et al. (eds), Historia vero testis temporum (Cracow, 2008), 349–64.

7 Annales xi/xii, 212.

8 Dąbrowski, Władysław, 21–3; Olejnik, Władysław III, 94–5.

9 Olejnik, Władysław III, 23–4.

10 Olejnik, Władysław III, 24–39.

11 Edward Potkowski, Warna 1444 (Warsaw, 1990), 141, 185–204.

12 Halecki, Ostatnie lata, 6.

13 PSRL, xxxv, col. 36; Lidia Korczak, ‘Wielki książę litewski Świdrygiełło wobec soboru bazylejskiego i papieża Eugeniusza IV’, in Smołucha et al. (eds), Historia, 347.

14 Halecki, Ostatnie lata, 8; Łowmiański, Polityka, 162.

15 PSRL, xxxv, cols. 142, 166.

16 Łowmiański, Polityka, 162.

17 Annales, xi/xii, 217–18, 219.

18 Любавский, Сеймъ, 95.

19 Annales, xi/xii, 219.

20 Любавский, Сеймъ, 95.

21 Annales, xi/xii, 251–3; PSRL, xxxv, col. 110.

22 Zigimantas Kiaupa, The History of Lithuania (Vilnius, 2002), 103; Dundulis, Kova, 175–8. For a more nuanced view see Gudavičius, Istorija, i, 290–1.

23 Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 775, 780; Nikodem, ‘Oleśnicki wobec unii’, ii, 105; cf. Kutrzeba, ‘Charakter’, 172; Łowmiański, Polityka, 163; Любавский, Сеймъ, 137.

24 Matusas, Švitrigaila, 149–52; Nikodem, ‘Uwagi’, 346–56; Nikodem, ‘Przyczyny’, 24–7.

25 Łowmiański, Polityka, 159–60, 162; Halecki, Ostatnie lata, 6; Halecki, Dzieje, i, 335.

26 Halecki, Dzieje, i, 333.

27 Rowell, ‘Bears and traitors, or political tensions in the Grand Duchy ca. 1440–1481’, LHS, 2 (1997), 30–1.

28 Annales, xi/xii, 217–18.

29 Annales, xi/xii, 219.

30 Annales, xi/xii, 253–4.

31 Annales, xi/xii, 253. Kiaupienė’s claim that the Lithuanians elected Casimir without asking Władysław and the Poles is simply wrong: Horodlės aktai, 291–2.

32 Halecki, Dzieje, i, 339; Nikodem, ‘Oleśnicki wobec unii’, ii, 94.

33 Rowell, ‘Dynastic bluff’, 10.

34 CESXV i/i, no. 113, 122–3; Halecki, Ostatnie lata, 10.

35 Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 782–5.

36 ZPL, 67–72; Žemaitijos žemės privilegijos XV–XVII a, eds Darius Antanavičius and Eugenijus Saviščevas (Vilnius, 2010), nos. 3–8, 33–9; Stephen C. Rowell, ‘Rusena karas žemaičiouse: Keletas pastabų apie 1442 m. privilegijos genezės’, Žemaicių Praetitis, 8 (1998), 9–10.

37 Karol Górski, ‘Młodość Kazimierza i rządy na Litwie (1440–1454)’, in Biskup and Górski (eds), Kazimierz Jagiellończyk (Warsaw, 1987), 11.

38 For example Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 782.

39 PSRL, xxxv, col. 35; ‘Ha ту же осень князь великыи Жигимонтсобра силу многу литовьскую и ляхы, и приде на Руськую землю’: PSRL, xxxv, col. 36; cf. PSRL, xxxv, col. 59.

40 Русина, Україна, 111–12.

41 Annales, xi/xii, 253.

42 Annales, xi/xii, 245–5. Rowell argues that Władysław eventually recognized his brother’s elevation: he cites Władysław’s use of the title of supreme duke in 1441, but Długosz states that neither the Poles nor Władysław ever recognized Casimir’s title, while he used the title of supreme duke before as well as after 1440; its use in 1441 proves nothing: Rowell, ‘Bears’, 32; Rowell, ‘Rusena karas’, 6; Annales, xi/xii, 254. Cf. Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 780–1; Halecki, Dzieje, i, 340.

43 Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 785–7; Halecki, Dzieje, i, 350.

44 Annales, xi/xii, 267–8; Halecki, Dzieje, i, 339–40.

45 Halecki, Dzieje, i, 347–9; Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 787–8; Nikodem, ‘Oleśnicki wobec unii’, ii, 103.

46 Annales, xii/i, 14–16; Nikodem, ‘Oleśnicki wobec unii’, ii, 104. Lewicki’s classic account of the interregnum, ‘Wstąpienie na tron polski Kazimierza Jagiellończyka’, RSAU, 20 (1887), 1–40 is still valuable, but the best analysis is Rowell, ‘Casimir Jagiellończyk and the Polish gamble’, LHS, 4 (1999), 7–39; cf. Rowell ‘1446’, 188–277.

47 Annales, xii/i, 15.

48 Rowell, ‘Casimir’, 15.

49 Annales, xii/i, 18–19.

50 Rumours of Władysław’s miraculous survival were rife, and a cult soon emerged: Rowell, ‘Pomirtinis Vladislovo Varniečio gyvenimas—vidurio Europos Karalius Artūras iš Lietuvos’, LIM, 2 (2006), 5–30.

51 Rowell, ‘Casimir’, 29; Rowell, ‘1446’, 191.

52 Lewicki, ‘Wstąpienie’, 4.

53 Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 799.

54 Annales, xii/i, 19–22; Rowell, ‘Casimir’, 19; Lewicki, ‘Wstąpienie’, 5–6.

55 Annales, xii/i, 22–4; Lewicki, ‘Wstąpienie’, 6.

56 Annales, xii/i, 23; Lewicki, ‘Wstąpienie’, 6; Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 800.

57 Lewicki, ‘Wstąpienie’, 7–8.

58 Annales, xii/i, 24; Lewicki, ‘Wstąpienie’, 8.

59 Halecki, Ostatne lata, 76; Halecki, Dzieje, i, 356.

60 Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 803–4; Rowell, ‘Casimir’, 25–6; Lewicki, ‘Wstąpienie’, 11–14.

61 Rowell, ‘Casimir’, 8, 27, 39; Łowmiański, Polityka, 215.

62 Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 805–6; Rowell, ‘Casimir, 27.

63 Błaszczyk, Dzieje, ii/i, 806.

64 Annales, xii/i, 38–41; Wojciech Fałkowski, ‘Polsko-litewskie negocjacje w 1446 roku’, in Kras et al. (eds), Ecclesia Cultura Potestas (Cracow, 2006), 470.

65 AU, no. 68, 116, no. 69, 117.

66 ‘ipsum regnum Poloniae et magnum ducatum Lythwaniae utriusque dominii consilio, voluntate unanimi et assensu in unam fraternam unionem iunximus, copulavimus et anneximus, volentes ipsorum esse dominus et rector divina disponente clementia’: AU, no. 68, 116.

67 AU, no. 68, 116–17.