Summary

Sigismund II Augustus (born August 1, 1520 in Cracow, died July 7, 1572 in Knyszyn) - son of Sigismund I the Old and Bona Sforza, from 1529 Grand Duke of Lithuania, from 1530 King of Poland (last hereditary Grand Duke of Lithuania, last male representative of the Jagiellonian dynasty.

On his initiative, the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were united under the Union of Lublin into a single state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Sigismund Augustus by God's grace king of Poland, grand duke of Lithuania, and prince of the lands of Cracovia, Sandomiria, Sieradz, Leczyca, Kujawy, Kiev, Ruthenia, Volhynia, Prussia, Mazovia, Podlasie, Chelm, Elblag, Pomerania, Samogitia, Livonia, etc. lord and heir. (Latin: Sigismundus Augustus Dei gratia rex Poloniae, magnus dux Lithuaniae, nec non terrarum Cracoviae, Sandomiriae, Siradiae, Lanciciae, Cuiaviae, Kieviae, Russiae, Woliniae, Prussiae, Masoviae, Podlachiae, Culmensis, Elbingensis, Pomeraniae, Samogitiae, Livoniae etc. dominus et haeres.).

Marriages of Sigismund II Augustus

Sigismund II Augustus was born on August 1, 1520, in Krakow, Poland, as the first and, as it later turned out, only living and legally married son of King Sigismund I the Old and his second wife Bona Sforza, Duchess of Bari. From 1529, he resided in Vilnius as Grand Duke of Lithuania. On February 20, 1530, the Archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland Jan Łaski crowned him vivente rege in Wawel Cathedral as King of Poland.

In 1543, he married Elizabeth of Austria of the Habsburgs, daughter of Emperor Ferdinand I of Habsburg. The young couple resided in Vilnius, but the intercourse was not successful, mainly due to the young queen's illness - epilepsy. After the death of his first wife in 1545, he secretly entered into marriage with Barbara Radziwill two years later, forced into it by her brother Nikolai Radziwill the Red and cousin Nikolai Radziwill the Black. According to some opinions, the marriage was made for love (the king was said to have met Barbara in Vilna, long before the wedding, around 1544, and had an affair with her while his wife Elisabeth was still alive). Sigismund II's second marriage was entered into against the wishes of his father Sigismund I and mother Bona, and when it was revealed, the magnates considered it a misalliance, damaging the solemnity of the dynasty and the state. Nevertheless, Barbara was crowned Queen of Poland on December 7, 1550. The following year she died. She was buried in Vilnius Cathedral. Sigismund married a third more time in 1553, to an Austrian princess, the younger sister of his first wife, Catherine. In entering into this marriage, he still hoped for a descendant and depended on the hereditary Lithuanian throne for a possible son, but it turned out, like the previous one, to be childless. The problem of the Jagiellonian legacy in Lithuania thus became irrelevant, and in this situation a real union between Poland and Lithuania was sought on the part of Poland, so that the union of the two countries would be maintained in the future. The king's mother, quarreling with the royal court and with her son mainly because of his unsuccessful and childless marriage to his third wife, left for Bari, Italy, and died there in 1557 - poisoned by Pappacoda, an aide to the Spanish Habsburgs. In 1566 Catherine left Poland for Austria, as it turned out forever, since she died there a few months before her husband. Sigismund II Augustus died at the end of his 52nd year.

Policy

In 1557, he conducted a successful armed demonstration, the so-called Posvol expedition, as a result of which he forced the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order to unequivocally side with the Polish-Lithuanian Empire in its conflict with the Russian Tsar. On September 14, 1557, the Treaty of Permit was signed. In 1561, Inflants, which had been under the control of the Teutonic Knights of the Livonian branch since the 13th century, was annexed to Poland as a fief. The last Grand Master of this order, Gotthard Kettler, became a fief of Poland from the established secular Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. The First Northern War for the dominion of the Baltic Sea (1563-1570) began then. Due in part to the problems associated with the hard-fought war for Inflants with Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, King Sigismund II Augustus, seeking broader support among the nobility, decided to introduce reforms advocated by the nobility, including taxation, economy and the creation of a standing army. In particular, the state treasury was augmented by the so-called execution of estates, i.e. the return of part of the estates distributed to the magnates.

In October 1562, he married John Vasa (then the younger brother of the King of Sweden) to his sister Catherine, who became Queen of Sweden in 1569.

At the Sejm in Warsaw on March 13, 1564, he ceded his succession rights in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.

During the conflict with Gdansk, he established a Maritime Commission. He enforced compensation from Gdansk and the transfer of pile duty. In 1570, construction of the first royal ship "Dragon" began.

In matters of faith, Sigismund Augustus took an ambiguous stance for a long time, keeping Protestant preachers at his court and surrounding himself with Protestants. In 1555, the Protestant nobility, which had the upper hand in the Chamber of Deputies, put forward a proposal at the Sejm in Piotrków to establish a Polish national church, independent of the Pope. Following the model of England, its head was to be the ruler himself. The king supported this project until he needed the support of the camp of the middle nobility against the magnates. As early as 1564, however, he abandoned it altogether, succumbing to the persuasion of Nuncio Giovanni Francesco Commendone. The king, along with the Senate, accepted from Commendone's hands the book of laws of the Council of Trent at the Diet of Parczew on August 7, 1564.

In 1568, Sigismund II Augustus took out a loan of 100,000 thalers from the Duchy of Pomerania, which his successors considered a personal obligation of the king and did not feel obliged to repay.

Crown and Lithuania

In the absence of the nobility's consent to increase taxes, Sigismund Augustus did not succeed in implementing all the intended reforms, including an increase in the size of the army. On the other hand, the unification of the state proceeded positively. It covered part of the lands of Silesia, Mazovia and Royal Prussia, and most importantly, on July 1, 1569, a union was concluded in Lublin, which finally united the Crown of the Polish Kingdom and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single state - the Republic of Both Nations, with a common king, parliament, money and foreign policy. Laws, military, treasury and offices remained separate. Podlasie, Volhynia, and Kiev became part of the Crown. The Union accelerated the economic, social and cultural development of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, led to the Polonization of the Lithuanian and Ruthenian nobility and extended the influence of Polish culture as far as the Russian state.

In July 1570, he called a peace congress to Stettin, which ended on December 13 with the signing of the Peace of Stettin, ending the First Northern War. The possessions of the warring parties were confirmed, the Republic retained the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia and a large part of Inflants.

During the reign of Sigismund II Augustus, Renaissance literature and art flourished. The city of Augustow is named after him.

Sigismund II Augustus died in 1572 in Knyszyn, as the last Polish monarch from the male line of the Jagiellonian dynasty. The next Polish king, elected by the Electoral Sejm, was Henry Valois (reigned 1573-1574).

Funeral and mourning ceremonies

The funeral of Sigismund Augustus took place with exceptional ceremonial observance. After a funeral mass celebrated in the chapel of the Tykocin castle, the funeral procession set out for Cracow. The body of the deceased was led out by twenty-four courtiers clad in mourning hoods, with candles in their hands, and the poor in their hoods and behind their candles. A procession of a hundred poor people with lighted candles followed, followed by priests and royal chaplains. Behind them rode an ensign on a black-clad horse. A black horse with royal coats of arms was led further, followed by two boys with knockers. Next rode a carriage with the body of the monarch, covered with black cloth and harnessed to horses also covered with black cloth. The hearse was followed by state dignitaries with their mail. In passing towns, the procession was greeted with salvos from cannons and small arms. During the night, a guard consisting of two royal bailiffs, eight drabbers, two courtiers and two jurgieltniks was posted at the marches. In Warsaw, the funeral procession was greeted by two hundred poor people and sixty courtiers with candles in their hands, as well as representatives of all craft guilds. They carried 10 maras adorned with gold-headedness and velvet. The body was introduced by bishops and abbots. They were preceded by signs of royal authority and the court flag. The old custom was to distribute money to the poor. Four commemorative speeches were also delivered. In Krakow, deputies of foreign courts, bishops, abbots and guilds waited for the procession at the Florian Gate, with thirty marches covered with gold-headedness. There were also ensigns in armor covered with black cloth, who proceeded according to the seniority of the lands they represented. There were also thirty horses covered with silk, tollboys, six hundred poor in kapas and clergy. A horse covered in black velvet was then led, and further behind the royal maras rode a knight in armor on a horse in black, with a bare sword pointing its blade toward the ground. He was followed by a boy in armor, with a shield, a lance and a pennant also lowered to the ground, on which were depicted an Eagle and a Pogo - the coats of arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. They were followed by a knight in royal attire, followed by dignitaries carrying royal insignia and sixty courtiers with candles. The procession was closed by Anna Jagiellonka with her court, led by foreign deputies, and councilors of the city of Krakow. In such an assortment, the body of the deceased king was escorted to Wawel.

On the following day, the traditional tour of the city with empty marbles was made, visiting the churches of St. Francis, St. Anne, St. Stephen and St. Trinity, before returning to Wawel. The following day, celebrations began at the cathedral. Bells were rung in all of Krakow's churches. The bishop gave a sermon, and during the chanting of the Our Father, a knight representing the person of the deceased king entered the sanctuary and threw himself from his horse onto the floor at the margins, symbolizing the king's death. The traditional breaking of the state seals (chancellor's and treasurer's) also took place, as did the carrying of the coronation insignia from the marches to the altar. A helmet, shield, sword and lance were thrown on the floor.

A detailed description of Sigismund Augustus' attire for the coffin has survived. Thus, the king's body was wrapped in oilcloth (wax cloth) and a shirt of Flemish linen was put on it, and over the shirt a squire of red damask, fastened with a gold cord, girdling the body. Over this was worn an alb of white kitayka, and over it a dalmatica of gold-leaf. A cloak of altembass completed the outfit. Around the neck hung a chain with a cross set with diamonds and rubies, and on the fingers were placed two rings: an emerald and a sapphire. Hands were clad in silk gloves and tinsel, and on the feet were worn gold-lead shoes and gilded spurs. A sword in a silver scabbard was girded to his side, and a scepter and apple were placed next to him. A biretta of red satin was placed on his head, followed by a crown. A silver gilded plaque with a Latin inscription indicating who rests in the coffin was placed on the chest. The coffin itself was upholstered inside with black velvet.

The funeral of Sigismund II Augustus was the last such grand mourning rite in pre-partition Poland.

Patronage

On the king's orders, the Old Castle in Kamieniec Podolski was modernized in 1544-1547. In 1544, a Renaissance wing called the New Palace (Giovanni Cini) was added to the Lower Castle in Vilnius, which is currently not preserved. In 1551-1568, the castle in Niepołomice was rebuilt in the Renaissance style. After 1549, the castle in Tykocin (now under reconstruction) and the royal court in Knyszyn (not preserved) were expanded by Job Bretfus.

In 1568, the Sigismund Augustus Bridge in Warsaw began to be built (completed after his death).

Sources

1. Sigismund II Augustus
2. Zygmunt II August
3. ^ Lukšaitė, Ingė; Matulevičius, Algirdas. "Žygimantas Augustas". Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 27 July 2021.
4. ^ Duczmal (2012), p. 119
5. Koronowany za życia poprzednika, 20 lutego 1530.
6. Formalnie już od 1529 roku.
7. Po unii lubelskiej (1569) Polska i Litwa stały się jednym państwem, a kolejny wspólny władca (po śmierci Zygmunta Augusta) był wybierany w drodze elekcji.
8. БРЭ. Речь Посполита  (неопр.). Дата обращения: 31 января 2023. Архивировано 28 марта 2023 года.
9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 СИГИЗМУ́НД II // Большая российская энциклопедия : [в 35 т.] / гл. ред. Ю. С. Осипов. — М. : Большая российская энциклопедия, 2004—2017.
10. Пичета В. И. Аграрная реформа Сигизмунда-Августа. — С. 541—542.
11. Congress, Library of; Policy, Library of Congress Office for Subject Cataloging (2012). Library of Congress Subject Headings (em inglês). 4. Washington, D.C: Library of Congress. p. 390
12. Mol, Johannes A.; Militzer, Klaus; Nicholson, Helen J. (2006). The Military Orders and the Reformation: Choices, State Building, and the Weight of Tradition (em inglês). [S.l.]: Uitgeverij Verloren. p. 31
13. Mosher, Sally E. (2002). People and Their Contexts: A Chronology of the 16Th Century World (em inglês). Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation. p. 328