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Largely sympathetic to the Lithuanian desire for autonomy and determined to create a strong, central royal power, Casimir clashed with the Polish magnates, large landowners who had dominated the earlier Jagiellon reigns, by granting extensive and exclusive rights and privileges to the gentry in order to gain their political and financial support for his active foreign policy. As a result, Casimir was able not only to engage successfully in the Thirteen Years’ War (1454–66) against the Teutonic Knights, by which he acquired a large portion of their territory, but also to place his son Władysław on the thrones of Bohemia (as Vladislav II; 1471) and Hungary (as Ulászló II; 1490) and to fight the Turks (1485–89), who had disrupted his kingdom’s trade by seizing control of the mouths of the Dniester and Danube rivers.

When Sigismund I the Old succeeded his brother Alexander in 1506, the Polish–Lithuanian federation was seriously threatened by foreign invasion as well as by internal decay.

Sigismund’s nephew Louis II succeeded Władysław as king of Bohemia and Hungary in 1516, but his death at the Battle of Mohács (at which the Turks destroyed the Hungarian monarchy; 1526) brought an end to Jagiellon rule there. Sigismund, on the other hand, improved the political stability of Poland and Lithuania, incorporated Mazovia into his realm (1526), and also promoted the development of Renaissance culture in Poland.

In the middle of the sixteenth century Poland was a wealthy country governed by the Jagiellon Kings, whose riches had been built upon a monopoly of the Baltic Sea trade around Gdansk. By the end of the eighteenth century, Russia, Prussia and Austria had divided the country between them and Poland was wiped off the map for 123 years.

The abolition of the hereditary monarchy placed the election of the king in the hands of the nobles. If no Polish heir to the throne was available, foreigners were eligible to stand.

After suffering several devastating defeats at the hands of the Swedes, including a period of five years, 1655-60, known as ‘the Deluge’, Poland was severely weakened and could offer little resistance to the combined power of Russia, Prussia and Austria

king of Poland (1587–1632) and of Sweden (1592–99)

sought to effect a permanent union of Poland and Sweden but instead created hostile relations and wars between the two states lasting until 1660

The elder son of King John III Vasa of Sweden and Catherine, daughter of Sigismund I the Old of Poland, Sigismund belonged to the Vasa dynasty through his father and to the Jagiellon dynasty through his mother, who brought him up as a Catholic. He was elected king of Poland in August 1587, succeeding his uncle King Stephen Báthory.

The only son of Sigismund I the Old and Bona Sforza, Sigismund II was elected and crowned coruler with his father in 1530.

In 1559, when the Livonian Order (a branch of the Teutonic Knights) became too weak to protect itself from Muscovite attacks, it sought and obtained Sigismund’s previously offered protection. The Polish king intervened

The subsequent war (see Livonian War) with Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible over Livonia compelled Sigismund to strengthen his position by constitutionally uniting all the lands attached to the Polish crown. Supported by the Polish and Lithuanian gentry, Sigismund ceded his hereditary rights in Lithuania to Poland (1564), thus placing the two states in constitutional equality but not in a complete union. In 1569 he formally incorporated Podlasie, Volhynia, and Kiev provinces into the Polish kingdom, thereby giving their representatives seats in the Sejm; the enlarged Sejm then enacted the Union of Lublin (1569), uniting Poland and Lithuania as well as their respective dependencies.

One of the most extraordinary events of the 16th century was the election in 1573 of a French prince to the throne of Poland. The prince was Henri, the third son of Henry II of France.

Catherine’s two eldest sons, François and Charles, were kings of France successively. Henri also succeeded to that throne in 1574. Their sister, Marguerite, became queen of Navarre by marrying the future Henri IV of France in 1572

The Polish throne, unusually, was elective. Since 1386 the election had been in practice limited to members of the Jagiellon dynasty, but now, for the first time, it was to be free. Five candidates offered themselves including John III of Sweden, Ivan IV, Tsar of Muscovy, the Archduke Ernest, son of the Emperor Maximilian II, and Henri, Duke of Anjou