THE NOBLE DEMOCRACY 251
vengeance. His brothers, Krzysztof and Jan, members of a wild and powerful
Protestant clan, were preparing to retaliate. On 7 November Krzysztof
Zborowski arrived in Proszowice one day early, and invested the church with a
troop of armed retainers. Thus, on the 8th, when the dignitaries of the province
arrived to take their places in the 'circle of knights' in front of the altar, they
found themselves overborne from the gallery and the organ-loft by rows of pikes
and muskets. Before they could proceed, Zborowski had sprung to his feet, and
sworn to take revenge 'on the throat of Zamoyski' for the shameful murder of
his brother, calling on the assembled nobles to make his cause their own. When
the Bishop of Cracow, Piotr Myszkowski, and the Castellan of Biecz, Mikolaj
Firlej, suggested recourse to the courts, they were rudely interrupted. The elec-
tion of the Marshal of the dietine had to be conducted in the graveyard. On the
second and third days, tempers rose still further. Zborowski's adherents sought
to get their way by filibuster, or by drowning their opponents' arguments in
peals from the belfry. Then, as Stanislaw Stadnicki, the Devil of Lancut rode in
and took the Zborowskis' part, a firearm was aimed at Spytek Jordan, the leader
of the opposition. Sympathy and force was nicely divided. The one point on
which everyone was agreed was that Zamoyski's men had exceeded their rights
by trespassing on the estates of the Zborowskis' niece, Katarzyna Wlodyk. The
fact that the lady was harbouring an outlaw at the time made no difference to
the inviolability of her property. According to the law of Neminem cap-
tivabimus, all nobles were immune from all such invasions until condemned in
a court of law. As a lady, and a local landowner, she attracted great support. On
11 November, the dietine was in a state of schism. Inside the church, the
Zborowskis elected two of their own men, headed by Mikolaj Kazimierski, as
envoys. Outside the church in the graveyard, the opposition elected another
team led by Spytek Jordan. It was with the greatest difficulty that the rival
groups were persuaded to pass their common resolutions, and to choose a clerk
to write the instructions. In the end, of thirty-seven instructions, only one con-
cerned the Zborowskis. Instruction No. 20 enjoined the envoys to protest in the
Sejm against the invasion of the widow Wlodyk's estates, and to press for a fair
hearing for the Zborowskis.^3
The detailed, parochial nature of the dietines' instructions is indicative of the
nobility's deepest concerns. In 1667, Jan Chryzostom Pasek served as Marshal
of the sejmik of Rawa in Mazovia, and recorded their instructions in full.
Although this was a time of civil commotion caused by Lubomirski's Rebellion,
and by the failing powers of the King, Jan Kazimierz, the nobles of the province
showed an extraordinary concern for pettifogging detail:
INSTRUCTIONS
To their Lordships, the Honourable envoys of Rawa - Pan Adam Nowomiejski, District
Judge in Rawa, and Pan Anselm Rekarski, Cup-Bearer of Rawa, unanimously elected by
the noble sejmik:
Inasmuch as everyone can see how our entire country must grieve at the sight of the
troubles caused by the exertions of malevolent men, and by the ingratitude of those who