THE NOBLE DEMOCRACY 257rewards of executive office but also lifelong tenancies of rich Crown properties
and monopolies. He spoke with a dominant voice in all political appointments.
Although he was not permitted to dismiss them unilaterally, he chose the sixteen
officers of state - the Marszalek (Marshal), the Hetman (Commander), the
Kanclerz (Chancellor), and the Podskarbi (Treasurer) of the Korona and of the
Grand Duchy, with their deputies; he named the regional officers of Wojewoda
(Palatine), Kasztelan (Castellan), and Starosta, and selected judicial officers
from lists submitted by the Sejm or by the dietines; and he confirmed all apos-
tolic appointments to abbeys and bishoprics in the Roman, Uniate, and
Orthodox churches. In this way, he wielded an influence in the Senate
far beyond that which was openly revealed during its formal proceedings. In
legislative matters, he continued to issue edicts in all spheres not reserved by
privilege to the Sejm; in military matters, he acted as the nominal Commander-
in-Chief to whom all soldiers addressed their oath of allegiance; in judicial mat-
ters, he retained the right to act with the Sejm as the highest court of appeal; and
in political matters, he was the natural protector of the lesser nobles against the
magnates, and of the weaker estates - the burghers, Jews, peasants, and clergy
- against the nobility as a whole. In foreign affairs, he claimed a leading role in
the formulation of policy. In almost all his decisions, he had to carry the resident
Senators with him; but he was not necessarily obliged to accept any proposals
that were put to him. Even in relation to the Sejm, he could not be said in any
sense to be powerless. It was the king who convened the Sejm, and who pro-
rogued and dissolved it. It was the king who directed the programme of debates.
It was the king whose signature turned parliamentary resolutions into statutory
law. The King may well have been the servant of the noble Republic; but he was
no puppet.
The procedures of the 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary' sessions of the Sejm were
often as confused, and as complicated as those of the royal elections. In 1585—6,
for example, the Sejm which Bathory summoned to Warsaw to settle the
Zborowski affair already discussed in the dietines, ended in political stalemate.
It was summoned to assemble on 15 January. Three days earlier, the King made
his entry into Warsaw from the south, accompanied by Konstanty Ostrogski,
Palatine of Kiev, with 1,500 Cossacks and cavalry, and by Chancellor Zamoyski
with 1,500 infantrymen. To the west, Krzystof Zborowski was approaching with
an army of his own. It was the Chancellor's aim, as the diarist says, to be 'poten-
tior potentia potentissimi', to be 'stronger in strength than the strongest'. On the
15th, the Archbishop of Lwow celebrated Mass in the Cathedral of St. John, and
the newly elected Marshal of the Sejm, Pekoslawski, presented the loyal address.
On the 16th, Phase One of the proceedings began with each chamber sitting sep-
arately. The Lower House prepared a list of suggested appointees for the vacant
offices of state, and debated matters arising from their instructions. When the
rugi or 'scrutiny of membership' took place, the envoys of the nobles of Volhynia
were admitted in place of 'two envoys of the lords of that province' who had
held a dietine of their own. The Senate was debating the internal and external