352 VASA
years of The Deluge. Towards the end of the decade, Poland's military fortunes
revived. In May 1660 all fighting in the West was stopped by the Peace of Oliwa,
although in the east the Tsar continued to campaign.
The strains of incessant war caused internal inflammations. Attempts by the
King to remedy constitutional and financial defects led first to conflict with the
Sejm, and then to civil war. The nobility rejected proposals for majority voting,
for an election vivente rege and for a central Treasury. Their leader Jerzy
Lubomirski, Marshal of the Crown, was pushed into treasonable contacts with
Austria, and eventually to open mutiny. From 1661-7, the King vainly con-
fronted first the military leagues and then the armies of the Rokosz. At Matwy,
on the borders of Silesia, on 13 July 1666 he met defeat. The Crown forces were
fought to a standstill. Jan Kazimierz resigned from his political plans, and
received Lubomirski's submission. In 1667, Lubomirski left for voluntary exile
in Breslau. In the east, at the Truce of Andrusovo, the Muscovites were able to
strike a hard bargain. In 1668, Jan Casimir abdicated, and retired to France.
What Chmielnicki had started, Lubomirski and the Tsar completed.
In this light, it may seem odd that historians have tried to connect
Chmielnicki's Rebellion with contemporary events in England, France, and
Spain.^23 Some maintain that he formed part of a vast international conspiracy.
For that, beyond the fact that he is supposed to have visited Paris and to have
corresponded with Cromwell, there is no evidence. Others relate him to some
general 'European crisis'. Yet none of the suggested hypotheses can be made to
fit all the events in question. The concept of a 'national rising' is apt enough for
Portugal and Catalonia. It is largely irrelevant to the English Civil War and to
the 'Fronde' in France. In the Republic, it is less convincing as an explanation of
Chmielnicki's activities, than of widespread resistance in central and western
parts to the Swedes. The concept of a 'social revolution', too, is problematical.
In the case of the Republic it cannot be ignored completely. The peasantry of the
Ukraine certainly did participate in the Rebellion whilst elsewhere they acted on
their own accord in repelling the foreign invaders. Yet it seems they were
inspired by Chmielniecki malgre lui. Neither the Cossacks, nor the Tartars, nor
the King, nor least of all the Tsar of Muscovy, had any intention of emancipat-
ing the serfs. It can be argued, of course, that the peasants rose in desperation
against the inexorable advance of serfdom. If so, it must be admitted that their
'revolution' was a total failure. Despite the secession of the Ukraine, the
progress of enserfment in Eastern Europe continued unabated. Perhaps in the
concept of some generalized 'constitutional crisis of the modern state', one
might find some threads of over-all relevance. As elsewhere, the relationship in
the Republic between the central government and the peripheral regions was
put to a severe test. The ancient representative institutions were incapable of
resolving the torrent of new social and political problems. In the Republic, it
was an obvious source of tension that the Cossacks were denied ennoblement,
and that the Orthodox and Uniate bishops were excluded from the Senate. But
here, if one accepts the constitutional theory, one is bound to relegate