270 ANARCHIA
of the heroes of the Republic. His career was symptomatic of the social condi-
tions on which he thrived. He was a man of uncommon courage, invention, and
energy. But devoured by some inner acid of spite and resentment. His parentage
was choicely unrespectable. His father, Stanislaw Mateusz Stadnicki, an Arian,
had been excommunicated by the Church for heresy. His mother, Barbara
Zborowska, belonged to the rumbustious Zborowskis of Niedzica. He was
born at Dubiecko in the Carpathians, and on his parents' decease shared his
family's fifteen landed properties with his six brothers. He was a member of the
heraldic clan of Sreniawa, and adopted the motto: Aspettate e odiate (Wait and
Hate). His early years were spent soldiering, first in Hungary and then in the
Polish service in Muscovy, where in 1581 he was commended for conspicuous
gallantry. On his return from the wars, apparently with an incurable grudge
over his unpaid salary, he took possession of the estate of Laricut near Rzeszow,
and applied himself systematically to banditry. Turning Lancut into a fairy-tale
robber's castle, he devised elaborate provocations, legal ploys, and even scur-
rilous verse, by which his intended victims were goaded into action, and then
crushed. Soon, the whole area was frothing with indignation. Money was bor-
rowed and not returned; houses were burned down for no apparent reason; a
monastery was closed down, and its monks expelled; fairs and markets were ter-
rorized; travellers were harassed, and in some cases purposely mutilated; and
trade passed increasingly to Stadnicki's own unlicensed fair at Rzeszow. Every
protest brought swift and vicious retaliation. Spies, extortionists, and armed
retainers kept the local people in line. The dungeon at Lancut was equipped
with a torture-chamber, where rumour had it that Stadnicki's enemies were
buried alive. In 1600, after numerous clashes with his noble neighbours,
Stadnicki was sued in the Crown Tribunal at Lublin in connection with his ille-
gal management of the Rzeszow Fair, and he lost his case. His response was to
issue a formal challenge to the instigator of the suit, Michat Korniakt, and to
lead a punitive expedition against the Korniakts' estate at Sosnica. In 1605-6, he
played a prominent part in the noble Rokosz. His correspondence at this time,
and his public speeches in which he called the King a 'perjurer', a 'sodomite', a
'card-sharper', and an 'alchemist', were vastly treasonable, and can hardly have
helped Zebrzydowski to protest the legality of their cause. But he remained at
liberty. Eventually, he met his match in Lukasz Opaliriski, the victim of a libel-
lous poem entitled 'Slup do goscia' (A Gallows for my Guest), which had been
circulated in broadsides round the entire district. Opaliriski, mortally offended
by the slight, never forgave him. In 1608, Laricut was stormed by Opalinski's
friends and relations, who slew everyone who fell into their hands. Treasure to
the value of 500,000 zl. was taken from the cellar, together with 10,000 zl. in
coin, 24,000 gold ducats, and 27,000 thalers. Stadnicki himself escaped; but his
subsequent return to Laricut and his attempt to restore his reign by an
intensified campaign of terror, did not succeed. Betrayed by his own servant,
hunted down in the hills, ambushed and wounded by Opaliriski's Cossacks, he
finally expired as his head was severed by a stroke of his own sword. Yet his