 Biscuits, breakfast cakes, and shortcakes by Fanny Farmer. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Batters, sponges, and doughs. Batter is a mixture of flour and some liquid, usually combined with other ingredients as sugar, salt, eggs, etc. of consistency to pour easily or to drop from a spoon. Batters are termed thin or thick according to their consistency. Sponge is a batter to which yeast is added. Dough differs from batter in as much as it is stiff enough to be handled. Cream, scones, 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 half teaspoon salt, 4 tablespoons butter, 2 eggs, 1 third cup cream. Mix and sift together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Rub in butter with tips of fingers. Add eggs well beaten and cream. Toss on a floured board. Pat and roll to 3 fourths inch in thickness. Cut in squares. Brush with white of egg. Sprinkle with sugar and bake in a hot oven 15 minutes. Baking powder, biscuit, 1, 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon lard, 3 fourths cup milk and water in equal parts. 1 tablespoon butter. Mix dry ingredients and sift twice. Work in butter and lard with tips of fingers. Add gradually the liquid mixing with knife to a soft dough. It is impossible to determine the exact amount of liquid owing to differences in flour. Toss on a floured board. Pat and roll lightly to 1 half inch in thickness. Shape with a biscuit cutter. Place on buttered pan and bake in hot oven 12 to 15 minutes. If baked in too slow an oven, the gas will escape before it is done its work. Many obtain better results by using bread flour. Baking powder, biscuit, 2, 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 2 tablespoons butter, 3 quarter cup milk, 1 half teaspoon salt. Mix and bake as baking powder, biscuit, 1. Emergency biscuit. Use recipe for baking powder, biscuit, 1 or 2 with the addition of more milk. That mixture may be dropped from spoon without spreading. Drop by spoonfuls on a buttered pan 1 half inch apart. Brush over with milk and bake in hot oven 8 minutes. Fruit rolls, pinwheel biscuit, 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, 2 thirds cup milk, 1 third cup stoned raisins, finely chopped, 2 tablespoons citron, finely chopped, 1 third teaspoon cinnamon. Mix as baking powder, biscuit, 2. Roll to 1 fourth inch thickness. Brush over with melted butter and sprinkle with fruit, sugar, and cinnamon. Roll like a jelly roll. Cut off pieces 3 fourths inch in thickness. Place on buttered tin and bake in hot oven 15 minutes. Currents may be used in place of raisins and citron. Twin mountain muffins, 1 quarter cup butter, 1 quarter cup sugar, 1 egg, 3 quarter cup milk, 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder. Cream the butter, add sugar and egg well beaten. Sift baking powder with flour and add to the first mixture. Alternating with milk, bake in buttered tin gem pans 25 minutes. 1 egg muffins, 1, 3 and a half cups flour, 6 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 and 1 third cup milk, 3 tablespoons melted butter, 1 egg, 3 tablespoons sugar. Mix and sift dry ingredients, add gradually milk, egg well beaten, and melted butter. Bake in buttered gem pans 25 minutes. If iron pans are used, they must be previously heated. This recipe makes 30 muffins. Use half the proportions given and a small egg if half the number is required. 1 egg muffins, 2, 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 cup milk, 2 tablespoons melted butter, 1 egg. Mix and bake as 1 egg muffin, 1. Berry muffins, 1 without eggs, 2 cups flour, 1 quarter cup sugar, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 2 tablespoons butter, 1 cup milk, scant, 1 cup berries, 1 half teaspoon salt. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Work in butter with tips of fingers, add milk and berries. Berry muffins, 2, 1 quarter cup butter, 1 third cup sugar, 1 egg, 2 and 2 thirds cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 1 cup milk, 1 cup berries. Cream the butter, add gradually sugar and egg well beaten. Mix and sift flour, baking powder and salt. Reserving 1 fourth cup flour to be mixed with berries and added last. The remainder alternately with milk. Queen of muffins, 1 fourth cup butter, 1 third cup sugar, 1 egg, 1 half cup milk, scant, 1 and 1 half cups flour, 2 and 1 half teaspoons baking powder. Mix and bake same as twin mountain muffins. Rice muffins, 2 and 1 quarter cups flour, 3 quarter cup hot cooked rice, 5 teaspoons baking powder, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 cup milk, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons melted butter, 1 half teaspoon salt. Mix and sift flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Add 1 half milk, egg well beaten, the remainder of the milk mixed with rice and beat thoroughly. Then add butter. Bacon buttered muffin rings placed in buttered pan or buttered gem pans. Oatmeal muffins, 1 cup cooked oatmeal, 1 and 1 half cups flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 1 half cup milk, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons melted butter. Mix and bake as rice muffins. Gram muffins, 1, 1 and 1 quarter cups gram flour, 1 cup flour, 1 cup sour milk, 1 third cup molasses, 3 quarter teaspoons soda, 1 teaspoon salt. Mix and sift dry ingredients, add milk to molasses and combine mixtures. Gram muffins, 2, 1 cup gram or entire wheat flour, 1 cup flour, 1 quarter cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 cup milk, 1 egg, 1 to 3 tablespoons melted butter, 4 teaspoons baking powder. Mix and sift dry ingredients, add milk gradually. Egg well beaten and melted butter. Bacon hot oven in buttered gem pans, 25 minutes. Rye muffins, 1, make as gram muffins, 2 substituting rye meal per gram flour. Rye muffins, 2, 1 and 1 quarter cups rye meal, 1 and 1 quarter cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 fourth cup molasses, 1 and 1 quarter cups milk, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon melted butter. Mix and bake as gram muffins, 2, adding molasses with milk. Rye gems, 1 and 2 thirds cups rye flour, 1 and 1 third cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 quarter cup molasses, 1 and 1 quarter cups milk, 2 eggs, 3 tablespoons melted butter. Mix and sift dry ingredients, add molasses, milk, eggs well beaten and butter. Bacon hot oven in buttered gem pans, 25 minutes. Cornmeal gems, 1 half cup cornmeal, 1 cup flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon melted butter, 1 half teaspoon salt, 3 quarter cup milk, 1 egg. Mix and bake as gram muffins, 2. Hominy gems, 1 quarter cup hominy, 1 half teaspoon salt, 1 half cup boiling water, 1 cup scalded milk, 1 cup cornmeal, 3 tablespoons sugar, 3 tablespoons butter, 2 eggs, 3 teaspoons baking powder. Add hominy mixed with salt to boiling water and let stand until hominy absorbs water. Add scalded milk to cornmeal, then add sugar and butter. Combine mixtures, cool slightly, add yolks of eggs beaten until thick and whites of eggs beaten until stiff. Sift in baking powder and beat thoroughly. Bake in hot buttered gem pans. Berkshire muffins, 1 half cup cornmeal, 1 half cup flour, 1 half cup cooked rice, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 half teaspoon salt, 2 thirds cup scalded milk, scant, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon melted butter, 3 teaspoons baking powder. Turn scalded milk on meal, let stand 5 minutes. Add rice and flour, mixed and sifted with remaining dry ingredients. Add yolk of egg well beaten, butter and white of egg beaten stiff and dry. Cold and corn cake, 3 quarter cup cornmeal, 1 and 1 quarter cup flour, 1 quarter cup sugar, 5 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 1 cup milk, 1 egg, 1 or 2 tablespoons melted butter. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add milk, egg well beaten and butter. Bake in shallowed buttered pan in hot oven 20 minutes. Corn cake, sweetened with molasses, 1 cup cornmeal, 3 quarter cup flour, 3 and a half teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 quarter cup molasses, 3 quarter cup milk, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon melted butter. Mix and bake as golden corn cake, adding molasses to milk. White corn cake, 1 quarter cup butter, 1 half cup sugar, 1 and 1 third cup milk, whites of 3 eggs, 1 and 1 quarter cup white cornmeal, 1 and 1 quarter cup flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt. Cream the butter, add sugar gradually. Add milk, alternating with dry ingredients, mixed and sifted. Beat thoroughly. Add whites of eggs beaten stiff. Bake in buttered cake pan 30 minutes. Rich corn cake, 1 cup cornmeal, 1 cup white flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 quarter cup sugar, 1 half teaspoon salt, 7 eighths cup milk, 2 eggs, 1 quarter cup melted butter. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add milk gradually, eggs well beaten and butter. Bake in a buttered shallow pan in a hot oven. Susie's spider corn cake, 1 and 1 quarter cups cornmeal, 2 cups sour milk, 1 teaspoon soda, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons butter. Mix salt, soda and cornmeal. Gradually add eggs well beaten and milk. Heat frying pan, grease sides and bottom of pan with butter. Turn in the mixture, place on middle grade in hot oven and cook 20 minutes. White cornmeal cake, 1 cup scalded milk, 1 half cup white cornmeal, 1 teaspoon salt. Add salt to cornmeal and pour on gradually milk. Turn into a buttered shallow pan to the depth of 1 fourth inch. Bake in a modern oven until crisp. Split and spread with butter. Popovers, 1 cup flour, 1 fourth teaspoon salt, 7 eighths cup milk, 2 eggs, 1 half teaspoon melted butter. Mix salt and flour. Add milk gradually in order to obtain a smooth batter. Add egg beaten until light and butter. Beat 2 minutes using dover egg beater. Turn into hissing hot buttered iron gem pans and bake 30 to 35 minutes in a hot oven. They may be baked in buttered earthen cups when the bottom will have a glazed appearance. Small round iron gem pans are best for popovers. Gram popovers, 2 thirds cup entire wheat flour, 1 third cup flour, 1 quarter teaspoon salt, 7 eighths cup milk, 1 egg, 1 half teaspoon melted butter. Prepare and bake as popovers. Breakfast puffs, 1 cup flour, 1 half cup milk, 1 half cup water. Mix milk and water. Add gradually to flour and beat with dover egg beater until very light. Bake same as popovers. Fadges, 1 cup entire wheat flour, 1 cup cold water. Add water gradually to flour and beat with dover egg beater until very light. Bake same as popovers. Sante muffins, 1 half cup butter, 3 quarter cup sugar, 3 eggs, 1 and 1 half cups milk, 2 cups cornmeal, 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 5 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half cup currents. Cream the butter. Add sugar gradually. Eggs well beaten and milk. Then add dry ingredients mixed and sifted and currents. Bacon buttered individual tins. Maryland biscuit, 1 pint flour, 1 third cup lard, 1 teaspoon salt, milk and water in equal quantities. Southern pupil. Mix and sift flour and salt. Work in lard with tips of fingers and moisten to a stiff dough. Toss on slightly floured board and beat with rolling pin 30 minutes continually folding over the dough. Roll 1 third inch in thickness, shape with round cutter, 2 inches in diameter. Crick with fork and place on a butter tin. Bake 20 minutes in hot oven. Griddle cakes, sour milk griddle cakes, 2 and 1 half cups flour, 1 half teaspoon salt, 2 cups sour milk, 1 and 1 quarter teaspoon soda, 1 egg. Mix and sift flour, salt and soda. Add sour milk and egg well beaten. Drop by spoonfuls on a greased hot griddle, cook on one side. When puffed, full of bubbles and cooked on edges, turn and cook other side. Serve with butter and maple syrup. Sweet milk griddle cakes, 3 cups flour, 1 and 1 half tablespoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 quarter cup sugar, 2 cups milk, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons melted butter. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Beat egg, add milk and pour slowly on first mixture. Beat thoroughly and add butter. Cook same as sour milk griddle cakes. Begin cooking cakes at once or more baking powder will be required. Entire wheat griddle cakes, 1 half cup entire wheat flour, 1 cup flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 egg, 1 and 1 quarter cups milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter. Prepare and cook same as sweet milk griddle cakes. Corn griddle cakes, 2 cups flour, 1 half cup cornmeal, 1 and 1 half tablespoons baking powder, 1 and 1 half teaspoon salt, 1 third cup sugar, 1 and 1 half cups boiling water, 1 and 1 quarter cups milk, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons melted butter. Add meal to boiling water and boil 5 minutes. Turn into bowl, add milk and remaining dry ingredients. Mixed and sifted. Then the egg well beaten and butter. Cook same as other griddle cakes. Rice griddle cakes, 1, 2 and 1 half cups flour, 1 half cup cold cooked rice, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 1 quarter cup sugar, 1 and 1 half cups milk, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons melted butter. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Work in rice with tips of fingers. Add egg well beaten, milk and butter. Cook same as other griddle cakes. Rice griddle cakes, 2, 1 cup milk, 1 cup warm boiled rice, 1 half teaspoon salt, yolks, 2 eggs, whites, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon melted butter, 7 eighths cup flour. Pour milk over rice and salt. Add yolks of eggs beaten until thick and lemon color, butter, flour and fold in whites of eggs beaten until stiff and dry. Griddle cakes, 1 and 1 half cups fine stale breadcrumbs, 1 and 1 half cup scalded milk, 2 tablespoons butter, 2 eggs, 1 half cup flour, 1 half teaspoon salt, 4 teaspoons baking powder. Add milk and butter to crumbs and soak until crumbs are soft. Add eggs well beaten, then flour, salt and baking powder mixed and sifted. Cook same as other griddle cakes. Buckwheat cakes, 1 third cup fine breadcrumbs, 2 cups scalded milk, 1 half teaspoon salt, 1 quarter yeast cake, 1 half cup lukewarm water, 1 and 3 quarter cups buckwheat flour, 1 tablespoon molasses. Pour milk over crumbs and soak 30 minutes. Add salt, yeast cake dissolved in lukewarm water and buckwheat to make a batter thin enough to pour. Let rise overnight. In the morning, stir well, add molasses, 1 fourth teaspoon soda, dissolved in 1 fourth cup lukewarm water and cook same as griddle cakes. Save enough batter to raise another mixing instead of using yeast cake. It will require 1 half cup. Waffles, 1 and 3 quarter cups flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 1 cup milk, yolks, 2 eggs, whites, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon melted butter. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add milk gradually, yolks of eggs well beaten, butter and whites of eggs beaten stiff. Cook on a greased hot waffle iron. Serve with maple syrup. A waffle iron should fit closely on range, be well heated on one side, turned, heated on other side and thoroughly greased before iron is filled. In filling, put a tablespoon full of mixture in each compartment near center of iron. Cover and mixture will spread to just fill iron. If sufficiently heated, it should be turned almost as soon as filled and covered. In using a new iron, special care must be taken in greasing or waffles will stick. Waffles with boiled cider. Follow directions for making waffles. Serve with boiled cider. Allow twice as much cider as sugar and let boil until of a syrup consistency. Rice waffles, 1 and 3 quarter cups flour, 2 thirds cup cold cooked rice, 1 and 1 half cups milk, 2 tablespoons sugar, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 quarter teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon melted butter, 1 egg. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Work in rice with tips of fingers. Add milk, yolk of egg well beaten, butter and white of egg beaten stiff. Cook same as waffles. Virginia waffles, 1 and 1 half cups boiling water, 1 half cup white cornmeal, 1 and 1 half cups milk, 3 cups flour, 3 tablespoons sugar. 1 and 1 quarter tablespoons baking powder, 1 and 1 half teaspoon salt, yolks, 2 eggs, whites, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons melted butter. Cook meal in boiling water 20 minutes. Add milk, dry ingredients mixed and sifted, yolks of eggs well beaten, butter and whites of eggs beaten stiff. Cook same as waffles. Raised waffles, 1 and 3 quarter cups milk, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 quarter yeast cake, 1 quarter cup lukewarm water, 2 cups flour, yolks, 2 eggs, whites, 2 eggs. Scald milk, add salt and butter and when lukewarm add yeast cake dissolved in water and flour. Beat well, let rise overnight, add yolks of eggs well beaten and whites of eggs beaten stiff. Cook same as waffles. By using a whole yeast cake, the mixture will rise in 1 and 1 half hours. Fried drop cakes, 1 and 1 third cup flour, 2 and a half teaspoons baking powder, 1 quarter teaspoon salt, 1 third cup sugar, 1 half cup milk, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon melted butter. Beat egg until light. Add milk, dry ingredients mixed and sifted and melted butter. Drop by spoonfuls in hot, new, deep fat. Fry until light brown and cooked through, which must at first be determined by piercing with a skewer or breaking apart. Remove with a skimmer and drain on brown paper. Rye drop cakes, 2 thirds cup rye meal, 2 thirds cup flour, 2 and 1 half teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons molasses, 1 half cup milk, 1 egg. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add milk gradually, molasses and egg well beaten. Cook same as fried drop cakes. Raised donuts, 1 cup milk, 1 quarter yeast cake, 1 quarter cup lukewarm water, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 third cup butter and lard mixed, 1 cup light brown sugar, 2 eggs, 1 half graded nutmeg, flour. Scald and cool milk, when lukewarm add the yeast cake dissolved in water, salt and flour enough to make a stiff batter. Let rise overnight. In morning add shortening melted, sugar, eggs well beaten, nutmeg and enough flour to make a stiff dough. Let rise again and if too soft to handle, add more flour. Toss on floured board, pat and roll to 3 fourths inch thickness. Shape with cutter and work between hands until round. Place on floured board, let rise 1 hour, turn and let rise again. Fry in deep fat and drain on brown paper. Cool and roll in powdered sugar. Donuts, 1 cup sugar, 2 and 1 half tablespoons butter, 3 eggs, 1 cup milk, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 quarter teaspoon cinnamon, 1 quarter teaspoon graded nutmeg, 1 and 1 half teaspoon salt, flour to roll. Cream the butter and add 1 half sugar. Beat egg until light, add remaining sugar and combine mixtures. Add 3 and 1 half cups flour, mixed and sifted with baking powder, salt and spices. Then enough more flour to make dough stiff enough to roll. Toss 1 third of mixture on floured board, knead slightly, pat and roll out to 1 fourth inch thickness. Shape with a doughnut cutter, fry in deep fat, take up on a skewer and drain on brown paper. Add trimmings to 1 half remaining mixture, roll, shape and fry as before. Repeat. Donuts should come quickly to top of fat. Brown on one side then be turned to brown on the other. Avoid turning more than once. The fat must be kept at a uniform temperature. If too cold, donuts will absorb fat. If too hot, donuts will brown before sufficiently risen. See rule for testing fat. Donuts too. 4 cups flour, 1 and 1 half teaspoon salt, 1 and 3 quarter teaspoon soda, 1 and 3 quarter teaspoons cream of tartar, 1 quarter teaspoon graded nutmeg, 1 quarter teaspoon cinnamon, 1 half tablespoon butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup sour milk, 1 egg. Put flour in shallow pan. Add salt, soda, cream of tartar and spices. Work in butter with tips of fingers. Add sugar, egg well beaten and sour milk. Stir thoroughly and toss on board, thickly dredged with flour. Need slightly, using more flour if necessary. Pat and roll out to 1 fourth inch thickness. Shape, fry and drain. Sour milk donuts may be turned as soon as they come to top of fat and frequently afterwards. Donuts 3, 2 cup sugar, 4 eggs, 1 and 1 third cup sour milk, 4 tablespoons melted butter, 2 teaspoons soda, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon graded nutmeg. Flour. Mix ingredients in order given. Shape, fry and drain. Cruelers. 1 fourth cup butter, 1 cup sugar, yolks, 2 eggs, whites, 2 eggs, 4 cups flour, 1 quarter teaspoon graded nutmeg, 3 and a half teaspoons baking powder, 1 cup milk, powdered sugar and cinnamon. Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, yolks of eggs well beaten and whites of eggs beaten stiff. Mix flour, nutmeg and baking powder. Add alternately with milk to first mixture. Toss on floured board, roll thin and cut in pieces 3 inches long by 2 inches wide. Make 4 1 inch parallel gashes, crosswise at equal intervals. Take up by running finger in and out of gashes and lower into deep fat. Fry same as donuts 1. Strawberry shortcake 1, 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons sugar, 3 quarter cup milk, 1 quarter cup butter. Mix dry ingredients, sift twice, work in butter with tips of fingers and add milk gradually. Toss on floured board, divide in 2 parts. Pat, roll out and bake 12 minutes in a hot oven in buttered Washington pie or round layer cake tins. Split and spread with butter, sweetened strawberries to taste. Place on back of range until warmed, crush slightly and put between and on top of shortcakes. Cover top with cream sauce 1. Strawberry shortcake 2, 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 third cup butter, 3 quarter cup milk. Mix same as strawberry shortcake 1, toss and roll on floured board, put in round butter tin and shape with back of hand to fit pan. Rich strawberry shortcake 2 cups flour, 1 quarter cup sugar, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 half teaspoon salt, few grains nutmeg, 1 egg, 1 third cup butter, 1 and 1 quarter tablespoons lard, 1 third cup milk. Mix dry ingredients and sift twice, work in shortening with tips of fingers and egg well beaten and milk. Bake same as strawberry shortcake 2, split cake and spread under layer with cream sauce 2. Cover with strawberries which have been sprinkled with powdered sugar, again spread with sauce and cover with upper layer. Fruit shortcake 1 quarter cup batter, 1 half cup sugar, 1 egg, 1 quarter cup milk, 1 cup flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 quarter teaspoon salt. Cream the butter, add sugar gradually and egg well beaten. Mix and sift flour, baking powder and salt, adding alternately with milk to first mixture. Beat thoroughly and bake in a buttered round tin. Cool, spread thickly with sweetened fruit and cover with cream sauce 1 or 2. Fresh strawberries, peaches, apricots, raspberries or canned quince or pineapple may be used. When canned goods are used, drain fruit from syrup and cut in pieces. Dilute cream for cream sauce with fruit syrup in place of milk. Any shortcake mixture may be made for individual service by shaping with a large biscuit cutter, or mixture may be baked in a shallow cake pan, center removed and filled with fruit and pieces baked separately to introduce to represent handles. End of Breakfast Cakes, Biscuits and Shortcakes by Fanny Farmer Part 1 of The Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia and Poland by Martin Philipsson From the history of all nations from earliest times, volume 12, the religious wars, translated under the supervision of John Henry Wright. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, read by Piotr Natter. The reform movement had swept like a rushing flood over all the nations of the West, and it seemed for a while as if nothing could withstand its course. But in the midst of the long stagnant waters of the Old Faith, there arose a countercurrent which grew more and more rapid and powerful until it met the other with strength equal to its own. The struggle which resulted fills the history of the latter half of the 16th century. It required a mighty and costly contest before two hostile elements, neither of which could subdue the other, suddenly gave up the effort and took each its separate course. In August 1560 Gustavus Vasa, the founder of Sweden's greatness and of its Protestantism, was succeeded on the throne by his eldest son, Erik XIV. The new king was a dignified man, 26 years of age, and a good orator, poet, musician, painter and linguist. But all these advantages that would have adorned a private gentleman did not make him a good ruler. He lacked discretion and was now passionate and impulsive and then weak and discouraged without strength or steadiness of resolution. Gustavus had observed this disposition of his eldest born with profound concern, but the measures to which he had resorted to correct the evil had only made it worse. He had assigned to each of his younger sons a separate dachi, to John, Finland, to Magnus, East-Gotland, to Charles, Südermannland. These districts held ambiguous relations to the crown. In internal affairs they were independent of the king, but in general they were still subject to him and to the diet. These uncertain conditions inevitably led to conflicts between Erik and his younger brothers. The prospect of this was doubly discouraging at a time when the peace of the realm was at best precarious, divided as it was between the still-numerous and devoted adherents of Catholicism and the imperfectly organized Protestants. Erik first sought, and with success, a counterpoise to his brothers in the nobles, whom he set himself to win by all sorts of favors. He established the dignities of Count and Baron, hitherto unknown in Sweden, and by this means found it that higher nobility, which later on was to become so dangerous to royalty. He confirmed the Protestant character of the religious constitution of the realm. The restless character of this unfortunate prince, who had a decided tendency to insanity, soon manifested itself. At great cost he sent emissaries to Scotland, England, and numerous German courts to woo him alive. With inadequate resources he contended with the Russians and the Poles for the possession of the Baltic provinces, and in 1561 succeeded in gaining the city of Reval and Estonia. This was the first conquest of Sweden beyond the Baltic, and the beginning of a struggle that extended over a century and a half. Then he began to quarrel with his brothers. He caused the oldest of them, John of Finland, to be condemned to death for high treason, and imprisoned him and his wife in 1563 in the strong castle of Gripsholm. Magnus of East Gotland, whom Eric had compelled to assist him against John, went mad with excitement and regret. Charles of Südermandland was saved from a similar fate only by his extreme youth. He was only in his 13th year. Rid of the fear of his brethren, the king now gave full course to his tyrannical and cruel temper, urged thereto by the ambitious and bloodthirsty Gürrem Persson. He was constantly surrounded by spies who supplied him with victims. Within five years 232 Persons were executed for political offences, many of them on absurd charges brought against them by Persson as public prosecutor. Eric XIV, considering himself now firmly established on his throne, renewed the war against Denmark in 1563, where King Frederick II, 1559-1588, with the aid of his minister, Petter Ochse, was giving the people an excellent administration, affording wise and generous protection to commerce and industry, and managing public finance with great skill. Numerous fugitives from the Netherlands had settled among the Danes and brought them an increase of industrial prosperity and of trained ability. Frederick II, a peaceable and not very forcible prince, was hardly able to cope on equal terms with war like Sweden and her excellent fleet. But Eric insisted on conducting the campaign in person, and proved to be equally cowardly and incompetent, so that the war degenerated into a series of ruthless plundering expeditions, in which Norway and the frontier districts of Sweden suffered terribly. The discontent already existing in this country was increased by the insane cruelty with which the king, who thought himself constantly beset by conspirators, proceeded against suspects of high and low degree. In May 1567 he caused the first lords of the realm, and among them the patriotic Sture family, to be cast into prison and their murdered. He showed ever-increasing signs of insanity. Soon afterward he liberated his brother John from the captivity in Gripschorum on certain conditions, one of which was that he should recognize Eric's mistress, Catherine Manstochter as queen, and her children as legitimate. In 1568 he actually married this woman, the daughter of a corporal. Such a misalliance, together with the disgraceful defeats Eric had suffered at the hands of the Danes, roused the Swedish people to open rebellion. Dukes John and Charles put themselves at the head of malcontents, and in September 1568 Eric, abandoned by nearly all his servants, had to surrender. The estates of the realm in the beginning of the year 1569 deposed him and condemned him to be kept for life in royal imprisonment. His children, as base-born, were excluded from the succession. John cruelly misused his authority. The unfortunate Eric was kept in the harshest captivity, separated from his wife and children, and in the case of a rising in his favor threatened with immediate death, no wonder that Eric, whose mind had long been diseased, had frequent attacks of delirium. Finally John had him poisoned, February 1577, in the forty-fourth years of his age. Contrary to his agreement with his brother, Charles of Södermandland, John received homage as sole king, John the Third, and his son Zigizmund was acknowledged as his heir and successor in 1569. Like Eric at the beginning of his reign, he sought to lean upon the nobles, whose authority over the peasants he considerably enlarged, giving the higher nobility complete jurisdiction over their subjects. As the Russians were threatening war, John concluded, at Stettin in 1570, a peace with the Danes, which imposed considerable money burdens on Sweden. Hostilities with Russia were carried on without definite results. John attempted to bring Sweden back to Catholicism. Many circumstances favored this undertaking. Gustavus had never expressly severed his connection with the Catholic Church, and he had retained the Episcopal organization and much of the old ceremonial. Great confusion had arisen out of this ambiguous attitude. Church estates had been plundered, the priesthood had been recruited in part from unworthy elements, and preaching and the care of souls had been greatly neglected. Many might properly ask themselves whether the change of religion were really for the better. John was urged also to oppose Lutheranism by his Polish wife Catherine of the Jagiellon family, who had been brought up a Catholic, and who, as she had voluntarily shared her husband's captivity, exercised considerable influence over him. She corresponded regularly with the Polish cardinal Stanislaus Hosius, a learned, pious and zealous prelate, who had done much to win back the nobles of his country to Catholicism, and who desired to render a like service in Sweden. He showed the Queen how, under the pretense of giving instruction in Lutheranism, they might gradually bring back clergy and people to the Orthodox fold. He sent her the Jesuit, Stanislaus Varsevich, who, in 1574, reached Stockholm in disguise, and afterward two more who had been trained in Louvain, one at Netherlander, and other in a region who stole into Sweden as evangelical preachers. The year before, 1575, Laurentius Petrigothus, a pliable man, had been appointed Archbishop of Uppsala, and had declared himself in favor of the restoration of convents, the worship of saints, and the resumption of the old ceremonial. They proceeded step by step in this reactionary work, for it did not seem prudent considering the temper of the people to try to accomplish it at one stroke. Under the guidance of his Jesuits, John and his ministers prepared a liturgy in Latin side by side with Swedish, based as a whole on the missile of the Council of Trent. Finally, when an embassy was sent to Rome, the Pope sent to Sweden, under the protecting title of Imperial Legate, the Mantuan Jesuit, Antonio Possevin, one of the most talented and learned members of the Order. It was about the time of Eric's murder, Possevin seized upon this and impressed upon John's mind, that only by a penitent profession of the faith of the only true Church could he escape eternal domination for that fratricide. Therefore John secretly embraced Catholicism at Vatstena in 1578. After this, the counter-reformation went on at a more rapid rate. Favored by the King, the Jesuits obtained many pupils, and Catholicism made startling progress among the clergy. Those who resisted were deprived of their places. Canon Law was declared to be binding on the Swedish Church. John mourned over the fate of his father Gustavus, condemned to eternal woe because of his recreancy. Still, he had deemed certain concessions advisable, such as allowing priests to marry, administering the Communion in both kinds, the celebration of public worship in the national tongue. They had to do with forms, merely, not at all with the doctrines of the Church. To obtain the Pope's sanction for them, Possevin went to Rome. He was entrusted by John besides with messages to the most powerful sovereigns of Europe. A few months later, the Jesuit returned, clothed with the dignity of apostolic vicar for Scandinavia and the adjoining countries. He was authorized, on behalf of Philip II, to make to John the most brilliant promises. He publicly acknowledged Catholicism as his religion and that of his realm. On the other hand, Possevin was to report to the King that the Pope could not, under any circumstances, agree to the concessions he had proposed. John, who looked upon these as necessary to gain Sweden, was not a little displeased by this. Political difficulties were added to his troubles. He had hoped, by the aid of the Pope, to make good the claims of his wife to certain domains in South Italy. He had also, a matter of much more consequence, requested the Pope's intercession on behalf of Sweden at the conclusion of a peace between Russia and Poland. But now he learned that the Italian duchies were out of the question and Possevin himself brought about, in 1582, a peace between Russia and Poland, in which the latter renewed her claims even to the Swedish possessions in Estonia. When the Jesuit returned to Stockholm, he was received in a friendly way at first, but the wind had shifted. With the death of the Queen, in 1583, the Jesuits lost their last support as well as their most influential protector and were banished from the kingdom. Yet John, like Henry VIII of England, wished to hold an intermediate ground and sturdily retained his Catholicizing liturgy in the face of all opposition. He quarreled, moreover, with his brother, Charles of Southern Manland, once John had been the zealous defender of Ducal rights. Now that he was king, he sought to limit Charles's independence as much as possible. Charles assumed the part of champion of orthodox Lutheranism against John's counter-reformation, and declared himself intensely opposed to the king's red book, as he called the new liturgy. His duchy became the refuge of all loyal Protestants who fled from John's persecution. The clergymen deposed by the king were sure to find good positions with the Duke. The sympathies of the majority in Sweden were undoubtedly on Charles's side. Uprisings against the king's religious measures had already taken place in Stockholm. These things induced John to proceed more guardedly. Meanwhile, the House of Vasa was called to ascend one more step to power and greatness. The Poles offered their royal crown to Sigismund, John's son. This meant it must be acknowledged, but little real authority. In the second half of the 15th century, the power of the nobles had so increased in Poland as to leave the crown only a personal influence. The Diet of Piotrków in 1496 had completed the humiliation of the crown by excluding commoners altogether from the higher ecclesiastical dignities and reducing all non-noble countrymen to actual servdom. The king was bound in every political decision by the advice of the Council of 146 dignitaries who made up the Senate. The former general meetings of the nobility had been replaced by a representative diet, but what in other countries had had a most beneficial influence was to Poland only a source of new evils. For every Palatinate, district in its special diet, diatine, enjoined upon its nuncios or representatives an imperative mandate for the faithful carrying out of which they were to render strict account on their return from the national diet. The federal character of the Polish state was kept up until its downfall, especially as Prussia and Lithuania kept aloof from the Polish diet. A policy of compromise, conciliation and a fair consideration of the rights of the minority was made altogether impossible by this mandate system. The minority, therefore, helped itself by assuming the right of confederation, that is, of banding together to resist the diet and its decisions. Force, in the form of civil war, had then to decide. The confederates did not consider themselves as rebels, nor were they so considered by others. The crown lost the right to decide on peace or war. This caricature of a constitution was to have results the more disastrous as the Turks on the south and the Mascovites under Ivan III and IV on the east were pressing upon Poland. Nothing but the wild valor of the Polish nobles could temporarily heal or conceal the deep wounds which their unlimited lawlessness inflicted upon their native country. In the year 1506 Zigizmund I had ascended the throne. He was a wise, clear-minded, active and just ruler and a valiant warrior, the very king needed by Poland, threatened as she was by numerous enemies. The name of great bestowed upon him is certainly not undeserved. At the outset he was involved in a war with Russia, a war which, with occasional interruptions, was to last two centuries. He also had to repulse the Tartars, who made a devastating raid into Poland. He held his own against both his foes. The Tartars he defeated so completely at Wisniowiec, in 1512, that they are said to have left 24,000 on the battlefield. Over the Russians he won a brilliant victory at Orsha in 1514. A new antagonist arose in the Teutonic Order, eager to free itself from the burden of Polish society. But the knights were unsuccessful, and their grandmaster, Albert of Brandenburg, was glad to conclude with Zigizmund the Peace of Krakow in 1525, by which East Prussia became a temporal duchy, a thief of the Polish crown, and Albert, as its hereditary duke, was given the foremost place among the Polish senators. The same year Zigizmund obtained still another advantage. The piast branch of the dukes of Mazovia became extinct, and their important territory, embracing Warsaw, Płock, Putusk, was united to the Polish kingdom, of which it had hitherto been independent. Poland was rid of the Tartars by the pressure of the Turks upon them, and a treaty which Zigizmund concluded with the latter ensured him security against those robbers in 1546. With the Russians, in spite of occasional armistices, the struggle was continued, but on the whole it resulted favorably to the Poles. In the midst of all these military enterprises, Zigizmund found time to foster learning, to encourage agriculture and industry, to free the navigable streams of tolls, and to redeem numerous royal estates and sources of income that his predecessors had pawned. It was he who gave a permanent organization to the Zaporozhian Cossacks along the rapids of the Dniper, and made of these bold warriors an excellent defense against the Tartars. It must be said, however, that the peasantry, the Kmiets, were more completely enslaved under his reign than before, and deprived even of the right to send their children to school or to have them taught a trade. In his old age, he died at 82, he fell entirely under the influence of his wife, Bona Sforza, a daughter of the Dukal House of Milan, who provoked many apprisesings by her intrigues and her fierce attacks against the rights of the nobles. Zigizmund I died on April 1, 1548, in the midst of general discontent. His only son, Zigizmund II, increased the dissatisfaction of the nobility by ratifying publicly a secret marriage he had contracted with Barbara Rajiviu, and thus, in appearance at least, assigning to her family a position far above that of the other nobles. By this time, the Great Reformation Movement had reached Poland. It had won adherents among the German burgers of West Prussia immediately after Luther's first open declarations. In Danzig, as early as 1524, there had been an uprising of the Lutherans who had driven out the Old City Council and forcibly suppressed the Catholic worship. For this conduct, they had been cruelly punished by Zigizmund I. But this prince had not otherwise interfered with the evangelicals whose number was steadily increasing. He was rather indifferent in matters of religion, satisfying himself with the mere show of zealous orthodoxy. I am, he used to say, king of the sheep as well as of the goats. The Hussait ideas that had taken firm hold of many Polish minds, the abuses of which the Catholic clergy were guilty, in Poland no less than elsewhere, the universal intellectual movement, which since the latter half of the 15th century had from Italy spread all over Europe, the desire of a numerous and greedy nobility to possess themselves of the estates of the Church and the dream of a national Polish Church had all contributed to forward the Reformation movement. Zigizmund I gave his consent to the establishment of a Protestant university in Königsberg in 1544 and it soon flooded Poland with Bibles and polemical writings in the national tongue. Luther's works were openly sold in the University of Krakow and everywhere greedily read the Confessor of Queen Bonasforza, Lismanini, took pains to circulate all anti-papal books published in Europe. Other foreign clergymen became apostles of the new faith and of even bolder doctrines, which found ready acceptance among the impressionable Slavs. A Netherlander, pastoris by name, taught quite independently of Leo and Fausto Sozzini, Sozinus, the rejection of the Trinity and a community of Unitarians was secretly formed in Krakow. Numerous students went to the German universities and returned, confirmed Lutherans. Even Polish priests and theological professors in the University of Krakow preached under the protection of the nobles against Catholic dogmas. The Moravian Brevren, driven out of their country, won over to their doctrine a considerable portion of Greater Poland, including the most distinguished noble families. That was the situation of affairs at the death of Zigizmund I. Transylvania also, Poland's neighbor, had almost wholly ceased to be Catholic. Its inhabitants were either Lutherans or anti-Trinitarians. The reform found its way even into Russia. Not in Moscow alone, but far beyond this capital, along the Volga and in distant north, it found ardent adherents. This religious movement was quickly suppressed in Russia proper, but in Poland it grew more and more powerful. Zigizmund II Augustus, a brilliant and accomplished sovereign, was openly inclined to Protestantism. Lismanini brought him a copy of Calvin's institution, which the king and his friend, Francis Krasinski, Bishop of Krakow, set themselves eagerly to study, together with the works of Luther and Melankton. Zigizmund even corresponded with the Genevys reformer. But he was too politic and not sufficiently devout to declare himself outright for Protestantism before the majority of his people had done so. His attitude, however, encouraged the innovators, and in the first years of his reign, noblemen banished Catholic priests, monks and nuns from their estates and established the Protestant worship. Such a state of things was extremely unwelcome to the Polish clergy. In 1551 they assembled together as a national council under the presidency of the Archbishop of Gnezen as primate of Poland. Here, for the first time, appeared prominently the man that was to be the stay of Catholicism in the east, Nicholas Hosius, son of a burger of Krakow, who, after a brilliant course of study at Padua, had been appointed Bishop of Ermeland and had succeeded in keeping his sea free from the inroads of heresy. He was a man of great learning, spotless life, profound convictions and judicious moderation. At the Synod of 1551 he introduced a confession of faith to which all clergymen were required to subscribe. Under the influence of the papal court, the Synod determined to assume an aggressive course and to cite before ecclesiastical courts all heretical noblemen and clergymen. Such violent measures only provoked the spirit of independence from the nobles, whose representatives at the National Diet of 1552 appeared with the sharpest arraignment of the higher clergy. A pronounced and zealous favorer of the reform, Raphael Leshrinsky, was elected president of the diet. The king and he agreed that henceforth all authority to impose any kind of temporal penalties should be withheld from the clergy. The cause of the reformation found two prominent champions in the highest circles of the state, John Wasky and Nicolas Rajiviu. The former, and a few of the primate of Poland, had formed intimate relations with Erasmus and the reformers during his journeys in Europe and, when once won over to the new doctrines, had renounced the most brilliant prospects of ecclesiastical preferment to devote himself to evangelical work in England and Germany. He loved above all the moderate views and the noble ritual of Anglicanism and sought to found in his native land and national church after its pattern. Nicolas Rajiviu, cousin of the queen, was chancellor of Lithuania, Palatine of Vilna and a man of enormous wealth. His conversion exercised a most powerful influence on the Lithuanian nobility, so that they, almost without exception, left the church of Rome. His early death, in 1565, alone saved the old faith from total extinction in that province. A measure intended by Pope Paul IV to bring Poland back to Romanism had exactly the contrary effect. He sent Dither as Nuncio, one of the most virulent church zealots, Lippomani, who was, above all, to prevent the convening of the impartial national council which the Polish nation so much desired. This blow in the face of public opinion embittered the Polish nobility to such a degree that Nuncio was received at the diet with insulting remarks. Some bloody persecutions, initiated by Lippomani with the aid of some fanatical grandees, increased the wrath against him to such a pitch that his life was in danger and he had to leave the kingdom in 1556. It is evident that if Zygizmont II had placed himself at the head of the reform movement, he could easily have established a Polish national church after the pattern of that of England and thus, given his people and his state, increased firmness and stability. But he did not possess the required strength of character to take so important a step. With his philosophic skepticism, he let things have their course and allied himself to the party which seemed for the moment to offer him the greatest advantages. Then, Paul's successor, Pius IV, fulfilled at last the wish of all devote Catholics by reassembling the Council of Trent. In 1563, the year of the final closing of the Council of Trent, the Polish diet renewed its request for an impartial Polish national synod and the primate, the Archbishop of Gneisen Uhański, a favorer of the reformation, was inclined to concede that demand. But then came the shrewd commandone as papal nuncio and in private conversations depicted to the king the dangers that would arise from the meeting of a synod at which the most various and opposite sects would have a hearing. It could lead to nothing short of general confusion. He called his attention to the steadiness and uniformity that prevailed in the Catholic Church to the principle of authority that controlled it. Sigismund had another reason still to court favor with Rome. His second marriage had been barren, as well as his first, and threatened the Aegean dynasty with extinction. He wished to obtain a divorce from Barbarau-Argiviu so as to contract a third marriage. To this end he needed the Pope, hence his sudden return to Catholicism. How like in selfish lack of principle and conscience to his contemporary, Maximilian II? He and commandone secured official recognition in Poland for the decrees of the Council of Trent. At first this was simply on paper. In reality perfect religious liberty still prevailed. Sigismund, however, reaped the fruits of his subservience to the nuncio. The Church granted him a divorce from Barbarau and he contracted a third marriage with Catherine, widow of the Duke of Mantua. The Protestants were not dismayed by this change on the part of the king, but sought safety in closer union. In 1555 the Moravian Brethren Orvaldensis in Greater Poland, who differed from the Calvinists only with regard to the consecration of priests, had united at Kozminek with the reformed to the great joy of the Genevii's reformer and his principal disciples in Europe. Then these two sects, now acting in common, sought to effect a compromise with the Lutherans, who were numerous, especially in the German portions of West Prussia and in Greater Poland. The Lutherans, with their bygotted literalness and complacency, resisted a long time, but finally yielded in 1570. Then, on April the 14th, the representatives of the three Protestant confessions, the foremost ecclesiastics and most influential nobles, came to an agreement at Sandomir, the so-called Consensus Sandomiriensis, which by allowing each one his special form of faith and only aiming at embracing all Protestants in a spiritual communion, doubled the power and influence of the reformers. Several bishops now openly expressed their adherence, a matter of very great importance, as the bishops had a seat in the Senate. The Diet of Poland, where already most secular members were either reformed or Greek Catholics. This epoch is the climax of Polish Protestantism. It had, then, two thousand churches. Most of the nobility belonged to it. Its schools and printing presses spread far and wide its doctrines, besides an abundance of information on other subjects. Numerous foreign religious fugitives from Germany, France, Italy and even Scotland settled in this promised land of freedom. The final victory of the new faith in Poland appeared almost certain, even to its opponents. While the religious parties were fighting their quarrels, Zygizmont II had obtained important diplomatic and military successes, which make his reign one of the most memorable in Polish annals. He won brilliant victories over the Hospodar of Wallachia and forced him to surrender considerable parts of his territory. His conquests in Livonia on the Baltic Sea were far more valuable. The Teutonic Order, at the beginning of the 16th century, held the former possessions of the Order of the Sword, Livonia, Estonia and Courland, which it entrusted to the administration of a special commander. At the time of the reformation, this commander was the heroic Walther of Plattenburg, who, on the secularization of the Order in Prussia, separated from Prussia, and, in spite of the inroads of Protestantism into his territory, remained loyal to the old faith. He succeeded in repelling the attacks of external foes, but with his death the prosperity of the Order passed away. In 1554 freedom of worship had to be conceded to the Protestants, and by this act the connection with the rest of the Order in Germany was sundered. In the states of the Order the ruling case of Germans was but a small minority in the midst of a mass of Finns and Lithuanians, who lived in several degradation. The knights were far from really controlling the whole country. The Archbishop of Riga and his four Sufragand bishops enjoyed virtual independence in their seas. The important cities of Dorpat, Riga and Treval, members of the Hansiatic League, constituted little republics of a pronounced Protestant type. Moreover, the country gentry, in each of the three lands, formed the corporation of their own, which still further curtailed the power of the nominal masters. Such a loose structure must break down at the first serious attack. In the year 1558 Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible attacked and defeated the forces of the Order and over-rend their territory. It seemed as if it was to remain a prey for the mascovites. The Grand Master, Goddard Kettler, tried to save for himself what could still be saved from the general wreck, and following the example of Albert of Brandenburg concluded at Wilma a treaty with Sigismund Augustus, which surrendered Livonia to the Poles. The Master himself laid aside the habit of the Order and became, as a Protestant, Duke of Courland and St. Gallen, under the suzerainty of Poland, in 1568. But the Lithuanian nobles of Estonia, who would have nothing to do with the Catholic Poles, transferred their allegiance to Sweden, together with the town of Reval. Sigismund dreaded these adversaries far less than he did desire whom he had robbed of his expected prey. To guard against him and retain his new conquests he created a standing army which was called the Quartians, because it was maintained and paid by means of one-fourth part of the Royal Revenues. The war with Russia broke out immediately, but in spite of a few losses the Poles maintained themselves in their new conquests till 1568, when the Armistice put an end to hostilities for a while. Sigismund had thus made the largest addition to the Polish territory which it had ever received. It extended from the shores of the Gulf of Finland to the Dniester and from the mouth of the Netsae in the west to the Desna in the east. Sigismund Augustus, whose third marriage was also childless and who looked forward with dread to the dangers to which the extinction of his dynasty must expose his vast empire, sought to provide against them as far as possible by strengthening it internally. Till then the two great divisions of his realm, Poland and Lithuania, had been bound together only by personal union. He labored with laudable zeal to bring about between them a real union and also to induce the Prussian nobility to attend the diet. He met with decided opposition in this endeavour. Russia was unwilling to surrender the independence which the treaties ensured to her in all internal affairs. Neither the Catholic nor the Protestant Lithuanians were disposed to renounce a glorious record of national existence extending back over centuries and the numerous Russians in the Grand Principality, who were members of the Greek Church, were reluctant to accede to the king's wishes on account of the important question of religion. The king succeeded in overcoming the opposition of the Lithuanians only by a skilful mixture of cunning, intrigue and disguised force. The diet of Lublin, 1569, is one of the most glorious in Polish history, for there the permanent union of the two countries was declared. This made it sure that, after the death of Sigismund, the same person would be elected as king by Poles and Lithuanians. The two diets were also united. The Lithuanian senate, consisting of bishops, vaivots, palatins and the great crown dignitaries, was merged with that of Poland. Beyond this the union did not go. In what concerned military matters, administration and justice, the two countries remained distinct. There were as many Lithuanian dignitaries as there were Polish. If we consider that these high officials and commanders, though appointed by the king, were appointed for life and were irremovable, that they enjoyed therefore complete independence within their sphere and, once appointed, paid absolutely no attention to the crown, it will be seen that out of the new order of things there must result even greater confusion than existed before. What availed resolutions in common, if afterwards the Lithuanian high treasurer or the Lithuanian commander-in-chief had the power to pursue an entirely different course from that of his Polish colleague? It was from a sense of this that attempts were made at the Lublin diet to strengthen Poland proper, which was vastly smaller than the grand principality by separating from this latter the provinces of Wojynia and Podolia and adding them to the crown. At any rate by the Lublin union Zigizmund had secured external unity for his kingdom and thereby rendered Poland an immense service. One cannot fairly deny him the glory of a brilliant and useful reign marked borrower by a considerable growth of learning at letters and forming a striking contrast to the disastrous times that followed. He died on July the 14th 1572 and with him passed away the prosperity which Poland owed to the Ageron dynasty. The unfortunate country fell a prey to the disorders and uncertainties of an elective monarchy. A special meeting of the diet was convoked to prepare for an election. The protestant nobility attended it with all the influence of its numbers, its wealth and the unity that the Sandomir agreement had secured. It was through its agency that a law was passed in 1573 that no one should be either harmed or slighted on account of his religion. The dissidents, to use the official Latin designation, were to be put in every respect on a par with the Catholics. This was the first formal authoritative recognition of the equality of the different confessions in Poland, the first legal breach in the religious unity of the realm. But the Catholics had not remained idle. Bishop Hosius of Ermeland clad with increased authority on account of his efficient services as one of the presidents of the Council of Tent and adorned with the dignity of Cardinal had in 1565 brought Jesuits into Poland. They began at once to work in their energetic yet prudent manner. About this time Cardinal Comendone returned to Poland under the pretext of urging on the war against the Turks but really to participate in the forthcoming royal election. He became the rallying center of the Catholics and directed their choice to a member of the Orthodox House of Habsburg, Ernest, son of Maximilian II. The reformed on their part wished to place on the throne a native nobleman of their own faith, John Firle, Grand Marshal of the Crown. Thereby they not only excited the jealousy of the other great families but also that of the Lutherans who were not willing to concede preeminence to the Calvinists. Here then, as we have already seen so often, and as we shall see again, the lamentable divisions between Lutherans and Calvinists crippled the progress of the reformation, prevented its victory and paved the way most effectively for the Catholic reaction. The opposition of the Protestants to the candidature of Archduke Ernest was so universal and pronounced that the Catholics became convinced of the impossibility of his election. They and Comendone therefore began to turn to a climate for whom the French ambassador had long been actively at work, Henry of Anjou, brother of Charles IX of France. It is true that the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Eve seemed to make him quite unacceptable by the Polish Protestants, but the Duke's friends so positively asserted that the massacre had had purely political causes, and the Duke himself declared so solemnly that he had taken no share at all in it, that the Protestants yielded at last on the condition that they should be allowed to enjoy full religious liberty and joined with the Catholics in electing Henry of Anjou to the throne of Poland on May 9, 1573. He reached his new kingdom early the following year. The Protestant nobles forced him by direct threats to confirm by oath the religious liberties of the land, yet he had already begun to favor the intrigues of the Catholic clergy when the death of his brother called him back to France where he ascended the throne as Henry III in 1574. For over one year the Poles waited in vain for the return of their king, then they proceeded to a new election. This time the Protestants seemed to obtain a complete victory. The choice fell on Stephen Bathory, Prince of Transylvania, an able warrior and a well-known friend of the Reformation. Among the twelve magnates that were sent to him to announce his election there were eleven Protestants, but they had made a double mistake in imposing upon the newly elected Prince two burdensome and election agreement, Pacta Conventa, and in imposing upon him also the obligation of marrying the sister of Sigismund Augustus, Anna Jagiellońska, then 52 years of age. The sole Catholic member of the embassy, Solikowski, promised Bathory the assistance of his brethren in setting aside the burdensome conditions and called his attention to the fact that Anna, a zealous Catholic, would never marry a heretic. These representations prevailed, and it was as a Catholic that Stephen Bathory came to Poland to degrade disappointment of the Protestants. It is true that during the eleven years of his reign, 1575 to 1586, he never persecuted them, but he allowed himself to be entirely won over by the Jesuits, who represented themselves to him as they had done to Emperor Ferdinand I as zealous friends of learning, of general culture, and especially of the intellectual and moral elevation of the clergy. Under his reign the Jesuits penetrated into Poland proper, and soon a close network of their colleges extended over the whole realm. As everywhere else they neglected the education of the common people, but took extreme pains to draw the sons of the nobility to their establishments, and successfully. These establishments were munificently endowed by Stephen, as was also the university which he founded at Vilna in the midst of a population partly of the Protestant, partly of the Russian Greek faith. They penetrated into Lutheran Livonia also, and founded colleges at Riga and Dorpat, in spite of the opposition of the inhabitants. At the suggestion of the Jesuits, Stephen allowed the papal nuncio to summon before his tribunal Protestant bishops to condemn them as heretics and to depose them. Catholic bishops were appointed in their places, and thus the whole ecclesiastical portion of the senate was assured to the old church, and there were no more Protestant bishops in Poland-Lithuania. Yet neither did the favour of the king, on the whole a prudent and moderate man, nor the efforts of the Jesuits would have proved fatal to the Protestants if troubles had not arisen in their own midst. The Lutheran clergy, tired already of the Sandomir Compact, had begun anew their attacks against the Calvinists and the Moravian brethren, declaring outright that these sacramentists were worse than Jesuits, and that to join them was worse than to go back to Catholicism. These quarrels, proceeding as nearly always from the blind arrogance of the Lutherans, had, for one of their results, the return of a large number of noble families, among them a son of Blackragiviu, to the bosom of Romanism. Many more felt themselves inclined to such a step by the ever-increasing radicalism of certain sects. As early as 1546, the first Unitarians, who denied the Trinity, had met in Krakow. Later the Zionist noblemen, Lelios Odzini, Socinus, after whom the whole sect, are often called Socinians, came to the same city and gave them increased stability. A Polish scholar, Peter Gonjonski, Orgonezius, boldly acknowledged himself an adherent to his doctrine before the Reformed Synod, and founded a regular anti-Tryntarian church, which soon had many disciples among both nobility and commoners, possessed numerous churches and schools, and organized a synod of its own. Its confession, in 1574, declared Christ to be the highest and most perfect of prophets, and the Holy Spirit, a gift which God had made to this prophet. Baptism was to be conferred only on adults. The Lord's Supper was explained symbolically, as in the Calvinistic Church. This Unitarian community taught and practiced, besides, the greatest tolerance and abstention from all sorts of violence. The progress of Unitarian sentiment in Poland, and the religious liberty that prevailed there, attracted Wither, the nephew of Lelio, Fausto Sozzini, a man equally learned, lovable and conscientious. For twelve years he had been a favorite of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, but in order to be free to follow his religious convictions, he left his fatherland and, after many wanderings, settled in Poland, where he remained and worked until his death in 1607. At the Synod of Preszty in Lithuania, in the year 1588, he gave the Unitarian Church of Poland its final shape. It cannot be denied that the maintenance of doctrines that were then considered as godless and criminal all over the western world, offended many of the weaker minds among the Protestants, and led to their rejoining the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, Stephen Bathory had obtained important successes in his foreign policy. With the aid of German mercenaries, he drove the Russians out of Livonia, and took from them the entire Principality of Połock. Hard pressed, the cunning Ivan IV applied to the Jesuit Antonio Possevin, who was then in Poland, on behalf of the Pope, giving him to understand that if he would use his influence in Ivan's interest, he would open Russia to the order and favor the conversion of his people to Catholicism. Possevin was prevailed upon by this promise, and under the influence of the Jesuits, peace was concluded in 1582. It was decidedly advantageous to Poland, which was secured in the possession of Livonia, though it had to surrender its conquests in Russia proper. Possevin betook himself to Moscow, with some other members of the order, to reabder the fruits of his mediation, but his great expectations were speedily dispelled. Ivan refused to allow the Jesuits to remain in Russia, but did agree that the German noblemen and burgers, whom he had taken prisoners in Livonia, should not be allowed to return. Then there would be so many heretics still less in Livonia, and its conversion to Catholicism would be easier. These prisoners founded the German slobode, suburb of Moscow, which was afterwards to have so great an influence on the destinies of Russia. In his attempt to free the crown from the control of the great families, and thus restore to it its former independence and power, Stephen was wholly unsuccessful. Worn out by this fruitless effort, Stephen Bathory died on December the 12th, 1586, at the age of 54. He left no direct heirs. The question of the succession arose again. In the last decade the Catholics had made such gains that only Catholic candidates were mentioned. There were two, Archduke Maximilian, brother of Rudolf II, and the crown prince of Sweden, Zigizmund, whose mother was a Yagelon, and therefore a zealous friend of the Jesuits. Zigizmund himself was a loyal pupil of the Fathers, and his election was favored by the Pope, who expected through him to recover Sweden and Poland to Catholicism. Public opinion also in Poland was favorable to the descendants of the Yagelons, so Zigizmund obtained a majority of the votes. The minority, however, would not yield, and a civil war ensued. It was not until Maximilian had suffered a defeat at Pichen in 1588, and had been taken prisoner by Zamoyski that Zigizmund was universally acknowledged as king. This prince surrendered himself entirely to the control of the Jesuits, though as a ruler he had little to do with the kingdom as a whole. His personal influence was very great. He not only made appointments to all great offices and dignities, but he had also to assign the domains, the starostes, to nobles, who kept them for life and paid to the crown a very slight rent for them. In all he had 20,000 positions to bestow. The king entrusted all these bribes and bays to the Jesuits. Father Skarga distributed dignities, revenues and starostes at his own good pleasure, and it is to such means that Pope Clement VIII himself attributed the progress of Catholicism in Poland. And he was right. In order not to lose the advantages held out by the king and a seat in the senate, Polish and Lithuanian noblemen went back in crowds to the Roman Catholic Church. Their example was contagious and secession from Protestantism became almost universal. Every great nobleman drew after him the numerous lesser nobles who were dependent upon him. On his estates Protestant churches were restored to Catholic worship. Protestant pastors were expelled and the peasantry and small burgers were obliged to submit to the change. The Rajivu family was one of the first to adopt this course, therefore one of its members was rewarded with a cardinal's hat. Everywhere Jesuit colleges were erected and the children of the nobles imbibed in them the most bitter hatred for all heretics. In the cities the decisions of partial judges robbed the Protestants of their parish churches and gave them to the Catholics. Jesuit missionaries surrounded by great pomp and protected by the Cossacks of the great nobles travelled all over the land winning souls by persuasion or by terror. By such means Protestantism was almost entirely eradicated in Poland proper and in Lithuania, not by direct persecution, be it remembered, but by the skill of the Jesuits and the base greed of the nobles with whom material interests counted more than moral and spiritual. A short time since, wrote a papal nuncio in 1598, it did seem as if heresy would entirely supplant Catholicism. Now Catholicism is driving heresy to its grave and with the new religious doctrines the culture and intellectual life of Poland declined. The fate of the Greek Church to which most of Lithuania together with the dependent provinces of little Russia and white Russia belonged was like that of the Protestant Confessions. The old Lithuanian princely families of Czartoryskys and Tsangushkys, the Russian families of Nod, the Oginskys, the Vylhurskys, the Sapiehas and even descendants of Rurik himself, like the princes Ostrogsky and Wysniowiecki, forsook their inherited faith for the religion of the Polish court. And thus they became renegades not to their religion alone, but also to their race, for they assumed the Polish nationality and Polish speech together with the faith of the Latin Church. Soon, however, the Jesuits succeeded in inflicting a still more serious blow on the Greek Church of Lithuania by inducing the king to threaten that he would henceforth admit to the senate only such great prelates as had made their submission to Rome. At the Senate of Przestlitevsky, therefore, in 1594, most of the Lithuanian bishops expressed their assent to the Union formulated by the Council of Florence in 1438. They recognized, among other dogmas, purgatory and the supremacy of the Pope, but they retained the Slavic tongue for public service as well as the rights and hierarchy of the Greek Church. They were received into the Communion of Western Christendom under the name of Greek United Church. This was one of the most signalled victories of Rome in the 16th century. After so many irrevocable losses, it had at last one new conquest to show. Nowhere else did the counter-reformation and the Jesuits work so quickly and so comprehensively as in Poland-Lithuania in the reign of Sigismund III. The policy of religious restoration adopted by Sigismund had the most pernicious consequences for the power and greatness of Poland. It can be said that this reign spread the seed of all the destructive agencies that were, with such startling rapidity, to cause the complete dissolution and ruin of the kingdom. The venality which had been encouraged in the nobles was soon to serve the purposes of foreign and even of hostile powers as readily as it had served those of Rome. The nobleman, who had begun to serve the Church for pay, was easily persuaded to become the paid servant of Austria or Russia. The suppression of Protestantism alienated the population of East Prussia and paved the way for the loss of that important Baltic province. The polls proceeded by violent measures to introduce Catholicism into Livonia, installing Catholic priests and bishops, handling over the schools to the Jesuits and doing their best to do away with the German element. Is it a wonder that the Livonians turned longingly to Sweden for help? Finally, the union of the larger part of the Lithuanian Church with Rome excited the wrath of the Cossacks, who were intensely attached to the Greek Church. These plundering hordes of the middle and lower Dnieper had been organized by King Stephen Buttery as a barrier against the Turks and the Moscovites, and their country had for this reason received the name of Ukraine, Borderland. Their numbers had increased rapidly and they now formed an army of 40,000 warriors distributed into 20 regiments. When an attempt was made to force them into the United Church, they rebelled, and though quieted for a while by the concessions of the government, they remained dissatisfied and hostile to the polls, a state of things which later had disastrous consequences for the kingdom. The Polish policy of Sigismund caused intense dissatisfaction in Sweden, and thus the accession of the Vasas to the Polish throne, which was to have affected the union of the two great monarchies, was the very thing that led to permanent hostility between them. Before leaving Sweden, Sigismund and his father King John III subscribed to so-called Statues of Kalmar, September 1587. These provided for a perpetual union between Sweden and Poland, but with a distinct national government and administration for each of the two countries. However strongly these Statues endeavored to ensure Sweden's independence, it soon appeared that the country was threatened with becoming a mere appendage to the larger Polish realm. When hostilities broke out between the Poles and Russians, King John also declared war against Dzar in 1590. This campaign was exceedingly burdensome for Sweden, which was then suffering from a failure of crops and from pestilence, and impoverished by the extravagant expenditures of John. The war proved unfortunate, so that already in John's reign the Swedes were dissatisfied with the Polish Union. John died on November 17, 1592, and Sigismund, then 26 years old, inherited the throne. The Catholics were triumphant, expecting that in Sweden, as in Poland, heretics would be forced to submit. Considering the temper of the Swedish people at this time, it is scarcely conceivable that a violent attempted reaction could have succeeded. It would probably have led to the deposition of the Vasa dynasty, had there not been a scion of it willing and able to keep the nation in the way traced by Gustavus. Charles of Södermannland, then 42 years of age, had, with some trifling exceptions and bearing their different religious opinions, been a faithful vassal of his older brother. He was already the preferred favorite of the people. While John was half-Catholic, and his son Holy So, Charles had remained true to his inherited Protestantism. While John ruled tyrannically and incapable, foolishly wasting the resources of his realm, Charles managed his dukedom and its finances with admirable order, and was a mild, though firm ruler. Why should the nursing of the Jesuits leave Warsaw to come to Sweden? Did not the Swedes already have a genuine son of Vasa among them, one who had remained true to his ancestors' ways? Charles at first behaved with great circumspection, adopted moderate and safe measures, and conducted the government by the authority and with the full assent of Zygismund. But the latter could not help being jealous of his uncle. To weaken his influence he appointed noblemen devoted to his own cause, who were independent of Charles' authority as governors and commanders in Estonia and Finland. This gave serious offense to the duke, and led him to take the first step toward a rapture with the king. He entered into a covenant with the council to conduct the administration without prejudice to their fealty to Zygismund and their conjoint responsibility, each for all and all for each. He gave his opposition to the king a still more pronounced character by convoking a diet, and at the same time a church synod at Uppsala in 1593. Religion and liberty, he said to those assembled there, are my father's gifts to our country. It is our duty to preserve them, now that we have a foreign king whose conscience is under thralldom to the pope. He stared up all the patriotic and religious sentiments of the Swedes. Well could the Protestant bishop Petrusiona say joyfully, now Sweden has become one man, and we all have one God. All of John's religious innovations, the red book included, were abolished, and Luther's doctrine restored in its purity. All accepted this step voluntarily. There was no violent reaction, and no persecution to mar the national victory. This Uppsala assembly of 1593 rendered impossible any future attempt to Catholicize the country. It established Protestantism in Sweden on an immovable foundation, and it prepared the way for the great work of Gustavus Adolfus. Charles had proceeded with great prudence. He had simply set things in motion, and as soon as he saw they were moving as he wished, he had stepped aside, merely subscribing to the decisions of the diet and assembly. Thus, without making himself prominent, or assuming an attitude of direct opposition to the king, he had become the leader of the national Protestant movement, which carried with it the overwhelming majority of the Swedish people. A few months later, in September 1593, Sigismund arrived in Sweden to be crowned. He was received with great distrust, and as he refused to ratify the Uppsala resolutions, matters soon reached a crisis. And blows were exchanged between his Polish followers and the burgers of Stockholm. Charles kept himself in his duchy. But when the estates refused to acknowledge Sigismund, unless he first ratified the resolutions of 1593, the duke came to Uppsala with 3,000 soldiers and put himself and his force at the disposal of the estates. Sigismund had to yield, in appearance at least, and was there upon crowned as king, but he at once proceeded to violate his pledge in hundreds of instances. He favored the Catholics everywhere, he set up Catholic worship, and when, on his return to Poland, he had to appoint Charles as his vice regent, he bestowed such extensive powers on provincial governors as to make centralization impossible. The governors acted as they pleased, and openly resisted the commands of the duke. Charles resorted once more to the means that had succeeded so well before. He summoned the estates. Before they began their deliberations, he addressed the people in the public square, and they enthusiastically promised him their aid in the maintenance of the resolutions passed and to be passed under his guidance. The estates were forced to follow the popular opinion, though the nobility had shown an inclination to side with the distant king, rather than with the near duke, thinking that they might thus be freer to do their own pleasure. But the enthusiasm of the people and the clearly expressed opinions of both burgers and peasants in the diet prevailed over such selfish calculations. The statutes of Söderköping confirmed and strengthened those of Uppsala. An end was to be put to the last remnants of Catholic worship. All Catholic clergymen, and in fact all sectaries opposed to the evangelical church, were to leave the land within six weeks, even the ancient and renowned monastery at Wadstena was suppressed. Sigismund was beside himself at the revolutionary conduct of his uncle. He forbade the people to pay the taxes imposed by Charles, urged the council to withstand the duke, and promised protection to all who should rise against the resolution of Söderköping. But the people were well pleased with the duke's course, and stood faithfully by him. Charles offered to resign the regency, but summoned another meeting of the estates, in 1597, this time at Arboga. There the higher and more conservative classes, the nobility and the clergy separated from him, but the peasants, brandishing their clubs and axes, exclaimed that they would defend the duke as long as their blood was warm. The nobles who opposed him had to leave the country. The bishops who refused to acknowledge him were deposed and in some cases imprisoned. Under the pressure of the excited multitude, the decisions of the diet were wholly in accord with the duke's desire. His enemies were declared to be enemies of the country. A civil war ensued, but ended soon in the complete triumph of Charles. Several of the kings adherents were executed, in accordance with the decrees of Arboga. Zigizmund, fearing that he might lose even the semblance of authority in Sweden, appeared in that country in the summer of 1598, with a force of 5,000 Polish soldiers. The moment was a critical one. The royal name had clearly not lost all his power, and many disapproved of the duke's revolutionary proceedings, so that nearly the whole of southern Sweden, including Stockholm, declared for the king. But the north, out of which the Vasa dynasty had arisen eight years before, remained true to Charles. A decisive battle was fought at Linköping, southwest of Stockholm, in which Zigizmund was completely routed. September 25th 1598. Three days later he concluded a treaty with his victorious uncle, in which he basically betrayed his most devoted partisans, but according to which he was to administer the government himself and promised to convoke the national diet within four months. Instead of fulfilling his pledges, he placed Polish garrisons in a few cities, and sailed for Danzig. He still hoped to be able to make a more successful effort to recover his hereditary kingdom. But he had underestimated the opposition of protestant Sweden, as it had been agreed in the Treaty of Linköping that the estates should have the right to oppose any party that violated the treaty. The Diet of Stockholm, on July 24th 1599, deposed Zigizmund and transferred the government to Charles. This was the end of Zigizmund's rule in Sweden. It was also the final triumph of Protestantism in that country, an event of the greatest significance, not only for the destinies of the Swedish people, but also for the general religious history of Europe. For it was on the Swedish rock that the mighty waves of the counter-reformation broke and were driven back. The difficulties in the way of the new ruler were many. He did not venture at once, though repeatedly urged by the estates to assume the royal title. Zigizmund's party was not yet powerless in Sweden, it still held Kalmar and other fortresses. Charles proceeded with great vigor, and it must be confessed with severity. The Finns, who strongly supported Zigizmund, were beaten, their strongholds destroyed and the royalist leaders were executed. Nearly all the adult members of the higher nobility fell by the executioner's sword or were driven into exile, while their property was confiscated. Meanwhile, Zigizmund had induced the Poles to declare war against the usurper. But the weak and cowardly king was no match for Charles of Südermannland. Any more than the disorganized and selfish Polish nobles were a match for the Swedish people, filled as they were with religious and patriotic ardor. In the summer of 1600, Charles conquered nearly the whole of Livonia. On his return, he set himself to work with consummate skill to secure still more completely the people's favor. He repeatedly offered his resignation to the estates, he consulted them frequently in the choice of his counsellors. His opposition to his brother Eric and to his nephew Zigizmund proceeded not so much from personal ambition as from a desire to preserve for the House of Vasa a kingdom which their madness threatened to destroy. He repeatedly offered the crown to Zigizmund's younger brother John, who has often refused it. As late as 1604, when in answer to the persistent request of the estates he finally accepted, as Charles IX, the kingdom for himself and his descendants, he still offered to resign his dignity in John's favor. He labored earnestly to improve the judicial system of Sweden, which had as yet no code. He reorganized local administration and the levying of taxes. He favored commerce and industry with all his power, especially mining and ironworking. In his reign, Sweden exported a considerable quantity of cannon and cannonballs. Just at this time the Polish-Swedish contest was complicated by Zigizmund's interference in the affairs of Russia and by the adventures of the pseudo Demetrius. End of part one of The Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia and Poland by Martin Fiebsson