The parliamentary union of Royal Prussia with the Crown in 1569 and its consequences

Abstract

SUMMARY On 16 March 1569 at the sejm in Lublin, King Sigismund Augustus by decree abolished the autonomy of the sejm in Royal Prussia. Two bishops—of Ermland (Warmia) and of Kulm (Chełmno)—three voivodes and three castellans joined the Crown Sejm. Large Prussian cities—Thorn (Toruń), Danzig (Gdańsk) and Elbing (Elblag)—remained outside the Polish sejm. The parliamentary union of Royal Prussia with the Crown, despite the Prussians' refusal to accept it, became a fact. Analysing the causes, significance and consequences of the royal decree, Janusz Małłek reaches the conclusion that the reasons for the delay in the integration of this Polish province with the Crown must be sought both in the separatist policy of the Prussian elites (who resorted to an interpretation of the incorporating statute of 1454 which was more favourable for them) and in the not quite consistent centralizing policy of the Polish kings. What is more, the act of parliamentary union of 16 March 1569 was only a fragment in the integration policy of the last Jagiellonians, which before and afterwards embraced Mazovia, Livonia, Zator, and Oświęcim, as well as the feudal Royal Prussia and Courland. Finally, as a consequence of the parliamentary union of Royal Prussia with the Crown, the autonomy of the Prussian province was abolished, which was also reflected in the adoption of the Polish tax system in 1581, in the acknowledgement of the Crown Tribunal in Piotrków as the institution of appeal and in the fact that Polish became the language of the Prussian general dietine.