Tyszowce Confederation (1655)

Course of events

After the defeats of the autumn of 1655 the Crown army and its hetmans (commanders) went over to Charles X Gustav¹. In December they began to desert him. After receiving a letter from the Tatar khan, the hetmans returned to their allegiance to John II Casimir Vasa on 17 December². The confederation was preceded by a letter of the same day from the grand hetman of the Crown to the king, a gathering of the army and the nobility summoned for 20 December, and a proclamation (uniwersał) by the castellan of Chełm, Firlej, calling to arms. According to Kubala, all this happened under the influence of the khan's letters and on the initiative of Stefan Czarniecki³. On 21 December, eight days before the confederation was sworn at Tyszowce, the nobility of the Kraków voivodeship had already formed a confederation at Nowy Sącz³.

The hetmans, the army and the nobility formed the confederation at Tyszowce, in the land of Chełm, and swore to it in the church there on 29 December 1655³. In the act they renounced their allegiance to Charles Gustav. They accused him of laying waste the country, plundering churches and monasteries and besieging Częstochowa, described in the act in the words „miejsce najznaczniejsze, nie tylko Rzeczpospolitej, ale świata chrześcijańskiego” ("the most eminent place, not only of the Commonwealth, but of the Christian world")⁴. They promised the Swedish king's supporters an amnesty if they joined the league. Commissioners from the army and from each voivodeship were attached to the hetmans, and without them the hetmans could decide nothing⁵.

John Casimir was by then already on his way back to the country⁶. As the confederation had been formed without him, the senators and nobles around the king joined it, with his consent, in a new league⁷. The instrument of the general confederation at Łańcut was signed on 31 January 1656⁸.

Forces and losses

The confederation was not a battle, but it decreed a mobilisation. The whole nobility, landed and landless, was to go to war. In addition, a nobleman was to provide one soldier from five łany (units of land) and two horsemen from ten⁹. The clergy of both rites, with the exception of monks and parish priests, as well as widows and minors, were to provide a soldier from five łany or from fifteen hearths. Each voivodeship was to supply as many small guns as it had lands and districts¹⁰. The army deferred the payment of its wages „do spokojniejszych czasów” ("until calmer times")⁵.

Significance

Kubala points out that the confederation handed the government of the Commonwealth to the hetmans, with unlimited and unaccountable power, bypassing the king. In his view, however, it could not be condemned, because the league had been sworn, action had begun and the general levy of the nobility (pospolite ruszenie) had been proclaimed¹⁰. In the manifestos of the army and the nobility, one of the reasons for the rising against the Swedes was the siege of Częstochowa².

In the novel

In The Deluge (Potop) the news of the confederation is brought to Taurogi by Anusia Borzobohata:

Ale już i hetmani koronni poczęli Szwedów bić, i wszystkie wojsko kwarciane z nimi, i wszystkie rycerstwo, i uczynili konfederację w Tyszowcach, i król do niej przystąpił, i wydali uniwersały (...)

Henryk Sienkiewicz, The Deluge (Potop)¹¹

(Our translation: "But now the Crown hetmans too have begun to beat the Swedes, and the whole quarter army with them, and all the knighthood, and they have made a confederation at Tyszowce, and the king has joined it, and they have issued proclamations (...)")