home in Poland and made many proselytes, at last becoming so powerful
that they founded the new city of Racau, whence issued the famous
Racovian Catechism. At one time they seemed about to obtain the
mastery of the state, but the firm union of the Trinitarian Protestants
at Sandomir [Sidenote: 1570] checked them until all of them were swept
away together by the resurging tide of Catholicism. Several versions
of the Bible, Lutheran, Socinian, and Catholic, were issued.

So powerful were the Evangelicals that at the Diet of 1555 they held
services in the face of the Catholic king, and passed a law abolishing
the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. This measure, of
course, allowed freedom of all new sects, both those then in control of
the Diet and the as yet unfledged Antitrinitarians. Nevertheless a
strong wish was expressed for a national, Protestant church, and had
Sigismund had the advantages, as he had the matrimonial difficulties,
of Henry VIII, he might have {143} established such a body. But he
never quite dared to take the step, dreading the hostility of Catholic
neighbors. Singularly enough the championship of the Catholic cause
was undertaken by Greek-Catholic Muscovy, [Sidenote: 1562] whose Czar,
Ivan, represented his war against Poland as a crusade against the new
iconoclasts. Unable to act with power, Sigismund cultivated such means
of combating Protestantism as were ready to his hand. His most
trenchant weapon was the Order of Jesuits, who were invited to come in
and establish schools. Moreover, the excellence of their colleges in
foreign lands induced many of the nobility to send their sons to be
educated under them, and thus were prepared the seeds of the
Counter-Reformation.

The death of Sigismund without an heir left Poland for a time
masterless. During the interregnum the Diet passed the Compact of
Warsaw by which absolute religious liberty was granted to all
sects--"Dissidentes de Religione"--without exception. [Sidenote:
January 28, 1573] But, liberal though the law was, it was vitiated in
practice by the right retained by every master of punishing his serfs
for religious as well as for secular causes. Thus it was that the
lower classes were marched from Protestant pillar to Catholic post and
back without again daring to rebel or to express any choice in the
matter.

The election of Henry of Valois, [Sidenote: Henry, May 11, 1573] a
younger son of Catharine de' Medici, was mad