Primate Mikołaj Prażmowski and the Unwelcome Papal Legation in Poland-Lithuania (1668–69)

Abstract

The article presents the reasons for refusing to receive the papal legation of Pope Clement IX in the matter of John Casimir Vasa’s abdication (1668) and, especially, the subsequent royal election (1669), by the Catholic Primate of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Mikołaj Prażmowski. Prażmowski’s refusal to receive the legation has been overlooked in the literature on the subject so far. The author, on the basis of the diplomatic dispatches of the apostolic nuncios and on their instructions, will analyse the problematic relations of Prażmowski with papal diplomats, and explain why the papal legation ended in fiasco. The researcher concludes that the fiasco of papal legation was another clear indication of the Papacy’s lack of sufficient leverage in the post-Westphalian world, as it was fundamentally weakened by the deep divisions between the Catholic powers of France and the Habsburgs, which Westphalia had signally failed to resolve. Nowhere was this more apparent than in Poland-Lithuania, where the battle between Catholic supporters of the Habsburgs and France over the succession had profoundly divided the republic.