ALEXANDER (1461-1506)

This article appears in Volume V01, Page 552 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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ALEXANDER (1461-1506) , king of Poland and grand-duke of Lithuania, fourth son of Casimir IV., king of Poland, was elected grand-duke of Lithuania on the death of his father in 1492, and king of Poland on the death of his brother John Albert in 1501. His extreme impecuniosity made him from the first subservient to the Polish senate and nobles (szlachta), who deprived him of the

control

CONTROL (Fr. contrdle, older form contre rolle, from Med. Lat. contra-rotulus, a counter roll or copy of a document used to check the original; there is no instance in English of the use of " control " in this, its literal, meaning)

of the mintthen one of the most lucrative sources of revenue of the Polish kingscurtailed his prerogative, and generally endeavoured to reduce him to a subordinate position. This ill-timed parsimony reacted injuriously upon Polish politics. Thus, for want of funds, Alexander was unable to assist the Grand Master of the Order of the Sword against Muscovite aggression, or prevent Tsar Ivan III. from ravaging Lithuania with the

Tatars

TATARS (the common form Tartars is less correct)

. The utmost the king could do was to garrison Smolensk and other fortresses and employ his wife

Helena

HELENA
HELENA, ST (c. 247-c. 327)

, the tsar's daughter, to mediate a truce between his father-in-law and himself. During his reign Poland suffered much humiliation from the attempts of her subject principalities, Prussia and Moldavia, to throw off her yoke. Only the death of Stephen, the

great

GREAT

hospodar of Moldavia, enabled Poland still to hold her own on the Danube; while the liberality of

Pope

Julius II., who issued no fewer than 29 bulls in favour of Poland and granted Alexander Peter's Pence and other

financial

FINANCIAL

help, enabled the Polish king to restrain somewhat the arrogance of the Teutonic Order. In Alexander the characteristic virtues of the Jagiellos, patience and generosity, degenerated into slothfulness and extravagance. Frequently he was too poor to pay the expenses of his own table. But he never felt at

home

in Poland, and bestowed his favour principallyupon his fellow-countrymen, the most notable of whom was the wealthy Lithuanian magnate Michael Glinsky, who justified his master's confidence by his

great

GREAT

victory over the

Tatars

TATARS (the common form Tartars is less correct)

at Kleck (August 5, 1506), the news of which was brought to Alexander on his deathbed.
See V. Czerny, The Reigns of John Albert and Alexander Jagiello (Pol.) (Cracow, 1882).

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