The Swedish king had, ever since the Crossing of the Düna and the conquest of Courland earlier that year, contemplated actions against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to have Augustus II, whom Charles considered as too unpredictable, dethroned. In the wake of the Lithuanian power struggle the Sapieha family pleaded for Swedish protection against, among others, the Ogiński family (supported by Augustus II), which frequently raided their estates in the Duchy of Samogitia.