page_title: Jeremi Wiśniowiecki
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Jeremi Wiśniowiecki / Biography / Later life
context_page_description: Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki nicknamed Hammer on the Cossacks or Iron Hand, was a notable member of the aristocracy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Prince of Wiśniowiec, Łubnie and Chorol in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the father of the future King of Poland, Michael I.
  A notable magnate and military commander with Ruthenian and Romanian origin, Wiśniowiecki was heir of one of the biggest fortunes of the state and rose to several notable dignities, including the position of voivode of the Ruthenian Voivodship in 1646. His conversion from Eastern Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism caused much dissent in Ruthenia and Ukraine. Wiśniowiecki was a successful military leader as well as one of the wealthiest magnates of Poland, ruling over lands inhabited by 230,000 people.
context_section_description: Wiśniowiecki's courtier and first biographer, Michał Kałyszowski, counted that Jeremi participated in nine wars in his lifetime. The first of those was the Smolensk Campaign of 1633–34 against the Tsardom of Russia. In that war he accompanied castellan Aleksander Piaseczyński's southern army and took part in several battles, among them the unsuccessful siege of Putyvl; later that year they took Rylsk and Sevsk before retreating. The following year he worked with Adam Kisiel and Łukasz Żółkiewski, commanding his own private army of 4,000. As his troops formed 2/3 of their army (not counting supporting Cossack elements), Jeremi, despite being the most junior of commanders, had much influence over their campaign. Lacking in artillery, they failed to take any major towns, but ravaged the countryside near Sevsk and Kursk. The war ended soon afterward, and in May 1634 he returned to Lubny. For his service, he received a commendation from the King of Poland, Władysław IV Vasa, and the castellany of Kiev.
  After the war Wiśniowiecki engaged in a number of conflicts with neighbouring magnates and nobles. Jeremi was able to afford a sizable private army of several thousands, and through the threat of it he was often able to force his neighbours to a favourable settlement of disputes. Soon after his return from the Russian front, he participated on the side of the Dowmont family in the quarrel over the estate of Dowmontów against another magnate, Samuel Łaszcz, located on his lands; soon after the victorious battle against Łaszcz he bought the lands from the Dowmonts and incorporated them into his estates.
  Around 1636 the Sejm (Polish parliament) opposed the marriage of King Władysław IV Waza to Wiśniowiecki's sister, Anna. Following this, Jeremi distanced himself from the royal court, although he periodically returned to Warsaw, usually as one of the deputies to the Sejm from the Ruthenian Voivodeship. Soon afterward, Jeremi himself married Gryzelda Zamoyska, daughter of Chancellor Tomasz Zamoyski, on 27 February 1639, on Gryzelda's 16th birthday.
  At that time Wiśniowiecki also engaged in a political conflict over nobility titles, in particular, the title of prince (kniaź). The nobility in the Commonwealth was officially equal, and used different and non-hereditary titles than those found in rest of the world (see officials of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth); the gist of the conflict, which took much of the Sejm's time around 1638–41, revolved around whether old prince titles (awarded to families before their lands were incorporated into the Commonwealth in the 1569 Union of Lublin), and the new titles, awarded more recently by some foreign courts, should be recognized. Wiśniowiecki was one of the chief participants in this debate, successfully defending the old titles, including that of his own family, and succeeding in abolishing the new titles, which gained him the enmity of another powerful magnate, Jerzy Ossoliński. Other than this conflict, in his years as a deputy (1635–46), Jeremi wasn't involved in any major political issues, and only twice (in 1640 and 1642) he served in the minor function of a commissar for investigating the eastern and southern border disputes.
  In 1637 Wiśniowiecki might have fought under Hetman Mikołaj Potocki against the Cossack rebellion of Pavel Pavluk (the Pawluk Uprising); Jan Widacki notes that historians are not certain whether he did and in either case, no detailed accounts of his possible participation survive. A year later, returning from the Sejm and from the engagement ceremony with Gryzelda, he gathered a 4,000 strong division that participated in putting down of the Ostrzanin Uprising and arrived at the region affected by the unrest in June that year. Together with Hetman Potocki he defeated the insurgents at the Battle of Żownin, which turned into a rather difficult siege of the Cossack camp that lasted from 13 June till the Cossack relief forces were defeated on 4 August, and the Cossacks capitulated on 7 August.
caption: Princess Gryzelda Wiśniowiecka
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