page_title: Jan Zamoyski
section_title: Chancellor and Hetman
hierarchical_section_title: Jan Zamoyski / Biography / Chancellor and Hetman
context_page_description: Jan Sariusz Zamoyski was a Polish nobleman, magnate, and the 1st ordynat of Zamość. He served as the Royal Secretary from 1565, Deputy Chancellor from 1576, Grand Chancellor of the Crown from 1578, and Great Hetman of the Crown from 1581.
  Zamoyski was the General Starost of the city of Kraków from 1580 to 1585, Starost of Bełz, Międzyrzecz, Krzeszów, Knyszyn and Tartu. An important advisor to Kings Sigismund II Augustus and Stephen Báthory, he was one of the major opponents of Bathory's successor, Sigismund III Vasa, and one of the most skilled diplomats, politicians and statesmen of his time, standing as a major figure in the politics of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth throughout his life.
context_section_description: In that first election he was in favour of Henry de Valois (later, Henry III of France). Subsequently, he was part of the diplomatic mission that traveled to France to finish formalities with the newly elected king. He also published a pamphlet praising the new king, and thus suffered a loss of face when Henryk secretly abandoned Poland and returned to France. During the following 1575 election he was a vocal enemy of the Habsburg dynasty and its candidate, and this anti-Habsburg stance, resounding among the lesser nobility, helped him regain his popularity. For the king, Zamoyski championed the case of a Polish candidate, which ended up in the marriage of Anna Jagiellon with the anti-Habsburg Stephen Bathory of Transylvania.
  Bathory thanked Zamoyski by granting him the office of Deputy Chancellor on 16 May 1576. He participated on Batory's side in the quelling of the Danzig rebellion in 1576–1577, sponsoring a chorągiew of pancerni (cavalry unit) and participating in close combat on several occasions. In 1577 he married again, this time marrying Krystyna Radziwiłł, daughter of magnate Mikołaj Radziwiłł Czarny; this made him a close ally of the Radziwiłł family, the most powerful family in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1578 he received the post of the Grand Crown Chancellor. That year poet Jan Kochanowski dedicated his Odprawa Posłów Greckich, the first Polish tragedy, to him.
  He took part in the preparation for a war against Muscovy in 1579–1581, where he contributed a group of 400 or 600 mercenaries. Through he had little prior military background nor experience, he was interested in mastering the military art, and proved to be an adept learner. With Batory's support, he began filling in for some of the roles of Grand Crown Hetman Mikołaj Mielecki, particularly when Mielecki was not present. While not campaigning, he was also instrumental in ensuring that the ongoing political support for the war. In 1580 he was hit by another personal tragedy, as his wife died in labor, together with their child; entering a short period of depression.
  Later that year, in August, he captured Velizh in September he participated in the siege of Velikiye Luki, and then took Zavoloc. On 11 August 1581 he received the nomination for the post of Grand Crown Hetman; this nomination, although uncontroversial at that time, was technically illegal. Following that he participated in the long and inconclusive Siege of Pskov, which ended with the Peace of Yam-Zapolsky in 1582. Though Zamoyski failed to capture Pskov, he drained the Russian resources, and the ongoing siege was a major reason for the final treaty, which was highly favorable to Poland.
  In June 1583 Zamoyski took his third wife, Gryzelda Bathory, a relative of king Bathory himself. In May 1584 Zamoyski's men captured Samuel Zborowski, a noble whose death sentence for treason and murder had been pending for roughly a decade; shortly afterwards with Bathory's consent Zborowski was executed. This political conflict between Báthory, Zamoyski and the Zborowski family, framed as the clash between the monarch and the nobility, would be a major recurring controversy in internal Polish politics for many years, beginning with a major dispute at the Sejm of 1585.
caption: Jan Zamoyski, engraving by Dominicus Custos
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