[5] The whole of the country called Prussia once belonged to Poland. Part of it, after being lost in the eleventh century, eventually came into the hands of the Elector of Brandenburg, who acknowledged the nominal suzerainty of Poland; the other part--Polish Prussia--was not lost till the eighteenth century. [6] See Dr. South’s letter to Dr. Edward Pococke, Hebrew lecturer at Oxford, describing his travels in Poland. (p 71.) He mentions that he had heard them make this remark: and it is curious that his letter bears date Dec. 16th, 1677--six years before the relief of Vienna. [7] This is denied by Salvandy, _Histoire du Roi Jean Sobieski_, vol. ii. p. 52, ed. 1876, though he has elsewhere admitted it by implication (vol. i. p. 402-3). [8] The generals had no seat in the Senate by virtue of their office, but the king always made them palatines or castellans. DALEYRAC, _Polish Manuscripts or Secret History of the reign of John Sobieski_, ch. i. p. 9. [9] DALEYRAC, ch. i. p. 34. [10] The first was simply “veto,” the second “veto, sisto activitatem.” [11] They were always prolonged, however, when public business was pressing. [12] This castellan ranked even above all the palatines, and headed the Pospolite. The story is that in an important battle the palatine of Cracow ran away, while the castellan stood his ground, and their rank was thus reversed. (COYER, _Histoire de Sobieski_, p. 69, 8vo ed.) [13] The Abbé Coyer makes her his daughter; but he is wrong. The daughter of Zolkiewski married into the family of Danilowicz, and was the mother of Theophila. (SALVANDY, vol. i. 145-147.) [14] The disparity is said to have been much greater, but it is necessary to bear in mind throughout the life of Sobieski that the numbers of the combatants are uncertain, owing to the Polish habit of exaggeration. [15] Most historians (and Salvandy in his first edition, 1827) follow Coyer in giving the date 1629. Salvandy gives no reason for the change in his later editions; but Sobieski must have been older than fourteen when he travelled in France; and it appears that his manuscript favours the earlier date. Coyer is most inaccurate until the campaign of Podhaic, where his original authorities begin, and is untrustworthy afterwards. [16] Russia, properly so called, was at this time a province of Poland. The empire of the Czars was termed Muscovy. [17] Sobieski himself was not free from this feeling. See the collection of his letters by M. le Comte Plater (Letter xvii.). [18] It was part of Dido’s dying speech: “Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor.” Theophila is said to have shown her sons the hero’s shield while repeating the Spartan injunction “with it or upon it.” [19] Louise de Nevers. The Sobieskis were in France when the embassy came to fetch her. She also married Casimir, the next king.