Thus spurred on by his friends, Orzechowski took courage, renounced his clerical vows, and entered the state of matrimony. Bishop Dziaduski, struck with consternation, did not at first know what to do, but in the end resolved to carry out his threat, On April 8, 1551, he issued his verdict against Orzechowski, annulling his marriage and excommunicating him. On presentation of the case by the primate to the king, Sigismund Augustus confirmed the episcopal verdict in accordance with his pledge given the Polish bishops in December, 1550,[453] and instructed Peter Kmita, starosta of Przemyśl, to execute it. At the same time the king issued an order to all the starostas to execute the verdicts of episcopal courts in all cases of condemned and excommunicated heretics. Excommunicated by the church, Orzechowski was deprived of honor and property, exiled from the country, and in danger of being put to death, if caught.[454] The news of Orzechowski’s excommunication by Bishop Dziaduski and of the royal confirmation of the episcopal verdict without a trial came like a lightning stroke from the clear sky. Orzechowski’s case was the first instance in the history of the Polish Commonwealth of a noble deprived of honor and of his hereditary possessions and condemned to exile and death as a result of episcopal excommunication, without due trial, according to law, guaranteed the Polish nobility by the Charter of Jedlnia (1483). Immediately the nobles, not only of Orzechowski’s province, but of the whole of Poland, rose as one man against this high-handed attack on their liberties both by the clergy and by the king. Orzechowski’s neighbors were ready to defend him in case the starosta tried to execute the verdict; but Peter Kmita neither dared, nor wanted to execute it. He preferred to wait and see what the Diet of 1552 was going to do about the whole matter.[455] The local diets of 1551, at which the szlachta elected the deputies to the General Diet of 1552, fairly seethed with the indignation of the Polish nobility. The clergy, on the other hand, greatly elated over their apparent victory and pleased with the king’s stand regarding the Orzechowski affair, called a synod at Piotrków, at which they decided to bind the king still closer to their cause by offering him the estates of all condemned heretics; and to frighten the nobility into submission they excommunicated at this synod Stadnicki and Lasocki, two very influential and popular heretics in their respective palatinates. The excommunicated magnates went from one local diet to another, informed the szlachta of the ecclesiastical verdicts, reported the resolutions of the synod, and read the king’s pledge given the bishops secretly in 1550 in exchange for their consent to Queen Barbara’s coronation, and which had been secured and made public by Nicholas Lutomirski, castellan of Zawichow. They called upon the szlachta to defend their lives and property.[456]