When we turn from the kings to the nation, we meet with the same broad-minded liberality and tolerance. The Polish nation of the sixteenth century loved liberty no less than at any other period of its history. Liberty constituted the foundation and was an essential characteristic of all its institutions, political and social. The Polish nobility worked and fought strenuously for its political rights and privileges, and having secured them, guarded them jealously. Naturally, therefore, when the question of religious liberty once arose, the Polish nobility immediately applied to the sphere of religion the same principle it had established in the realm of politics. It insisted on freedom of thought, on liberty of conscience, on toleration of divergent views, beliefs, and practices. In 1539 freedom of the press was established, and in 1556 full liberty of conscience.[257] To secure the realm still further against any possible religious intolerance, dissensions, persecutions, or strifes and conflicts, the ruling classes entered, on the death of Sigismund Augustus, into a compact, sealed by the Confederation of Warsaw on the twenty-eighth day of January, 1573, mutually pledging themselves to maintain religious peace and toleration in the land.[258] This compact was confirmed by the Diet, became a part of the Polish constitution, and had to be sworn to by succeeding kings on their accession to the Polish throne.[259] Owing to this remarkable degree of religious toleration, Poland became a land of refuge for persecuted religious dissenters and reformers of other European countries. Here found refuge such men as Franciscus Stankar, Blandrata, Negri, Lelio and Faustus Sozzino, Bernard Ochino, Alciati, Gentilis, Franciscus Lismanini, and Peter Statorius,[260] all of whom were Italians of extreme religious views and unwelcome even in Switzerland; and later at the beginning of the seventeenth century the German anti-trinitarians, Crell, Smalz, Ruarus, and Stegmann[261] also found refuge in Poland. Bernard Ochino, driven out from Zurich, came to Poland in December, 1563, and in appreciation of the freedom of thought and of conscience there existing, dedicated his twenty-eighth dialogue to King Sigismund Augustus. Ochino had opposed the execution of Servetus, and admired Poland’s religious toleration.[262] Ruarus was led to emigrate to Poland by the reports of its “golden liberty of conscience established by the constitution of the Estates and sworn to by Polish kings.”[263] Besides these extremists, others sought and found refuge in Poland from religious persecution in their homelands. The most notable case is that of the Bohemian Brethren. While as a group they were ordered to move on to East Prussia, where Duke Albert offered them asylum, many of them remained in Poland, and exerted a powerful influence on the Reformation movement in that country. Moreover, at Cracow, Vilna, Posen, Tarnov, and Lublin there actually