Zygmunt III

Zygmunt III (1566-1632), king of Poland (1587-1632) and, as Zygmunt I, of Sweden (1592-99). The son of King John III of Sweden and his wife Catherine, daughter of Zygmunt I of Poland, Zygmunt III was born June 20, 1566, in Gripsholm, Sweden. He was elected king of Poland by the Sejm (parliament) in 1587 and succeeded to the Swedish throne on the death of his father. Unpopular in Protestant Sweden because of his Roman Catholicism, he was deposed in 1599 and replaced by his uncle, who became Charles IX. In Poland Zygmunt came into frequent conflict with the szlachta (gentry) and with his chancellor, Jan Zamojski, who opposed his policy of alliance with Austria. He defeated a revolt by the gentry in 1606-7 but ultimately failed to wrest power away from the Sejm. In 1596 he moved the capital from Kraków to Warsaw and won the submission of his Ukrainian subjects to Roman Catholicism. He tried unsuccessfully to conquer Russia during the “Time of Troubles” (see Russia) and fought several wars with the Turks in the 1620s. Zygmunt's attempts to regain the throne of Sweden led to wars with that country which resulted in the loss of most of Livonia (1629). He died in Warsaw on April 30, 1632.