THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
made appeal from time to time until the final dismemberment of Poland. After a decade of warfare the Jesuits came out victorious, and the Evangelical cause and the kingdom went down together. Two centuries more, however, ensued before the victory was complete.
The correspondence of Hosius reveals the return of the descendants of the illustrious fathers of the Reformation to Roman Catholicism. At an assembly in the palatinate of Cracow, in 1606, a warning call went up from the knighthood, re- 4. Later ferring to the compact, for the king History, to heed the senate; but the Protestant party was vanquished in that body, though at a diet in 1609, freedom from penalty and the right of legal appeal were obtained. The Jesuits continued their machinations; the king was wholly in their power, and in Cracow, Posen, Wilna, and elsewhere, they incited the populace and students to destroy the churches of the dissidents. At the close of Sigismund's reign, Poland was in rapid decline; the Jesuits had smothered the spiritual life and obtained complete possession of the schools; the people had lost a sense of their rights; and abroad the nation had fallen from its rank of influence. Wladislas IV- (1632-48), just and irenic, who called a colloquy at Thorn in 1645 looking toward the union of all churches, would not restrain the Jesuit activities. August II. (1696- 1733) lent himself to their policies, having himself, as king of Saxony, apostatized to Roman Catholicism, in order to secure the throne of Poland. At the Diet of Grodno (1719) Casimir Ancuta, the Jesuit lawyer of Wilna, secured unlawfully the expulsion of the last dissident, Piotrowski. With the triumph of the Counter-Reformation is associated also the doom of the once glorious kingdom. The further history of Poland is involved in that of the countries among which its territory was divided.
(H. Dalton.)
Bibliography: On I. as sources consult: Chronicce Polonorum, ed. J. Szlachtowski and R. Kopke, in MGH, Script., ix (1851), pp. 423 sqq.; Chronica Polonorum, in Stenzel, Scriptores rerum Silesiacarum, vol. i., Cracow, 1872-88; Acta historica res gestas Polonioe illuslrantia, issued by the Cracow Academy, 1878 sqq.; Thietmar, Chronicon, most convenient intheed.of F. Kurze, Hanover, 1889; Monumenta Polonice historica, 6 vols., Lwow, 1864-93. Consult further: C. G. Friese, Kirchengeschichte des Konigreichs Polen, vol. i., Breslau, 1786; C. Meyer, Geschichte des Landes Posen, pp. 383 sqq., Posen, 1881; C. Schiemann, Geschichte Polens, Berlin, 1884-85; W. R. Morfill, Poland, London, 1893; W. P. Angerstein, Her Konflikt des . . Boleslaus II. (1058-80) mit dem Bischo) Stanislaus, Thorn. 1895; K. S. Krotoski, St. Stanislaw, Bishop Krakowski, Torun, 1902; E. Schmidt, Geschichte des Deutschtums im Lande Posen, Bromberg, 1904; Hauck, KD, iii. 202-204, 272 sqq., 629 sqq. On II. consult: the literature under Lasco, Johannes a; Acta conventus Thorun., Warsaw, 1616; D. E. Jablonski, Hist, consensus Sendom., Berlin, 1731 (c-f. H. Dalton, D. E. Jablonski. ib. 1903); 0. G. Friese, ut sup., vols, ii.-iii.; S. Lubienski, Historia reformations Polonica, Antwerp, 1685; C. V. Krasinski. Hist, oj Rise, Progress and Decline of the Polish Reformation, 2 vols., London, 1838-40; idem, Religious Hist, of the Slavonic Nations, Edinburgh, 1851; J. Lukasiewitsch, Die Reformation in Gross-Polen, Darmstadt, 1843; G. W. T. Fischer, Versuch einer Geschichte der Reformation in Polen, 2 parts, Gratz, 1855-56: Schnaase, Die bohmischen Bruder in Polen, Gotha, 1866; J. Sembrzycki, Die polnischen Reformirten und Unitarier in Preussen 1543, Konigsberg, 1893, E. Borgius, Aus Posens und Polens kirchlicher Vergangenheil, Berlin, 189S; O.
Koniecki, Geschichte der Reformation in Polen, 2d ed Posen, 1901; G. Krause, Die Reformation in Polen, Posen' 1901; Wotschke, Andreas Samuel und Joh. Seklucyan Posen, 1902; K. Volker, Der Protestantismus in Polen Lcipsic, 1910; and the list of important periodical literature in Richardson, Encyclopaedia, p. 862.
POLANUS, VELERANDUS: Leader and pastor of Walloons in the middle of the sixteenth century. All that is known of him is that with Johannes a Lasco (q.v.) he led his congregation with two others from England, whither they had fled from the Netherlands, to settle at Frankfort. There he met the persistent opposition of Hartmann Beyer (q.v.) because of his adherence to the Reformed creed and polity, and was deprived of his church, while ultimately the right to hold service was forbidden to the congregation.
POLE (POOLE), REGINALD: English cardinal and statesman; b. at Stourton Castle (13 m. w. of Birmingham), Staffordshire, Mar., 1500; d. in Lambeth Palace, London, Nov. 17, 1558. On his mother's side he was of the blood royal, and, after his father's death, was educated by Henry VIII. In 1517 he obtained the benefice of Roscombe, which was supplemented by other benefices as he rose in the prelacy. In 1521 he went to Italy to complete his studies at Padua. In Paris, at the close of the third decade of the century, he was successful in obtaining an opinion Life Pre- from the University of Paris favorable vious to the to the king's divorce. He then returned Cardinalate. to England to devote himself to theological studies in the cloister of Sheen. In 1531 he declined the proffered archbishopric of York, and in the following year he returned to Italy by way of Avignon. In Italy he lived a number of years in close friendship with Bembo, Contarini, Matteo Giberti, Alvise Priuli, and Giovanni Morone. Until 1535 Pole was regarded as neutral in the divorce question, and had received from England the incomes of his benefices. Now, however, the king demanded Pole's opinion in writing, and after considerable delay he complied in his De imitate ecclesiw, which brought about a total change in his position, since he became a decided partizan of the opposition. The king demanded that Pole should give an explanation of his treatise in person, but at this juncture he was called to Rome by Paul III., chiefly to take part in preparing the Consilium de emendanda ecclesia.
Pole was created cardinal of Santa Maria in Cosmedin on Dec. 22, 1536, and now wrote an Apologia ad Anglice Parlamentum, firm in substance, but moderate in tone. In 1537 he was sent Pole as by Paul III. as legate to the Nether- Cardinal, lands, whence he was to fan the insurrection in England. The rebellion, however, was crushed, and the king declared Pole guilty of high treason. The cardinal now left the Netherlands, but neither the emperor nor Francis I. would receive him, and it was only in Italy that he felt safe. But the pope rehabilitated him by again employing him as legate, this time to the emperor; but his family in England suffered heavily, for Henry arrested the cardinal's brothers and mother, and when the younger brother gave evi-