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"... An earlier case [of an elected king] involves a fascinating country known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Its story is largely forgotten outside of Eastern Europe but it deserves to be much better known everywhere.
The Commonwealth spanned 226 years, from 1569 to 1795, as a political union with a single monarch of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Between 11 and 14 million people resided within its borders at its zenith, making it one of Europe’s largest and most populous nations. In terms of political and economic liberty, it was an enlightened country—ahead of its time, in fact. ...
As far back as the 9th Century, Poland’s kings came to power by vote. The electorate, to be sure, consisted not of the masses but of a much smaller nobility. ...
During the two centuries of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, kings were not only elected, but they were also required to agree to the extraordinary Henrician Articles (King Henry’s Articles). The document’s pro-liberty provisions included these:
- Election was the only route to the throne, and no children of the elected monarch could inherit the position.
- The King could not raise taxes or tariffs, declare war or impose a military draft, without the approval of Parliament, known then as it is today as the Sejm. He couldn’t even get married unless the Sejm signed on (in those days, royal marriages were a foreign policy matter).
- ... the King could not rule without endorsement of the Sejm, which he was required to convene at least once every two years for a minimum of six weeks.
- The King was compelled to enforce the religious freedom guarantees that made the Commonwealth one of the most tolerant enclaves on the European continent ...
- The nobles jealously guarded not only their own positions, but the freedoms of the people more broadly. ... each king had to take an oath that embodied these words: “If anything has been done by us against laws, liberties, privileges or customs, we declare all the inhabitants of the Kingdom are freed from obedience to us.”
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