Still wearing the rich garments they had donned in honour of the Cardinal's marriage with his brother's widow, the Polish court set forth to attack the indefatigable Bogdan. But by the time they had reached the frontier, this amazing wedding cortege (whose warlike pomp astonished even the accompanying envoys from the great courts of Europe) learned of a second well-deserved defeat of the perjured "Jeremites." Their own perU now became imminent. At Zborovo the embroidered tents and silken pavilions of the royal army were soon surrounded and beset by the Cossack and peasant troops. Only the sudden defection of their undependable ally, the Khan of Crimea, saved Cazimir and his bride. The Khan had been won over to the Polish side by the promised renewal of the degrading Polish tribute paid his ancestors. In view of this temporary respite the angry Bogdan once more consented to negotiate.
The old terms of the Cossack demands were magnanimously renewed. The popular party chiefly insisted upon the expulsion of both Jews and Jesuits from the Orthodox provinces. The rights of the metropolitan of Kiev to a seat in the Senate of Warsaw and the opening of the Cossack registers to enroll 40,000 Cossacks — who were thus protected from the claims and exploitation of the Polish landholders — was also seciu-ed. In a final clause Bogdan was recognized by the King of Poland as his deputy and hetman over all the provinces of Little Russia, thus securing the practical autonomy of the Ukraine provinces.
After the peace of Zborovo, Bogdan had written to the Polish king as follows: — "Through his own example, my father taught me loyalty in my cradle by dying for the republic. If I have been forced to spill noble blood, whose is the fault? Let your Majesty inquire of the nobles who surround him I I am ready, Sire, to satisfy all your Majesty's desires and, for my own part, no false pride shall interfere. I only ask one thing: the certainty of living in peace under Your Majesty's laws."
BOGDAN:
The unfortunate John Cazimir, Bodgan recognized as a statesman in whose word he could trust. But the Polish nobility of that day could not feel their "honour" involved in keeping faith with such low-born enemies. The years that followed, — marking alas! but a truce in the popular strife, — were fatal chapters in the national storj" of Poland. It is impossible to find any true record of this time. The only historical sources are so filled with the recriminations and exaggerations of their authors as to be almost useless to the student.
Over the whole Ukraine hangs a red mist, the fireht smoke rising from hamlet and chateau. Hidden by this pall the forms of the contestants are but dimly seen: peasant mobs, wild Cossack troops, and the brilliantly armed retainers of the panye of the Polish "republic." Above the charge and shock of the contending aiToies rise the woeful cries of thousands of innocent victims sacrificed by this horrible civil carnage. Even the heroic Bogdan felt the call of ambition and personal spite. Turning from his pursuit of the national enemy, the hetman of the Ukraine undertook a campaign against Moldavia in order to force the volovoda of that province to bestow the hand of his daughter, Rosanda (promised to his personal foe, Jeremy Viesnowiecki), on his own son, Timothy Hmelnicky.
Under the hberal-minded Sultan Mahomed IV (1650) Constantinople had become a refuge for all the religious exiles of Europe, fleeing from the persecution of their fellow Christians. The Orthodox patriarch in the Turkish capital induced Bogdan to accept from the Sultan the high title of "Prince of the Ukraine." A little later, the same influences found no difficulty in launching the Cossacks upon a renewed crusade against the Catholics and Jesuitized Uniates of the border provinces.
But the Poles had profited by the respite given them during Bogdan's southern campaigns to strengthen their armies with troops of German mercenaries, whose trade of war had languished in Eastern Europe since the Peace of Westphalia. Bogdan and his Cossacks, encamped near Zboraz, ravaging at their leisure the lands of the Viesnowiecki, found himself attacked by these formidable reinforcements. Although the Cossacks defended themselves courageously behind their famous "tabors"— ramparts formed by ox-carts — the fortunes of the day remained with the professional soldiery of Tilly and Wallenstein. Moreover, the promised Turkish reinforcements failed to arrive in aid of Bogdan at the critical moment.
After the temporary advantages thus gained by the party of the nobles the famous Cossack Register was reduced to 20,000. But rather than return to the fields of their Polish oppressors, great numbers of Cossacks emigrated to join their brethren on Russian territory. In the stanitzi on the
BOGDAN: