The Proclamation had only insignificant influence on the situation of peasants, as the insurrection was soon to collapse. But it did become a legend and one of the documents to which subsequent insurrectionary and democratic movements drew upon in their bids to improve the lot of the peasants and grant them freedom, land ownership, and citizenship rights – and draw them into battle and work on behalf of an independent Poland.

Composed of a preamble and eleven chapters, the Government Statute introduced a tripartite division of powers in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that consisted of a bicameral legislature (i.e., the Sejm and Senate), an executive branch (the king), and a judiciary branch. The principle of unanimity known as liberum veto was abolished in favour of resolutions being passed by majority vote. The executive power rested with a royal council (‘the Guard of the Laws’, referred to as ‘the Guardianship’ in the following English version), presided over by the king and composed of five ministers proposed by the monarch and reporting to the Sejm – namely, the Primate, the heir to the throne, the Marshal of the Sejm, and two secretaries. The long-standing institution of elective monarchy was replaced with hereditary succession of the throne in the Saxon House of Wettin. The Constitution enshrined freedom of religion, though it recognised the Roman Catholicism as the ruling religion. The privileged position of the gentry was guaranteed, whilst the rights of the bourgeoisie were confirmed as previously granted by the ‘Law on the Cities’ (burghers from royal cities enjoyed broad opportunities to enter the gentry, and were allowed to own land and hold offices).

The attempts to carry out the reforms envisioned by the Government Statute were thwarted already in mid-1792 by the Confederation of Targowica and the entry of the Russian army into the Rzeczpospolita.

The Constitution of the 3rd of May, Poland’s first modern constitution (indeed, the world’s second such, preceded only by the US Constitution), expressed the political and civic awareness of the Rzeczpospolita’s citizens that their country was facing a dire crisis. Throughout the period when Poland was partitioned (1795-1918), the Constitution of the 3rd of May symbolised the nation’s pursuit of independence. The authors of Poland’s twentieth-century constitutions drew inspiration from it, as well.

The establishment of the Commission of National Education (Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, KEN) was a response to the crisis. It was officially created through the resolution of the Sejm on 14 October 1773 and took over the property of the Society of Jesus. Its establishment was initiated by Reverend Hugo Kołłątaj (1750–1812), who did not join neither the Commission nor the Society for Elementary Books. The latter, established on 10 February 1775 in Warsaw, was devoted to designing and publishing syllabuses and textbooks. Its initiator and secretary was Reverend Grzegorz Piramowicz (1735–1801).

KEN activities were based on the ideas of the Enlightenment. The main objective of the Commission was to design a new official syllabus, reorganise and recreate the system of secondary schools and create teachers’ colleges by universities (which were also under reform). The number of Latin lessons was reduced for the sake of extended education in Polish, and the sciences were introduced to regular curriculum: natural history, physics and geometry. Some of the textbooks designed in those times were still in use throughout the whole 19th century. Through their activities, KEN contributed to the secularization and nationalization of education in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, to the establishment of the new role model of a citizen-landowner and to the popularization of Physiocracy, an important socio-economic theory of the Enlightenment.

In their Universal of 24 October 1773, the Commission announced reforms in the Polish education system and the launch of its activities by specifying its aims. Those included especially changing the nature of the education and upbringing of Polish youth to a more national and civic one.

The direction of the planned social reforms and those of the political system, particularly the actions of Russian ambassador Nikolai Repnin (for instance, his pushing of the project to grant political rights to infidels, which eventually became incorporated into the so-called Cardinal Laws, that is, the principles of the Commonwealth’s political system guaranteed by Russia) caused an outrage among much of the nobility engaged in the public life. Leaders of the opposition (for instance, Bishop of Kamianets-Podilskyi Adam Stanisław Krasiński) to the king and the political faction associated with him prepared a plan for a confederation. The purpose was to depose Poniatowski, fight against Russia, and reform the state.

With the end of February 1768 substantial volunteer troops, partly made up of rebellious detachments of the Crown’s army, assembled in Bar, a town in Podolia in today’s Ukraine. Present were, for instance, the Pułaskis: Józef, who was declared the military union’s marshal, and his son Kazimierz, the later hero of the American War of Independence and one of the Confederation’s leaders. Announced on that occasion, the act establishing the Confederation declared all acts of Parliament passed under coercion null and void. The Confederates’ main motto was “faith and freedom.” The Confederation was ultimately suppressed in 1772, becoming a pretext for the first partition of the Commonwealth.

The Confederation has become a subject of both positive and negative legends. The former originate from the Enlightenment-period political commentary, which condemned the purported Sarmatian reactionism, which the Confederation members were identified with. The Romantic interpretation of the historic role of the 1768‒1772 events was completely different, with works such as Henryk Rzewuski’s Pamiątki Soplicy [Soplica’s memoir], Wincentyy Pol’s Pieśni Janusza [Janusz’s songs], or Juliusz Słowacki’s Ksiądz Marek [Father Marek] contributing to the sublimation of the Bar Confederation by incorporating it into the pro-independence tradition along with the Kościuszko Uprising, the Polish Legions’ act, and the November Uprising.

Consequently, the Cossacks regularly rebelled for the purpose of expanding the register and obtaining a guarantee of their rights, which would have protected them from having the peasant status imposed on them. The greatest of the rebellions took place in 1648, led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The weakened Commonwealth found itself unable to oppose it. A few compromising military defeats resulted in the rebels’ strengthening on the south-eastern lands, of which Warsaw lost control. The war, which was dragging on and which neither side was able to settle in its favor, ruined the Ukrainian lands and also put a heavy economic burden on the Commonwealth’s shoulders. The Cossacks also dragged Moscow into the conflict, subjecting Ukraine to the tsar.

When Ivan Vyhovsky became the Hetman of the rebellion, supporters of an agreement with the Poles prevailed among the Cossacks. The willingness to end the destructive war was dominant also on the Polish side. In consequence, in 1658, the Treaty of Hadiach was signed. It transformed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth into a Commonwealth of Three Nations, granting a separate status to the territories inhabited by Cossacks. It guaranteed the Orthodox population’s rights and also the Cossacks’ gradual ennoblement. A separate ladder was created for offices on the Ukrainian lands, which were to be held only by individuals originating from those territories. The nobility could return to its landed estates.

The controversy whether the Treaty of Hadiach could put an end to the destructive civil war continues. Shortly after its signing, rank-and-file Cossacks rebelled against Vyhovsky under Moscow’s influence. Vyhovsky was then deprived of the mantle of Hetman and the war against the Commonwealth resumed.

The Swedish invasion of 1655 proved a truly catastrophic event. Faced with the capture of most of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ukraine by Russia and its Cossack allies, a significant number of the magnates and nobles in conflict with Jan Kazimierz surrendered to the Swedes almost without a fight. Jan Kazimierz had to flee the country. Yet the severe pillaging visited upon the land by Swedish soldiers and the German mercenaries in their ranks, coupled with their religious otherness (they were Lutherans), quickly sparked resistance from the plebeian masses and the nobility alike. The successful defence of the Jasna Góra monastery, home to a venerated painting of the Madonna (the painting was in Habsburg Silesia during the siege), at the end of 1655 marked a turning point in the war.

The royal court used this event for propaganda purposes when Jan Kazimierz returned to Poland in 1655/1656. Lwów (Leopolis), where the Swedes had not penetrated, became the command centre of resistance against the invaders. It was there, in the city cathedral, on 1 April 1656, that Jan Kazimierz made a solemn vow before the altar of Our Lady of Graces, establishing the Holy Mother as Queen of the Polish Crown and promising remissions for the peasants. By doing so, the ruler sanctioned the religious nature of the conflict with Sweden and made concessions to the commoners, exploiting their zeal in the fight against the enemy. The ceremonial mass at the Lwów Cathedral was celebrated by the papal nuncio, Pietro Vidoni, with numerous dignitaries waiting on the king in attendance. Although the social programme enounced in the Lwów vows was never put into action, they have come down in Polish history as an important symbol of national awakening and unity in the face of external danger.

Defeated by the Swedes in combat, Jan Kasimir fled to Silesia, to the terrains under the Habsburg rule. The nobility and the royal clerks recognized the king of Sweden as the king of Poland in return for a guarantee of rights. At the same time Great Hetman of Lithuania Janusz Radziwiłł surrendered the Great Duchy of Lithuania to Sweden. With time, however, the Swedes began to treat the captured territory in an increasingly harsh way. They started to transport valuables and works of art out of the Commonwealth. They also accepted the fact that their soldiers were robbing peasants. To make the renegade king’s contact with the country more difficult the Swedes began to capture towns and fortresses on the border with Silesia. That was when they came to the foothill of the fortified cloister called Luminous Mount (Jasna Góra), the most important Marian sanctuary in the Crown. Their attempt to capture it, combined with other Swedish misdeeds, outraged the nobility, which turned back to Jan Kasimir. Under those circumstances, in December 1655 hetmans of the Crown with the army, representatives of the disappointed nobility, and the Lithuanian troops which had turned against Radziwiłł assembled in Tyszowce. They decided to establish a confederation, that is, an armed union of citizens formed to defend their violated rights. The Confederates declared their subordination to Jan Kasimir, promised to fight against the Swedes, and announced universal conscription. The Confederation of Tyszowce is regarded as the symbolic turning point in the Polish-Swedish War, which transformed from the invaders’ triumphant march into a bloody and difficult war, which came to an end in 1660 with the signing of the Treaty of Oliva and the Swedes’ retreat.

At the same time appeared the tendency aiming at unification on the Catholic side. The Catholic Church was undergoing intensive reforms, connected with the Council of Trent, whose tone was set by Jesuits, who had significant influence on the Polish king and the overall course of the state affairs. Their most eminent representative, Piotr Skarga, penned a work devoted to the unification of churches entitled O rządzie i jedności Kościoła Bożego pod jednym pasterzem [on the administration and unity of God’s Church under one shepherd]. It was read by Sigismund III Vasa. Also fearing that Moscow would subordinate the Polish Orthodox Church to itself, the king became a proponent of the union of the Churches. At the same time Jesuits established a network of schools offering a high level of education, which became highly popular with the Orthodox nobility. Those schools built the positive image of the Catholic Church which in time resulted in the Orthodox nobility becoming more favorable to Rome.

Under those circumstances, the bishops who supported the union began negotiations with the king and Catholic hierarchs. In 1595 representatives of the Polish Orthodox clergy went to Rome, where they made a confession of faith before the Pope and accepted the union’s conditions, which stipulated for retaining the rites, calendar, and hierarchy, and also subordination to the Pope. The Council of Brest was soon called, where the act of union was signed, thus establishing the church known as the Greek Catholic or Uniate Church. A minority of the clergy did not join the union, remaining in the Orthodox Church, from then on called disuniates.

Rulings of courts of the first instance did not necessarily end the proceedings. When the defendant made use of appeal procedures, the case went before the second instance court: the rally court (which ceased to function in the fifteenth century) and the royal court. However, since the king was the final appellate instance, in a state as vast as Rzeczpospolita, it was impossible to conclude all cases. Despite this, discussions regarding the reform of the justice system continued for almost 40 years. On the one hand, king Sigismund Augustus defended his appellate prerogative over all his subjects, and on the other, noblemen were afraid of strengthening the role of the Senate, as those were the times of the executionist movement, which fought with determination to increase the importance of the nobility masses to detriment of the magnates, of whom the Senate was composed.

Finally, king Stephen Báthory was persuaded into a compromise. In 1578, the Polish law judiciary was separated from the monarch and the General Crown Tribunal was established. Similar institutions were established for Lithuania (1581), Prussia (1585) and Ukraine (1589-1590). The Tribunal consisted of judges, called deputies [‘deputat’], who were elected once a year, in the number of twenty-seven, at deputies’ assemblies. There were no considerable changes in the election of judges until the Constitution of 1764, which required from candidates to have legal expertise, to own land property for more than one year, not to be involved in proceedings and to have a clean criminal record.