Changes

| Wladislaus IV, who succeeded his father [Sigismund III] in 1632, was the most popular monarch who ever sat on the Polish throne. The szlachta [nobility], who had had a “King Log” in Sigismund, were determined that Wladislaus should be “a King Bee who will give us nothing but honey” – in other words they hoped to wheedle him out of even more than they had wrested from his predecessor. Wladislaus submitted to everything. He promised never to declare war or levy troops without the consent of the sejm[parliament], undertook to fill all vacancies within a certain time, and released the szlachta from the payment of income-tax, their one remaining fiscal obligation.