Ending the Stagnation

On 12 September 1683 an allied army under the leadership of King Jan Sobieski relieved Vienna from the besieging Ottomans. At this point the King's name flew over Europe. In that very moment Jan Sobieski had such status and personal power coming from his very person that he could have ended the stagnation of Poland or at least he could have tried. Merely the different political climate during the earlier days of his reign is a proof of him being a very special monarch. He was never that limited by vetoes or articles as earlier monarchs, but in the end he chose a different path. He chose to continue the campaign against the Ottoman, a campaign he could not win decisively, while at the same time having to cope with growing dissent from magnates disliking this policy. When he stopped campaigning he suffered heavily from gallstones and he never managed to make the magnates forget that he was just one of them. He never managed to translate his popularity in the Szlachta, as whole, into concerted political action. If he instead had gone home after relieving Vienna and picked a fight with the magnates something completely different might have happened. Well who knows...?