s as turned the
kingdom into an oligarchy and elective monarchy. At the time of the
Reformation Poland was the leading power in Eastern Europe. The new
doctrines gained ground there in spite of severe persecution. Warsaw
became the capital in 1569. The power and arrogance of the nobles grew;
the necessity for unanimity in the votes of the Diet gave them a weapon
to stop all progress and all correction of their own malpractices.
Sigismund III. made unsuccessful attempts to seize the crowns of Russia
and Sweden. In the middle of the 17th century a terrible struggle against
Russia, Sweden, Brandenburg and the Cossacks ended in the complete defeat
of Poland, from which she never recovered. Wars with the Turks,
dissensions among her own nobles, quarrels at the election of every king,
the continuance of serfdom, and the persecution of the adherents of the
Greek Church and the Protestants, rendered her condition more and more
deplorable. Austria, Russia, and Prussia began to interfere in her
affairs. She was unfortunate in her choice of kings, and in the second
half of the 18th century she was without natural boundaries, and
Frederick the Great started the idea of partition. The first seizure of
territory by the three interfering powers took place in 1772. A movement
for reform reorganised the Diet, improved the condition of the serfs,
established religious toleration, and promulgated a new constitution in
1781; but a party of unpatriotic nobles resented it, and laid the country
open to a second seizure of territory by Prussia and Russia in 1793. The
Poles now made a desperate stand under Kosciusko, but their three
powerful neighbours were too strong, and the final partition of Poland
between them took place in 1795. The Congress of Vienna rearranged the
division in 1815, and reconstituted the Russian portion as a kingdom,
with the Czar as king; but discontent broke into rebellion, and led to
the final repression of independence in 1832.

POLDERS, low marshy lands in Holland and Belgium, drained and
reclaimed from sea or river; they form an important part of the former,
and are conspicuous from the verdure they display; they include nearly
150 acres of good land, the largest being that of Haarlem Meer, which is
70 square miles in extent, and was drained by steam.

POLE, the name given to the extremities of the imaginary axis of the
earth, round which it is conceived to revolve.

POLE, REGINALD, cardinal, archbishop of