The contest between the King and Chancellor-Hetman Jan Zamoyski, began during Sigismund's first Sejm (Parliament) sitting, the so-called Pacification Sejm, which met at Warsaw in March 1589.
Zamoyski presented the project of a political union between Poland, Muscovy, and Bohemia, coupled with a suggestion that in case the present King should die without issue (a somewhat premature and gratuitous assumption in the circumstances), none but a prince from a Western Slavonic dynasty should henceforth be eligible to the Polish throne.
The extravagance of a project that could even imagine any sort of union between Catholic Poland, Orthodox Muscovy, and semi-Protestant Bohemia struck even the majority of the Sejm with amazement.
It was only explicable as a circuitous attempt to traverse the Habsburg influence.
The Parliament promptly rejected it, accepting instead the royal proposition of a marriage between Sigismund and the Archduchess Anne.
The way had already been opened for this rapprochement with Austria by the Treaty of Bytom and Będzin (March 1589), negotiated by the Nuncio Ippolito Aldobrandini, afterwards Pope Clement VIII, whereby the Emperor resigned all his claims to the Polish Crown.

At the subsequent Sejm session, assembled in March 1590, Zamoyski persuaded the deputies to exclude the Archduke Maximilian from succession to the throne.
He attained his goal by skillfully frightening the Sejm with the bugbears of Austrian intrigues and Turkish threats.
His opponents, headed by Primate Karnkowski, formed an informal confederation immediately after the Sejm rose to protest the decrees.
A second Sejm sitting, dominated by the enemies of Zamoyski, occurred at the end of the same year and proceeded to reverse all the decrees of its predecessor and attack the Chancellor.
Thus the Grand-Hetmanship was placed in commission, the party of Maximilian was amnestied, the Zborowski family were rehabilitated, and Zamoyski's friends and supporters were removed from the royal court.
Furthermore, the chief pillars of the Catholic faith in Lithuania, Cardinal Jerzy Radziwiłł and the new prince-convert Janusz Ostrogski, were appointed Bishop of Kraków and Castellan of Kraków respectively.
Zamoyski retaliated by means of the same double-edged constitutional weapon his opponent had used.
The contest between the King and Chancellor-Hetman Jan Zamoyski, began during Sigismund's first Sejm (Parliament) sitting, the so-called Pacification Sejm, which met at Warsaw in March 1589. Zamoyski presented the project of a political union between Poland, Muscovy, and Bohemia, coupled with a suggestion that in case the present King should die without issue (a somewhat premature and gratuitous assumption in the circumstances), none but a prince from a Western Slavonic dynasty should henceforth be eligible to the Polish throne. The extravagance of a project that could even imagine any sort of union between Catholic Poland, Orthodox Muscovy, and semi-Protestant Bohemia struck even the majority of the Sejm with amazement. It was only explicable as a circuitous attempt to traverse the Habsburg influence. The Parliament promptly rejected it, accepting instead the royal proposition of a marriage between Sigismund and the Archduchess Anne. The way had already been opened for this rapprochement with Austria by the Treaty of Bytom and Będzin (March 1589), negotiated by the Nuncio Ippolito Aldobrandini, afterwards Pope Clement VIII, whereby the Emperor resigned all his claims to the Polish Crown.
At the subsequent Sejm session, assembled in March 1590, Zamoyski persuaded the deputies to exclude the Archduke Maximilian from succession to the throne. He attained his goal by skillfully frightening the Sejm with the bugbears of Austrian intrigues and Turkish threats. His opponents, headed by Primate Karnkowski, formed an informal confederation immediately after the Sejm rose to protest the decrees. A second Sejm sitting, dominated by the enemies of Zamoyski, occurred at the end of the same year and proceeded to reverse all the decrees of its predecessor and attack the Chancellor. Thus the Grand-Hetmanship was placed in commission, the party of Maximilian was amnestied, the Zborowski family were rehabilitated, and Zamoyski's friends and supporters were removed from the royal court. Furthermore, the chief pillars of the Catholic faith in Lithuania, Cardinal Jerzy Radziwiłł and the new prince-convert Janusz Ostrogski, were appointed Bishop of Kraków and Castellan of Kraków respectively. Zamoyski retaliated by means of the same double-edged constitutional weapon his opponent had used.
Sigismund III Vasa