View source for Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland (1520-1572)

[[File:ME4_525-II.jpg|300px|thumb|right|''Sigismund II, Kind of Poland

Source: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikipedia Commons]'']]      Sigismund II Augustus (<em>Zygmunt II August</em>), King of [[Poland|Poland]] 1548-1572, was b. 1 August 1520, the only son of King Sigismund I the Old of Poland (1467-1548) and Bona Sforza (1494-1557). Sigismund succeeded his father as King of Poland upon his father’s death in 1548.

Sigismund united [[Lithuania|Lithuania]], [[West Prussia|West Prussia]], Volhynia, and the [[Ukraine|Ukraine]] with Poland in 1569 and granted general religious freedom in 1572. He did not at first tolerate the [[Anabaptism|Anabaptists]], whom he considered a threat to the state. When he heard that Dutch Mennonite refugees were settling in Elbing he issued a mandate in 1556 ordering their expulsion, but later he confirmed the contract of lease concluded by the barons of Loysen with the Mennonites.

Sigismund was succeeded by Henri of Valois, who reigned as King of Poland from 1573 to 1574 before abdicating to become King Henry III of France. Sigismund’s sister Anna Jagiellon was elected Queen of Poland in 1575, ruling with her husband Stefan Batory.
= Bibliography =
Hege, Christian and Christian Neff. <em>Mennonitisches Lexikon</em>, 4 vols. Frankfurt &amp; Weierhof: Hege; Karlsruhe; Schneider, 1913-1967: v. IV.

Mannhardt, W. <em>Die Wehrfreiheit der Altpreussischen Mennoniten</em>. Marienburg, 1863.
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