Abstract
This article focuses on Gryzelda Wiśniowiecka (1623–1672) and her previously unexplored influence on the political life of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; notably the 1669 royal election of Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki. Wiśniowiecka was the first female citizen of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to administer an Ordynacja in her own right and the first to see her son elected king. This article argues that Wiśniowiecka achieved these distinctions by capitalizing on the political divisions in the country between the “magnates,” who often associated with foreign rulers, and the szlachta majority, who feared that foreign influences, centralization, and even absolutism were replacing the republicanism and egalitarianism which they associated with the Commonwealth. By juxtaposing Wiśniowiecka’s political activism with that of her sister-in-law, Maria Kazimiera, different ways in which women could exert power in the Commonwealth emerge.
