The king sent his envoy to the parliamentary assembly with instructions regarding the needs of the Republic of Poland, which the assembly was to discuss -). This instruction was usually oral. In 1634, the landowners of General Wiszeński demanded written instructions for better and more orderly conduct of sejmiks, and that this instruction be delivered to the town two weeks before the sejmik, from which everyone, having received information, would then be able to advise better 3). However, they were very sensitive, since the king, wanting to show his dissatisfaction, offended the nobility in even the slightest way. However, the deputies elected at the sejmik were given instructions regarding their activities at the sejm. It was usually "intended", i.e. it precisely defined what and how the MP, considered as the representative of the voivodeship, and not as the representative of the nation in the modern sense of the word, was to do at the Sejm. And so, for example, on August 7, 1C28, General Wiszeński was ordered to agree to the required wages, but with the clause that "if later we should make some contribution to pay the soldier, we will not start any other taxes until all other crown voivodeships compare with us." Similarly, we read in the instiction from 1628 that they gave permission for levies with the declaration that "having calmed down the homeland, we will not make any monetary subsidies until other voivodeships compare with us in present and former contributions." These were, as we can see, threats, but there were also unconditional mandates, as for example in the envoy's instruction from 1593, to pay the costs of Fredro's mission to Turkey, and not to interfere until this happened; similarly, we read in the instruction to senators from January 1627 that the deputies cannot conclude anything there, but they will bring their persuasion to us at the sejmik, the preceding sejm, and similarly the sejm deputies were also ordered (of June 4, 1640) "to understand the methods of liberae ehcłionis at the sejm, to conclude any without doing so to the sejmiks, they brought the pre-sejm ones. Sometimes he encourages people to break up the Sejm with instructions, as we can see in the Wiszeń instruction of December 9, 1636, which instructed "to bring about the Sejm's conclusions by means of a constitution, even if it were necessary to organize a protest and leave immediately."
The instructions and all the acts of the sejmik are signed by the marshal, but in the first years of the interregnum he did not sign this sejmik act, as it is clearly shown by the act of the conference on Rak in 1574. 5). The assembly members, as we can see from the laudum adopted on June 1, 1573, gave the power to the Przemyśl judge to write down the laudum and confirm it with his seal, whose signature would have the same value as if by Messrs. councils and knights were made. Another time, the members of the local council order the castellan of Lviv and the military officer of Przemyśl to sign a laudum 6). It was only from 1606 that all sejmik acts were signed by the marshal of the congress, even the signature of one or more
*) quia legibus regni cautum est, ut iudices pro iudiciis trib. regni. Lublin, unanimi consensu eligantur. Protest of May 11, 1658. ') Ob. No., 113. ») No. 193 art. 24. *) No. 231 art. 5. ') No. 11. •) No. 23.
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of senators, which was usually found in records before, with the addition of the names of pp. councils" is no longer a necessity, and disappears from the acts in 1411. This detail proves that it was during the interregnum that the sejmik became democratized; and in the years of Zebrzydowski's rebellion, it became a landowner's institution in which senators lost their former importance.