The expectations the world had for Prince Casimir can perhaps be better understood in the context of the realities of dynastic politics of the day.

St. Casimir: The Prince without Reproach

by Paul Radzilowski

In early 1472, the thirteen-year-old Prince Casimir of Poland returned to his native land from a campaign in Hungary with a dispirited and malcontented army. Much of the remaining force was made up of unpaid mercenaries. Even before crossing the border they proved unruly and prone to loot the local population, but on the Polish side they let loose an uncontrollable wave of despoliation and crime that would be long remembered.

It was not supposed to turn out this way. A year earlier Prince Casimir’s father, King Casimir IV Jagiellon had scored a great diplomatic coup in getting his eldest son Ladislaus elected King of the Czech lands. To be sure, King Matthias Corvinus in the neighboring Kingdom of Hungary controlled much of Ladislaus’s new kingdom, which he regarded as rightfully his own, and war was almost instantly the result. But King Casimir thought he had a plan to deal with Matthias. Domestic discontent with his rule in Hungary was running high among factions of the powerful Hungarian nobility, led by the famously learned Archibishop of Esztergom and primate of Hungary, János Vitéz. Accusing Corvinus of tyranny, these nobles were quite willing to conclude an alliance with King Casimir, who promised to send a large army to link up with Hungarian rebels, to be headed nominally by his second son and namesake, the future St. Casimir, but entrusted in fact to the leadership of experienced and proven captains. The elective nature of the Hungarian throne and the apparently strong political support of prominent Hungarian allies offered good hopes that soon another Polish prince would be king of a neighboring country.

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• Niccolò Machiavelli was born only ten years after St. Casimir. 
• His vision of the prince, so influential on modern political thought, was that of the man who could and should bring peace by fraud, deception, murder, and force if necessary, and to think of religion and morality primarily as useful instruments that need to be kept up in appearances only, for the utility of the state. 
• How different was the spirit and practice of St. Casimir! 
• Although by no means weak or irresolute in enforcement of the law, his example is of the humble servant of justice and the common good. 
• He reminds us that chastity and humility, on one hand, and power, on other, are not incompatible, any more than justice and power are. 
• He is an exemplar for any facing serious illness, especially at an unexpectedly early age. 
• Above all, he teaches us of the need for prayer, no matter what our station in life happens to be. 
• He was truly a prince without reproach.

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